Damage & You

[Leodigarius]

Welcome to my guide to The Division. 

In this guide I go in depth on the various systems in the game so that you can understand how to get the most out of your gear. This guide is a constant work in progress, so there may be information that can change frequently based on how far I investigate the systems. I have videos and image presentations lined up to help explain how things work in a more visual environment as well. Players that take heed of my recommendations and the knowledge I put in your hands will guarantee that you will have an edge. Some of the things I cover may be confusing, so feel free to ask questions and I will answer as soon as I can. If you have anything you would like to contribute, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan on also hosting a stream in which players can join me live so they can ask questions and get help whenever they can.

There are quite a few people that seem to believe that certain weapons are for certain "classes". This is not true. All of the "weapon guide" videos and the like are inaccurate and give out false information because of how biased they generally are. I do what I can to provide facts on the matter and deliver the pure details instead of fudging numbers and having "class recommendations" for things. You can, and should, use any weapon you wish that supports YOUR playstyle. Playing the way you want is important to getting the most out of The Division, and if you like something don't look to someone else for validation of your choice if it boils down to personal preference. These "weapon guides" irritate me mainly because people who don't know better listen to these people and become worse at the game instead of experimenting and discovering new and exciting things. Sure, I posted what the best weapons in the game are, but those are factually correct from a statistical standpoint. I have personal preferences, but I make sure to make that known. I don't like spreading my personal opinions and preferences as facts because they simply aren't. For example, you may not enjoy using the SA58 because it's burst fire, so you will use something different even though the SA58 is the best assault rifle in the game statistically. 

My goal is to provide you with the most amount of information about the game, how damage works, and how to get the absolute most out of your character, and it is nothing more than that. I want to make sure everyone that reads this guide is prepared for the end game that The Division offers and knows how to build their character to reach its fullest potential as well as having fun in doing so.

With the foreword out of the way, let's get started. Below is my gearing right now. Compared to most, it is extremely decent, but it could still use some serious improvements.

Also, since people have asked, these are my equipped skills:
Tactical Scanner
Smart Cover w/ Recharger
Survival Link

And Talents:
Battle Buddy
Tactical Advance
Evasive Action
One is None

Weapons:

SA58 
Magazine - Ammo cap, rate of fire
Optic - Headshot damage, crit chance
Muzzle - Stability, crit damage
Grip - Stability, accuracy
Talents - Fierce, Competent, Destructive (Need to reroll. Subpar roll.)

MP5 Navy
Magazine - Ammo cap, crit damage
Optic - Headshot damage, crit chance
Muzzle - Stability crit damage
Grip - Stability, accuracy
Talents - Brutal, Accurate, Commanding (Need to reroll. Subpar roll.)

Tactical 1911
Magazine - Ammo cap, weapon damage
Underbarrel - Empty
Muzzle - Stability, accuracy

Survivability​

The biggest and most important thing that you can possibly get is more armor. Armor provides a straight up damage reduction, which is self explanatory, and you need a lot of it to make a serious dent in higher level and stronger enemies. Right now, I sit at 4654 armor, which provides me with a 65% damage reduction. On top of that I have 5% Exotic Damage Res and 19% Elite Damage Res, which may not seem like much, but it adds up and makes a massive difference because of multipliers. From what I can tell is all the various damage reduction percentages that are available are multipliers off of one another. This is a very important feature. MULTIPLIERS ARE AMAZING. What a damage multiplier does is it takes your base armor mitigation value and then any further damage that you take is tweaked. Let me provide an example.​

Before the example, a brief description of the damage reduction types:
Armor Damage Reduction - This decreases only bullet damage. Exotic Damage Reduction is not calculated to this type of damage.
Exotic Damage Reduction - This decreases only non bullet damage. Armor Damage Reduction is not calculated to this type of damage
Elite Damage Reduction - This reduces damage from elites. Unknown if this also means players, more than likely not.
All Damage Reduction - Reduces all damage incoming. Not currently in the game as far as I'm aware. Only thing that gives you ADR is the reckless talent, which should actually display as a negative number meaning you actually do take more damage.​

Lets say for the purposes of this demonstration you have 65% armor mitigation, 25% elite mitigation, and 10% all damage mitigation, even though you can't really get ADR for example purposes. Lets now say you get shot for 67,500 damage:​

67500 * 65% (armor reduction) = Damage reduced to 23625 
23625 * 25% (elite damage reduction) = Damage reduced to 17718.75
17718.75 * 10% (all damage reduction) = 15946.125​

End result = You took 15,946.125 damage instead of the initial 67,500 damage hit​

Already, that big hit you took is much more manageable. Instead of globalling you, it takes you down to half health. The more damage reduction multipliers you add simply increases your survival in harder content.​

What does this mean? Well, several things. The first thing to look at is gear and both the major and minor attributes they have. You want to make sure that you have armor and preferably health or Elite Damage Reduction in most of your gear. The chest piece can roll the highest amount of armor out of all the gear pieces, as expected, so you want it to make the biggest impact. In fact, I would argue that a chest piece with perfect damage mitigation rolls would reduce the need for armor on other pieces of gear, like you holster. My gear is far from perfect and even though I already have 165+ hours in game, I still have a lot that I need to fix in my gear. Most of it is slapped on because it was better than what I had. I am now at the point of being able to optimize it so I can get the most out of my character. On top of that, if I am already fully kitted out in high end gear, there are a ton of other people that are as well.​

