One of the big differences between The Division and Destiny is your character in The Division (TD) starts out "classless". In Destiny (D1) your first choice was whether you want to be Titan, Hunter, or Warlock.2 Then as you progressed with your character in D1 you gained talents specific to your D1 class. In TD, your character starts out as an Agent with no unique abilities as it relates to a D1 class/sub-class.
So how do you customize your TD character?
In my previous post I went over the stats and abilities your character has in The Division. All of your stats come from the equipment you put on your TD character. Gear will drop with different colors, representing the rarity and power the item is:
- Specialized (blue)
- Superior (purple)
- High-End (yellow)
- Exotic (red)
- Gear Set (teal)
- Classified Gear Set (teal)
Once you hit L30 and playing on WT5, you'll be focused on Exotic, normal Gear Set, and Classified Gear Set loot. All other loot will have reduced perks or mod slots, so sell them or dismantle them if you happen to get any.
Agent Gear Loadouts
In TD, you character has 6 pieces of gear to wear:
- Backpack
- Body Armor
- Mask
- Gloves
- Knee Pads
- Holsters
Each piece of gear can be mixed and matched from various Gear Sets. Gear Sets are specialized pieces of gear that give your character additional abilities that are unlocked based on the number and type that is being worn.
There are currently 14 different types of Gear Sets available in the game.
| Gear Set Name | Talent Focus |
|---|---|
| AlphaBridge | Solo/Survival |
| Banshee | DZ PVP |
| D3-FNC | Hybrid/Tank |
| DeadEYE | Sniper |
| Final Measure | Specialized |
| FireCrest | DPS/Offensive |
| Hunter’s Faith | Long Range |
| Lone Star | High DPS |
| Path of the Nomad | DZ PVP |
| Predator’s Mark | Support/DPS |
| Reclaimer | Support/Healer |
| Sentry’s Call | Consistent Precision |
| Striker’s Battlegear | Assault-Focused |
| Tactician’s Authority | Support/Skills |
The "class" abilities of your character are unlocked when you equip multiple pieces of gear and trigger the intrinsic perks of a Gear Set. You can see all the Gear Set bonuses here - Reddit Gear Set Bonus List or a PDF Gear Set List.
You'll see Gear Sets having stacking perks when wearing 4 pieces of the same Gear Set or 6 pieces of the same Classified Gear Sets. To unlock the 6 piece Gear Set perks, you need to have all 6 pieces be a Classified Gear Set. Note: You can mix/match normal and Classified to still get the max 4 piece perk to activate - e.g. 2 pieces of normal Lone Star and 2 pieces of Classified Lone Star will unlock the the 2, 3, and 4 piece perks.
There are a couple of differences between a normal Gear Set and a Classified Gear set:
- Normal Gear sets have a stat point range of 1114 - 1272.
- Classified Gear Sets can have stat points that range from 1274 - 1401 points.6
- Only Classified Gear Sets can unlock the 5th and 6th piece perks.
There is an Exotic backpack, the Ninja Messenger Bag, that has the unique perk of triggering Gear Set perks. If you have one Gear Set piece on, the Ninja Messenger Bag will trigger the 2nd piece perk on that Gear Set. This ramps up to wearing 3 pieces of Gear Set, but activating the 4th piece perk. The Ninja Messenger Bag does not enable Classified Gear Set perks.
The primary benefit of having normal or Classified Gear Set pieces, say over high end (gold) equipment, is that you can mix and match the number of pieces you have on to tweak the perks your character has activated. For example, with 2 pieces of Lone Star gear you unlock the '+100% Ammo Capacity' perk. So now you could mix 2 pieces of Lone Star with 4 pieces of Striker gear and have the following perks active on your Character:
- +100% Ammo Capacity (Lone Star 2 Piece)
- +20% Stability (Striker 2 Piece)
- +10% Enemy Armor Damage (Striker 3 Piece)
- Every consecutive hit deals 1% more damage. Stacks up to 100%. Missing shots drops bonus by 2%. Bonus is reduced by 1% every second. (Striker 4 Piece)
So even if you don't have a full set of Classified Gear Set, you can get some pretty interesting perks enabled for your character.
At of the time of this post, the top Gear Sets in the game are:
- Path of the Nomad (PVP)
- Preditor (PVP/Solo)
- Striker (PVE/Solo)
- Reclaimer (when on a team)
You'll normally see people playing the following activities because they have the highest chance of dropping normal and Classified Gear Set pieces:
- Global Event Exotic cache (best chance)
- Exotic caches (Legendary level missions)
- Weekly Assignment Caches
- Named bosses in the LZ or DZ
- Named HVT targets - 3% drop rate
- Key Chests in DZ
- Teal Gear Set caches (DZ)
- Rank 40+ in Last Stand/Skirmish
Gear Mod Slots
In addition to the perks you have with the Gear Set pieces, different pieces of gear can have different modifications (mods) applied. There are 2 types of mods that can be applied:
- Stat Mods: Boosts the stat points for Firearms, Stamina, or Electronics.
- Performance Mods: Enhance the performance of your skills.
