The Division (Tom Clancy's) - Catch All

Survival question. I have done some solo but really waiting for it to come to PS4 to play heavy (the people i normally play with are on ps4). What if any of the loot spawns is shared. Do you have to find/open twice as much stuff to succeed?

Thin_J wrote:
ranalin wrote:

I find Survival fun, and it's how i've picked up the bulk of my usable gear.

The first part is the core of why anyone should play Survival.

Again RNG is RNG, but the gear i've picked up from Survival have been closer to BiS for what i want than the hoard of gear i've had dumped on me from HVTs.

You've been profoundly lucky. The rewards are so so low for a losing run it can be pretty dire from a gear rewards standpoint.

I feel you on the holsters. I still haven't been able to get gloves for either Alphabridge or Nomad and I need one or the other to finish my build.

Savage gloves though. I have 1250+ main stat versions with Firearms, Stamina, and Electronics in my stash, all with at least one crit stat and +damage to elites. I got two more in two daily HVT runs after that last post. Vendor fodder.

Aetius wrote:

I'm not sure about this. If you make even some progress, you get 2-3 caches that each have 2-4 High-End items. I haven't made the extraction yet - came close, but couldn't close the deal on the last Hunter - but if I had I would have had six extracted caches in addition to the reward caches. That's a pretty hefty chunk of gear for a couple hours of play time.

Sure! It's absolutely decently rewarding if you win. But you just said two hours. Tell me... how many hours do you think most people will play vs how often they will extract successfully? Even if you won and extracted let's say three times in two hours you'd still lose out on drop totals vs farming other things.

If you find Survival more fun, that's the reason to hit Survival.

If you have a solid build and get into a group you can farm Clear Sky on Challenging and consistently, pretty much every single time, come through with 80+ items per hour. Over 60 on the low end if you screw up a few times and slow down progress through the mission.

Farming Lexington is easier, soloable, and will still churn out a consistent, reliable amount of loot. With the right build, even not overly refined, you can blast through it in 8 minutes and will generally average actually over one item per minute.

And the whole time for either Clear Sky or Lexington you're earning Phoenix Credits every run, which you can then use to buy set item or other high end caches at the special equipment vendor in the terminal, which all then give you more Phoenix Credits on top of items you can sell, and what you sell earns you credits that you can then use to buy more high end caches... that then give you more phoenix credits...

Yeah.

What's the strategy to do Lexington in 8 min on challenging? Is this solo or group?

@Bubblefuzz - Someone correct me if I'm wrong as maybe there are some headshot stacking builds post level 30, but in the very least it seems much easier to run with AR, LMG and SMG. I am finding it very hard to find a marksman rifle with enough single bullet damage to make them worthwhile against purples and yellows. FWIW marksman rifles can't even explode (purple or yellow) cleaner's flame tanks with 2 shots. The highest marksman rifle shot I have seen is 77k. I have LMGs and SMGs that do 48k at 500-800 rpm. (with 60-100 bullet clips) Suppression is also much more of a factor post level 30.
That being said I ran with a AR and marksman rifle for 99% of level 1-29.

Balthezor wrote:

What's the strategy to do Lexington in 8 min on challenging? Is this solo or group?

It's solo. The build doesn't work in a group because one person doesn't get all the kills.

You need four piece Alpha Bridge to start and one gun with Commanding and either Skilled or Dominant. If you have that, because of the way Lexington is put together you can keep your Tactical Link ultimate up the entire time and just run through the whole mission melting everything.

There's multiple choices on what other gear you choose to go with the Alpha Bridge pieces. Some go two piece Nomad for the healing, which is still the build I'm trying to put together myself, and others just go for two high end items like a Forceful chest ( boosts armor while your ultimate is up) or the kneepads that double your accolade rewards. Those will be significant running Lexington this way so you end up earning a bunch of proficiency caches.

The two big requirements are the 4pc Alphabridge and the Commanding and Skilled/Dominant weapon talents. The rest is somewhat flexible.

escher77 wrote:

Survival question. I have done some solo but really waiting for it to come to PS4 to play heavy (the people i normally play with are on ps4). What if any of the loot spawns is shared. Do you have to find/open twice as much stuff to succeed?

Loot is only shared in the starting safe houses. Which means when you go to one it'll have one Painkiller and one fabric. Everything out in the world is not shared save for some dressers or closets for clothes in a few of the apartments.

I run it with a group of 4 and yeah it takes a while because you're finding 4x the gear. But you also have 3 extra people looking as well. A good tactic if you're in a group of 4 is to split up in pairs before meeting back up and going into the DZ as a group.

Is there any benefit loot wise to playing the PVP version of Survivor or is the only difference the ability to kill other players?