Another thing to note is Effective Damage Reduction. This is where things get a little complicated, but it is actually relatively easy to understand. Let's start with a basic example. Let's say I take a have 90% damage reduction, with no other multipliers, and I take a hit for 100 damage.​

100 * 90% = 10 Damage​

That is a pretty big reduction. Some people may be thinking, "Why would you want to have more damage reduction? If I stack any more, the diminishing returns will cause me to waste a bunch of stat points to gain a couple measly points of damage reduction. That is useless!". You would be incorrect in that assumption. Because of how EDR works, you actually are gaining a huge amount of damage reduction relative to what you had before. Let's look at the same scenario, but add just one more percent of damage reduction:​

100 * 91% = 9 Damage​

Now, you might be thinking," You only shaved off one damage! It was useless!". That isn't true at all. Effectively, you gained 10% damage reduction compared to what your previously had. That is a massive bonus. It can get even crazier than that too. Let's add another four percent damage reduction:​

100 * 95% = 5 Damage​

You have now gained an effective 50% damage reduction compared to when you have 90% damage reduction. That is absolutely massive. This just shows that even a single percent of damage reduction is more than worth it because of how EDR works. When you are looking at your stats and wondering what to do next, keep this in mind so that you can perfect your gear. Let's kick it up a notch so you can see just how significant this can be. Let's say you take 100,000 damage and I'll show just how big of a deal this is:​

100000 * 90% = 10,000 Damage​

Gain 1%​

100000 * 91% = 9,000 Damage​

Gain 4% more​

100000 * 95% = 5,000 Damage​

If you are limited on health or are running a glass cannon build like I am, 1% more damage reduction means the difference between life and death, and the higher you stack it, the more effective it becomes relative to what you had before.​

Always make sure you have multipliers to stack for mitigation. Single most important thing to remember if you want to survive harder content. I'm sure this will be something progression pushers like myself will be working on so we can be ready for Incursions.​

NOTE: All damage resilience is something that I see a player being able to gain, however I am currently testing to see if a specific gear talent is bugged and gives the player ADR or if it is supposed to be a negative number and the game can't display it properly.​

Now onto the fun bit, how the game deals reducing incoming damage. When you take a hit, the game first looks at the kind of damage that you took, was it bullet based or not. If it was bullet based, it would use your armor value first and then elite reduction. If it wasn't a bullet based hit, such as fire or a bleed, it would take your exotic damage resistance value first and then your elite reduction value. All your other resistances, like burn and shock, are added after the initial damage reduction is applied. There are some things that can be absolutely essential to surviving difficult encounters, such as maxing out your bleed resistance so you don't bleed to death from frag grenade damage.​

The difference between 55% damage reduction from armor and 56% can be the difference between life and death. If you are running around with less than 59% damage reduction, you are insanely squishy and will have a hard time with harder content. Players that complain about shotgunners hitting to hard or that challenge mode is too difficult likely don't have the damage reduction to deal with the damage that enemies are dealing you. I can guarantee that if you increase your damage reduction, you will not have as many issues with higher level enemies because you can survive longer.​

High end gear pieces come with talents that are baked into the item. You can't reroll them, so the only way to get a better talent is to either craft another one or find another one. Finding the gear with the right talents takes time and can give you a big boost in surviving, dealing damage, and farming for resources. Make sure the talents that are on your gear are actually benefiting you since they will provide the final bit to have the perfect build.​

It is currently impossible to get above 65% damage reduction through armor. 4650 armor should be your maximum that you have. If this changes I will update to reflect that change.​

Recalibration Station

This is a workbench in the main base that you can unlock via the Tech Wing. It is something that I highly recommend not worrying about until much later down the line. If you are level 30 and are wanting to get more out of your gear, this is important. When rerolling gear, you get several options:​

Let's use knee pads as an example as to what you can reroll.​

Knee Pads
1st slot - Mainstat
2nd slot - Armor, Elite Damage, Elite Protection, Critical Hit Damage, Exotic Damage Reduction, Health
3rd slot - Burn Resistance, Scavenging, Enemy Armor Damage, Kill XP, Bleed Resistance, Shock Resistance, Disrupt Resistance
4th slot - Same as 3. Note that you cannot have more than one of each type. For example you can't double roll Scavenging
5th slot - Same as 3
6th slot - Skill Bonus
7th slot - Gear mod slot, Health, Damage to elites, Elite Protection, CHD, Exotic Damage Reduction​

Ideally you would want your Kneepads to look like this:​

Knee Pads
1st slot - High Mainstat
2nd slot - Armor
3rd slot - Enemy Armor Damage
4th slot - Elite Protection
5th slot - Elite Damage
6th slot - Skill Bonus
7th slot - Gear mod slot​

The Gear Mod Slots are EXTREMELY valuable. They allow you to augment your gear beyond what it could roll in that slot making it an excellent, and almost mandatory thing to have on your gear. Ideally you start out with purple mods that increase your primary stat, and once you get high end mods going, have one of them be a Stamina mod for extra health or Electronics and Firearms for tanks. Your secondary abilities are really up to you and your personal preference. Be careful though, it is pretty pricey to reroll a stat, especially on high end gear.​

Don't get too carried away with all the stats you think you can reroll, you can only choose ONE stat. After you reroll it, that is the only slot you can reroll. That means that if you get a piece of gear that needs a lot of work and isn't a serious upgrade via the talent, don't even bother. If the talent is worthwhile, reroll the mainstat so that you don't take a big hit to your build.​

