[Megathread] The Division 2

[Edge-]

Yeah...if you want to cheese the weekly exotic chest, turn on all directives before turning in the materials. I don't know if the manhunt buff was coming into play, but it was a cool 1.6M xp and a nice three levels. Another Tardigrade sadly, hoping to get a Pestilence outta it one of these days, still want to play around with that.

[SirCowdog]

Yeah...if you want to cheese the weekly exotic chest, turn on all directives before turning in the materials. I don't know if the manhunt buff was coming into play, but it was a cool 1.6M xp and a nice three levels. Another Tardigrade sadly, hoping to get a Pestilence outta it one of these days, still want to play around with that.

You don't have a Pestilence?! Man....that weapon is a game changer.

[Coldkil]

Last manhunt is up, I'll be working on that.

Disappointed to read that folks who have it unlocked say the healing traps suck. Apparently the cooldown is pretty absurd (like 40s) compared to other healing options, and it doesn't even heal for that much. It doesn't even make much sense logically like...I'm throwing out "traps"...for my friends? That they're supposed to...intentionally trigger? And it heals them?

Wat?

Kinda expected tbh. Trap skill is just badly designed - the tidbits spread in an unreliable area, too many times are too far from each other and their hitbox is so small most of the times enemies just walk just by them without triggering it.

An healing version of the same isn't good - solo wise chem launcher is by far the best due to burst healing on demand, in party hive is great both for coverage and power especially for a dedicated healer.

I'm gonna get it ofc i want to complete the season manhunt but i don't see myself ever using it.

EDIT: i'm currently running a full red Merciless + Braced build. It feels so damn good.

[Witchblade77]

Yeah...if you want to cheese the weekly exotic chest, turn on all directives before turning in the materials. I don't know if the manhunt buff was coming into play, but it was a cool 1.6M xp and a nice three levels. Another Tardigrade sadly, hoping to get a Pestilence outta it one of these days, still want to play around with that.

you know I tried it last week.. and I saw no difference in xp between having directives enabled and disabled.

[Edge-]

you know I tried it last week.. and I saw no difference in xp between having directives enabled and disabled.

Huh, might be the event that kicked in with double XP. I'll check again next week.

@Coldkil I think I may have a functional version of a Future Perfect build. And again, stupidly, it can't use the bloody Mechanical Animal because why on earth would Massive create a named gun to synergize with skill/weapon damage builds and make it a short barrel rifle that can't use bloody laser scope? Anywho, it's basically my AR build with minor tweaks and pretty flexible.

Build for pretty much straight weapon damage across the board, mine is crit/CHD focused so it weapon kills are absolutely viable. I'm 5R 1Y with Tactician for a base of 2 Skill Tiers -

2M W&H
1P Fenrus - Spotter
1P Wyvern (need the additional skill tier)
1P Ceska
1P Grupo Sombra - Vigilance
G36 with decent rolls and DMG to Armor with Future Perfect (5-700K crits depending on range/buffs)
Using Harmony in the other slot for bosses once I can't keep FP buffs up (800k-1M crits depending on range/buffs)

Still sitting at 53% crit and 125% crit damage with 11% armor damage with the AR, just no more Braced so it's not easymode shooting.

Using Assault Turret for offense, so far it seems to be effective. It's not huge damage, base is around 60k a shot, but it seems to get around 90-100k with full FP stacks. Generally seems to last for just about any fight, and has a 20s cooldown so it's short enough to be up almost every fight. May test out Assault Drone for a bit more flexibility, but I worry that it'll die too easily at Skill Tier 2 (half the health of the turret) and will end up being less effective.

Also running repair chem which heals for...uh...an alright amount out of the gate and pretty much a full unbuffed armor bar with full stacks. 5 ammo base as well, so you can lay out some pretty decent spot healing without any real repair skill and have charges up as they're 20s-ish. This is probably a pretty flexible one and you could go anything from Booster Hive to a shield to Riot Foam depending on your mood.

