New information about the skills and their mods in the shared-world shooter The Division 2. We summarize everything important for you.
Due to the recently lifted embargo, there is a lot of new information about The Division 2. It is now also known which skills will be available at release. Additionally, a large part of the skill mods is now known.
Skills and Skill Mods in The Division 2 – What is known so far
This is how skills work: Each player can carry up to two active skills. In combat, skills can function differently and be offensive, defensive, or supportive. However, they have a cooldown, you cannot spam a skill.
These are the skills of The Division 2: There are a total of 8 different skills. Players from The Division 1 might recognize some old friends.
- Pulse (Tactical Scan)
- Hive
- Drone
- Seeker Mine
- Turret
- Ballistic Shield
- Chem Launcher
- Firefly (not yet included in the build)
Each skill has several mods that can be unlocked in various ways.
Not all skill mods are known yet. Five of the skills have already been extensively presented by Ubisoft in a dev blog:
- the Hive
- the Drone
- the Seeker Mine
- the Turret
- and the Chem Launcher
You can read the summary of the skill mods here.
However, new information has also emerged about the ballistic shield, Pulse, and another skill that some might find familiar: the Firefly Drone.
The Firefly Drone
This is what we know so far about the Firefly skill: So far, there is no gameplay with the Firefly drone. Apparently, it is a completion of a skill prototype that already existed in an earlier version of The Division 1.
This skill is another drone that can blind other enemies. It is quite nimble, hovers between enemy lines, and tries to disrupt the enemies’ orientation. Due to the lack of material and other information, there are also no details on the mods. Maybe it will be included in the Private Beta.
Why this effect was not simply brought as an extra mod for the drone is unclear. After all, there are images from the version that existed in the Division 1 Alpha.
The new ballistic shield
This is what we know so far about the ballistic shield: This skill already existed in the first part. It is not yet clear how exactly the revisions look here. Only one thing is certain: the mods for this skill have been significantly overhauled. Currently, only two of these mods are known:
- Bulwark
- Crusader
If you use the Bulwark mod, you have a large shield that essentially protects your entire front and can take a lot of damage. The side effect is that you can only use your pistol as a weapon.
With the Crusader mod, on the other hand, you have a smaller shield that can withstand less. In return, you can use almost all weapon classes in combination with the shield. LMGs are excluded from this. It is still unclear whether more classes such as rifles or sniper rifles are also among these exceptions.
In The Division 1 there was the D3-FNC set, with which you could additionally use a submachine gun along with the shield. The Crusader mod is now a compromise. While the shield is not as robust and does not protect as well, you now have additional weapons to choose from.
Whether and how many further skill mods there are for the ballistic shield is currently not known.
The Pulse
This is what we know so far about the Pulse: This skill also existed in The Division 1, in the German version it was called tactical scan. So far, three skill mods are known:
- Scanner
- Remote
- Jammer
With the Scanner, you can temporarily make enemies visible through walls in a certain radius. However, it has been revised for The Division 2. When you use the scan, there are now no bonuses on crit damage or crit chance, as was the case in the first part.
This makes the scan a pure reconnaissance tool and not as powerful as it could be in the predecessor. However, there are likely some gear pieces that offer extra damage for scanned players as a bonus.
With the Remote mod, you can place a scan device that periodically scans the environment. As long as this device is not destroyed, it continues to operate. Thus, the Pulse can permanently scan with clever placement.
With the Jammer, you can trigger a kind of EMP pulse that destroys all other devices in a certain radius. This can disable enemy drones and turrets, for example.
In a video, YouTuber MarcoStyle has summarized all the interesting new information. You can watch the video including gameplay here:
Players can experiment with the skills themselves when the private beta starts on February 7.
In addition to the skills, there was also some new information about the Dark Zone. These are the 8 biggest changes.
