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  1. #11
    Virtual-Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Thanks again... although some of this is like reading a foreign language, I'm sure it will make sense in time.

    ps. is there any particularly good YouTuber with a good back catalog of content you would recommend?
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  2. #12
    Virtual-Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by dagrommit Go to original post
    Sort of. Brand bonuses are always-on, similar to the perks in Breakpoints gearscore mode. They play a big part in how strong you are earlier in the game. Talents are more situational and become important later in the game. Combining talents so they synergize well is key in the endgame.
    How do I get Brand gear... I see someone mentioned some specific Brands I should look out for... Providence, etc. Is that all RNG?
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  3. #13
    Sadly, yes, all RNG outside limited purchase options from Vendors [random, reset weekly].

    Once you get through the main story, it gets easier thanks to certain missions or neighborhoods having targeted loot [higher chance to drop]. Later, The Summit [skyscraper "randomized dungeon" activity] allows you to select your own targeted loot. You'll also earn the ability to recalibrate, then later optimize loot - but it usually isn't worth it til you hit end game.
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  4. #14
    Virtual-Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by LateNiteDelight Go to original post
    Coming from GR, you're going to prefer full DPS/Red builds to limit the sponge.

    Since you won't have any exotics or the SHD perks, the first solid option is a (3)Providence + Ceska + Grupo + Overlord [ideally Fox's Prayer, named Kneepads]. Also look for Walker & Harris pieces. Crit and Headshot will be the attributes to favor. Though, on the climb to level 30 [and then 40 for WONY], just focus more on increasing Damage and a little less about Brand or Attributes unless it's close. I would recommend the perk to boost XP, as you'll want to get to 30 as fast as you can.

    Glass Cannon [Chest] will give you the closest approximation to Ghost Recon. Once you unlock the Technician Specialization, you can consider Spotter if you don't like being so fragile. Headhunter is what you'll want if you're focused on sniping. If you want to boost survival while learning, Unbreakable is you friend.

    Vigilance is the first backpack to consider. If you find yourself liking Snipers [and shotguns], Opportunist should be considered. Once you find Memento [Exotic Backpack], I would rock that.

    Blueprints are earned by completing Control Points at level 3 or 4, this is how you unlock attachments.
    After watching a few YT videos, I get what you are saying now. I believe you're right in that I will prefer a DPS/Red build as it will get me as close to a GR experience as possible which is a very lethal game (for both sides). And I see what you mean about these particular brands... they all focus on critical hits and headshot damage. Thanks for the tips.
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  5. #15
    As someone who also prefers GR style combat, a Red/DPS build was the only way I could make Div2 palatable.

    I also used the MK17 more than any other gun to start. They rebalanced weapons a few times since release, and there are now "better" guns, but most guns are within a few percentage points of each other - so for the most part just use what you like.

    A few months ago, I switched to using a Red/Blue hybrid [Protection from Elites] build, simply because it amuses me to essentially take little to no damage from Elites & bosses - but that won't really be an option for you until later into end game.
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  6. #16
    Oh, and try for Boomerang on your Rifles
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  7. #17
    Sircowdog1's Avatar Senior Member
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    Just a few tips for when you start getting further into the progress of the game:

    The recalibration library is split between 1-30 and 31-40. Unless you plan to spend a LOT of time at level 30, don't bother with stacking up your 1-30 recalibration library.

    A few build tips that I think will help your playstyle:
    • Hunter's Fury is good for close up action. Shotguns/SMGs/etc.
    • Negotiator's Dilemma is good for large groups of enemies.
    • Striker's looks good on paper, but is actually really bad.
    • Aces & Eights is an MMR set if you enjoy sniping.
    • Most other sets are very specialized and niche.


    General progression of of your character happens across a few different fronts:
    • Reach level 40
    • Begin filling your recalibration library.
    • Fill up your specialization talent trees.
    • Collect gear with higher/better attributes.
    • Level up your SHD watch
    • Learn how to play on higher difficulty settings.


    All of those can more or less be done at the same time. You could skip the line in some cases by joining a heroic or legendary farm. But honestly I think when people do that it's causing them to not really learn how to play. Which results in them getting frustrated when they aren't with a group of good players.

    When searching youtube for information and builds, make sure you set the search filter to only the past year. A LOT changed with exotics and sets after Warlords of New York went live.

    And speaking of New York.... Once you go there you can't return to Washington DC until you finish the story of New York.