Still testing it out and may tweak it a bit (I keep looking at Acosta for the overcharge potential but don't want to lose the weapon damage >.<) but It's seeming like it's pretty darned functional. Was hoping to find a backpack talent a bit more attractive than Vigilance, but damn is it just so bloody powerful. Testing Composure out instead of Vigilance though so hopefully the loss won't be too big, but keeping the buff up no matter what will be better overall.

[SirCowdog]

Popped into the game just to scratch an itch for shooting. It feels like there's something weird going on with NPC damage again. Shotgun guys are back to being snipers. I really wish they'd get this game into a stable state.

But on the other hand, I was thinking the other day about how to make a more powerful raw DPS build. I just couldn't come up with anything that the Classic M1A meta hasn't done. I thought maybe 3pc Striker with 2pc Walker&Harris, and a Fenris piece for an AR would be good. But I can't get the game to drop me the right pieces to make it work well.

I have yet to try the Intimidate/Adrenalin shotgun build. I should probably give it a go.

[Witchblade77]

Tidal Basin manhunt mission can go die in a fire. its not that its hard. its that its annoying as hell, especially when it bugs out. we had mobs get stuck inside rooms with no exists and had to kill ourselves to reset the mission, we had that damn slow warhound not move where it was supposed to, at one point it respawned us behind ALL the enemy lines with multiple patches of eclipse and warhound all the way up ahead

and why the heck does player version of this trap NOT work as immunization, and who thought it was a good idea to make a timed mission that REQUIRES YOU NOT TO KEEP MOVING AHEAD, UNTIL THIS SHITTY THING CATCHES UP?

/deep breath.

[Nutri]

Division 1 free on uPlay, if you haven't got that already.

[Coldkil]

Tidal Basin manhunt mission can go die in a fire. its not that its hard. its that its annoying as hell, especially when it bugs out. we had mobs get stuck inside rooms with no exists and had to kill ourselves to reset the mission, we had that damn slow warhound not move where it was supposed to, at one point it respawned us behind ALL the enemy lines with multiple patches of eclipse and warhound all the way up ahead

and why the heck does player version of this trap NOT work as immunization, and who thought it was a good idea to make a timed mission that REQUIRES YOU NOT TO KEEP MOVING AHEAD, UNTIL THIS SHITTY THING CATCHES UP?

/deep breath.

Didn't have any bug, but i know about many people having them.

And the trap immunizes you. Took me couple tries to realize it, but basically if you get in the poison before getting the buff, it gets ignored - i suppose it applies a dot on you that's not removed by the trap buff. If you get it before entering, then for every poison patch you just need a single buff to traverse it. It's pretty easy once figured it out.

I'm more annoyed by the fact the skill is useless. It doesn't heal enough, it's clunky to use and simply cannot compete with Hive/Chem.

[Witchblade77]

Didn't have any bug, but i know about many people having them.

And the trap immunizes you. Took me couple tries to realize it, but basically if you get in the poison before getting the buff, it gets ignored - i suppose it applies a dot on you that's not removed by the trap buff. If you get it before entering, then for every poison patch you just need a single buff to traverse it. It's pretty easy once figured it out.

I'm more annoyed by the fact the skill is useless. It doesn't heal enough, it's clunky to use and simply cannot compete with Hive/Chem.

we figured it out. it just every once in a blue moon... would not apply that "buff" on one of us, despite waiting I was going to say patiently, but really it was more of "waiting with growing annoyance" for the thing to get there. squat. throw its grenades on us before we could move forward again. and apparently it lasts JUST long enough to run through the red smoke before wearing off. and you are not allowed to sprint.

it is just such a gimmicky mechanic :/ and to make it a part of TIMED MISSION is just... really? really?????

but hey, at least we can set the missions to the league state now without having to clear invasion prerequisites before hand, so that's nice.

[Edge-]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision...mber_2nd_2020/

Not really in love with much of the new gear, even if the exotic backpack kinda looks neat, but we finally have information on "The Summit" i.e. skyscraper. Not quite as exciting as I'd hoped since the floors are divied up by difficulty that ignores your world difficulty setting, but I'm still down.

