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Tom Clancy's The Division |OT 3| Crafted From 150 OT 2’s

I hope Massive can turn things around and get the 1.6 update in a good, fair, fun and rewarding playable state as I love The Division but it's got a lot of competition (for me at least) in the immediate months ahead from other similar games and games in completely different genres...

Sniper Elite 4 - Feb 14
Halo Wars 2 - Feb 21
Horizon - Feb 28
Zelda (Wii U version for me) - March 3
Ghost Recon - March 7
Star Trek VR - March 14
Mass Effect - March 21

...damn, that's like a new game per week. Don't think I have enough time for all that either, yikes.
 
I didn't even know that seeker mines are the new Meta... found out today. And not only in 1.6 but 1.5 too. I got downed by the same dude 3 times, all three by the damn mines.

If in 1.6 it's even worse, especially in PvP Last Stand, it sucks really hard.
 
I'm usually able to MM for the daily missions, but last night I didn't have any luck. I tried doing Warrengate, but just waited around. I also tried to do Falcon Lost, but I'd have better luck sprouting wings.
I went back to grinding Lexington Event Center. Man, we've got that mission down. Most of the randoms I team up with familiar enough to finish that mission without any hiccups. I started running a healer build with my usual Tactician's Authority stuff, so that's been super good.

No luck on the chest piece, though. One day. A friend of mine got his after the 3rd attempt.
 

GazzaGSi

Member
I didn't even know that seeker mines are the new Meta... found out today. And not only in 1.6 but 1.5 too. I got downed by the same dude 3 times, all three by the damn mines.

If in 1.6 it's even worse, especially in PvP Last Stand, it sucks really hard.

Was testing this on the PTS earlier, have my TA build at just under 300k skill power, with the 4 piece buff and 4 +damage @ 4% seeker mine mods 1 seeker mine kills a roaming boss from full armour/health. It's a little OP to say the least but changes are coming in pts3 as at the minute Last Stand is purely a seeker mine fest and the amount of stagger is ridiculous. Oh, and it's cooldown is 8 seconds lmao
 
Was testing this on the PTS earlier, have my TA build at just under 300k skill power, with the 4 piece buff and 4 +damage @ 4% seeker mine mods 1 seeker mine kills a roaming boss from full armour/health. It's a little OP to say the least but changes are coming in pts3 as at the minute Last Stand is purely a seeker mine fest and the amount of stagger is ridiculous. Oh, and it's cooldown is 8 seconds lmao

Instead of making a specific adjustment Massive might remove stagger from the game completely, who knows.

Watched two guys this morning play a bit of the Legendary missions with High Skill Tactician builds using seeker mines and turrets. They hid behind cover while letting the seeker mines and turrets do all the work which isn't fun in my book.

They're really up against it with expected DLC from their own players and other highly anticipated game releases but they really have a mess on their hands with only about a month to go.

Considering they started the testing process going to such extremes of the spectrum on some core mechanics tells me they really expect the entire game to play differently than the current live version and that kind of change is an awful lot to ask of your dedicated player-base at this point.

Edit: I would think it would be in their best interest to get more PTS builds out quicker considering how broken the current one is in both PvP and PvE. It should be tweak, test, tweak, test rather than throwing a bunch of changes and different numbers in the pot at the same time and hoping everything gels.
 

GazzaGSi

Member
Instead of making a specific adjustment Massive might remove stagger from the game completely, who knows.

Watched two guys this morning play a bit of the Legendary missions with High Skill Tactician builds using seeker mines and turrets. They hid behind cover while letting the seeker mines and turrets do all the work which isn't fun in my book.

They're really up against it with expected DLC from their own players and other highly anticipated game releases but they really have a mess on their hands with only about a month to go.

Considering they started the testing process going to such extremes of the spectrum on some core mechanics tells me they really expect the entire game to play differently than the current live version and that kind of change is an awful lot to ask of your dedicated player-base at this point.

