A developer of The Division 2 has answered the important question of how the Gear Score of loot drops depends on your items. This is what you need to know to ensure that higher quality gear drops for you.
The question at hand: In the endgame of The Division 2, it is necessary to rise in the world rankings, earn the best loot, and optimize your build. In doing so, you need to raise your Gear Score to conquer the toughest challenges.
The Gear Score is the endgame progression system after you have reached the maximum character level 30. The higher you push your Gear Score, the stronger you are in general.
This raises the question of how increasing your Gear Score interacts with loot drops.
- Do I always need to equip my items with the highest Gear Score so the game recognizes that I want loot that exceeds this Gear Score? Does this force me to wear my highest-value items even if they don’t fit my build?
- Is it enough if I store my highest-value items in my inventory or stash so that the game grants me higher-quality loot?
- Or can I even safely deconstruct my highest-value items after obtaining them, and the game knows: “The agent already had items at this Gear Score”?
Keep your top gear, but you don’t have to equip it
This is what you need to know about Gear Score progression: The Senior Game Designer of Massive, Nikki Kuppens, has now answered this important question via Twitter.
The middle question from above is correct: The Gear Score for loot drops is based on the maximum achievable Gear Score of all the items you have in your possession. The items in your stash are included.
He recommends: Simply keep your items with higher Gear Score. You do not have to equip them, and you will still receive better loot drops.
Keep in mind that the maximum possible Gear Score from loot drops depends on your world rank. Kuppens mentions, for example, that 450 is the maximum Gear Score at world rank 4. Loot drops at world rank 4 will never be higher than 450.
However, you can easily exceed this limit through performance containers and recalibration. Some users report that they have 451 Gear Score at world rank 4.
Important additions to Gear Score:
- For the Gear Score of loot drops, the maximum possible Gear Score that you can achieve with your items is calculated. Not the average Gear Score. Therefore, you do not need to deconstruct your lower-value items to get the best gear.
- If you want to enter an activity with a Gear Score minimum requirement, your actual Gear Score (that you see in the UI) counts – that is, the one calculated from the Gear Scores of your equipped items.
- The maximum achievable Gear Score from all your items that is crucial for loot drops is not displayed anywhere in the game.
How the community reacts: In the comments and on reddit, this system is received very well. Because you are not forced to discard your build for each better loot drop. This is seen as a great decision by the developers.
