You need more damage output in The Division? This is how you achieve higher damage values.
If enemies in PvE are taking too little damage or if you always come up short in PvP, you should try optimizing your build. You can definitely squeeze out a few extra percentages in damage output.
The Division expert MarcoStyle has now taken a closer look at the topic of “damage” and has discovered interesting insights on how to ramp it up. We summarize the important information:
10% more damage is not always 10% more damage
The weapon talents Competent and Increased both provide an additional 10% damage under certain conditions. In an experiment, the agent with the active Competent talent dealt 178,000 damage, but with the active Increased talent, a whopping 185,000 damage. The build remained exactly the same, only the talent was rerolled.
What is the reason for this difference? Both talents should actually provide the exact same bonus damage, right?
The answer is: The bonus from Competent is calculated additively and the bonus from Increased multiplicatively.
In short, these terms can be distinguished as follows:
- Additive: The bonus only applies to the base damage.
- Multiplicative: The bonus applies to the total damage including all previous buffs. Example: The total damage is calculated at x1.10 (that’s +10%).
Here is a detailed example:
Player 1 and Player 2 have exactly the same build, but Player 1 uses a weapon with Competent and Player 2 uses a weapon with Responsive. Since Responsive is calculated multiplicatively and Competent additively, you deal more damage with Responsive, even though the game tells you: Both increase damage by 10% each.
You can watch the detailed calculations in the video embedded above.
In summary: You always gain advantages when you rely on bonuses that are calculated multiplicatively! If you want to significantly increase damage, focus on multiplicative advantages!
Which bonuses are multiplicative?
In The Division, it is not specified anywhere whether something is calculated additively or multiplicatively. It is also unclear why Massive made this distinction at all. If you want to know which bonuses are the “good” multiplicative ones, you have to test each individual talent and ability and gain insights through self-experimentation.
And that’s exactly what MarcoStyle did. The result:
- Almost all bonuses are additive. This includes everything from the booster to the doping injection to almost all gear set bonuses, the Merciless talent, or the Competent talent.
- So it makes more sense to only list the bonuses that are multiplicative.
Here are multiplicative bonuses:
- All bonuses on headshot damage
- All bonuses on crit damage
- Responsive – weapon talent – Damage increases when within 10 meters of the target
- Prepared – weapon talent – Damage increases when over 30 meters from the target
- Increased – weapon talent – Damage increases when you are more than 1.2 meters above the opponent
- Distracted (weapon talent from MDR) – Damage increases when the opponent suffers from status effects
- FireCrest – set bonus (4 pieces)
- Banshee – set bonus (3 pieces and 4 pieces)
- LMG bonus damage against targets out of cover
- Damage against elite – attribute
- Enemy armor damage – attribute
- Extra weapon damage on the gloves
In short:
- Focus on the upper attributes and bonuses!
- It’s also worthwhile to equip purple mods that increase damage against elite enemies.
- Weapon talents like Brutal (for more headshot damage) or Devastating (for more enemy armor damage) are excellent.
- Builds that rely on critical hits are also recommended.
Already read? The Division: 5 tips on how to prepare for update 1.8