    Oh...and once you wrap your head around everything, use this google doc. It has the info on every set, talent, and exotic in the game.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...6yEfL/pubhtml#
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  8. #18
    CategoryTheory's Avatar Senior Member
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    Most of your questions have already been answered here, so I'll just hit a few points that didn't get as much attention and then give some general thoughts on leveling up at the lower levels. This is from my experience bringing three characters up to level 30 (and partially levelling several more) on the latest release.

    Originally Posted by Virtual-Chris Go to original post
    - How do you give your weapon a custom paint job?
    There's a basic set of weapon skins contained in failed parachute supply drops, which are large yellow crates usually hung up in trees or other tall objects via their parachute cords. Keep an eye out for these, shoot them, and grab the loot that drops out.

    I like to Aim Down Sights in GR, and I see that you can only do that with the ACOG or higher power optics in this game. As a result, I'm thinking of trying to open up the Optics perk as early as possible to do this. Is that a good idea or a mistake for some reason?
    It's a fine idea. I find the 4x zoom quite helpful myself, so I usually take both optics perks very early, perhaps just after an inventory upgrade.

    Originally Posted by GhostAgent14 Go to original post
    One thing I did want to mention about the Mk17 rifle (and other gear too) is to check the vendors each week to see what they have for sale. They reset every Tuesday.
    This is a really good point. Below level 30, the vendors have some of the best gear available in the game. If a particular backpack or whatever suits your build, you should grab it from the vendor unless you're rather short of cash.

    One last individual point: if you see a stat you don't understand, it's often worthwhile looking it up on the web as well as experimenting with it. "Weapon handling" is very vague, for example, but turns out to be quite useful, especially when applied in large amounts (as certain talents like Unwavering do).

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    Originally Posted by Virtual-Chris Go to original post
    The other interesting aspect in Breakpoint was that if you levelled your gear up from say 10 to 20, then the enemies levels went from 10 to 20, so you never really got any more powerful and enemies were always just as difficult. It was a pointless grind really. Playing at a Gear Score of 10 was no different than at 250 although your legendary gear at higher levels might have +30 range vs +10... at the end of the day, these buffs were not that important... it was more important that you could aim quickly and accurately. Player skill was way more important than gear buffs.

    I gather it works pretty much the same here? Although I'm guessing buffs on higher level gear are more important as I see some advice say levelling up faster is better - makes it easier?
    Happily for you (and me), this is not how The Division 2 works. Enemies are always based on player level (and, as the game goes on, difficulty settings chosen by the player), not weapons and gear. Some people may be confused by the fact that at levels 1-29 and 31-39 you can't use weapons and gear with a higher level number, but that's far from the only factor in the actual power of your weapons and gear.

    The player levelling works as follows:

    • Levels 1-30, leading to the first end game.
    • World Tiers 1-5 (after the final Washington stronghold, True Sons in the Capitol), in the first "end game" mode in Washington.
    • Levels 31-40 in New York, leading to the second end game.
    • Level 40 after the NYC mission against Aaron Keener, which is the second end game, played in both New York and Washington.


    As well as the numeric level, gear also has another set of colour-coded levels: Worn/grey, Standard/green, Specialized/blue, Superior/purple, and High-End/orange. As these increase the gear gets somewhat more armor at the same numeric level and both gear and weapons get more bonuses. These tend to make an individual item equivalent in power to a lesser-coloured item 2-3 levels above it. So in my standard 1-30 levelling loadouts, for example, it's not unusual for me to be using a blue or purple item 3-5 levels below my level, even if I have a lesser-coloured item at my current level. (My entire collection of gear I wear for levels 1-29 is only about forty items, so I'm upgrading individual slots only once every four levels or so.)

    (The one place where the above isn't true is with level 30 gear in Warlords of New York; there seems to be a much bigger gap between level 30 gear score 500 and level 31 than between other levels.)

    Once you hit level 30, your character will still progress through World Tiers 1-5, but at this point all items you'll find are considered level 30, regardless of gear score. So even if your current gear score drop limit is 300 or so (typical of World Tier 1), if you can get hold of a gear score 515 item, you can use it. (The only way I know of to do this is to get it from another character, either via another person sharing it with you or from another character of your own via the stash.) This rather makes the game less fun, though, since even half-way competent play at World Tier 1 or 2 with gear score ~500 items will roll through enemies like butter.

    So, coming to this:

    Originally Posted by Virtual-Chris Go to original post
    Related to the question above, is there a benefit to levelling up as quickly as possible, e.g. by unlocking XP perks? Or is it just a vicious circle in that regard? (I ask this because I generally like to take my time levelling in games and don't want to rush to the level cap, but if there's some significant benefits to doing that, I will)
    The "benefit" to levelling quickly is that it makes the main missions easier. If you level ahead of the main mission levels, they'll all (but the last) fall back to two levels below you and then stay there.

