The upcoming update for The Division 2 will introduce new skill mods that could make life difficult for fans of skill builds.
What is the problem with skill builds? Since the release of The Division 2, skills have been criticized.
- There were some annoying bugs at the beginning.
- To equip skill mods, a significant portion of the build needs to invest in skill power. This has been somewhat mitigated with the latest update.
- Skill builds remain one of the less popular variants, simply because they lag significantly behind pure DPS builds.
- Moreover, it is still criticized that skills are almost entirely useless without an investment in skill power.
To make skills generally more useful, new mods are being introduced with Title Update 3. The “Auxiliary Skill Battery” mods.
However, YouTuber Gongrongzong criticizes that these mods will further devalue skill builds in the future.
Do the new mods make an investment in skill power unnecessary?
Here’s what it’s about: In his video, Gongrongzong discusses skills in general and shares his impressions gathered on the PTS. He also compares the situation to skills in The Division 1.
Back then, there were indeed strong builds that could be built around the main attribute Electronics. The higher the skill power, the better the skills.
With the new mods, an investment in additional attributes like skill power would soon become completely unnecessary.
This is what the new skill mods can do: The mods can be equipped in your skill slots without minimum requirements. They have high skill bonuses for the respective skills. The bonuses of these mods can exceed values of 900.
Thus, it is easily possible to reach high skill power beyond 3000 for the respective skills. This, in turn, allows you to equip the best skill mods on the other slots.
That’s why the mods make skill power unnecessary: None of the best mods have requirements higher than 3000.
This makes it practically unnecessary to equip any attribute with skill power on the rest of the gear if you want to optimize your build. So why still build skill builds?
Gongrongzong criticizes that skill builds are now worse off than before.
Actually, you want to build cool builds in “Inspector Gadget” style, maintain control in groups, or deal heavy explosive damage with skills. But the current system feels bad in his eyes.
What do the players say about it? In the comments, he receives a lot of agreement. Many criticized The Division 2 for making skills worthless and skill builds actually having no value anymore. They are concerned that Massive will maintain this course.
What will happen to skill builds?
This is the problem with skill builds: The current system around skills and skill mods has not been particularly popular since release.
Some players see the problem in the fundamental system around mods and the way skill power is integrated.
- Skills are only indirectly strengthened through skill power in The Division 2.
- The higher the skill power, the more skill mods can be applied.
- These are the only bonuses you can get outside of gear for skills.
But there is one idea that some players celebrate.
This solution is proposed by fans: Skill mods should scale with skill power. This proposal has been particularly common since release.
This could make both skill power and skill mods more valuable.
In the official forum, a fan with the username murimuffin even reported, who has worked out the scaling system:
I am a 30-year-old frontend developer/UI engineer and I really enjoy The Division 2.
But the biggest pain point, I think, is the skill mod system. The system is not fun for me because I feel like I am wasting skill power.
murimuffin, Ubisoft Forum
He has taken the idea of the fans and created a calculator that demonstrates how such a scaling system would look.
Is a fan wish the solution?
This is how a scaling system could be established: murimuffin has proposed some factors under which skill mods should be subject.
- No requirements for skill mods for skill power
- Skill mods receive a base value. This base value then scales with your skill power.
- Some mods can have a higher base value but scale lower
- Others have lower base values that scale higher with skill power.
- The scaling depends on the rarity of the mod
This is how it would look with a skill: The chemical launcher with the oxidizer is used as an example.
You can equip two example mods in its two mod slots.
- While a mod with low base damage (+5%) at increased skill power (2083) gets a high value (+46.66%),
- a mod with high base damage (+10%) at low scaling gets a significantly lower bonus (+16.94%), even if the skill power is high.
Many fans see this idea as the best way to find a compromise between the current and the old system.
This is how Kudor writes on Reddit under the same repost: “I really have nothing to add to that. This is such a comfortable solution, I don’t even understand why the game wasn’t designed this way from the start.”
But not everyone sees it as the solution. Varonth writes: “Every character you create has to choose from one to two specific items. And these parts already determine your build.”
In his opinion, there is no build diversity and the skills are generally too weak.
But what do you think about it? Write your opinion in the comments.
