DPS builds are the bread and butter of The Division 2 Escalation, as all ten of its tiers bring increasingly difficult enemies with them. Although a squad can benefit from having a Future Initiative healer or Refactor support, it’s the DPS builds that carry you across the finish line. As of Year 8 Season 1, there are numerous variations of damage-focused loadouts that can be utilized in this new game mode.
On that note, we take a look at the three best DPS builds for The Division 2 Escalation tiers.
DPS builds in The Division 2: Three best loadouts for Escalation tiers
The brand new endgame mode features 10 tiers of increasing difficulty, where tier 1 is the lowest and is comparable to Heroic, while tier 5 is comparable to Legendary. Although the missions feature their basic story playthroughs, the enemies during an escalated mission come with a boost to the following stats:
- Enemy damage
- Enemy health
- Enemy armor
As if the harder enemies weren’t enough, an escalated mission also features mutators that provide specific perks to certain enemies as well as global buffs. Now, let us go over the three best DPS builds in The Division 2 to help you complete Escalation.
1) Tinkerer Tipping Scales
This particular setup utilizes two high-end GR9 LMGs with two damage-focused talents, along with the Tipping Scales gear set and Tinkerer exotic mask. At full stacks, this build can easily reach 1.5M crit hits on a single target, making it the perfect choice to shred through enemy armor.
Equipment choices:
- Primary – GR9 with Streamline / Strained
- Secondary – GR9 with Optimist / Measured
- Pistol – Quick Step
- Specialization – Gunner
- Skill slot 1 – Decoy
- Skill slot 2 – Reviver Hive
2) Alejandro’s Dilemma
The Negotiator’s Dilemma is one of the top choices among DPS builds in The Division 2 Legendary missions. This makes this build a no-brainer for Escalation. Players can mark two targets and shoot a third hostile NPC to damage all three of them at the same time. This also helps take down enemies hiding behind covers.
Equipment choices:
- Primary – Big Alejandro
- Secondary – Gear Shift
- Pistol – Quick Step
- Specialization – Gunner (grants Armor on Kill, fire rate boost)
- Skill slot 1 – Decoy
- Skill slot 2 – Reviver Hive
3) Tamper-Proof Strikers
This particular Strikers loadout is quite popular in Dark Hours Cafeteria, where you fight Boomer. This build stuns hostile enemies when they get close to your skills. It allows players to consistently stun targets in their spawn points with skillfully placed turrets. Alongside the shock ammo from St. Elmo’s Engine, this provides a second layer of crowd control.
Equipment choices:
- Primary – St. Elmo’s Engine
- Secondary – Lefty
- Pistol – Quick Step
- Specialization – Demolitionist (grants 5% DTTOC)
- Skill slot 1 – Sniper Turret
- Skill slot 2 – Booster Hive
This concludes our coverage of three DPS builds you can use in The Division 2 Escalation tiers. To acquire a further boost to your damage output, make sure your Offense stacks in the Recombinant Global modifier are the highest, and ensure they buff your Weapon Handling or Ammo Capacity.
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Edited by Sankalpa Das