STAT DISTRIBUTION

It is a good idea to choose a specific stat that you want to increase. Firearms is for damage, Stamina for tankiness, and Electronics for skill power (healing, damage, buffs, etc). A balanced road will hurt you in the long run since you are less likely to be able to deal with higher end content that is geared towards players that specialize in certain areas. Pick something you like doing and master it, don't try to be the jack of all trades because it simply doesn't work.​

The stats you should choose are self explanatory, or so I would hope:
Tank = Stamina
Tech/Healer = Electronics
Soldier (Straight Weapon DPS) = Firearms​

You can do some hybrid builds with a mix of two different stats, but not all three. If you choose to run a hybrid build, then you are playing a support role. Trying to balance all three will end in disaster.​

Skill power is capped at 45k, as far as I know, which means that it no longer increases the damage or buffs of your skills. In order to gain any additional bonuses to your skills, you will have to stack performance mods and reroll the skill bonuses on your gear. A player with high skill power may want to look into some specialized weapons for their setup, such as Cadeceus and Liberator.​

Stamina just gives you raw health. Nothing more, nothing less. Outside of damage reduction, this is going to be your next best survival stat in the game because more health means more damage you can take. Should be self explanatory.​

Firearms simply increases the damage of your weapon by 1% per point. Easy enough.​

Build wise, there are a couple things that are super important to note. Firstly, if you are wanting to be a tank, you need some decent damage as well. The way threat works in this game is based off of the amount of damage you deal to a target with the increased threat stat added on top of that. If you are doing 75k dps, roughly, and another person in your party is dealing upwards of 200k, they will end up being the tank because they are the biggest threat in the room. Threat actually means what it means, not the classic MMO meaning of the word. You actually need to make yourself a threat to an enemy to tank.​

If you want to be a skill power person, your entire goal is to keep your buffs up and keep people alive. Using weapons, like the Liberator, that help you reduce cooldowns significantly are vital to having maximum uptime on your skills. Whether you are healing, dealing damage, or providing mass buffs, you want to have your cooldowns short so you can react quickly if needed to any situation.​

Those of you that want to run straight up DPS need to commit to it. Run pulse and booster shot so you can maintain maximum firepower at all times. You need to deal enough damage so that big targets can be taken down quickly and efficiently. I have seldom seen a group complete a challenge mode without at least one insanely high DPS person in it, because it is necessary if you want to blast through them.​

Another very important thing to note as well is the stat cap seems to be about roughly 7400 on perfectly rolled gear and gear mods. I run just shy of 6900 stats, so I am much more effective than someone with a lower statline in their gear.​

WEAPON DAMAGE​

First things first: ​

Accuracy is NEARLY useless. For most assault rifles, sniper rifles, SMGs, and some LMGs, the accuracy that is with the weapon is perfectly fine. Shotguns don't need it, so if you stack accuracy on a shotgun you are just wasting stats. In some cases accuracy CAN be beneficial. What accuracy does is provide a tighter grouping of shots, which is ideal for longer range engagements. In the average firefight, you won't need that much accuracy, but it does have its benefits. Most weapons can even have increased accuracy as a talent, which can completely negate the need to ever put more accuracy on a weapon especially with the range limitations. The only type of weapon that will benefit in all circumstances are burst fire weapons. It guarantees the grouping will be tight meaning that when you shoot an enemy they will all land closer to each other, instead of only one or two bullets hitting. ​

Weapon DPS in The Division is skewed and doesn't accurately display your actual damage. What the Weapon DPS calculates is the crit of your weapon, the damage per shot, the rate of fire, magazine size, accuracy, and stability and then puts all those stats into a mythical scenario in which every bullet hits the target. Because of this, the displayed weapon DPS you get is never going to be truly accurate. The things you need to care about most are:​

-Damage per shot
-Crit Chance
-Crit Damage
-Weapon Damage % increase
-Stability
-Optimal Range​

Accuracy is all fine and dandy, but to be honest it doesn't help as much as the other stats do. If your weapon has at least a third of the bar filled with accuracy and you aren't shooting from super long range, then you don't really need it that much. Range is extremely important because it dictates from how far away you are still dealing the full amount of damage. If you take a base AK, it's optimal range is about 25-30 meters. Typically that is fine if you like to keep your enemies within a relatively close distance to you, but if you want to fire from a long ways away, range is going to be the number one stat you want to make sure you have. Stability is all about making the weapon as easy to control as possible. When using a weapon, you can look at the recoil pattern and see if you want to focus on horizontal stability, vertical stability, or overall stability and this is particularly noticeable on weapons with a high rate of fire. ​

The Vector above is an excellent example of how accuracy can skew stats. As it is currently built, it does a ton of damage and literally melts through enemies. Absolutely amazing. Now let's adjust it and add accuracy.

