It looks like Ubisoft is ready to ramp up development and communication in The Division 2 in a big way! Not only did the studio announce that Season 9 news is incoming “soon,” but the new The Division 2 PTS patch notes have been revealed, too, which gives us a peek at what’s coming down the line, which includes a new game mode and more!

The Division 2 PTS Patch Notes for March 31:

NEW GAME MODE: COUNTDOWN

Countdown is a new 8-player endgame mode for The Division 2. Two groups of four SHD agents are deployed to a power plant to prevent a lockdown. Racing against the clock, the agents must work together to secure the site and stabilize the power plant. Believing their mission is complete the agents prepare for extraction and are pursued by heavily armed and technologically advanced hostiles.

Countdown is meant for 8 players, but you can start a session with a smaller group (even solo). The balancing won’t change though, so expect a real challenge if you go with less than 8. (Tweet)

Overview:

• 8 players PvE
• Timed mission
• Various objectives
• Randomized encounters and flow on a new unique map
• New gear and weapon drops [Phase 2]
• Available through matchmaking

EXPERTISE

Expertise is a progression feature, that allows to improve the maximum performance of select weapons, gear sets, skill variants and more. This feature is composed of two types of progression systems: the Expertise Level and the Proficiency Rank.

• Each eligible item type has a Proficiency Rank, which can be increased either through Donations or Kill XP. Only when an item type reaches the highest Proficiency Rank possible, will the agent become Proficient with it and be able to increase the Grade of the individual items of that type. Every item type has the same amount of Proficiency Ranks.
• Additionally, each agent has a unique Expertise Level, which increases as the Proficiency Ranks are gained in more item types
• Expertise and Proficiency is account-wide

Types:

• Expertise Level: Agent level
• Proficiency Rank: Item type level
• Proficient: Reaching Max Proficiency Rank in an item type
• Grade: Individual item level

Research Categories:

• Weapons
• Gear brands
• Gear sets
• Named Items
• Exotics
• Skill Variants
• Specialization Weapons

NEW GEAR

Named Gear:

• Closer — Chest
  • Talent Perfect Spotter: Amplifies total weapon and skill damage by 15% to pulsed enemies.
• The Setup — Backpack
  • Talent Perfectly Opportunistic: Enemies you hit with shotguns and marksman rifles amplifies the damage they take by 15% from all sources for 5s.

NEW WEAPONS

Exotic Weapons:

• Dread Edict — exotic variation of the SVD Marksman Rifle
  • Talent Full Stop: Shooting enemies builds stacks to a cap of 20. Headshots grant 2 stacks. Each stack grants 2% Weapon Damage and 5% Headshot Damage. On reload, clear all stacks and gain 5% of your max Armor as temp armor for 10 seconds for each stack removed. Headshot kills with Dread Edict restore all bullets in the magazine. This does not count as a reload.

• Catharsis — exotic mask
  • Talent Vicious Cycle: Taking damage builds stacks to a cap of 30. Each stack grants 1% Weapon Damage. Taking damage at max stacks triggers a purge, removing all stacks and Status Effects and then dropping a healing cloud which restores 5% of Max Armor for 10s to all allies in the cloud.

• Bluescreen — exotic variation of the Stoner LMG
  • Talent Disruptor Rounds: Shooting an enemy marks them and adds a stack to the agent up to a count of 50. Shooting a marked enemy refreshes the mark and adds stacks to the agent. When you deploy a non-shield skill, remove all stacks on agent and all marked targets trigger an effect.
  • 1 -10 Stacks – Pulse marked targets for 5 seconds
  • 11 – 25 Stacks – Pulse and Disrupt marked targets for 5 seconds.
  • 26 – 49 Stacks – Pulse, Disrupt, and Disorient marked targets for 5 seconds.
  • 50 Stacks – Pulse, Disrupt, and Disorient marked targets and all hostiles within 10 meters of the marked targets for 5 seconds. This effect will trigger immediately if any marked enemy is killed.

Named Weapons:

• Dare —LMG HK GR9
  • Talent Perfect Flatline: Amplifies weapon damage by 20% to pulsed enemies. After 2 kills, applies pulse to the next enemy you hit.
• Kingbreaker — TKB-408 Assault Rifle
  • Talent Perfect Flatline: Amplifies weapon damage by 20% to pulsed enemies. After 2 kills, applies pulse to the next enemy you hit.

BALANCE ADJUSTMENTS

Adjustments have been made to the functioning of various talents in order to curtail undesirable behaviors and imbalance.
Overview:

• Modifications to shield skill behaviors
  • Shields now take significantly more damage in PvP.
  • Shields now irresistibly disorient their user when broken.
• Excluded shields from the In-Sync Talent
  • In-Sync and Perfectly In-Sync no longer trigger from shield skills.
  • The text of these talents has been updated.
• Updated Intimidate and Perfect Intimidate Talents
  • New Behavior: While you have bonus armor, gain 1 stack each second up to a max of 7. Each stack increases total weapon damage by 5% to enemies within 10m.
  • All stacks are lost when you have no bonus armor.
  • Perfect Version: Increase max stacks to 8
  • PvP: 4% weapon damage per stack instead of 5

GAMEPLAY ADJUSTMENTS

Updated 31.03.22 16:56 UTC

• Added a disorienting effect to players when their shield breaks .
• Updated Intimidate and Perfect Intimidate so that there is a ramp-up to their effectiveness .
• Omit shields from the effects of the In-Sync talent .
• Increased the PvP damage to shield .
• Repair Traps now heal allies for the proper amount .

Design Notes:

Shield skills have been unbalanced for quite some time and have grown to be a dominant build tactic in both PvE and PvP. Combined with In-Sync, shields provide an unparalleled, no-downsides DPS boost.

In addition, Intimidate when combined with various methods of gaining short-term bonus armor. This made it deeply unfair in ambush situations in PvP and led to an undesirable PvE meta as well. As such, Intimidate now requires a slow buildup before reaching maximum effectiveness.

In addition to the PTS patch notes, Ubisoft announced that Season 9 news is coming soon, too!

Important to note: while the stuff listed here are being tested, there is no guarantee that we’ll see everything implemented in the live build. Just a friendly reminder in case you see something there and the latest patch roll out doesn’t include it.

In case you didn’t see it, Massive Entertainment announced that The Divison 2 will be getting multiple updates this year! Prepare for more The Division 2 this 2022, agents!

Source: Reddit