While we got the big TU8.4 (Title Update 8.4) for The Division 2 just last week, Ubisoft has revealed that The Division 2 next patch release date is set for sometime next week! Not only that, but we got a preview of TU8.5! This and more have been revealed in today’s State of the Game devstream.

This is a long list, though we’re not sure if this is the full The Division 2 TU8.5 patch notes.

The Division 2 next patch release notes TU8.5:

Bug Fixes

• Fixing an issue causing graphic issues and crashes on PC due to corrupted shader cache files.
• Fixing an issue causing the loss of the “Striker’s Gamble” stacks or not being able to acquire them.
• Fixing an issue causing agents to be unable to revive team mates.
• Fixing an issue causing the League UI to completely reset.
  • The League challenges will still reset for week two which will allow players to continue their progress.

Gameplay Changes

• Control Points can now be reset by changing Global Difficulty.
  • Changing Directives will not reset Control Points.

Balance Changes

• NPCs
  • BTSU Support Station
    • Reducing tick rate of Support Station healing.
    • Elite Support Stations will only provide overheal once per NPC.
    • Capping the heal amount a NPC can receive from the Support Station.
  • Warhounds
    • Increasing intention icon duration to allow players more time to react to the windup
    • Reducing the 360 spin from Warhound Minigun to 2 spins (down from 3)
    • Increasing windup warning of triple shoot of Warhound Grenadier.
    • Increasing after shoot delay of triple shoot of Warhound Grenadier.
    • Slightly increasing the cooldown of moving shoot of Warhound Grenadier.
  • Tank archetype reaction to Hive / Turret
    • Adding more distance checks so Tanks don’t rush at a hive next to a player.
    • Reducing threat limit so Tanks don’t switch targets too suddenly.
  • Outcast Incendiary / Molotov
    • Reducing duration and tick damage slightly.
    • Developer comment: Grenades were very strong compared to other factions’ grenades and this will bring them closer in line.
  • Pentagon Bosses
    • Reducing Drone Helicopter health and damage.
    • Slightly reduce health and armor for Brenner.
    • Reducing Brenner’s mortar damage.
    • Decreasing armor of John ‘Architect” Figgs.
  • Mortars
    • Reducing damage of mortars in Coney Island.
    • Increase delay between UI warning and explosion damage of mortars in the Washington National Zoo.
    • Fixing general damage scaling issues with mortars.
• Skills
  • Assault Turret
    • Improving auto-targeting of Assault Turret to better prioritize NPCs it can shoot, and which are close to it.
  • Assault Drone
    • Improving behavior to prevent the Drone from becoming stuck.
    • Improving the consistency of firing and pathing.
• Poison Status Effect
  • Reducing tick interval, damage and duration.
  • Developer comment: Event with the damage reduction to enemy NPCs poison continues to be extremely strong, this nerf will alleviate this further.

Additionally, we are planning another update that is currently scheduled for a later time in April but please keep in mind that we might need to adjust that schedule. We will keep you updated if there are any changes.

Exotics and Talent Changes:

• Sawyer’s Kneepads – Reworked
  • Cannot be staggered by explosions.
  • Increase total weapon damage by 3% each second you are not moving. Stacks up to 10x and stacks are lost when moving.
  • This exotic only provides defensive attributes and no brand bonus, so now has potential for high damage and makes it appealing to both red and blue builds.
    Developer comment: The old version didn’t provide enough engaging gameplay; this change should help with that.
• ​Imperial Dynasty – Buff
  • Reduced cooldown to 35s (down from 40)
    Developer comment: This buff is to better compensate for the lack of brand bonus.
• ​Dodge City Gunslinger
  • Reduced charge up time 30s (from 50s)
    Developer comment: This buff is to better compensate for the lack of brand bonus.
• ​Diamondback – Reworked
  • Now Grants all shots guaranteed crits for 5s after hitting a mark.
    Developer comment: The Diamondback is underperforming, and this change should make the bonus a bit more exciting.
• Merciless/Ruthless – Buff
  • Explosion damage increased to 1200% (up from 900%)
• Tag Team – Reworked
  • The last enemy you have damaged with a skill is marked.
  • Dealing weapon damage to that enemy consumes the mark to reduce active cooldowns by 6s.
  • Cooldown: 4s
  • Does not consume mark if no skill is on cooldown.
• Reassigned – Buff
  • Killing an enemy adds 1 round of a random special ammo into your sidearm.
  • Reduced cooldown to 15s (down from 20s).
• Tamper Proof – Reworked
  • Enemies that walk within 3m of your hive, turret, or remote pulse are shocked.
  • Arm time: 2s.
  • Increased cooldown per skill to 10s (up from 5s).
    Developer comment: Even though we are adjusting NPCs not rushing towards skills as much this talent gives players the ability to be more lenient when placing their skills to gain the effect, without turning themselves into a grenade.
• ​Empathic Resolve – Buff
  • Repairing an ally, increases their total weapon and skill damage by 3-15% for 20s (up from 10s). 1-7% if self.
    Developer comment: Currently it is difficult to keep a high uptime in 4-man content as non-tank players try to be as safe as possible and NPCs have higher lethality, so chip damage is less frequent. This also buff is also meant to make Empathic Resolve able to better compete versus the True Patriot debuffs.
• ​Creeping Death
  • When you apply a status effect, it is also applied to all enemies within 8m (up from 5m) of your target.
  • Reduced cooldown to 15s (down from 20s).

Also talked about during The State of the Game, the studio touched upon build diversity, exotic items, and more.

Finding edge Cases

• They are addressing and monitoring the overall balancing of the game and looking into certain outliers.
• Warhounds, Status Effects and things like Poison, Fire or gas are among them.
• The goal is to avoid mechanics that instantly kill a player with full health and armor.
• When instances like that are found, they try to address them.

General NPC Balancing going forward

• They are pretty happy where things have landed
• Now they are looking at the mentioned edge cases where they can’t just work with armor, health and damage values.
• Like True Sons and explosive ammo (they should not tear down 1.6 million armor players in seconds)
• M1A, Crusader Shield and Focus are not working as intended, you should only get the Focus buff when you are aiming through a scope.
  • The fix to that will be dropped after TU8.5. They are currently working on the exact fix because it is difficult to balance around precision, damage and the usage of a shield.
  • In essence, even though the builds have low armor, they have the safety of a shield and that is not the intended setup of a sniper.
• They are also aware of the discussion that there seems to be a low build variety.
  • Some of that has to do with some overtuned named items.
  • They are ok with best in slot items, but in some cases the numbers are wrong.
  • Foxes Prayer / Contractors Gloves and the Hollow Man are examples.
  • They will still be powerful but they also work very well with the meta guns, so that will be addressed.
• Assault Rifles
  • Damage to Health rolls will be buffed.
• Punch Drunk will do about 20% Headshot Damage
• Claws Out will get a Skill Tier Core Attribute, Pistol Damage, and about 500% Melee Damage.

Build Diversity

• At the moment there is the narrative, that there are only MG5 and M1A builds around.
• But based on their big data, there is a lot more diversity within the builds.
• Skill builds, for example, are quite popular and useful.
• Hard Wired, for example, is in the top 5 of Gear Sets and what players use.
• Unbreakable is still at the top and not everybody runs Vigilance and Glass Cannon.
• The LMG / M1A combo is very powerful, and they are looking into that, but they also have no issues with best in slot items
• But they also want to support different playstyles with bringing up the underperformers and address the high fliers.

Exotics

• They acknowledge that some exotics are underperforming and with TU8.5 they drop the first balance pass over the Exotics.
• They could not address all exotics in TU8.5 but more changes will follow.

Raid Gear Sets will join the general loot pool

• In an update down the road (not TU8.5), the Raid Sets will join the general loot pool completely and you can get the Chest and the Backpack from the Dark Hours Raid sets in the general loot pool.

Ubisoft Massive says that this patch will drop in early April, and mentions in the latest State of the Game it’s due next week, though without a specific date just yet.

Source: Ubisoft forums (patch notes), Reddit