Optic

Rail

Muzzle

End Result

That adds a TON of calculated DPS with a bloated stat. If you want to see high DPS numbers, just toss accuracy on. It certainly won't help you at all, but you can cheese your numbers. What's worse is it severely diminishes the effectiveness of the weapon. In fact, the only reason I would even consider using my Vector with full accuracy is because of how amazing it's talents are, and that would only happen if I wanted to mess around. Accuracy is literally next to useless in most situations.​

Here is a brief explanation of what each stat on a weapon does:​

Accuracy - This increases the accuracy of the weapon, obviously, and keeps it accurate over sustained bursts of fire. High stability mixed with high accuracy can lead to a monster of a weapon.​

Stability - Makes the weapon easier to control. There are several types of stability though: Overall, horizontal, vertical, and initial bullet. Overall simply makes it easier to handle, horizontal lessens the recoil to the left and right, vertical (which is the one that just says "stability") reduces up and down recoil, and the initial bullet stability reduces the recoil from the first bullet fired. IBS is useful in shotguns, marksman rifles, burst fire weapons, and pistols. The other stability types are completely up to you in terms of how your weapon handles. SMGs benefit greatly from having both vertical and horizontal stability.​

Mag Size - Easy enough. Increases the amount of bullets in a magazine. This is useful in weapons that are lacking in the amount of bullets you fire in between reloads. I personally like running high mag size stats on my SMGs, LMGs, and pistols, but it can be a universal upgrade to any weapon.​

RPM - This is how many rounds the weapon will fire in a minute. This stat is highly useful for slow firing weapons that need a nitro boost, like the M60, or to make you already fast firing weapon a bullet hose. Be careful with this though, if you aren't careful you can find yourself running out of ammo frequently.​

Optimal Range - This is the absolute biggest DPS boosting stat in the game. I will provide a video on how drastically it changes your damage numbers at various ranges later. If you are using an SMG and shooting at enemies across the street, you aren't dealing your full damage potential. If you are shooting at them with an SMG when they are on the other side of the car, you are dealing the full amount of damage to the enemy. This is what causes your damage to not be varied on enemies and why you aren't doing as much damage to an enemy as you though you were before. Range is king, hence why I strongly suggest that you should utilize the firing range in the main base to test out the optimal range of your weapons. This is why SMGs have a high native crit chance and higher base damage than any other automatic weapon in the game.​

A brief demonstration of how range affects damage.
[video=youtube;SsY3-EhR1m0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsY3-EhR1m0[/video]​

Headshot Damage - Self explanatory, useful on anything, especially marksman rifles and weapons with increased headshot damage as a talent.​

Crit Chance - This is only useful in large amounts and only if your Critical Hit Damage is high enough to justify using the stat. If you have over 60% CHD, you should always be stacking Crit, if you can get it above 20%. This stat was made for SMGs. Nothing else in the game can come close to SMGs in crit percentages. It is also useful for weapons with Crit Chance talents on them as well.​

Crit Damage - This acts as a multiplier for your damage when you crit. Here's an example. If you hit something for 100 damage and crit when you have 60% CHD, you will deal 160 damage instead. This is absolutely essential to any high crit build. Don't ever stack this if you have no crit since it is useless.​

Another good thing to keep in mind is the various passives available by each weapon type:​

SMG - Comes with lots of crit, short range only. Stack Crit Damage, headshot damage, crit chance, and reload speed/magazine size.​

Marksman Rifle - High Headshot damage. Increase optimal range, headshot damage, reload speed, and fire rate.​

Assault Rife - Medium to Long range weapon. Increase Stability, Weapon Damage %, headshot damage, and magazine size​

LMG - Great for suppressing enemies and laying down a large amount of fire without frequent reloading. Increase Stability, Mag Size, Fire Rate, and Weapon Damage %​

Shotgun - Up close and personal kings. Semiautos are vastly superior to pump and double barrel shotguns. Increase Headshot damage, weapon damage %, mag size, reload speed​

Pistol - Excellent to finish off an enemy that is below 30% health. Health is the colored bar, not the white pips on the enemy health bar, that is the armor they have. increase range, accuracy, mag size, reload speed.​

Always pick weapons that have talents that utilize your stat distribution as they will be superior to damn near anything else you get. The weapon talents are absolutely incredible and completely change how a weapon handles. Of course you want to make sure you have talents on your gear that are actually useful, but having access to a talent is always worth it. If it is wildly out of your stat range to use a talent that is on a weapon, use it if it is better than what you are using, but don't skew your stats just because of that one weapon. Chances are you will be able to find a weapon that uses what you already got.​

Pakhan, featured above, is the absolute best weapon you can get early on. The talent that it has is absolutely incredible and vastly decreases the time to kill on enemies in Hard/Challenge modes and in the Dark Zone. Save up 500k credits and buy it, I guarantee it is worth it. This also showcases just how powerful talents can be. It may not have the highest DPS numbers, but that talent makes it leagues beyond anything else in its class, unless they have a similar talent.

Weapon Mods

Onto some more fun stuff. Before you hit level 30, you kinda just used what looked cool. You didn't care so much about stats because you were going to replace it anyways and you are happy that it looks awesome. Then you hit 30, and stats became vitally important. You wanted to keep that ACOG on your M4, but the sniper scope was too good to pass up. If you want to get the most out of your gear, you have to not care about the looks of your weapon. Function over aesthetic. Now, time for a breakdown of what each attachment does:​

Optic - Any scope or sight falls into this category and rolls 4 stats: optimal range, crit chance, headshot damage, accuracy. It seems to be random, but without a scope blueprint I can't be certain.​

Handstop - Rolls accuracy and the various stability types.​

Grip - Rolls general stability as well as accuracy or another alternate stability type.​

Extended Magazine - Rolls more mag size, obviously, as well as crit chance, crit damage, weapon damage, or rate of fire.​

High Velocity Magazine - Rolls crit and either mag size, crit damage, weapon damage, or rate of fire.​