Thanks Thin_J.

Any tips on where to find LMB soldiers in the DZ? I only find Rioters or Cleaners.

JeremyK wrote:

Is there any benefit loot wise to playing the PVP version of Survivor or is the only difference the ability to kill other players?

As far as I've read it's just the ability to kill other players.

JeremyK wrote:

Is there any benefit loot wise to playing the PVP version of Survivor or is the only difference the ability to kill other players?

20% more experience (not sure if that is also loot). However, I think more it is a play style preference. Personally, I much prefer PvP adding in more risk. Also on PvE I notice because players live longer (usually in PvP heard gets thinned to 14 pretty early) so a lot more empty containers and need to rush to harder areas to get the loot.

escher77 wrote:
JeremyK wrote:

Is there any benefit loot wise to playing the PVP version of Survivor or is the only difference the ability to kill other players?

20% more experience (not sure if that is also loot). However, I think more it is a play style preference. Personally, I much prefer PvP adding in more risk. Also on PvE I notice because players live longer (usually in PvP heard gets thinned to 14 pretty early) so a lot more empty containers and need to rush to harder areas to get the loot.

Correct. Not sure if you got answered up above, but playing in a group only painkillers are shared so yea you have to spend extra time finding enough stuff for everyone.

In PvE it's a pain in the ass. In PvP it's probably the way to go.

Thin_J wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

What's the strategy to do Lexington in 8 min on challenging? Is this solo or group?

It's solo. The build doesn't work in a group because one person doesn't get all the kills.

You need four piece Alpha Bridge to start and one gun with Commanding and either Skilled or Dominant. If you have that, because of the way Lexington is put together you can keep your Tactical Link ultimate up the entire time and just run through the whole mission melting everything.

There's multiple choices on what other gear you choose to go with the Alpha Bridge pieces. Some go two piece Nomad for the healing, which is still the build I'm trying to put together myself, and others just go for two high end items like a Forceful chest ( boosts armor while your ultimate is up) or the kneepads that double your accolade rewards. Those will be significant running Lexington this way so you end up earning a bunch of proficiency caches.

The two big requirements are the 4pc Alphabridge and the Commanding and Skilled/Dominant weapon talents. The rest is somewhat flexible.

I'll try and time it tonight, but i was doing it solo at a decent speed with just the shield build.

ranalin wrote:

I'll try and time it tonight, but i was doing it solo at a decent speed with just the shield build.

The Shield build is pretty great. I haven't been able to get a 4th defense set piece to put it together myself yet, but I have a couple of pretty great MP7 choices to use with it, and the pieces of the set I do have are some of the most ridiculously well rolled gear I've found. I keep waiting for that next piece though.

Lvl 28 + just 60 med points needed to upgrade the last 10% in base. Nearly there.

@Fangblackbone, cheers for the advice. I've tried grabbing, crafting, hanging onto and trying out various weapons over the last couple lvls to get away from the old M44. However I keep coming back to it, as at the moment at least for me it's still seems to be the most effective.

Going to install this again and try it out. Haven't played in ages!

Oh for the new folks that were worried they were dying too early. I've been leveling up a new toon and until i got my health score over 600 i was dead in one or two bursts. Once i hit that threshold i was able to survive without running around like a dancing chicken.

Thin_J wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

What's the strategy to do Lexington in 8 min on challenging? Is this solo or group?

It's solo. The build doesn't work in a group because one person doesn't get all the kills.

You need four piece Alpha Bridge to start and one gun with Commanding and either Skilled or Dominant. If you have that, because of the way Lexington is put together you can keep your Tactical Link ultimate up the entire time and just run through the whole mission melting everything.

There's multiple choices on what other gear you choose to go with the Alpha Bridge pieces. Some go two piece Nomad for the healing, which is still the build I'm trying to put together myself, and others just go for two high end items like a Forceful chest ( boosts armor while your ultimate is up) or the kneepads that double your accolade rewards. Those will be significant running Lexington this way so you end up earning a bunch of proficiency caches.

The two big requirements are the 4pc Alphabridge and the Commanding and Skilled/Dominant weapon talents. The rest is somewhat flexible.

I don't have a lot of skill, but this is very hard to pull off in the consoles. Not as easy to get headshots compared to mouse and keyboard.

Balthezor wrote:

I don't have a lot of skill, but this is very hard to pull off in the consoles. Not as easy to get headshots compared to mouse and keyboard.

Yeah I don't think I'd ever even try it on the Xbox. On the PC though, I can pretty much hit tactical link before every encounter on Lexington.

