The Division 2 Update 8.5--Patch Notes For All The Buffs, NPCs, And Skills

Ubisoft has issued a The Division 2 title update across PS4, Xbox One, and PC with tons of fixes and a handful of gameplay tweaks. According to the patch notes, the biggest changes were made tobalance and skills, including some changes that should make it easier for solo players to use their automated helpers.

The assault turret and assault drone have both gotten some fixes to make their behavior smarter, improving their auto-targeting or consistency. NPCs have gotten a number of buffs as well.

The patch also changed status effects for both poison and EMP. Poisoning will now have a reduced tick interval as well as damage and duration. The EMP Skills now do damage to NPC Skills, including Jammer and Nail Bomb, increasing their effectiveness. Mortars on Coney Island have had their damage reduced, which should make things a little easier. You can see the full patch notes below.

This comes in the midst of the Urban Jungle event. Running through April 20, it awards special cosmetic items that you can purchase by earning special cache keys from leveling up your SDH levels or with Premium Credits. It includes four cosmetic outfits in all, called Reconaissance, Hazard, Gorilla, and Chrome, along with some other assorted cosmetic items. The game also recently released a new Rogue Agent into the wild.

The Division 2 Title Update 8.5

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue causing the stack acquisition of “Striker’s Gamble” to be inconsistent.
• Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to revive other agents.
• Fixed an issue causing the revive UI to disappear if a player was killed too fast.
• Fixed an issue causing “Aggressive Recon” and “Crossbow Expert” talents of the “Tip of the Spear” Gear Set to trigger in the DZ Safe House or DZ Control Points.
• Fixed an issue causing the Joyride weapon skin to not be applied to “The Stinger” LMG.
• Fixed an issue causing League Reward Caches to be contaminated when leveling up in the Dark Zone.
• Fixed an issue causing the Exotic BTSU Gloves to always roll at a minimum roll range from certain sources.
• Fixed an issue causing the “Short Circuit” buff to not restart after the cooldown has expired for the Hard Wired Gear Set.
• Fixed an issue causing players to be able to gain infinite ammunition.
• Fixed an issue causing players to be able to gain more than intended Operation Dark Hour keys.
• Temporarily removing Warhounds from the first mission beat in the Manning National Zoo Main Mission.
  
  • This workaround prevents Warhounds to get stuck on the roof in the Manning National Zoo. A proper fix for this issue is scheduled for TU9.
• Fixed an issue causing the checkpoint for Heroic Difficulty Darpa Research Lab Main Mission to be missing.
• Fixed an issue causing the checkpoint for Heroic Difficulty Pentagon Main Mission to be missing.
• Fixed an issue causing players to receive self-damage when killing an enemy player with the Full Flag debuff from the True Patriot Gear Set.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Season Level 60 and 65 rewards to be incorrect under certain circumstances.
  
  • We are adding these rewards to players inventory if they were not correctly delivered at level 60 and 65.

Gameplay changes

• Control Points can now be reset by changing Global Difficulty.
  
  • Changing Directives will not reset Control Points.
• League UI
  
  • The League UI should now be more intuitive when switching between week one and two.

Balance Changes

NPCs

BTSU Support Station:

• Will now check line of sight between support station and NPCs more frequently.
• Decreased tick rate of Support Station healing to 2 seconds (up from 1.5 seconds).
• Elite Support Station now only provides overheal once per NPC.
• The Support Station heal amount is now capped.
• Support Stations no longer heal while affected by EMP / disruption effects.

Warhound Grenadier:

• Increasing windup warning of triple shoot of Warhound Grenadier.
• Increasing aftershoot delay of triple shoot of Warhound Grenadier.
• Slightly increasing cooldown of moving shoot of Warhound Grenadier

Warhound Minigun:

• Adjusting Warhound Minigun behavior to flank less frequently and to maintain more distance to the players.
• Adjusting Warhound Minigun to path less close to players.
• Increasing intention icon duration of 360 spin from Warhound Minigun to 2.5 seconds (up from 2)
• Reducing 360 spin from Warhound Minigun to only 2 spins (down from 3)
• Reducing range of 360 spin of Warhound Minigun to 30m (down from 70m).

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 Manning 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.

Status effects

Poison Status Effect:

• Reducing tick interval, damage and duration.

Developer comment: Even with the damage reduction to enemy NPCs poison continues to be extremely strong, this nerf will alleviate this further.

EMP:

• EMP Skills and Shock effects will now do damage to several NPC Skills like the Jammer from Support units and the Nail Bomb from Thrower archetypes.

Leaderboards

• Reset the leaderboards for Operation Dark Hours