Muzzle Break - Rolls Stability and either accuracy, alternate stability types, reduced or increased threat, crit chance, and crit damage.​

Loud Muzzle Vent - Rolls increased threat and either accuracy, stability types, crit chance, or crit damage.​

Suppressor - Rolls reduced threat and either accuracy, stability, crit chance, or crit damage.​

Now that you know what each thing is guaranteed to roll, with the optic slot being random as far as I can tell, you can now start building your weapon to deal it's maximum damage potential. Time to go over weapon builds:​

DISCLAIMER: Having a weapon with super high DPS doesn't mean it will perform with those numbers. A weapon with much lower DPS than what you have could perform significantly better because all DPS means is roughly how much damage you can do per second. Weapons like marksman rifles have a lower DPS than an assault rifle, but that doesn't mean they deal less damage than that assault rifle. Keep that in mind when you start going for a particular build and be sure to test and get actual results. Best way to do so is to see how fast it takes down elites and bosses in Hard Modes, and the best mission for that is General Assembly.​

Shotgun - Until recently I didn't have any decent shotguns so I didn't care to test or figure out a build until I got a high end drop. After I got one, I found it to be extremely potent and could be even better with the right talents. A shotgun has super high damage per shot, like a marksman rifle, but that damage is spread across 8 pellets. This can be useful to hit multiple targets at once, but that won't really fly in Challenge Modes. To build a shotgun right, I recommend the following:

Magazine - Weapon Damage % and mag size. Reload speed can be a replacement for mag size.
Sight - Optimal range and headshot damage. If you have a lot of crit chance in your gear, you can swap range for crit chance.
Grip - Stability​

Assault Rifle - AR's are amazing weapons. They have decent damage and the range to be able to dish it out at pretty good distances. It is a good all around weapon and you can get some incredible builds going with it. There are a couple builds that are floating around, but I personally prefer a crit build.​

Talents: Deadly, Brutal, and Accuracte, Stable, Self Preserved, or Destructive​

Magazine - Mag size and rate or fire
Muzzle break - crit damage and stability.
[BHandstop[/B] - Stability and Accuracy
Optic- Crit chance and headshot damage​

Marksman Rifle - I am not a big fan of using long range rifles in this game. They require an awful lot of gear optimizing to be worth it. A lot of people use them right now because of how high the base damage is, but I think you can outperform them except for very specific circumstances. I recommend never using a marksman rifle unless you can build for crit. Getting your crit to about 25% or more is what you should aim for as well as over 80% crit damage. You also need the talent that gives you bonus damage % based on how far away you are from a target.​

Magazine - crit chance and crit damage
Muzzle Break - Crit Chance and Stability
Handstop (not all DMRs have one) - accuracy and stability
Optic - Headshot damage and crit. Optimal range can replace headshot damage if you are shooting really far away​

SMG - Crit crit crit crit crit. All SMGs are insane crit machines, which may seem overpowered, but with range being a big factor in how much damage you deal balances things out. A perfect SMG would have the talent that increases crit chance, crits heal you, and either headshot damage or crit damage. Right now, pretty much everyone is using a Vector because it's the only weapon you can get a blueprint for right now without being Dark Zone Rank 50. The MP5 is far superior to the Vector in every way, aside from slightly lower base damage, and I highly recommend switching to it when you can buy the blueprint for it. Whether or not you are using an MP5 or not, this is what I recommend for building out an SMG:​

Talents: Self Preserved, Deadly, Brutal​

Magazine - mag size and crit damage
Muzzle Break - Stability and crit chance.
Grip - Double stability or stability accuracy
Optic - Headshot damage and crit chance​

NOTEIf you can reach a reasonably high crit, which I would say is roughly 50-55% crit, I recommend swapping out the crit chance in the muzzle break to be crit damage.​

LMGs - I love my LMGs and I got a pretty decent build going for mine at the moment. LMGs are excellent to have in a group because of the suppression bonus they can do. They can be built in a wide variety of ways, but I will share my personal build for one.​

Talents: Self Preserved, Deadly, Ferocious​

Magazine - mag size and crit
Muzzle break - stability and crit or accuracy
Handstop - accuracy and stability
Optic - crit and optimal range​

Sidearm - Never underestimate how good a pistol can be. My sidearm has helped me many times in tight spots and should be well modded in case you need to use it. I would recommend to never use pistols that can't have the magazine, small undermount, and muzzle modded unless you are using a sawn-off​

Magazine - Weapon damage % and mag size if less than 10 rouns, otherwise reload speed
Suppressor - Reduced threat and stability. You want this because if you are in a group and are down to your pistol, the last thing you want is to gain aggro.
Laser Pointer - accuracy and stability​

Current Best In Class Weapons​

SMG - MP5 Navy/MP5 ST
Where to get it (MP5 Navy) - Blueprint, DZ06 vendor, costs Phoenix Credits, requires DZ rank 50 to buy
Where to get it (MP5 ST) - Random drop​

Currently, you can't get a blueprint to craft the MP5 ST otherwise it would be the best SMG in the game right now, but the MP5 Navy comes close to it. It is superior in every way to the Vector 45 stat wise EXCEPT it has slightly lower base damage, which is made up with a much larger magazine and fire rate, and it can only take a small scope instead of any size. The MP5 ST can fit any size scope, which is why if you get a perfectly rolled MP5 ST drop by some miracle, you have the best SMG in the game. There is literally no point to owning a Vector once you own an MP5 Navy or ST.​