So base at 100%, beat the final mission boss and reached lvl 29 last night. Saw the screen explaining post endgame play and I fast travelled back to base and logged out. I'm guessing that's not quite the end and there's a final cut scene somewhere? If not that's a bit of a lacklustre finish.

Bubblefuzz wrote:

So base at 100%, beat the final mission boss and reached lvl 29 last night. Saw the screen explaining post endgame play and I fast travelled back to base and logged out. I'm guessing that's not quite the end and there's a final cut scene somewhere? If not that's a bit of a lacklustre finish.

There's another 2 things after the final helicopter thing. As vague as I can be.

Yeah and the last bit of story completes the loop nicely. For another cryptic hint.

I'm really digging my Striker build. I keep tweaking it (which is probably the most fun for me outside of pvp) and I've gone from doing 40k headshot crits to 120k when all my buffs line up right. I've not tried it with Tactical Link yet so it could do more.

I'm still very disappointed with the performance of the game. I had to turn my settings down just so it was playable which shouldn't be a consideration now that i have a much beefier rig.

When i last played with 1.2 I had 0 issues. 1.5 has been abysmal in this department.

It seems the Alpha Bridge is the most common build but the Stiker is clearly a close second. I've been playing mostly survival though so have not been min/maxing builds. I will do that when PS4 comes out.

b12n11w00t wrote:
Bubblefuzz wrote:

So base at 100%, beat the final mission boss and reached lvl 29 last night. Saw the screen explaining post endgame play and I fast travelled back to base and logged out. I'm guessing that's not quite the end and there's a final cut scene somewhere? If not that's a bit of a lacklustre finish.

There's another 2 things after the final helicopter thing. As vague as I can be. :P

fangblackbone wrote:

Yeah and the last bit of story completes the loop nicely. For another cryptic hint.

Cheers. I think I've just got it, correct me if missed something...

Spoiler:

Unknown Signal mission > Aaron Keener Echo > Final virus report - all done?

Hopefully all wrapped up - I'm going to continue to play I reckon. The lure of the loot is too tricky to resist.

I'll get Underground for sure, especially after picking up the game for a tenner, plus survival maybe when that's out on PS4.

Also I guess time to try and make sense of the world tiers, gear scores, builds, dailies, weeklies, incursions, search and destroy, target intel, high value targets and the different difficulty choices... and of course at least have another crack or two in the DZ.... That's what I've gleaned in the little time have had today to do a bit of a dig into post campaign completion and what's next... It's been tricky as most of the links when searched have been pre-patch guides from March - May time... so all a bit of a muddle to make sense of what's what and info overload up in my brain.

If anyone can recommend any links for up to date decent guides on all this stuff, please do chuck them my way. Ta.

PS4 1.5 performance is atrocious. So laggy.

I have noticed last couple days (on PS4) that sometimes there's now a real delay on reloading weapons. Every now and again doesn't even work at all and have had to shift my position till it works or empty the last few rounds of a clip and reload that way.

I tried survival and I'm shocked but I love it. I play it on the PVE version and really enjoy the experience. It's difficult for me to know when I will have an hour and 30 minutes to play but when I can, it's great.

What's the realistic level difference where a 1v1 PvP can competitive?

I'm asking from the standpoint that I decided to try exploring the DZ when I had some time to kill. I went into the area at level 10, and they allowed up to level 14 players. All player encounters I ran across were White labeled, which I surmised was neutral. I also noted that White also has a 100% rate of turning to red within 1 to 2 seconds, followed by my death shortly after in a hail of bullets.

Now, a few times there were 2v1 against me, which I totally expect to lose. What I found a little silly was that even though they were level 14, and I had a turret deployed, cover, and a healing deploy, they could storm my spot with nonstop gunfire from me, run point blank to me and either shoot me or melee me to death.

I know that I am inexperienced with the game mechanics and my gear and everything probably good with a few better pieces, but to watch another player in my DZ bracket Terminator past everything without any strategy and win without contest seemed a bit oddly balanced.

What should my expectations be here? Can a level 12 or level 13 go against a level 14? Does all gear need to be specific built and farmed outside of the DZ first to be the highest grade possible to be competitive? How far can tactics sway a level/gear disparity?

What little I was able to explore the DZ had a certain edgy feel to it. I was surprised to find all drop boxes in the DZ to have DZ level restrictions. That places all of that explored content well beyond me even opening at this rate. I assume that DZ levels are gained by actually defeating an NPC or PC in the DZ, of which cannot happen until I can get past the PC gank squads. Is there anything I can do with zero DZ level or is grinding the DZ level really the first step?

thyarcher wrote:

What's the realistic level difference where a 1v1 PvP can competitive?