Dialed back or removed completely, either way it needs altering. Saw them videos too, well, skipped through them as they were a boring snooze fest but at least it shows how broken it is when you can just take cover far back and spam the turret and seeker's to clear a Legendary mission.

I saw the leaked date of the 28th for last stand but can't see them pushing it for then. If it's not ready or somewhere better than it is now I think they'll delay it. There's no real need to rush it out, 1.5/survival was released at the latest possible date so PS4 owners had survival for the Christmas break due to 30 days exclusive deal with MS, which there isn't this time so they don't need to rush/push it out. That's what I think anyway,for those that are left playing the last thing they need is something to be really broke/OP for the user to just think fuck it and move on.

I think last stand will be popular for a short while because people bought the season pass whether discounted or with the gold edition so will want to at least try it out for a bit but I can't see it being enough to keep the player base, I'm bored of it already even if its still not balanced and there's OP shit in there, I've seen and played enough to know what it's about. It's just boring and uninspiring for me but then PVP in the division has never really been my cup of tea, heal empty mag, heal empty mag, super, heal, empty mag etc etc is just a bore.

Edit: I would think it would be in their best interest to get more PTS builds out quicker considering how broken the current one is in both PvP and PvE. It should be tweak, test, tweak, test rather than throwing a bunch of changes and different numbers in the pot at the same time and hoping everything gels.

Lol that's massive all over, nothing is ever tweaked then tested then altered from the results of the first tweak. It's Bam 100mph,head on into a wall, bam 120mph in reverse to something behind them. It's never minimal dialing to find the sweet spot. 1.5 didn't need drastic changes and there is far better ways to sorting the armour/health thing out than the way they've gone about it.
 

EL CUCO

Member
Don't ever be that guy that wants to pistol fight at the start of a Survival match...

giphy.gif
 

24hr

Member
My PS4 edition is arriving tomorrow, super excited. Is the DLC a must buy or can I grind the basic game first?
 
My PS4 edition is arriving tomorrow, super excited. Is the DLC a must buy or can I grind the basic game first?

The season pass dlc gives you these things:

1. Underground
2. Dragon's Nest Incursion
3. Survival
(currently available)

4. Last Stand PVP mode
5. Lost Signal Incursion
(coming soon)

Everything else was transferred to the base game, including dlc weapons and gear sets.

So, no. You don't need the dlc at, play the base game, get to level 30, grind some high-end and gear sets and try out the challenging missions in tier 5, incursions (two in the base game) and DZ before you decide upon the dlc.
 

GazzaGSi

Member

Some decent changes in there but a shame to see they've completely scrapped the Seeker gearset rather than make adjustments to it.


Just played for afew hours in the new DZ areas, mainly 09 and it's probably my favorite area out of the lot. Started with...
a new character at DZ level 1 and left around mid 30's and had a blast solo.
They've really hit the sweet spot for farming in there with how many landmarks there is to clear as well as just roaming NPC's at street level.
Even trying to avoid the streets by taking the rooftops leads you to heavy cleaner bosses which aren't even listed as a landmark like heading South at DZ06 west entrance to the contaminated area.
Everything links together so well, going from rooftops to underground contaminated zones into shopping malls and ball rooms etc. It's completely different from hitting the pit, Q building and midtown with the changing environments.
Looks fantastic, felt really good and the extraction zones are pretty cool too being below street level in the foundations of a new building.
I was having good fun with a sniper build in there with the multiple levels to take NPC's out below and had a play with a TA/Seeker mine build and can definitely see why they are making changes to it. After 1 cluster mine you could literally just wait for the bleed effect to wipe the NPC's out.
Good work in the DZ massive that's for sure with regards to detail, various height levels to play and indoor combat, the waves at certain landmarks keep you on your toes as well, loot is generous but like most of it, not that useable :)
 

GazzaGSi

Member
Phoenix credit cap raised to 5000. More than likely means a raise in item price at the special vendor in the hub and blueprints vendor (not that any blueprints have been worth buying in a long while).
 
