The latest major update for The Division 2 is nearly here, and today Ubisoft has revealed everything you need to know about the patch. The biggest change is the new Exotic Reconfiguration system, which the devs have already revealed in detail, but the full Division 2 update 9 patch notes reveal plenty of other balance tweaks and other changes to be aware of when the changes go live, including a host of buffs, nerfs, and reworks.
Exotic reconfiguration will let you re-roll your gear all the way up to level 40. Each item has a guaranteed minimum, and Ubisoft says the potential benefits “can go all the way up to a god-rolled item.” You can purchase Reconfigure Blueprints from Inaya, and all your existing upgrade blueprints will automatically be upgraded for the new system. Reconfiguration costs an Exotic component, and you’re now only getting one component from deconstructing an Exotic, instead of two.
Read on for the full patch notes, including all the changes to Exotics, talents, enemies, and other items.
THE DIVISION 2 UPDATE 9 Release time and date
Downtime for The Division 2 update 9 is scheduled to begin on April 21 at 00:30 PDT / 3:30 EDT / 8:30 BST. Maintenance is expected to last for three hours, and the patch is set to be around 10GB – so once the downtime and download are complete, you’ll be ready to play.
The Division 2 update 9 New features
Exotic Reconfiguration
- Exotic Reconfiguration will allow players to re-roll their Exotic gear as many times as they want to get a better roll.
- Reconfiguration has a cost of 1 Exotic component and can be done on level 30 or 40 Exotics.
- All owned Exotics can be upgraded from level 30 to 40 if you own the expansion and are level 40.
- Blueprints are available from Inaya at the Base of Operations.
THE DIVISION 2 UPDATE 9 balance changes
Exotics
- 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 – Buff
- 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%)
- Developer comment: Explosion Damage doesn’t scale with crit stats, so boosted to compensate.
- Lady Death – Nerf
- No longer enhances Turret Skills.
- Bullet King
- Base damage is now the same as the non-exotic LMG version.
- Exotic attribute roll quality
- All exotics will now roll at the highest possible minimum roll regardless of the difficulty they are obtained in.
- Exotic items can still roll higher than the minimum but minimum rolls are now higher.
Talents
- 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).
- 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.
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).
- Overcharge talents now properly state they don’t work in PVP.
Named Items
- Contractor’s Gloves
- Damage to Armor lowered to 8%.
- Firm Handshake
- Status Effects increased to 15%.
- Ammo Dump
- Now correctly rolls 2 additional attributes.
- Claws Out
- Now correctly has a skill tier core attribute roll.
- Now correctly rolls an attribute in addition to pistol damage and melee damage.
- Melee damage increased to 400%.
- Fox’s Prayer
- Damage to out of cover lowered to 8%.
- The Hollow Man
- Damage to Health lowered to 10%.
- Punch Drunk
- Headshot Damage increased to 20%.
- Send-Off
- Removed Perfectly Rooted Talent.
Weapons
- Assault Rifles
- Increased maximum roll of Damage to Health to 21%.
- Players on Stadia will not see this be displayed correctly and instead see an increase to Damage to Health on other weapon types. This is an UI issue only and will be fixed with the next client update.
- Increased maximum roll of Damage to Health to 21%.
Gear Sets
- True Patriot
- White buff armor repair lowered to 2%/3% once every second.
Main Missions
- Pentagon & Darpa Research Lab
- Lowered difficulty to be more on par with other missions.
- Liberty Island
- Lowered difficulty to be more on par with other missions.
- Wall Street
- Reduced health and damage of the APC.
- Stranded Tanker
- NPC composition has been adjusted.
AI & NPCs
- Signature Weapons Against Named NPCs
- Slightly increased damage signature weapons deal to named enemies
- Elite NPCs Damage Against Player Skills
- Reduced damage elite NPCs deal to player skills.
- Tank Sprint Speed
- Reduced sprint speed of Tank archetype from all hostile factions
- NPC Shotguns
- Reduced damage of all NPC shotguns
- Adjusted range of some NPC shotguns (including shotguns used by Black Tusk Rusher)
- Status Effects
- Reduced duration of Poison and Cleaners’ Napalm Ensnare (when applied to players)
- Special Ammo Signaling
- Any NPC with special ammo has the same UI indication as from the Special Ammo Directive.
- Examples of who this affects:
- Outcasts who pick up special ammo from boxes deployed by their Support archetype.
- Bounties who spawn with special ammo.
- Rogue Agents
- Significantly reduced the armor of dynamically spawning Rogue Agents.
- To prevent this from being too large of a nerf in 3-4-player co-op a Rogue
- Agent can spawn with an armor kit which can repair their armor up to 70%.
- Slightly reduced the damage output of dynamically spawning Rogue Agents.
- NPC Buff Allies Ability Changed
- Previously, certain bosses and bounties would magically overheal themselves and their fireteam. This “buff allies” ability lacked clear messaging, so it has been replaced with a “leader overheal” ability. This is the same ability that the Rikers’ Leader archetype has. Once the boss (leader) is killed, all their friendlies lose their overheal. The UI indicator of pulsating circles inward/outward in their nameplate signals when this ability is active.
Loot/Rewards
- Increased power of dropped Exotics to always be of the highest tier, giving the highest minimum rolls.
- Added Operation Dark Hours raid gear set Chest and Backpack items to the general loot pool, making them available outside of Operation Dark Hours.
- Lowered number of Exotic Components awarded from Exotic deconstruction to match the cost of Exotic reconfiguring.
- Lowered Conflict XP amount from PVP weekly projects to match the required XP for 1 Conflict level.
Blueprints
- Combined all Skill Mod blueprints of different qualities into a single blueprint per Skill, scaling quality with that of the Crafting Bench.
- Added Skill Mod Blueprints for the Skills introduced in Warlords of New York.
- Added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to first-time weekly completion rewards of Invaded Missions.
- Added Blueprints from the general Blueprints pool to the rewards of Daily Projects.
Skills
- The Sharpshooter’s Tactician Skill base radius has been increased to 50m.
- Scoping is now enabled when using a Shield Skill.
You can see a full list of bug fixes at the Ubisoft forums. For more on The Division 2 Exotics, we’ve got a big ol’ guide to the game’s gear after Warlords of New York.