The Division drops players head first into an overrun, virus infested New York city and tasks them with establishing a base of operations with the goal of retaking the city. To any beginner that’s a tall intimidating order, especially with the sheer amount of paths you can take with your agent to get there.

If you find yourself in this particular situation and have no idea what to do about it, you’ve come to the right place. Here are our beginner tips for every new Division player out there.

Master the cover system

The division is first and foremost a cover based shooter. If you’re caught out in the open too long, you’ll die. Learn what types of cover make the best defensive spots and use them whenever you think a firefight is about to take place.

Moving between cover is just as essential. When you’re in cover hold the take cover button while aiming at another piece of cover to quickly role between the two. This is by far the fastest and safest way to move around during a fight.

If you’ve specialized into the security tree, you’ll gain access to several different types of cover. You can deploy the mobile cover to give yourself or one of your team mates a place to hide where there is none. You can also use your ballistic shield as a form of mobile cover, although it is not as effective as a permanent cover location.

Keep your skills up to date

When you expand your base of operations in the Division, you’ll gain skill points that can be used to unlock new and useful abilities and/ or improve the one’s you’ve got. There are three different skill trees to choose from: Tech which focuses on damage output, Security which specializes in defense, and Medic which of course gives you the power to heal yourself and your teammates.

Depending on what role you wan to fill it’s usually in your best interest to focus on one specific tree to get to the most powerful ability unlocks, rather than spreading your points around and only unlocking the first tiers of all the trees. Of course you don’t have to do that (and in some cases it’s better not to i.e. if you play solo a lot and want to be able to heal and deal damage) but it will take a lot longer to gain access to the tree’s best abilities that can be game changers.

For more information on skills, talents and perks head to our Division Skill Guide.

The Dark Zone is not for the meek or unprepared

If you head into the Dark Zone, prepare to be confronted by wave after wave of enemies both NPC and player alike. Conflict is the name of the game in the Dark Zone, whether it be killing high level NPCs for loot and then defending that loot from other players while you wait for it to be extracted, or the flip side, hunting other players down for their loot.

If you want to partake you should seriously consider grouping up and/ or making sure you are decently geared. Going solo isn’t an instant death sentence, but it makes extracting a lot harder.

If you find yourself running into trouble or being chased by player killers, head to a nearby safe house to wait out the bad guys and to restock your supplies.

For more Dark Zone tips check out our Surviving the Dark Zone Guide.

Keep an eye out for easy experience

While levelling there are a lot of ways to earn experience, and some of the easiest is just by keeping your eyes peeled for things like cell phones and hologram reenactments laying around the streets. This is extremely easy experience as all you usually need to do is walk up and collect it to reap the rewards.

If you are running low on things to do head to your nearest activity board. There you can sync your map and refresh it with any activities you haven’t yet completed.

Arm yourself well

Guns are the answer to most of the problems in the world of The Division, so bring a lot of them. You can only have three equipped at one time, a primary, a secondary, and a sidearm. The primary and secondary can be any type (except side arms) and they can even be of the same type.

Be warned though, if you choose to use assault rifles for your primary and secondary they will share a single ammo pool. If you use two different types of guns for each (i.e. a shotgun in primary and a sub machine gun in secondary) they will have their own ammo supply.

Keep an eye on your gear attributes

Armor and other gear will come with the attributes Stamina, Electronics, and Firepower. Stamina will increase your health, electronics increases the effectiveness of your abilities and firepower causes your weapons to do more damage.

Depending on what type of agent you’re trying to build, you’ll want different combinations of stats. Want a tank? Focus on stamina gear. Need to up your healing power? Grab some electronics gear.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Tom Clancy's The Division Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 21, 2016

About The Author

A man of many hats, Greg divides his precious gaming time between competitive games like League of Legends and Dota 2 and Action/ Adventure Games like GTA, and Destiny. At Ten Ton Hammer he specializes in making guides for new and veteran players alike.

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