PTS 3 inbound today.

I will play a bit to test out new Toughness settings.

If it seems reasonable I'll continue to test/play PTS 3.

If still awful then I won't be bothered with looking at anything else until the next round of Toughness buffs as there is no point in doing so with such a core part of the game being broken for the PvE dedicated player.
 

EL CUCO

Member
Phoenix credit cap raised to 5000. More than likely means a raise in item price at the special vendor in the hub and blueprints vendor (not that any blueprints have been worth buying in a long while).
The exotic price probably going up. I need to remember to pick up the Liberator and Historian
 
PTS 3 Update clocking in at 3.2 GB is live.

The added 37% to the 80K free Toughness should push that number to about 110K. I doubt this will make much of a difference without tweaking Armor but we'll see.
 

24hr

Member
So playing through the first few levels now. Is the looting like other MMO's? Where you have to grind to get the best etc
 
I really don't want to get into this PvE vs PvP balancing and keeping it separate, etc but it is quite baffling that they are clearly basing a lot of changes on their "normalization" attempt for a dedicated PvP mode.

While they talked very little about PvE during the SotG this week what they did say was alarming in regards to wanting the players to also play PvE game modes to see if things were becoming imbalanced. This just means "we changed a bunch of values/numbers and decided to make most of them global while we have no idea how they'll affect the game overall but have at it, we hope we got lucky this time."

Yes, the PTS is for player feedback but I didn't get any sense that the developers had any idea regarding the impact of the changes they were making PvE wise.
 
Console or PC? If the latter most are playing the Public Test Server (PTS) build for an upcoming update.

The console player-base is dwindling and a lot depends on what time of day, region, etc you are trying to play as well.

Console. Not a big deal just wanted a change of pace so I loaded it back up
 

24hr

Member
Oh man only level 7 and trying to do a mission with some randoms and we have died 5 times. Enemies sponge a heck of a lot.
 

EL CUCO

Member
Oh man only level 7 and trying to do a mission with some randoms and we have died 5 times. Enemies sponge a heck of a lot.
You'll quickly learn that in Division its not just about level. While leveling up does give you a power bump, what you want to be doing is upgrading to stronger gear. Once you get an understanding of how the Gear works and spec your build properly, you'll be melting NPC's like butter.
 

Neverfade

Member
Just picked this up yesterday and tooled around with the intro a bit.

Are there any starter guides out there for someone fresh to the game?
 

deoee

Member
I have so many Set items and no real clue "whats worth it"...

Any idea?


Currently I'm trying out some +skill builds to see if I like spamming grenades, turrets or mines :)
 
D3-FNC
Alphabridge
Striker
Tactician
Reclaimer
Firecrest

These are and will remain top tier sets in 1.6.

Sentry
Deadeye
Nomad
Banshee

They are good in specific situations. Deadeye could be great for pvp and last stand depending on PTS.

Lonestar
Hunter's Faith

Dismantle/sell these on sight :p

In the current 1.5 build, Reclaimer and Firecrest are strong as skill/support sets.
 

deoee

Member
D3-FNC
Alphabridge
Striker
Tactician
Reclaimer
Firecrest

These are and will remain top tier sets in 1.6.

Sentry
Deadeye
Nomad
Banshee

They are good in specific situations. Deadeye could be great for pvp and last stand depending on PTS.

Lonestar
Hunter's Faith

Dismantle/sell these on sight :p

In the current 1.5 build, Reclaimer and Firecrest are strong as skill/support sets.
Thanks for the list, I think I can build some of these :v)
Why is Reclaimer top tier?
 
Thanks for the list, I think I can build some of these :v)
Why is Reclaimer top tier?

Reclaimer's 4-piece set bonus is the Health Station with all three mods active at once (Life Support/Self-Revive, Ammo Cache, and Immunizer).

The 2 and 3 set bonuses include +Range and +Duration for the Health Station at least I think they still do.