Seeing more of the "on kill" mods hurts me though. They really need to update that to trigger if you dealt damage to the enemy recently before it dies. Needing to rely on actual kill shots for a lot of builds is just completely ineffective in groups.

- - - Updated - - -

K, going through the update summary more thoroughly...

Still like the overall idea of Summit, but it is a bit of a bummer you can't make the whole thing scale to world difficulty. That'd be super rad, but I guess we're still getting like 20ish floors each so that's still pretty darned good. Nothing more really, it seems pretty straightforward and well designed in concept. Bit of a bummer it's not free for non-WoNY players but it's totally understandable, and now the "PaiD DLc" rumors can finally be put to bed.

Belstone - Looks like it could be a super strong armor focused tank set. No clue why they'd put an "on Kill" bonus on a freakin tank set that doesn't do dick for damage, but whatever.

New Named Gear - Looks like the theme of this next update is "sustain". Chest talent that gives a high chance to not consume armor pack? Stacking armor on kill?

Shrapnel Trap - I like the idea, especially the dual use as a claymore.

Hunter's Fury - Yeah, very much a sustain focused update. I actually think it's kinda cool, it potentially makes a very aggressive short range build with big group damage bonuses and some CC. I'm very interested to see how it gets built around.

New Weapons - Don't know much about them, but the +1 Skill Tier on the named version of the pistol is...weird? Pistol build with +4 Skill Tier and Tact.?

Exotic SMG - Eyyyyyy here's what some of the gear is building around, mitigating you doing your full armor bar in damage when you reload but gives 200% crit damage fully stacked. Pair it with Hunter's Fury and a bit of tankiness and this could be stupid fun.

Exotic Backpack - WEIRD! It seems made for more hybrid focused builds, but seems like it definitely also revolves around shorter range combat (seems to be a running theme with this update, guess Summit will be tight quarters). Skill Efficiency is like Weapon Handling on crack and I hope it finds its way onto more gear. Big problem though, the tokens only seem to drop if you get the killing blow : |

Exotic Chest - Ooph, gotta clear all 100 levels to unlock the quest. Another close quarters item (guess I'm gonna have to make a SMG and shotgun build) and it getting bleed on an enemy while in close opens doors to use Sadist for that 20% weapon damage boost. Jesus on the armor regen though, 25% per second with 5 bleeding enemies within 10m is bonkers.

Seems cool, and I guess the update should be arriving sometime what, late this month probably? Very much looking forward to it, and time to start saving some shotguns.

Fuck "on Kill" though. Would love to see them updated with weaker versions of the buff for "on Assist" enemy deaths, maybe at half effectiveness. Would make those stats fare more appealing, because right now I genuinely don't see their point in group play.

[Coldkil]

we figured it out. it just every once in a blue moon... would not apply that "buff" on one of us, despite waiting I was going to say patiently, but really it was more of "waiting with growing annoyance" for the thing to get there. squat. throw its grenades on us before we could move forward again. and apparently it lasts JUST long enough to run through the red smoke before wearing off. and you are not allowed to sprint.

it is just such a gimmicky mechanic :/ and to make it a part of TIMED MISSION is just... really? really?????

but hey, at least we can set the missions to the league state now without having to clear invasion prerequisites before hand, so that's nice.

I'm not doing this league, i'm playing AC:Origins right now I'm just waiting for the next season dunno why but end of seasons i don't have much interest of playing.

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

Yeah, the patch looks good and Summit looks good aswell. I'm planning to go with a Firewall Shotgun build and i'm gonna build around that Exotic chest. You can couple it with either Directive or Eclipse backpack for more damage, with Eclipse as a pure dps winner but the extended bleed duration on Directive is an awesome QoL thing. Hell if you could equip more Exotics Vile would have been awesome.

Anyway, 4 reds/2 blues, all crit/critdmg or status effects, Enforcer/Tsunami with perfect Pummel. Dunno what backpack to use but i think Anarchist is going to be good but eclipse with its multiplicative bonus is just insane. One Badger, one W&H for sure, 1 ceska and 1GS to stack more crit/critdmg.

