After months of waiting, Tom Clancy’s The Division is finally available for purchase in stores across North America. Naturally, that means there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of gamers looking for the most effective strategies to make their way through the early hours of Ubisoft’s latest shooter.
With that in mind, we’ve rounded up our tips for those new to The Division, or still struggling to find their footing in the new massively-multiplayer shooter. We’re tried to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so you won’t find strategies for any of the game’s early boss encounters or walkthroughs of specific missions. But the tips on this page should be more than enough to get you started down the right path to building one of The Division’s best agents. If nothing else, we should at least be able to help you decide what to do with all that extra loot taking up space in your inventory.
Burst Fire Is Best
There is a wide variety of automatic weapons for players to use in The Division. But there aren’t many scenarios when you should actually be holding the trigger down longer than necessary for a quick burst of fire. With the exception of large machine guns, which actually become more accurate the longer the trigger is held, every class of weapons in The Division becomes less accurate during sustained fire. So fire in short bursts to make sure you’re getting the most out of each clip.
Aim For Weak Spots
Headshots are always good but some enemy units have other weak points that can be used to your advantage. Shooting Cleaners’ gas tanks will eventually ignite the tank. A few seconds after it’s ignited the tank will explode, killing the Cleaner it’s attached to and dealing damage to anyone who happened to be standing nearby. Shooting grenadiers mid-toss will occasionally make them drop a grenade at their own feet and shooting their satchel several times will trigger a deadly explosion. The basic gaming rule applies - if an enemy has a spot that’s red, shoot at it.
Flank Your Enemies
Flanking is vital to your success in The Division. Moving to surround your enemy frequently makes it easier to get close to your opposition, making headshots easier and exposing weaknesses in the enemy formation. If you’re playing alone, we recommend carrying the sentry turret because the cover fire it provides makes flanking your enemies much easier. In a group, suppressing your enemies (or waiting until they’re suppressed) will make it easier for your team to reposition without taking damage.
Rescue Captain Roy Benitez ASAP
Shortly after arriving in Manhattan, players will be directed to the JTF’s former base of operations. At this point, you’ll be asked to rescue three NPCs, each of whom will be tasked with running one wing of the base. As soon as you hit level 5, or have friends strong enough to carry you through the mission, head to the Lincoln Tunnel Checkpoint and rescue Captain Roy Benitez. In addition to unlocking the security wing of your base, opening up the opportunity for additional upgrades, players will gain access to the Experienced Agent Perk, which gives a permanent 10 percent increase to all earned experience.
Keep A Close-Range Weapon Equipped
There are lots of enemies that like to get up close and personal in The Division. We recommend keeping a weapon designed for close-quarters combat, like a shotgun or SMG, equipped in your second slot to deal with gang members that get a bit too close for comfort. Either will work in a pinch, although the community seems to be leaning towards shotguns right now. Just make sure you’re not stuck trying to mop up melee enemies with a marksman rifle or single-shot assault rifle.
Using your melee attack is also a great way to stun enemies who sneak up on you, giving players a few seconds to put distance between themselves and their assailant(s).
Choose The Right Skills/Talents For The Job
There’s no shortage of loot in The Division, but it’s also important for players to make sure the skills and talents they’ve equipped will help during their next mission. If your party is getting wiped out over and over again in a particular spot, there’s a good chance that you or one of your allies need to find a different strategy.
If your squad is being overwhelmed by the number of enemies attacking you, it might be time for someone in the group to set up a turret. If enemy grenades or flamethrowers are forcing you out of cover, you can activate the On The Move talent to earn a 30 percent reduction of incoming damage every time you kill an enemy. There’s a talent or perk for pretty much every situation in The Division. Just make sure you’ve planned ahead because you can’t swap skills or talents in the middle of a mission, and no one wants to reset their progress due to lack of preparation. If you’re not sure what to choose, ask your team how they’re specced and fill in the gaps.