----------------------​

Assault Rifle - Military SA58
Where to get it - Blueprint, DZ06 vendor, costs Phoenix Credits, requires DZ rank 50 to buy​

Being a burst fire weapon, this might immediately turn people off from using it, but it is by far the most powerful assault rifle in the game. It rolls the highest base damage out of any assault rifle and comes with pretty decent stats. It doesn't have as much range as other ARs, but it can still do the job pretty damn well. The burst grouping is pretty tight so you can get all three shots to line up and take someone's head off very effectively and with a rate of fire increase from a magazine, it will shred through things rapidly. It loses effectiveness at further ranges, but if you want to run an SMG and AR combo, this is the weapon for you.​

----------------------​

LMG - Black Market M60 E6
Where to get it - Blueprint, DZ03 vendor on 39th and 6th ave, costs DZ credits, requires DZ rank 50 to buy​

The first thing people will complain about is that the crafted High End M60 is only item level 30, and will try to argue that the Tacitcal M249 Para that is for sale at the Base of Operations is better because the item level is higher. That isn't true. The M60 fires slower, but has a higher damage range and can be ideal for suppressing targets. With the goal of suppression being maximum uptime of a weapon and little time reloading, the M60 fills that role with some pretty slow fire, but it can deal some serious damage. I'm still hunting for more Division Tech so I can craft some in order to find out how they truly perform, but the subpar one I have is much better than my M249. Of course, getting an item level 31 M60 would be a dream, but for those of you that don't have luck on their side, the blueprint is an excellent starting point.​

----------------------​

DMR - First Wave M1A
Where to get it - Random Drop​

The First Wave variant of the M1A is superior to all other versions because it can fit a large underbarrel slot. None of the other M1As can fit a grip or handstop. If you are wondering why the M1A, it deals damage equal to a bolt action rifle, has a higher rate of fire, and a larger magazine. There is simply nothing else that can compete with a properly modded M1A in the DMR class. In my opinion, other DMRs need to be buffed because of how ridiculous the M1A is in comparison, or the entire DMR class needs a rework, but if you want a long range rifle, this is what you go for.​

----------------------​

Shotgun - WIP​

----------------------​

Pistol - Tactical 1911
Where to get it - Blueprint, DZ03 vendor on 39th and 6th ave, costs DZ credits, requires DZ rank 50 to buy​

A good pistol is necessary for anyone out there for when you really need it, but finding out which pistol is best can be tricky. In my experience, the Tac 1911 is the superior pistol that you can easily get right now. It has full mod slots, besides optic of course, and because of that, it allows you to modify it to be in line with the rest of your gear. A properly modded pistol can mean the success or failure of a mission, or your survival, and the Tac 1911 delivers. The biggest downside to the Tac 1911 is the blueprint is Item Level 30, which means that a IL31 drop has the potential to be superior. Until then, this is going to be your best choice.​

Weapon Talents

A properly modded weapon is key to dealing the most damage possible, but what is slightly more important is the talents that come with the weapon itself. A perfect example of this is the Self Preserved talent. Whenever you crit you heal for 3% of the damage you dealt. That happens on every crit. Check out the video below for an example as to why this is one of the best weapon talents in the game. I apologize for having to replace the audio, it was over a lengthy recording from yesterday and I didn't want to include all the nonsensical banter and vulgarity that my group tends to speak with.These are some of the best examples that I recorded in about a 2 hour timeframe:​

[video=youtube;7uZ9L0v6xqI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uZ9L0v6xqI[/video]​

List of available weapon talents:​

The strings {0} and {1} are placeholders of the game and can have varying values attached to them, depending on the item.​

Name    Description
Accurate    Accuracy is increased by {0}%.
Adept    Using a skill increases your critical hit chance by {0}% for {1} seconds.
Astute    The first 3 bullets of your magazine have a {0}% higher chance to do a Critical Hit
Balanced    The weapon reaches max accuracy faster when shouldering.
Brutal    Headshot damage is increased by {0}% when using this weapon.
Capable    Using a skill improves the handling of your weapon for {0} seconds.
Commanding    Every kill performed while the Signature Skill is active extends its duration by {0}%.
Competent    Weapon damage is increased by {0}% for {1} seconds after using a skill.
Coolheaded    Performing a headshot reduces all skill cooldowns by {0}%.
Deadly    Critical hit damage is increased by {0}%.
Destructive    Armor destruction value is increased by {0}% when using this weapon.
Determined    Killing a target reduces skill cooldowns by {0}%.
Dominant    Every kill performed while your Signature Skill is active reduces the cooldown of your other skills by {0}%.
Expert    The weapon deals 100% more damage when the target is below 30% health.
Ferocious    Damage against Elite and Named enemies is increased by {0}%.
Fierce    Critical hit chance is increased by {0}% when using this weapon.
Harmful    Each hit has a {0}% chance to apply the Bleed Status Effect to the target.
Intense    The first bullet of a magazine has a {0}% chance to apply the On Fire Status Effect to the target.
Meticulous    Killing a target has a {0}% chance to instantly refill the magazine.
Predatory    Killing a target regenerates {0}% health over {1} seconds.
Prepared    Damage is increased by {1}% when more than {0} meters from the target.
Proficient    The first bullet shot when out of combat has a {0}% bonus chance to result in a critical hit.
Provident    The last bullet of a magazine deals {0}% more damage.
Responsive    Damage is increased by {1}% when closer than {0} meters to the target.
Restored    Killing a target with this weapon removes all negative Status Effects
Self-preserved    Critical hits with this weapon heal the user for {0}% of damage dealt.
Skilled    Headshot kills with this weapon increase Signature Skill resources by {0}%.
Stable    Stability is improved by {0}%.
Sustained    Killing a target increases your health by {0}%
Swift    Reloading is {0}% faster.
Toxic    Headshots with this weapon have a {0}% chance to apply the Blind Status Effect.
Trained    Critical hits increase Signature Skill resources by {0}%.
Unforgiving    Missing health segments increase your damage: 1 missing segment +{0}%; 2 missing segments +{1}%.
Vicious    Critical hit chance is increased by {0}% while at full health.​