This is all for the upcoming 1.6 Update by the way as the Reclaimer set functions differently in the current live 1.5 version of the game.
 
PvE is getting worse and worse with each PTS update.

With 200K Skill Power the cooldown period for skills feels super long.

Health Stations are made of glass now as they are incredibly easy to destroy by any method.

Toughness went up 55-60K (extra 37% of the 80K added + an increase to +Health rolls on gear and mods) but somehow feels worse than it did in PTS 2 (without a change to armor I can't see it getting better). At 380K Toughness with Overheal in Legendary, peak you head out of cover for a second, get hit 2-3 times resulting in health in last segment.

The Historian is the perfect example of these guys just throwing numbers around without any internal testing whatsoever. Zero.

Yeah, I'll be playing Ghost Recon for the next three days.
 

Dave1988

Member
Glad I put this game down when I did. It seems that Massive still has no idea how to balance this game and they're fumbling around in the dark.
 

GazzaGSi

Member
First look at the DZ leaderboards, pretty basic tbf and I didn't expect much but it's more rewards to earn whatever they may be... like Accomplished knee pads or something :p


Currently running a mix of HE/Exotic gear with the Famas (now bullfrog) and pakhan.
Stats sit at 360k DPS, 400k toughness, 150k skill.
Compared to my current console agent, I feel I put enemies down quicker but take more damage in shorter time in PVE but it isn't drastically different, almost like I'm running Reckless chest or something even though I'm using Barrets but with armour being reduced Barrets is only adding 3-4% when both skills are on cooldown anyway so that chest piece is pretty much not worth it anymore IMO.

I too noticed the increase in cooldown time, my pulse and heal are at 46 seconds each and without losing health to roll some skill haste to get them quicker that timer is pretty much fixed as running any less toughness is pointless. The Tenebrae however does help this, I've started using that to reduce the cooldowns as a secondary weapon (special talent - Destroying an enemy weak point resets skill cooldowns), That's 1 cleaner tank or grenadier pouch and you have your skills back so it helps for sure.

On the PVE side of things I've only tried Hard and Challenging, I suck quite abit on M/K so legendary would be a waste of time for me and the guys in the team, SnD's, HVT's, dailies and roaming elite bosses. From what I have tried, there definitely seems little difference between 1.5 and 1.6 PTS3 in terms of TTK and TTBK now compared to PTS1/2. (again, I cant comment on legendary).
 
First look at the DZ leaderboards, pretty basic tbf and I didn't expect much but it's more rewards to earn whatever they may be... like Accomplished knee pads or something :p



Currently running a mix of HE/Exotic gear with the Famas (now bullfrog) and pakhan.
Stats sit at 360k DPS, 400k toughness, 150k skill.
Compared to my current console agent, I feel I put enemies down quicker but take more damage in shorter time in PVE but it isn't drastically different, almost like I'm running Reckless chest or something even though I'm using Barrets but with armour being reduced Barrets is only adding 3-4% when both skills are on cooldown anyway so that chest piece is pretty much not worth it anymore IMO.

I too noticed the increase in cooldown time, my pulse and heal are at 46 seconds each and without losing health to roll some skill haste to get them quicker that timer is pretty much fixed as running any less toughness is pointless. The Tenebrae however does help this, I've started using that to reduce the cooldowns as a secondary weapon (special talent - Destroying an enemy weak point resets skill cooldowns), That's 1 cleaner tank or grenadier pouch and you have your skills back so it helps for sure.

On the PVE side of things I've only tried Hard and Challenging, I suck quite abit on M/K so legendary would be a waste of time for me and the guys in the team, SnD's, HVT's, dailies and roaming elite bosses. From what I have tried, there definitely seems little difference between 1.5 and 1.6 PTS3 in terms of TTK and TTBK now compared to PTS1/2. (again, I cant comment on legendary).