The number and types of mods that can be applied depends on the piece of gear. Here's each gear piece with the type and number of mods that can be applied.
| Gear Piece | Stat Mod | Performance Mod |
|---|---|---|
| Backpack | 2 | 1 |
| Body Armor | 2 | |
| Masks | 1 | - |
| Gloves | - | - |
| Knee Pads | 1 | 1 |
| Holsters | - | 1 |
Stat Mods
As explained earlier, Stat Mods boost your characters raw stat numbers: Firearms, Stamina, or Electronics. Applying a Stat Mod to your gear will raise a specific Stat 'x' points.
In the image above, I'm applying an Electronics Stat Mod to my gear that will add +263 Electronics points to my stats, which equates to 7,890 Skill Power (SP) points. You will apply Stat Mods to raise a certain stat to unlock Gear Set perks (e.g. 9000 stamina for 6 piece Predator) or unlock weapons perks (more on that in Part 3). Stat mods have a range of 228-267 points for WT5/L34 mods, so dismantle/sell anything below 260 points.
Stat Mods normally have another perk that gets applied when the mod is applied to a piece of gear. This mod affects your resilience to damage or adds a buff to your stat numbers.
| Stat Mod Perk | Mod Detail | Mod Range |
|---|---|---|
| Critical Hit Chance | Additional chance to inflect critical hit damage | 1.0% |
| Health | Points added to Health Point pool | 2837 - 3335 |
| Exotic Damage Resistance | Resistance to damage from burning, bleed, explosion, etc.5 | 1.0% - 2.0% |
| All Resistance | Resistance to status effects from gas, blindness, etc | 1.0 - 2.0% |
| Skill Haste | Decreases regen time for skills | 2.0% - 3.0% |
| Skill Power | Increase points for Skill Power | 2837 - 3335 |
| Signature Resource Gain | Decreases regen time for Signature Skill | 3.0% - 4.0% |
If you have multiple mods with the same perk, e.g. 2 mods that both have Skill Haste, those will stack and reduce you skill regen time by the sum of the percentages.
Performance Mods
Applying a Performance Mod will modify one your abilities. These mods help elevate the power of the ability that you've selected for your character. For example, I pulled off all the mods on my character and the stats for my fire turret are:
| Attribue | Base | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Damage | 982 HP | 1802 HP |
| Range | 12.0m | 12.0m |
| Lifetime | 45.0s | 45.0s |
| Health | 77,158 HP | 102,888 HP |
| Cooldown | 67.50s | 58.40s |
Now in my inventory I found a Performance mod that will increase the duration of a turret by 7%:
I applied the Performance mod onto a piece of my equipped gear.
| Attribue | Base | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Damage | 982 HP | 1802 HP |
| Range | 12.0m | 12.0m |
| Lifetime | 45.0s | 48.2s |
| Health | 77,158 HP | 102,888 HP |
| Cooldown | 67.50s | 58.40s |
Now after applying that mod to one of my pieces of gear, I can see the Lifetime/Duration3 of my turret went up 7%.4 Note none of the other stats were affected by the mod. There are other mods that could have affected my turret's health or damage output.
The current list of Performance Mod and the range of mod could have:
| Performance Mod Perk | Mod Range |
|---|---|
| First Aid Ally Heal | 5% - 6% |
| First Aid Self Heal | 5% - 6% |
| Mobile Cover Blast Resilience | 3% - 4% |
| Mobile Cover Health | 6% - 7.5% |
| Pulse Critical Hit Chance | 2% - 2% |
| Pulse Critical Hit Damage | 2% - 2% |
| Pulse Lifetime | 4% - 5% |
| Riot shield Damage Resist | 4% - 5% |
| Riot shield Damage | 3% - 4% |
| Riot shield Health | 6% - 7.5% |
| Seeker Mine Explosion Damage | 3% - 4% |
| Seeker Mine Explosion Range | 6% - 7.5% |
| Smart Cover Damage Resist | 2% - 3% |
| Smart Cover Lifetime | 4% - 5% |
| Sticky Bomb Explosion Damage | 3% - 4% |
| Sticky Bomb Explosion Range | 5% - 6% |
| Support Station Healing Rate | 4% - 5% |
| Support Station Lifetime | 6% - 7.5% |
| Support Station Range | 6% - 7.5% |
| Turret Damage | 3% - 4% |
| Turret Duration | 6% - 7.5% |
| Turret Health | 6% - 7.5% |
Like Stat Mods, Performance Mods can stack. So if you applied 2 mods for Turret Damage, the overall effect would be the sum of the 2 mod percentages.
Part 3 will discuss weapons in The Division and how weapon perks work.
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Elite and Named NPC's (gold bar enemies) can drop gear above the normal range for a WT. For example, Elite NPC's can drop 271 GS gear on WT5. ↩
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But there was only one class you really needed to pick... Titan. ↩
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I wish I knew why mods say 'Duration' and the Ability says 'Lifetime'. ↩
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45.0 * 1.07 = 48.2 ↩
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Basically any other damage you can receive except bullets. ↩
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This means the crappiest Classified Gear Set piece will always be better than any normal Gear Set pieces on a stat point vs stat point basis. ↩