The Division 2 Title Update 3 enters phase 2 on the PTS and we get a peek at the patch notes

As we get closer to the release of The Division 2's Title 3 Update, Massive releases patch notes and details on Phase 2 in the PTS.

Initially slated to go live on April 25, The Division 2's Title Update 3 was pushed back to May along with the game's first raid, Operation Dark Hours. The update is being fine-tuned on the PC's public test server, announced earlier this month.

The PTS is being split into phases, with the first focused on weeding out bugs. Title 3 has now entered Phase 2 on the PTS this weekend, and Massive has detailed changes that it would like the community to keep an eye on, as well as releasing extensive patch notes.

As Title Update 3 is still being tweaked, not all of the changes in the patch notes will have necessarily been rolled out on the PTS, while other changes that have gone live may be missing from the notes altogether.

"As our development team is quick to adjust to our own data and the feedback players are providing, the Patch Notes will be incomplete for this Phase 2, but we're striving to have them as complete as they can be for the final release of the Title Update in May," said the devs.

The specific changes that players have been asked to provide feedback on in regards to difficulty and general issues include Recalibration, Reviver Hive, characters getting stuck, Control Points, and "NPC sponginess, lethality and spawning in missions," as well as heroic difficulty.

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Full patch notes for Title Update 3 Phase 2 can be found below. There's still no firm date for when the update will make its way into full game, although a surprise patch rolled out last week that re-balanced difficulty, and lowered the damage output of named bosses.

While you're waiting for Title Update 3, get raid ready with these top tier sets for every playstyle.

New Feature: Operation Dark Hours

Operation Dark Hours is our first 8-player raid coming to Tom Clancy's The Division 2. It pits eight players together for the first time in the history of the franchise to experience the most challenging activity available in the game. Teamwork, collaboration, and adaptation will be necessary to defeat the Black Tusk.

GAME CHANGES

Crafting

• Increased the base cap for Receiver Components and Protective Fabric crafting materials by 200, meaning that their caps now start at 350 and end at 600 with all material capacity perks.
• Inaya al-Khaliq in the Base of Operation is now a Crafting Vendor, she can be found next to the Crafting Bench in the White House.
  • Added Specialized and Superior Skill Mod Blueprints to her stock.
  • Added an extra weekly Blueprint to her stock.
  • Moved crafting Blueprints from the Base of Operations vendor to her stock.
  • Note: While Inaya will have a variety of Blueprints available, there are still other sources in the game like Settlements and Control Points.
• Crafted Exotic weapons will now always upgrade to the maximum Gear Score of the World Tier they are crafted in, when the Upgrade Blueprint is used.

Gear

• Gear will now include better defensive rolls.
• Gear set - Hard Wired
  • Now grants Skill Damage instead of Shock Duration.
• Gear set - Ongoing Directive
  • Now grants special ammunition into any weapon, including the weapon currently equipped.
  • Now grants special ammunition on any kill, not just weapon kills.
• Gear set - True Patriot
  • Decreased debuff cycle from 4 seconds to 2 seconds.
  • Increased damage dealt to nearby targets when Full Flag is active to 50%.
• New mods: Auxiliary Skill Battery
  • Auxiliary Skill Batteries fit in Skill mod slots and grant Skill Power.

Icons

• The Confidential Gear Set intel item now has a project icon to better reflect its use.

Loot

• Loot containers will now reset at a preset time of day.
  • Control Point reward container will now also reset with this daily timer.
• Improved quality and quantity of Drone Helicopter loot.
• Slightly reduced the maximum available loot from Clan Caches.
• Cabinet loot containers now have a chance to contain Dark Zone keys.
• Increased ammunition drop chance from enemy NPCs to decrease situations where players would run out of ammunition during prolonged fights on higher difficulty activities.

Missions

• Bank Headquarters
  • Reduced difficulty for solo players.
• Roosevelt Island
  • Reduced difficulty for solo players.