    It sounds like you're a fairly experienced player, though, so I suspect you wouldn't enjoy this. The main missions at "Story" difficulty (the only one you can play until you complete it once) is pretty easy even at your own level. I prefer to play them at 2-4 levels above my level, and have even successfully completed main missions 6-7 levels above my character level with a good gear loadout built from the best stuff I've found in previous runs.

    If you do this you may finish all but the final non-end game Washington mission (True Sons at the Capitol) with several levels to do to before you can reach the level 30 required for that last mission. (In my experimentation, you can finish all but that one as early as level 23, if you avoid getting XP from other things and can handle doing missions 6-7 levels above your character.)
    This is not an issue: the side missions and world events always give you a fixed fraction of the XP you currently need to level up, so three side missions will take you from level 29-30 just as well as from level 5-6. (But don't feel you need to leave all the side missions to the end; there are enough that you should do early the ones that get you attractive rewards, such as SHD points when you need them or a mod you feel would be helpful.)

    So I recommend you level up in a relaxed way, doing whatever appeals to you. You won't find any insurmountable problems unless you're deliberately playing against enemies many levels above you, and if you are trying that and finding frustrating something you need to get done, you can always just level up a bit more and come back to it.

    I should note here that while all the weapon types are pretty well balanced in power (excepting perhaps the marksman rifles), the skills are not. In the current meta, an Assault Turret and Striker Drone is probably the most powerful set, though I find Assault Turret and Cluster Seeker Mines also very powerful; some of the other skills not only deal less damage overall, but are so situational that they hardly get a chance to deal much damage at all, not to mention requiring a lot more attention during battle. (The three I mention above are basically set-and-forget.) If you're not getting a third to a half your damage from skills, and you are struggling, you can make life easier by using better skills and putting 2-3 skill tier cores in your loadout. If you're feeling really lazy, you can crank up your skill tiers and do even the hardest stuff with just a pistol, as Sircowdog1 has demonstrated. (That "beginner" build is an end game build, though.)

    The biggest effect on the wall-clock time it takes you to level up will probably be how much time you spend futzing with gear. Before the end game it can be annoying to spend a lot of time configuring a good loadout only to have it go obsolete within a few levels, but keep in mind that the work you do there is part of the learning process anyway, so you'll be doing that futzing either now or later. If you enjoy futzing, do as much of it as you like even during the level 1-30 grind.

    Last, as you probably noticed above, there are actually two end games: the level 30 end game in Washington, and the level 40 end game after doing the Warlords of New York expansion. A lot of folks seem to prefer starting Warlords quickly after reaching the level 30 end game, but there's plenty of enjoyable stuff to do there, and nothing wrong with spending a few dozen (or perhaps even many dozen) hours playing around there before you move on.

    Originally Posted by Sircowdog1 Go to original post
    A lot of people think gear is everything in this game. It isn't. That's why you see people complain that the game is too hard even when they have the "best" gear: They never learned how to get good at playing and expected the gear to be everything.
    Right. You don't need particularly good gear to do missions on "Normal" or "Hard" difficulty, and even "Challenging" is not all that hard without too much attention to your loadout. (I personally think of these levels as "trivial," "easy" and "normal," myself. :-P) But even on the easiest difficulty levels, if you don't take at least some care you can get stomped.
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  9. #19
    This also might be useful once you get to level 40
    https://rubenalamina.mx/the-division...-vendor-reset/
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  10. #20
    Virtual-Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    @CategoryTheory... thanks for the extensive advice.

    A few questions for you or anyone...
    - Last night I managed to get a set of 3 Providence brand gear (Level 3) which gave me some nice buffs. I’m now level 4. How long should I hold onto equipping this gear before I swap it for something higher level? At what point will it start to be an issue?
    - Similarly, I have my preferred MK17 as a Level 2 gun. Is it going to get noticeably less effective at some point? So far it seems ok. How many levels can your gear get below your XP level before it needs to be upgraded?
    - I find very few purple and yellow enemies (or any enemies) dropping gear. Most gear is coming from boxes and crates. Is that normal? In Breakpoint, nearly one of every two enemies dropped something. Here it’s like one in 10.
    - I got the ACOG but I’m pretty disappointed it actually offers virtually no added zoom and the reticule is oversized. Not sure how useful this is. It does give me a range buff and I guess it looks cool on my MK17 I gather this is normal.

    Ps. I love the Super 90 shotgun at close range
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