Since you haven't played since before NY expansion there's a ton of content added since. But most of it is 30+, NY is 30-40 leveling (although I believe you can now level to 40 for free outside of NY), and the endgame is at level 40 so you're not exactly going to see much new stuff starting over 1-30. I believe the expansions come with a character boost as well anyways.
The Division 2
- Thread starter spronk
- Start date
- 28,341
- 44,791
Not really a pain, but there is all new good shit you need to acquire. Most of the old shit you prob had is all out of date, meta wise. They have added a ton of gear sets and other shit, we have over 7 yrs of named items which some are really op. I mean its not like they changed the core game, they have just added on top of it. So even the shit you prob had back in the day, can still use just fine to acquire the new shit. Which is just more OP. I had my full striker 4 piece set ready to go literally with one game of countdown, lol. Plus weapons to boot. It might be not 100% optimized but that just takes time.
But the good news is that most exotics can be farmed for. Most exotics, even the raid ones, you can craft by getting recipes from the new retaliation mode. Most of the good old named pieces you can farm during events like right now. They have EXP events all the time to level up your watch and your expertise so they do have catch up shit. Like right now there is a 3x exp event for the next 4-5 days. The gear sets and all the rest can be farmed for either in the 8 man countdown or by yourself using the targeted loot system which changes every day. It really does not take long to flesh out a few starter sets to get you going. I recommend a starter striker set, but you have youtube for all that shit. There is plenty of getting back to Division 2 in 2026 videos out there lol. Which explain all the systems and how to use them to full advantage.
Last edited:
- 28,341
- 44,791
I still enjoyed the 1-30 stuff and both expansions though. I ran through all that shit one more time jsut to get the hang of the game again with a new character. And I had a blast.
Downhammer
Vyemm Raider
- 1,742
- 4,431
I would say it's pretty friendly to get back into either from a long absence or completely fresh. With targeted loot you can get completely functional builds on the easiest settings which don't even require any cohesive gear to be successful. That gear will be marginal stats but the set bonuses and talents will be the same so the only thing you'd be missing is more +dmg% and stuff like that. There are many ways to get exotics now with priority missions and exotic cache objectives so even "tough to build" builds can be had pretty quick.
The game is also mature enough with people hyper focused on only their own damage that you can matchmake for challenging or higher group content as a complete scrub and get carried to success as long as you don't actively work against your team. They may notice things taking longer to kill but as long as they don't have to revive you constantly they likely won't even notice marginal gear.
The game is also mature enough with people hyper focused on only their own damage that you can matchmake for challenging or higher group content as a complete scrub and get carried to success as long as you don't actively work against your team. They may notice things taking longer to kill but as long as they don't have to revive you constantly they likely won't even notice marginal gear.
- 2
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 12,023
- 5,829
Now's the time to do it if you're going to. The event currently running is stingy as fuck compared to others but it's still your best shot at getting 2-3 game-changing items. There probably won't be another one until sometime in the summer.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 12,023
- 5,829
Whoever thought it was a good idea to make 99.9999% of prototype drops completely worthless as anything but cores is a goddamn idiot. As bad as the escalation grind is, I think this part of it is even worse design.
This is like a 0.5% drop from event cache:
Shit rolls, shit attribute, shit talent. And you aren't even allowed to fix even one of those things with recalibration. Hell, even if it had rolled DTOOC and Determination, I still couldn't optimize any of them to max.
This is like a 0.5% drop from event cache:
Shit rolls, shit attribute, shit talent. And you aren't even allowed to fix even one of those things with recalibration. Hell, even if it had rolled DTOOC and Determination, I still couldn't optimize any of them to max.
- 28,341
- 44,791
Its something to do with mouse settings in game, check them out and fuck with them. As to the prototype shit, its supposed to be a long term grind for the dudes that no life this game. They mean absolutely nothing to the core of the game, and in fact they are not even needed to do the escalations. All they are is a fucking grindy, shitty RNG, added tier to the already mudflated broken OP gear we have.
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 12,023
- 5,829
Wasn't really my point at all. My complaint is that the rarest items in the event cache are almost guaranteed to be useless for anything but dismantling. The worst regular Harvest is better than that prototype one that I got. Same complaint stands for the prototype gear sets they added too, since they are special drops that you cannot create through crafting. I got a piece of Striker's from the DARPA escalation the other day while that was the targeted loot, but it too was completely unusable.
