The best character builds for The Division

The Division

Solo Player

Can you play The Division alone? Hell, yeah! I’ve done it plenty. While tackling a mission solo can sometimes feel way too easy and sometimes seem nigh-impossible, there’s a certain pleasure in exploring Manhattan on your own from time to time. You just have to look after yourself. Here’s a few different options for the wolf pack of one.

Dr. Robot

If you’re doing missions alone, you’re simply going to have to be part medic because there’s no one to take care of you except you. I’d have to go with Support Station with the Life Support Mod, which you can plop right down beside you. It’ll heal you while it lasts, and if you’re downed you can revive yourself. The Turret with the Zapper mod gives you a robotic teammate that will draw enemy fire, while also delivering debilitating shocks to enemies, making them easier targets.

The Scavenger

Just going out alone for some exploration and looting? Bring Pulse with you, and use the Recon Pack mod, which not only highlights enemies, but has a greater range and also marks any loot containers nearby. The Sticky Bomb launcher with the Flashbang mod is non-lethal, but blinds enemies in range, making for some easy headshots or a quick escape.

The Anti-Socialite

Mobile Cover not only gives you protection wherever you need it in the form of a wall you can hide behind, but the Blast Shield mod means if your cover is destroyed it will explode, damaging enemies in front of it. Speaking of cover, Seeker mines can be dropped beside you and they'll happily roll off to find enemies without you having to pop your head out to look for them. With the Cluster mod, your mine will split into several pieces, each which will find a different target.

Talents

Though you're alone, your enemies won't be, so focusing on talents that damage multiple targets is your best bet. In the Tech tree, Fear Tactics and Wildfire have a 30% chance of spreading shock or fire damage to all enemies within 10 meters of your target, great for crowd control. Shrapnel, on the Medical tree, can trigger a bleed effect on a group when you make a single target bleed. Demolition Expert (Tech) and Chain Reaction (Security) both increase explosive damage among groups of foes. You also might find Desperate Times useful: when you reach low health your blind fire from behind cover becomes 20% more accurate.

Key Stat: Electronics

You want to be prepared for anything and everything if you're going it alone, so having a good balance of Stamina, Firearms, and Health is important. Still, if you're going to give the edge to a single stat when picking your gear, it should probably be Electronics. There's going to be a lot riding on your gadgets, so you'll need them to be as effective as possible.

More of our builds for The Division: Medic build / Sniper build / Tank build

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.