(credit to http://thedivision.gamewiki.net/Weapon_Talents)​

I will expand upon this section over the next several days since there is a lot for me to test and a lot for me to record.​

GETTING GEAR

So after reading the information I spewed forth, you might be wondering "How do I get good gear like that?". Well, there are a number of ways to do so. The first is to grind your way through Hard modes until you are in full purple gear. At that point, you can attempt Challenge modes, though it will likely be extremely difficult, or you can head into the Dark Zone. The key here is to only get loot that is an actual increase to what you currently have. Sure, constantly extracting gear can be nice so you can build up a nice mound of cash to sit on, but it isn't very efficient.​

Once you manage to get a third of your gear in high end rarities, you can then start pushing further north and trying your skill and gear on tougher enemies. Be warned, DZ05 and DZ06 are brutal for undergeared and casual players. I highly recommend going in as a group via matchmaking or with friends. It is extremely dangerous.​

While you are in the Dark Zone killing enemies, you will get a new type of currency called Phoenix Credits. These are a special type of currency that you can use to buy high end gear from the Special Vendor in the Tech Wing of your base as well as getting extremely rare goodies from the safe house in DZ06, though you need to be DZ Rank 50 to buy anything. Phoenix coins are dropped only by bosses, in the Dark Zone as well as Hard and Challenge modes, and by completing Daily Missions. Bosses used to drop 5-14 Phoenix Credits when they died, but the devs decided to nerf it down to 1-2. That means that Phoenix Credits you earn from boss kills are just pennies to help you along to your dollar, making it much more worthwhile to complete the Daily Missions when they are available.​

Here is what my build can currently do as of March 15th, 2016. I still have a lot to work on, but it is coming together nicely:
[video=youtube;cMLA8CU6m7E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMLA8CU6m7E[/video]​

Being able to solo a hard mode is something that most people can do with ease, this simply is the fastest that I have done the mission. Some people claim it takes only 5 minutes, but that is impossible. The fastest you could probably do it in is 10-12min.​

New Stuff:

HOW STATS WORK

Right now, the game is full of lies. Through tons of testing and frustration, I have discovered how the game works behind the scenes in terms of damage, and it isn't pretty. Some of it makes sense, while other bits don't at all. Let's start with how messed up Firearms is as a stat.

Column Info:
Column 1: Damage per shot. Confirmed it by shooting the range dummy in the body.
Column 2: Firearms used for each result
Column 3: EFFECTIVE returns per point of firearms
Column 4: Weapon scaling. This is the damage increase the weapon gains per point in firearms​

Ignore Column 5 formula stuff​

Column 6: Base damage of my M60
Column 7: Firearms used to show that the game lies about increasing damage by 1%
Column 8: Shows that if Firearms actually increased weapon damage by 1%, that would be your actual weapon damage per shot​

Through tons of testing and theoretical math we developed to figure this out, it shows that you can stack Firearms as much as you'd like, and you will still gain benefits from it, however the effectiveness per point in firearms diminishes greatly after about 2500-2800. At that point, if you still want more damage, it is better to run with Reckless in your chest, Weapon Damage % in your magazine, or both. Towards the end of the spreadsheet, those final 4 numbers are using Weapon Damage % and Reckless, and it shows quite clearly that they have a huge effect on your weapon performance. That being said, you can gain a huge bonus at higher firearms level, boosting your damage insanely, but it is still better to go for alternate stats.​

To explain it better, at 3700 firearms, you would gain the equivalent of roughly 1,000 Effective Firearms in damage by equipping Weapon Damage % in you magazine. With Reckless AND 12.5% weapon damage, at 2700 Firearms, you would gain almost 2,000 Effective Firearms in damage. Absolutely insane.​

What does this mean for gearing? Well, with the effectiveness of Firearms diminishing at around the 2500-2800 mark, and the 45k skill power cap, it means the devs want you to play the game in a very specific way. The way they want you to play is to have a balanced and even stat line so that you can gain the effects of all the weapon talents. I don't understand why they decided to do this as it seems pretty backwards in a game that lets you think creativity is the limit, but we have proven that isn't the case anymore.​

WEAPON SCALING​

All weapons have a base weapon damage, which you can find with a special formula we have, but I cannot disclose at this time. I can, however, debunk a couple rumors that have been floating around. Firstly, the AUG is NOT the best SMG. It does not have insane scaling, and you would need to reach 5000 Firearms for it to beat out the MP5. Getting to 5000 Firearms is pretty difficult, I certainly tried and it requires too many perfect rolls and stat sacrifice to be worth it. A lot of people have DPS calculators and such, but those are all broken. They do not have the correct formulas, since they use data mined values or don't have as large a database as I have, so they suffer in terms of accuracy. Everyone that has posted information about weapons and such have been wrong due to incorrect or inflated data or incorrect math. Myself and a couple others that I am working with are the ones with the most accurate information about the game right now, and unless someone has a bigger and more complete spreadsheet than us, I doubt their information.​