Resupply Before Missions
As we mentioned in our first impressions of the The Division, one of the game’s best features is being able to queue for missions from anywhere on the map. Part of the reason this is so great is because it means players don’t have any excuse to show up for a mission without a full stash of ammunition, grenades and med kits. Before every mission, make sure you take a trip back to the Base of Operations and use the resupply box by the entrance to top off all of your supplies. Your team will appreciate it.
Never Sell Low-Quality Gear
Credits don’t exactly rain from the skies but that’s still no reason to start selling the low-quality gear you don’t need. The payouts won’t be enough to buy the handful of decent items being sold by the vendors at your base, and there’s nothing else to spend the cash on. Instead, break low-quality gear down into crafting supplies every time you get a chance. Not only will this provide you with everything you need to build your own gear, crafting supplies can be combined into higher-quality materials when needed.
Give Consumables To Civilians
From time to time, players will notice specific Civilians in Need wandering towards them on the streets of New York City. While it might be tempting to ignore their pleas, particularly since they’re asking for the consumables you may have come to rely on in shootouts, we recommend handing over the food, water and other items when requested by a civilian. You’ll be rewarded with some experience points and new loot. Typically, players will receive a new cosmetic item. But we’ve also been rewarded with a few low-quality weapons during our travels, too.
Don’t Skip Side Missions
In addition to being valuable sources of experience, side missions are the primary means of acquiring new crafting recipes in The Division. For that reason, we recommend taking the time to complete all of the side missions you receive from JTF officers and situation boards in Manhattan. And if hunting down collectibles is your thing, players who unlock the Intel Discovery perk and finish all the side missions and encounters in a named area will have icons for all the phone recordings, survival guides and other collectibles in the neighborhood added to their map.
Visit Safe Houses To Save Time
As you may have already noticed, it takes a fair amount of time to run across the map in The Division. To save time, spend an hour or two visiting all of the safe houses you can reach without being slaughtered by random enemies on the street. If you have friends who’d made it farther in the game, party up with them and ask them to visit safe houses you can’t reach so that you can fast travel to their location and unlock the safe house for yourself. In addition to being vital sources of side quests throughout the city, each safe house gives the player an extra fast travel point that reduces their travel time in NYC. The sooner you unlock them, the better.
Build The Armory (Security Wing) ASAP
Since you’ve already rescued Captain Benitez and started rebuilding your security wing, there’s little reason not to make rebuilding the armory your next priority. Once you’ve activated the armory, an advanced weapons vendor will be available at the player’s base of operations. His inventory isn’t very extensive, generally limited to just three or four items, but the weapons sold by the advanced vendor will always be blue-quality or better. Eventually, he’ll even sell purple gear.
Power Leveling Is Available If You’re Impatient
It’s easy to power level players in The Division. If you’ve got a few friends who’ve already gained more levels than you, form a party, head to whatever safe house is nearest their current location, collect the local jobs and then stay at a safe distance while they complete a few side missions in more dangerous sections of the city. In most cases, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two for you to get caught up.
Other Tips
- Hold the Start button to go straight to the menu screen
- Use the Up button on your D-Pad to mark targets. Holding the Up button, instead of a quick press, will start a five second countdown that your whole team can see. Use the “Z” key if you’re playing The Division with a mouse and keyboard instead of a controller.
- Stay out of the Dark Zone until you’re at least level 10. Even then, you’re pretty much always going to want a group of friends to go with you.
- Don’t forget that you can re-roll the stats on your gear once you’ve finished the Recalibration upgrade for your base of operations. If you find a piece of gear that just needs one small tweak to be amazing, stop by your tech wing, pay for a re-roll and cross your fingers.
- Don’t walk away from a Situation Board until it says your data transfer is 100 percent complete. Otherwise there’s a good chance you won’t actually get markers for all of the side quests in that region of the map.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional coverage of The Division throughout 2016 and for as long as Massive supports The Division in the years to come.