Firewall because more damage. If i can i'll try to use a Forge for that sweet 50% shield hp, i have one that rolled with nearly capped crit chance so i rerolled WD on it.

I'm also really curious about the shrapnel trap. Though the EMP sticky is just WAAAAAAY too useful.

[Nutri]

Summit looks nice.
I've uninstalled a couple of weeks ago, TU11 looks like a good moment to reinstall and give it another go.

I'm completely engulfed in Satisfactory atm, it'll be quite a swing to jump back into a 3rd person looter/shooter

[SirCowdog]

Seeing more of the "on kill" mods hurts me though. They really need to update that to trigger if you dealt damage to the enemy recently before it dies. Needing to rely on actual kill shots for a lot of builds is just completely ineffective in groups.

As a solo player, I don't mind this as much. But I absolutely agree that "On Kill" should be converted to "Damage an enemy that dies"

Still like the overall idea of Summit, but it is a bit of a bummer you can't make the whole thing scale to world difficulty. That'd be super rad, but I guess we're still getting like 20ish floors each so that's still pretty darned good. Nothing more really, it seems pretty straightforward and well designed in concept. Bit of a bummer it's not free for non-WoNY players but it's totally understandable, and now the "PaiD DLc" rumors can finally be put to bed.

I don't really see the issue. Virtually every other MMO or always online game only really considers the current patch or expansion. Those who choose to stay behind can do so, but shouldn't really expect constant support for that decision. And it's not like Massive/Ubi are going crazy with trying to over-monetize it. Just buy the expansion and you're good to go. Get it on sale for like $20-25 or something.

Belstone - Looks like it could be a super strong armor focused tank set. No clue why they'd put an "on Kill" bonus on a freakin tank set that doesn't do dick for damage, but whatever.

New Named Gear - Looks like the theme of this next update is "sustain". Chest talent that gives a high chance to not consume armor pack? Stacking armor on kill?

Hunter's Fury - Yeah, very much a sustain focused update. I actually think it's kinda cool, it potentially makes a very aggressive short range build with big group damage bonuses and some CC. I'm very interested to see how it gets built around.

New Weapons - Don't know much about them, but the +1 Skill Tier on the named version of the pistol is...weird? Pistol build with +4 Skill Tier and Tact.?

Exotic SMG - Eyyyyyy here's what some of the gear is building around, mitigating you doing your full armor bar in damage when you reload but gives 200% crit damage fully stacked. Pair it with Hunter's Fury and a bit of tankiness and this could be stupid fun.

Exotic Backpack - WEIRD! It seems made for more hybrid focused builds, but seems like it definitely also revolves around shorter range combat (seems to be a running theme with this update, guess Summit will be tight quarters). Skill Efficiency is like Weapon Handling on crack and I hope it finds its way onto more gear. Big problem though, the tokens only seem to drop if you get the killing blow : |

Exotic Chest - Ooph, gotta clear all 100 levels to unlock the quest. Another close quarters item (guess I'm gonna have to make a SMG and shotgun build) and it getting bleed on an enemy while in close opens doors to use Sadist for that 20% weapon damage boost. Jesus on the armor regen though, 25% per second with 5 bleeding enemies within 10m is bonkers.

I can see a LOT of potential builds with these new gear options. Both tanky hybrids, and crazy niche builds using bleed. I'm actually looking forward to the new styles of play they'll create. I wish they'd release the chest/backs from the raid already, though. That would also add a lot to the pool of builds.

Although I am just a little skeptical about the longevity of Summit. However, if this is a sign of things to come, then I'm pretty happy.

Seems cool, and I guess the update should be arriving sometime what, late this month probably? Very much looking forward to it, and time to start saving some shotguns.

The PTS is literally friday. So maybe as soon as 2 weeks after that? It'll end up having to compete with the Shadowlands pre-patch events though.... so maybe not the best timing.

