The Division's New Exotic Weapon is Overpowered
By Anthony Taormina 25 January 2017
One of The Division‘s new exotic weapons, whose unique talent is extremely broken and overpowered, is running wild on the Public Test Server of Update 1.6 and The Last Stand DLC.
The Division’s 1.6 Update has only been live on the Public Test Server for half a day now, and already players are finding that certain elements are not working as intended. In most cases, the changes are quick fixes, but there is one new aspect of update 1.6 that is downright broken: the combination of submachine guns Hildr and Eir.
Previously known as Valkyria, but now split into two separate weapons, Hildr and Eir are a submachine gun set – one of the weapons added to the new exotic category for update 1.6 and The Last Stand DLC. Along with being split into two weapons, Hildr and Eir were given a new unique weapon talent that boosts critical hit damage on Hildr by 1% (up to 100%) for every bullet hit using Eir. And it’s essentially broken.
Check out the video below to see what we’re talking about:
To make matters worse, the weapons can be combined with the new Seeker gear set for even more critical hit damage, since the full set bonus buffs that as well. It gets to the point that players can deal more than 1 million damage to AI enemies, and close to 100,000 damage on PvP enemies.
The good news is that players have found this overpowered combo in the Public Test Server, meaning that the developers at Massive Entertainment should be well aware of it by now and hopefully a change is already in the works. For those who are trying to explore the PTS and all of the new content included with The Last Stand DLC, unfortunately this means that PvP is not going to be particularly fun, especially in the Dark Zone. There is tons of video evidence out there of players using the Seeker Gear Set and the Valkyria combo to mow down enemy players in seconds – even 4-man teams are no match for the gun and gear.
It’s also completely possible to get similar results without Seeker, because the critical hit damage becomes multiplicative with the weapon, not additive. So instead of 90% crit hit damage for a certain number of consecutive hits, which is very good on its own, the player can get up to 9,000% critical hit damage. Then if Seeker is active, adding 1% critical hit damage for every bullet hit, things get blown even further out of hand, to the point enemies and players don’t even stand a chance.
While some may question how such an imbalanced combo could end up in The Division’s test server, this isn’t anything new for the hardcore. There are always a few details that fall through the cracks and lead to problems, it’s why Alpha Bridge is getting nerfed, but Massive is pretty good about responding to those issues, especially in the PTS. Hopefully, by the time The Last Stand DLC releases for all platforms, everything should be normalized. If it isn’t, though, expect everyone to be running around with Hildr and Eir, and most likely the Seeker gear set.
The Division PTS 1.6 is live now on PC.