Downhammer
Vyemm Raider
- 1,742
- 4,431
I'm just curious how many upgrades I dismantled during my ronin farm. Barely enough time to even dismantle all much less actually look at what was dropping.
Probably not any when I think about it as it was on normal.
Probably not any when I think about it as it was on normal.
- 28,341
- 44,791
And this is exactly why people were bitching at division 2 gear since the beginning. Too much RNG. And this is why they added tinkering and optimization. Shit, even on set pieces which only have 2 rolls on them its still crazy how rare the good rolls are.
But at the same time, lets say they do allow tinkering and optimization, so then people would have perfect rolled proto gear within a few weeks and then what? Now we have super agents running around in a trivial world.
And yeah rarest items in the RNG pool of the event are still tied to the shit RNG system that has plagued this game since forever. And im sure the god rolls are weighted by a hidden system like POE has, so that perfect crit chance/weapon dmg striker piece is a unicorn. So you get shit like weapon dmg/skill haste
.The worse part is is even if you get cores and you take that 30 expertise item, that took 90 fucking exos to fully expertise, and roll it into a proto item, 99% you will brick the item because it still rolls a shit proto augment on it. And then its exponential proto cores to reroll the augment on it.
THe dude I watch ran the DARPA mission on tier 10 like 3 times duo (they wiped on the boss 2 times) and he literally got like 20 or so striker pieces to drop and all were shit. Not one piece he could use. At the same time he ran a few tier 5 DARPAS later by himself and the rolls were so shit on tier 5, the values, its not even worth running tier 5s to get pieces. I mean for the average div 2 player im sure a striker piece with 10% better stats would still be an upgrade. Like weapon dmg, say rolls at 17.5% its still an upgrade.
He did get a MK46 to drop with max stats and a good talent but one of the stas rolled magazine size. So yeah its till usable and he equipped it, but still not 100% because of the mag size roll instead of crit.
Last edited:
Downhammer
Vyemm Raider
- 1,742
- 4,431
I don't know what the long term roadmap is, but protos are not really any different than other systems that have been put in place over the course of the game. Initially gear was all rng and you had to farm. Then once the no-lifers got full god roll sets they opened it up to optimization. Same with crafting exotics after the hardcores farmed god rolled ones. And now you can get all the raid and DZ loots after that grind wore out. If they keep supporting this game for a couple more years I'm sure they'll add prototype optimization. And then they'll add the next level of power creep with new difficulty levels/modes and we'll start over again.
- 28,341
- 44,791
That sucks. You want a few of those anyway. for different talents. They almost always drop fully maxxed. Or at least my 2 did.
- 28,341
- 44,791
Doing this right now, but man is it boring as fuck. Definitely worth, like 3-4 levels per mission and they are quick. Just using my core strength skill/capacitor build. IDK how much more I can take of this but I have gotten like 100shd levels in like a hour?
Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 12,023
- 5,829
Should be 5-6 levels per run on Heroic with all 5 directives. About 3.2M for the mission plus you can get several hundred k more from headshot, multi-kill, etc. bonuses.
This is what I use:
All named/set stuff so it's much easier to farm than trying to get 2pc Zwiadowka to drop godrolled with HSD and weapon handling plus the correct talents. There's a weird interaction (bug) with Headhunter and Turmoil, it actually does full damage to both targets from about the third kill on. I breach from the second floor, fire my foam to lock down a red and kill him in 2-3 shots depending on how bad my aim sucks. From there it just chains from one to the next for the rest of the mission. Only thing you have to not do is shoot the final boss directly. As long as he takes a stray from Turmoil he will die in one hit. Usually while he's still in the void, so the loot drops at your feet and you can just turn and run to the exit. You don't even need to completely max everything out like I did, I'm like 2-3M over what is needed to drop him.
My fastest time was about 2:15, but people who are able to use m/k can probably get it down under 2 minutes. Turmoil literally cuts about a full minute off the timer, it's crazy. But yeah, super boring too. I wanted to hit 1500 before the event ended, but it's not likely to happen.
Edit: Anyone know why they disable seasonal modifiers in classified assignments? Would be so much easier if you could use 129% HSD and 21.5% armor like you can in every other PVE location.
Last edited:
- 28,341
- 44,791
Well im running my skill hybrid build so its 4 of 5 directives on heroic and really the time does not matter to me TBH. Its within 3-5 min per run and I take breaks and shit because it so fucking boring, lol. But still a good farm even though Im only getting 3-4 levels per since my skills pretty much delete everything.