[Aliven]

I don't really see the issue. Virtually every other MMO or always online game only really considers the current patch or expansion. Those who choose to stay behind can do so, but shouldn't really expect constant support for that decision. And it's not like Massive/Ubi are going crazy with trying to over-monetize it. Just buy the expansion and you're good to go. Get it on sale for like $20-25 or something.

I also dont see issue, but lets not pretend massive and ubi are not about every penny.

Division 2 got base game, expansion, season pass, loot boxes, item shop and battle pass. If they add monthly sub they would be as cancerous as eso.

[Coldkil]

I also dont see issue, but lets not pretend massive and ubi are not about every penny.

Division 2 got base game, expansion, season pass, loot boxes, item shop and battle pass. If they add monthly sub they would be as cancerous as eso.

Not saying you're wrong, but Division 2 has a pretty much very fair monetization. Hell before WONY it didn't have monetization, the special mission pass was useless and every single skin you can unlock by playing except a few ones.

Season pass is just for cosmetics, i bit the bullet for S2 and bought it, and i was pleased. More tints to play the dress up game.

- - - Updated - - -

As a solo player, I don't mind this as much. But I absolutely agree that "On Kill" should be converted to "Damage an enemy that dies"

Same. Everything that's "on kill" is just for solo - they should introduce an assist mechanic where you have a time window before the enemy dies to trigger this talents. Something like last 5% hp or so. You would be competing against snipers really hard, but that's it.

[Witchblade77]

a lot of these "on kill" requirements are occasionally vexing. it also applies to going for objectives and if you are in a group, working on the same objective - kills only count for whichever one of you got the kill shot. sigh.

P.S. I want the dangling boat, so... sticking with this league. amazingly, the easiest one to finish for us was... Darpa labs? we had like 10 minutes left on the clock when we were done O_O.

[Edge-]

P.S. I want the dangling boat, so... sticking with this league. amazingly, the easiest one to finish for us was... Darpa labs? we had like 10 minutes left on the clock when we were done O_O.

I'm hoping the do the reset like they have before, because I definitely won't be able to get all 60 ranks with just one go 'round. Clearing those missions on hard/challenging should be easy enough though, plus some bonus levels from Black Tusk Elites.

I'm kinda surprised at how easy these league events can be if you actually try. The missions are damned easy if you drop them down to hard (or challenging for the one).

[Witchblade77]

I'm hoping the do the reset like they have before, because I definitely won't be able to get all 60 ranks with just one go 'round. Clearing those missions on hard/challenging should be easy enough though, plus some bonus levels from Black Tusk Elites.

I'm kinda surprised at how easy these league events can be if you actually try. The missions are damned easy if you drop them down to hard (or challenging for the one).

every single one has reset so far. so we've just been doing missions and not grinding any of the other objectives and have gotten all the rewards in previous leagues. I honestly don't care about leaderboards, so its been very accessible. still surprised that out of all 4 missions, darpa on challenging was the easiest one to do under time limit O_O

[SirCowdog]

I also dont see issue, but lets not pretend massive and ubi are not about every penny.

Division 2 got base game, expansion, season pass, loot boxes, item shop and battle pass. If they add monthly sub they would be as cancerous as eso.

Hmmm...it's kind of a weird situation. Because on the surface it really does look like they're being super-money-grubbing with all the MTX. But when it comes down to actually effecting gameplay, it's almost non-existent.

The season pass is 100% optional. Sure, you might get a 1-2 unique cosmetics, and maybe an exotic crate. But exotic crates and drops are all over in the game. And cosmetic keys likewise drop regularly through normal play.

Same goes for buying crates or the season level catch-ups. I'm not even sure why you'd bother. The game throws so much experience and cosmetics at you that I don't really see the motivation to pay money for it.

And as long as you pay the nominal fee to get the WONY expansion, content drops are also free. There's none of the normal coercion that I've come to expect from these kinds of business models. There's literally no pressure or screwing with the game mechanics to pressure you into purchases of MTX.

It's really unusual. I'm not saying Ubi/Massive are saints or anything. And guaranteed I'd rather MTX wasn't in the game at all. But as long as it has to be(for whatever reason) it definitely could be a LOT worse than it is.