What is your Stamina? My main stats are 4152 Firearms, 4897 Stamina, and 5878 Electronics. I'm running 285K DPS w/G36 as main, 380K Toughness, 205K Skill Power, and 33% Armor Mitigation w/ Reclaimer chest, mask, knee pads, and gloves w/ Specialized backpack and Sturdy holster.

Just manged to complete a Legendary Times Square but it was a lot of work, and by a lot, I mean a lot with a ton of close calls. Got an "Exotic" Centurion for my troubles. That type of reward is going to upset some folks.

My dumbass suggested that they add more enemies that charge/attack the Health Stations, while I'm certainly not saying they took my suggestion they made the decision in any case and it is effective to say the least.

Like you say, nothing is a better overall pick than +Health just like +Armor before it although not the same by any means. I mean the EAD option is only 4-5% compared to 16,000+ for +Health.
 

BHK3

Banned
Oh man only level 7 and trying to do a mission with some randoms and we have died 5 times. Enemies sponge a heck of a lot.

You unfortunately have to treat it like any rpg with mmo elements; barely scratch through a high level area, get the better items they drop and use that to plow through whatever mission you're struggling.
 

GazzaGSi

Member
What is your Stamina? My main stats are 4152 Firearms, 4897 Stamina, and 5878 Electronics. I'm running 285K DPS w/G36 as main, 380K Toughness, 205K Skill Power, and 33% Armor Mitigation w/ Reclaimer chest, mask, knee pads, and gloves w/ Specialized backpack and Sturdy holster.

Just manged to complete a Legendary Times Square but it was a lot of work, and by a lot, I mean a lot with a ton of close calls. Got an "Exotic" Centurion for my troubles. That type of reward is going to upset some folks.

My dumbass suggested that they add more enemies that charge/attack the Health Stations, while I'm certainly not saying they took my suggestion they made the decision in any case and it is effective to say the least.

Like you say, nothing is a better overall pick than +Health just like +Armor before it although not the same by any means. I mean the EAD option is only 4-5% compared to 16,000+ for +Health.

I've just been having a tweak, added more skill haste to gear mods so lost some of the stats but cooldowns are much better.

Here's a pic of stats:


Barrets, Specialised, Short bow pads, Skull gloves, Nimble holster and tenacious mask.
Yeah the EAD is pretty useless as a major stat roll, I just made sure I got a decent EAD on the AR and rolled destructive, currently have brutal but will be switching back. All weapon damage bonus is 34.5%, EAD 40.5%, Mitigation is 33%.
I've put more in stamina to boost my toughness compared to your electronics but with the new scaling on stamina the overall toughness isn't much different at all, think Marco mentioned that in his video recently about how poor stamina now is so makes it worthwhile going for more electronics.

I'm kinda stuck with exoctics as they cut the free gear set caches from the PTS and being only level 5 or 6 in the main game I have not reached end game so have to create a new character every PTS update as your current created PTS character gets wiped.

Edit: Oh, and I new they were boosting the XP for collectibles but 110,000 for 1 echo is abit OTT!
 
I've just been having a tweak, added more skill haste to gear mods so lost some of the stats but cooldowns are much better.

Here's a pic of stats:



Barrets, Specialised, Short bow pads, Skull gloves, Nimble holster and tenacious mask.
Yeah the EAD is pretty useless as a major stat roll, I just made sure I got a decent EAD on the AR and rolled destructive, currently have brutal but will be switching back. All weapon damage bonus is 34.5%, EAD 40.5%, Mitigation is 33%.
I've put more in stamina to boost my toughness compared to your electronics but with the new scaling on stamina the overall toughness isn't much different at all, think Marco mentioned that in his video recently about how poor stamina now is so makes it worthwhile going for more electronics.

I'm kinda stuck with exoctics as they cut the free gear set caches from the PTS and being only level 5 or 6 in the main game I have not reached end game so have to create a new character every PTS update as your current created PTS character gets wiped.

I like the Sturdy holster because it puts me at 405K Toughness when I'm in the same cover for at least 4 seconds and apparently if I want to live I'll be staying in the same cover quite a bit.