I'm asking from the standpoint that I decided to try exploring the DZ when I had some time to kill. I went into the area at level 10, and they allowed up to level 14 players. All player encounters I ran across were White labeled, which I surmised was neutral. I also noted that White also has a 100% rate of turning to red within 1 to 2 seconds, followed by my death shortly after in a hail of bullets.

Now, a few times there were 2v1 against me, which I totally expect to lose. What I found a little silly was that even though they were level 14, and I had a turret deployed, cover, and a healing deploy, they could storm my spot with nonstop gunfire from me, run point blank to me and either shoot me or melee me to death.

I know that I am inexperienced with the game mechanics and my gear and everything probably good with a few better pieces, but to watch another player in my DZ bracket Terminator past everything without any strategy and win without contest seemed a bit oddly balanced.

What should my expectations be here? Can a level 12 or level 13 go against a level 14? Does all gear need to be specific built and farmed outside of the DZ first to be the highest grade possible to be competitive? How far can tactics sway a level/gear disparity?

What little I was able to explore the DZ had a certain edgy feel to it. I was surprised to find all drop boxes in the DZ to have DZ level restrictions. That places all of that explored content well beyond me even opening at this rate. I assume that DZ levels are gained by actually defeating an NPC or PC in the DZ, of which cannot happen until I can get past the PC gank squads. Is there anything I can do with zero DZ level or is grinding the DZ level really the first step?

The main thing to remember about this game which is easy to forget at the start is that it's a RPG first then a shooter.

While shooting skills is needed to survive in the DZ your stats are more important. Folks who play primarily in the DZ (regardless of level) make a point to have a bare minimum of 50% armor and then stack their other stats depending on what they're focusing on.

Just going in to look around and not being built for it ends up with results you've experienced. At low levels the results are more dramatic because it's actually harder to get what you need gear wise.

thyarcher wrote:

What should my expectations be here? Can a level 12 or level 13 go against a level 14? Does all gear need to be specific built and farmed outside of the DZ first to be the highest grade possible to be competitive? How far can tactics sway a level/gear disparity?

Expect that those level 14s are characters leveled and designed specifically for ganking in the level 14 DZ. They have purple DZ equipment that is the best available, which means that if you're coming in off the street in greens and blues you've got at least a 2-to-1 disadvantage in stats. They have all the perks, talents, signature skills, and master-level bonuses. They are built for extremely high burst DPS and to be resistant to the same.

Tactics can help a little, but don't expect success against them, at all. It's always best to run away.

What little I was able to explore the DZ had a certain edgy feel to it. I was surprised to find all drop boxes in the DZ to have DZ level restrictions. That places all of that explored content well beyond me even opening at this rate. I assume that DZ levels are gained by actually defeating an NPC or PC in the DZ, of which cannot happen until I can get past the PC gank squads. Is there anything I can do with zero DZ level or is grinding the DZ level really the first step?

Grinding the DZ is the first step. It *is* possible to make progress solo in the DZ. I did it by playing in off hours, staying away from the entrances and extraction points, and focusing on getting DZ xp and getting out alive. Since you can't wear the set gear at this level, expect a lot of "one step forward, two steps back" action with your DZ level.

Extraction with gear comes later. Once you have the gear to survive an extraction in DZ3 or 4, you can sometimes make it out. My most successful technique was to lead the gank squads on a wild-goose chase - pop a flare at the DZ2 extraction point (a favorite gank spot) and then run to the DZ3 or DZ4 extraction spot while they are milling around looking for you in DZ2 and fighting NPCs. I would then pop the flare, pull the extraction pop away from the extraction point, run to the rope, attach my stuff, and bail, usually north into areas with tougher NPCs to slow them down. This had a success rate of about 30%.

Good tips, any for scaling that up to end game? I haven't been in the DZ since about lvl 20 and had a little success, but in the end was too frustrating... now though... might give it another crack...

I've hit lvl 30 / base 100% and after a couple hours doing search and destroy missions and a couple high level targets I'm now at Gear Lvl 140-ish. All gold, still sniping and mostly geared for stamina to stick around (about 155k), then electronics below that, lastly DPS. Enjoying the mines skill, the scattering one that homes in on multiple targets and bounces over cover. Can pretty much throw one of those blind if bump into a group of Red / purple (with bleed) NPCsand job done. Viable in the DZ? basically the question.

Feeling a complete contrast to the beginning of the game where felt super vulnerable.

Edit: Oh and I never buy season passes for games, usually piecemeal or wait for a GOTY edition... however enjoying The Division so much (Battling with Overwatch for top spot in my GOTY list) and as I picked up the game for just a tenner, stumped up the full asking price for Season Pass last night.