Games
If you’re heading into The Division 2 here are a few beginner tips and tricks to keep in mind during your patrols of Washington D.C.
We’ve recently wrapped up a weekend’s worth of play in The Division 2 Closed beta, giving us our first opportunity to stomp around the new setting of Washington D.C. and see how that part of the US is handling the dystopian environment it finds itself in. With heavily-armed scavengers running amok on the streets it can be quite a harrowing place to explore, so we’ve put a few tips together for fresh-faced agents who are stepping onto the White House lawn and beyond for the first time in the Ubisoft RPG shooter.
1. Return to your base of operations regularly
In The Division 2, you get to take over The White House as your base of operations. Not only is this a pretty sweet place to call home, but it’s also where you’ll be able to make use of the services of various NPC allies you recruit throughout the game. It’s worth returning fairly regularly for this reason alone.
One of the most important people you’ll want to familiarise yourself with at The White House is the Quartermaster as you’ll spend the SHD and skill points you accumulate from completing missions across the city and levelling up with him. Be sure to keep track of how many of these you have in reserve and spend when available to improve your abilities.
Passive perks such as a second weapon slot and second skill slot are vital ones to take as early as possible to give you more options during combat. You’ll also want to look at increasing your inventory size for both equipment and resources to save you needing to dump items in your stash often. Taking the bonus experience on headshot kills is also a worthwhile choice to get you levelled up faster.
2. Learn a support skill early
The U.S. may be in the midst of a complete dystopian meltdown, but as a Division agent, you have access to a whole host of fancy high-tech gadgetry to make your job considerably easier to do. Many of these are aggressive options, such as explosive seeker mines or sniper turrets, that can help you fend off attacks from the Hyena gang and other opposing factions. When you’re starting out, though, we would absolutely recommend you take a more support-oriented skill to give you and your squadmates some survivability in gunfights.
The fixer drone is perfect for this: it can be used to repair your armour levels or – with a tap of the assigned hotkey – the armour of your allies too. It’s especially useful as the drone offers a constant stream of armour restoration for a significant period of time, so if you pop out of cover and take a few hits it’ll be fixed again in no time while you hunker down. Just be careful of any enemies who will try to shoot it down.
Of course, you do have armour kits which can repair your gear too, but with a limited supply the fixer drone can be a much more regular option and you can save those resources for when you’re truly in a bind. Later in the game, you’ll have access to other support options including a version of the seeker mine that can roll around the battlefield restoring armour, but the drone is a powerful early tool.
3. Make use of backup when attacking control points
Throughout D.C. you’ll find various factions have taken hold of vital control points throughout the city. These can be important during The Division 2 as a way to fast-travel or as places to hand over gathered supplies in order to earn a huge boost of experience points. You’ll also unlock a supply room full of loot when you liberate them, as well as progress towards completing certain projects in the area which will grant even further rewards such as experience and mods.
Converting a control point back under your command is not an easy task though – especially if you’re playing solo at the time. Fortunately, you can call in some nearby allies using your flare gun when you approach the area. We’d strongly suggest you do this and wait for the NPC backup to arrive if no other agents are in your squad at the time.
For the cynical and slightly sadistic players among us, they do an excellent job of drawing fire away from you, giving you the room to push forward or outflank any enemies. To be fair to them, they also do an excellent job when helping defend the zone from a counter-attack by competently manning turrets or laying down suppressing fire. They’re absolutely worth having at your back.
4. Don’t get too attached to your early weapons and equipment
As is the case with many RPGs, you’ll be climbing up the levels in the early game so fast that much of the gear you’re using becomes redundant before you’ve even had the chance to settle into it. This can be a bit of a problem, though, if you’ve found a particular gun you like and want to stick with it. Even if it’s massively below your current level and takes hours to take down a single basic enemy!
It may be a pain to move on from that sniper rifle or assault rifle, but do whatever you can to not get too settled into your early game loadout and cycle through equipment regularly so you maintain a decent power level. With the rate at which loot drops in the game there’s a good chance you’ll find something similar in time anyway.
5. Upgrade settlements and complete projects
One of the new features in The Division 2 is the ability to upgrade settlements for survivors across Washington D.C. It’s absolutely something worth doing as this is the way you’ll be able to recruit others to your base of operations at the White House.
Over at the first Theatre settlement, for example, is Inaya, who will open up crafting services for you once you’ve improved the area enough. It’ll also give you a warm and fuzzy feeling seeing the inhabitants playing with the toys or appreciating the art you liberated from a nearby location.
You’ll also want to work through the Projects each new location opens up. Many of these will give you a straightforward list of tasks to complete – some of which you’ll be steadily working towards during your patrols of the city. Completing these give a big experience boost and access to a number of blueprints for weapon attachments, mods and other crafted gear.
6. Unlock safe house in each region
Sometimes you really can’t be bothered to trudge all the way through the streets of Washington D.C. to get to your destination – especially if there’s a chance you’ll run into a roaming pack of scavengers every time you duck down an alleyway or try and cross the road.
To save all this hassle, be on the lookout for the safe house in each region of the city. These secure areas can give you a respite from the chaos of the outside world and also serve as fast travel points for when you need to hop to a nearby destination.
They also come with a couple of other benefits, such as offering a place for you to sell equipment away from the main hubs when your inventory is full and make contact with other players who are looking to job a squad. Be sure to gather any agent data left behind in each safe house too as this will mark SHD caches on your map which can be looted for points to purchase more perks.
7. Be extremely cautious in the Dark Zone
One of The Division 2’s most exciting areas in the Dark Zone: a truly lawless location where other players can turn on you in an instant to steal any loot you’ve gathered. These tense standoffs usually occur at the extraction points dotted through a location where you can deposit any contaminated equipment you’ve found ready to be collected once you leave.
As it can be some of the game’s most powerful gear, other agents may decide to go rogue in order to try and claim your hard-earned goods for themselves. With that in mind, you’ll want to be very cautious if you do venture into the Dark Zone. We’d recommend finding a buddy or a group and exploring it together so you always have someone at your back if things turn nasty.
When someone does go rogue, though, it can be hugely rewarding to form bonds with legitimate agents in the surrounding area and hunt the deviants down. On the other hand, if you feel like joining the dark side yourself there’s an undeniable thrill to playing the bad guy for a short while. Just think of all the potential extra loot if you can get away with it!
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