Their explanation for taking away the Gear Set Caches in the PTS made little to no sense as I'd rather give the players who are giving the feedback a lot of different options and ways to play.

The gear I'm using (which is from the live 1.5 version) is probably what I'll be using for some time as it's rolled quite well.

All the enemies in Legendary hit harder, are faster, more tactical, more accurate, etc. It's vicious, honestly, and please don't get within melee distance. I don't know if you played Destiny but if you did and you experienced the Skolas fight with the Lightswitch modifier on it is very comparable to that experience in regards to the melee.
 

GazzaGSi

Member
I like the Sturdy holster because it puts me at 405K Toughness when I'm in the same cover for at least 4 seconds and apparently if I want to live I'll be staying in the same cover quite a bit.

Their explanation for taking away the Gear Set Caches in the PTS made little to no sense as I'd rather give the players who are giving the feedback a lot of different options and ways to play.

The gear I'm using (which is from the live 1.5 version) is probably what I'll be using for some time as it's rolled quite well.

All the enemies in Legendary hit harder, are faster, more tactical, more accurate, etc. It's vicious, honestly, and please don't get within melee distance. I don't know if you played Destiny but if you did and you experienced the Skolas fight with the Lightswitch modifier on it is very comparable to that experience in regards to the melee.

I couldn't quite understand the reasoning neither. They said they wanted people to go in last stand with their own gear but isn't it all maxed to 1272 anyway so it doesn't really matter whether it's from a cache or your own gear, it'll still end up maxed.

Haven't got round to Destiny yet although I do own it. i did however see a team of 4 get put down in 1 melee swing on legendary!

Just ran Lex afew times as that's always a good gauge for me on the differences due to running it so many times and definitely alot more squishy compared to 1.5
 
I couldn't quite understand the reasoning neither. They said they wanted people to go in last stand with their own gear but isn't it all maxed to 1272 anyway so it doesn't really matter whether it's from a cache or your own gear, it'll still end up maxed.

Haven't got round to Destiny yet although I do own it. i did however see a team of 4 get put down in 1 melee swing on legendary!

Just ran Lex afew times as that's always a good gauge for me on the differences due to running it so many times and definitely alot more squishy compared to 1.5

In waiting for the Ghost Recon Beta to unlock and considering I couldn't find anyone to play with for Legendary missions (I only found two full groups all night - not sure what to make of that) I decided to give Lexington a solo run on Challenging. When I got to the rooftop I felt the accuracy of the enemy was worse than it's ever been before and I know I was getting hit through cover a good bit as well.

Ultimately, it's hard to come up with a conclusion on anything as so much has been changed you have no idea what is really causing what so it's probably a combination of a lot things. From listening to the developers and reading between the lines it is very clear they do very little internal testing before deploying a change in each PTS build but rather just throw numbers around.

Instead of applying a bunch of changes at once and at such extreme ends of the spectrum I think they should have just implemented the Stamina and Electronic scaling changes and left everything else as is knowing that the game wasn't going to feel right initially but at least they would then be able to gather feedback/data in order to do necessary tweaking and continue to implement more and more changes until you had a solid working foundation to build upon. It just feels like they got way ahead of themselves at some point. Then again it's hard to create a solid foundation when you are focused on balancing the game for a "normalized" gear PvP mode while making global changes to all sorts of facets of the game.

To me the game feels like a huge departure from 1.4/5 and is a complete and utter mess without focus in the current PTS.
 
Ghost recon beta is weird.

Especially when u switch from third person to first person

Have you tried changing it in the settings to keep the TP/Over the shoulder aiming at all times?

The stock of a rifle, etc almost feels like it is towards the center of the body when in TP, which I didn't care for.

It was definitely weird using an MP5, PP19, P416, etc and firing a single bullet and getting a kill in relation to what I'm used to.

I think it will shine in co-op as something you can get lost in a bit as a huge open-world tactical shooter with vehicles. Overall customization looks like fun as well.
 
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