Now, I can share a couple scaling numbers for you guys. Keep in mind, this is how much damage you gain per point in Firearms and that for every point in Firearms you gain, the less effective it is:​

SA58: 1.8
AK Variants: 1.6
ACR Variants: 1.3
MP5: 1.35
M1A Variants: 6.2
M44 Variants: 7
M60 Variants: 1.25
M249 Variants: 1.15​

As soon as I have the base weapon damages sorted out, which means finding the min and max, I will put that in here as well. For now, this should give you an idea of how weapon damage actually works. My guide is still relevant for the most part, I just need to go and adjust a few things.​

This is all the information I can release right now. I don't want to post anything further because I want accurate info, not quick info. Keep you eye on here, more will be added soon.​

GUIDE IS WIP. THINGS WILL BE ADDED AND CHANGED AS THE GAME CONTINUES TO EXIST.​

THINGS TO BE ADDED:
Enemy guide and how the AI really works
Weapon variants and how amazing they can be
Talents for both weapons and gear and which ones are the best
Optimal stat build recommendations
Videos, charts, and other visuals to help you understand the mechanics of this game as it unfolds​

 

[FAMAS H DOG]

I liked this post a lot and it has helped me in which direction to go with regards to my build.  I was bumbling a long with a jack of all trades build due to the fact I could not decide what to do. Now I have decided to be a skill based player with DPS thus leaving health behind. 

I have unlocked the liberator assault rifle like you said and everything seems to be working well. Just need to watch level 32 snipers who can knock me down with my 48k health. I use the talent 'adrenaline' and the skill 'overdose' to give me over shield when battling these enemies. My armour is now 51% so I am feeling happy with the character.

 

[Vampiric ODST]

Pretty sure I'm going to be tweaking my sent now..lol

 

[Leodigarius]

Updated a decent amount of the guide, added more info, and corrected a couple mistakes

 

[g1nt3r]

Beautiful guide, pinned and featured.

 

[Leodigarius]

Beautiful guide, pinned and featured.

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

On another note, I added some new stuff (at the bottom of the guide) and fixed some stuff.

 

[phoreman]

super informative thanks

 

[Señor Chárrleh]

Without doubt the most helpful post i've come across. well done!

Quick question though, how do the named weapons like the Midas etc stack up against other weapons in there same catagories.

 

[HonkBeast]

Thanks alot for the info. Really helpful.

 

[BigTye]

A massive amount of work in this post OP, really appreciate it. I think I have been wasting time and money in different ways so far. Nice to have a clearer end focus as to what i am trying to achieve with my character and gear.

Thanks.

 

[StevieBrownEye]

Great read - am I missing the spreadsheet or is that proprietary? :smile:

 

[MichFan]

Well damn I wish I would have found this before I wasted all those HE Division Tech on crafting a good/great TAC AUG lol 

 

[Leodigarius]

Great read - am I missing the spreadsheet or is that proprietary? :smile:

Spreadsheets are still super secret right now, unsure as to when the data will be ready for release. We don't want to put all our data out there until we verify everything. It is better to do it that way than to have it incorrect and mislead people, like what the numerous Reddit posts have all done.

 

[Leodigarius]

Seeing as Incursions, aka 1.1, will change how things work, I will not be updating any further until Incursions come out. The guide is relevant for current content and I will overhaul it for Incursions. My spreadsheets may even be released at 1.1, so that you guys can see the data we have collected, but that depends on the changes to 1.1 and if that adjusts any of our current stuff. I'll still respond to questions and such, but the guide is on hold until the 12th. Probably gonna update the format as well.

 

[PropaneCrazy]

Great post! Whenever I play a game I enjoy it kind of takes over everything so this post is a God send!

 

[Blazzen67]

great work, very impressive, this will help a lot, thank you

 

[OMC-CLEAN]

Thanks for taking time to write this up.  I'll be rethinking my set up, like a lot of ppl I've been trying to do the jack of all set up.  But this will help me a lot....

 

[Kross_uk]

Many thanks for writing this post up, it makes sense and makes it easier for me to build towards my playstyle.

Quick question though: Does this mean that you should be focusing more on increasing your Armor than your Health?
Reason I'm asking is I noticed your Health is really low (at least compared to mine, although you have almost twice as much DPS as me), so I'm wondering, have you decided to overlook your Health because the armor protection multipliers make up for it?
Many thanks in advance!

 

[Leodigarius]

Many thanks for writing this post up, it makes sense and makes it easier for me to build towards my playstyle.

Quick question though: Does this mean that you should be focusing more on increasing your Armor than your Health?
Reason I'm asking is I noticed your Health is really low (at least compared to mine, although you have almost twice as much DPS as me), so I'm wondering, have you decided to overlook your Health because the armor protection multipliers make up for it?
Many thanks in advance!

Short answer, yes. Even 1% more damage reduction can be massive, and people that aren't at the cap will get destroyed in the DZ. PvP is when you can really see the damage reduction kick in, but it is universally a good thing to do.

 

[MiniColt21]

Beautiful guide, pinned and featured.

Do you know how I would pin something?  Sorry I am very new to this and would appreciate it if you could help me out.  Thank you.