The Division Tips and Tricks

With The Division finally out in the wild, we thought it would be a good idea to create a list of various tips and tricks to help you get by in the game. The aim of these tips is to help you find general and advanced answers about gearing, weapons, Dark Zone, hidden chests and keys, combat and much more.

General Tips

• As soon as you get to Manhattan, go to Camp Hudson and scan the notice board, since those encounters are different from the ones you get in the Base of Operations.
• In the Base of Operations, you can choose which wing you want to upgrade first or upgrade all of them equally.
• The Situation Board in the base updates your map with encounters
• You can fast travel to safe spots like BoO by opening a map, selecting the destination and pressing the Fast Travel button.
• You can even fast travel to any of your teammates, unless they are in combat.
• When setting a destination on the map, keep in mind that the route won’t include shortcuts like subways, alleys, ladders, etc. You need to find them yourself.
• Gain extra XP by shooting (rabid) dogs and helping citizens who can also give you gear, weapons and appearance items.
• You can heal yourself immediately just by double-clicking the First Aid skill. This principle works for all other skills.
• If you press the Run button as soon as you start climbing the ladder, you will climb faster. Also, holding it down will make you slide down the ladder.
• Same level gear can have different characteristics, so make sure you inspect them carefully.
• Deconstruct your unwanted gear at any time to free up inventory space and get resources that are used for crafting in Division. You can also mark them as junk and sell them at vendors. They have a “sell all junk” button that saves time.
• Collectibles give you experience when you collect them. It is possible that they will give you something else as well in the full version of the game, but we still don’t know.
• Change your settings so that you leave cover with the press of a button. This will stop you from rolling out when you actually just want to peak out and aim at enemies.
• You can also change the settings so that the HUD disappears when you are not in combat. Some players say that the HUD makes an unpleasant sound as it goes away.
• You can change your Uplay username by opening the Uplay launcher, clicking on your username in the top right and selecting account information. There you will see an editable field where you can input your desired name and click save.

Advanced

• While aiming down sights you can switch camera sides by pressing the left thumbstick down on console or the Shift key on PC.
• Tag enemies for the whole group by pressing Up on Dpad or Z on PC. You will activate a 5-second countdown until the attack.
• During the beta version of the game, the number of the items you could extract from the Dark Zone was 30. This meant that if you had, for example, 27 items in your stash, you wouldn’t be able to extract any of the 4 items you have obtained in the Dark Zone.
• There is a quick way to take the items from the stash in the base and return to the Dark Zone. The idea is to have all but one of your group fast travel to the base, grab the items and fast travel back to the others. After they’ve come back, the remaining players do the same.
• Although it’s very difficult, you can determine which skills an agent has by carefully observing his backpack.

Weapons

Note that the DPS is not the most important thing about a weapon. It is actually created by combining various weapon characteristics like single bullet damage, critical damage, magazine size, etc. For that reason, it is better to focus on the individual qualities of a weapon, rather than solely on the DPS.

• Weapon mods are improvements that can be attached to weapons, and upgrade them.
• Assault rifles – versatile weapons that work best at medium range. They can be fairly useful at close range, but there is a lot of recoil, so you will have to take that into consideration when firing.
• Light machine guns – they are great for suppressive fire and have low recoil, making them better than assault rifles. Sustaining fire actually makes them more accurate.
• Submachine Guns – best at close range, great against unarmored enemies and small groups. They add a great bonus to your critical hit chance, so you can try combining them with other weapons. They are also great weapons to shoot while running.
• Shotguns are most useful for very close encounters. The sawed off shotguns are very strong, but you need both rounds to hit the enemy.
• Handguns – these weapons are used as a final resorts, but they can be quite useful, especially in PvP combat. If you run out of ammo during a fight, it is better to switch to a sidearm immediately than to start reloading. Also, ballistic shields only allow for sidearms when they’re deployed.
• Marksman rifles – long range weapons usually have a huge headshot bonus.
• Some scopes allow for several levels of zoom.

Chests and Keys

• There are three types of chests – some of them can be opened by anyone, some require specific Dark Zone ranks and for some you’ll need Access Keys.
• Various chests provide different items like armor, gear, weapons, consumables, credits, etc.
• You are most likely to find Dark Zone Keys by killing AI enemies guarding elite targets.

Enemies and Combat Tips

• How to recognize thugs: Women are not thugs. They usually move in groups and talk to each other in a deeper voice.
• Enemies with flamethrowers can be shot in the tank to make them explode.
• When shooting, white numbers represent standard hits, blue signify armor, orange are critical hits and red are headshots.
• Shooting from cover without aiming is useful when the enemy is standing just outside your cover.
• When you run out of ammo in the middle of the fight, it is better to switch weapons than reload.
• Try to learn your enemies’ attack patterns.
• Use your grenades to start a fight with multiple unsuspecting NPCs. They will run from the explosion, but not toward cover.

Consumables

• Holding down the medkit button will open the consumables menu.
• Food can be accessed through the ammo type submenu.
• Canned food increases your healing effects by 40%, energy bars removes negative effects, water increases your damage to elite enemies by 20% and soda reduces cooldown of all skills by 30%.

Dark Zone

• You have to be a certain “PvE level” to enter the Dark Zone.
• The leveling system in the Dark Zone is separate from the regular one.
• You can get DZ credits by farming Dark Zone chests and killing enemies.
• Fighting AI for loot is safer than attacking other players.
• Dying removes some of your Dark Zone funds, items and XP.
• Visit Dark Zone vendors often, because their inventory is updated on a regular basis.
• The loot that drops when you kill NPCs can’t be grabbed by another player, so you don’t have to hurry taking it.
• Every Dark Zone has a limited number of players in an instance. You can change instances by going through the matchmaking system and joining a group. You will know that you’ve made the transition to another instance if you see a loading screen.
• Dark Zone chest are rare loot containers where you can get the best loot, as well as Dark Zone currency. You’ll probably need Dark Zone Keys to open them.

Extraction

• If the people near the extraction zone don’t have yellow packs on their back, they are most likely there to bait you and steal your item.
• It is not necessary to shoot flares in the middle of the extraction zone. It’s better to find a strategically good position first.
• You don’t have to stay in the extraction zone the whole time. You can signal the chopper, run away and return a couple of seconds before it arrives.
• Since the extraction flares are unlimited, you can use them to create false signals and draw enemies away.
• It’s usually the larger groups that go rogue. If you’re alone at the extraction point and players come one by one, they probably won’t go rogue, fearing other players they don’t know.

Going Rogue

• Attacking another agent in the zone gives you a rogue status and puts a bounty on your head for a limited amount of time. The timer will increase if you don’t lay low until it expires.
• If you set up a turret and another player accidentally shoots at it, the turret will return fire and you will go rogue because of it. (Although this may be fixed in the full version, it is still a serious issue now).
• If any of your teammates goes rogue, so will you.
• When you run out of ammo in rogue mode, just change your weapon type.
• Don’t engage large groups of rogue players by yourself in the Dark Zone.
• Killing rogue agents is very rewarding, so be on a lookout.

Remember that the Dark Zone is not something you should be afraid of. Feel free to explore it at your own pace as most of the players are friendly and cooperative.