NPC AI

• Updated RC Blade to fix various issues.
• Elite Medic's Pulse Grenade has been changed.
  • No longer applies disrupt.
  • Impact radius reduced.
  • The grenade impact radius should now be easier to see.
• Decreased damage of Veteran, Elite and Named NPCs.
• Enemy NPCs should no longer be able to stagger players with a melee attack if the player has a Ballistic Shield equipped.
• Drone Helicopter
  • Increased health.
  • Increased damage.
  • Improved movement.
• Decreased Outcast Suicide vest explosion radius
• Lowered NPC damage and health above normal difficulty.
• Increased variety of NPCs at higher difficulty levels.

Recalibration

• Recalibration has been changed to allow for the majority of stats to be moved as they are, from one item to another, while making it less likely to reach the cap of the stat moved. To achieve this goal, we're expressing the recalibrated power as a separate number, next to the gear score. As such, recalibration will no longer increase the gear score of the item. All existing recalibrated items will have their recalibrated additional gear score converted to the new format.
• Adjusted cost and ability to be recalibrated for
  • Terminate
  • Knee Cap
  • Calculated

Rewards

• XP from Bounties has been increased.
• All Settlement Weekly Projects now award blueprints.
• Added a new daily Crafting Project that awards blueprints.
• Increased the quality of Weekly Project equipment rewards.

Skills

• Assault Drone
  • PvE: The Drone will now more actively look for a new target once it loses its current target.
• Defender Drone
  • Will now drain more quickly once a shot has been deflected.
• Reinforcer Chem Launcher
  • Reinforcer gas clouds do not stack anymore.
• Reviver Hive
  • Fixed further occurrences of players not being revived.
  • Revive time slightly increased.
• Riot Foam Chem Launcher
  • Increased base duration of Riot Foam when used against a NPC.
• Scanner Pulse
  • Reduced cooldown from 120 seconds to 90 seconds.

Gear Talents

• Berserk
  • Increased required max armor depleted from 10% to 20%.
  • Now requires 7 Offense Attributes.
• Blacksmith
  • Increased Armor repair from 25% to 50%.
  • Can now occur every 15 seconds. (was 10 seconds)
  • Now requires 7 Defense Attributes.
• Bloodlust - PVE
  • Increased granted Weapon Damage from 25% to 35%.
  • Decreased duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Bloodlust - PvP
  • Decreased granted Weapon Damage from 25% to 20%.
  • Decreased duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Bloodlust now requires 9 Offense Attributes.
• Bloodsucker - PvE
  • Depleting an enemy's armor adds a stack of +25% bonus armor for 10s. Max stack is 6. (was 20%, 20s, 5)
• Bloodsucker - PvP
  • Depleting an enemy's armor adds a stack of 20% bonus armor for 5s. Max stack is 5.
• Bloodsucker now requires 11 Offense Attributes and an Assault Rifle, SMG or LMG equipped.
• Critical
  • Reduced Critical Hit Damage bonus from 8% to 5%.
• Clutch
  • Increased Health gained per Critical Hit from 15% to 20%.
  • Reduced Armor gained per Critical Hit from 2% to 1%.
• Entrench
  • Increased Armor repair for Headshots from cover from 5% to 10%.
• Knee Cap
  • Increased chance to apply bleed when Shooting an Enemy in the legs from 10% to 15%.
• Patience
  • After being in cover for 5s, armor repairs by 5% every 1s. (was 3s).
  • Now requires 6 Defense Attributes
• Safeguard
  • Reduced Duration to 5 seconds.
  • Can only occur once every 20 seconds (This was already the case but is now reflected in the tooltip.
  • Now requires 4 or less Offense Attributes.
• Spotter
  • Increased Weapon Damage to Pulsed enemies from 10% to 20%.
  • Now requires 5 Utility Attributes.
• Surgical
  • Reduced Critical Hit Chance bonus from 8% to 5%.
• Unbreakable - PvE
  • Increased amount of Max Armor repaired when armor is depleted from 25% to 70%.
  • Increased timeframe for Armor Kits not being consumed when effect triggers from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
• Unbreakable - PvP
  • Increased Max Armor repaired when armor is depleted from 15% to 25%.
  • Increased timeframe for Armor Kits not being consumed when effect triggers from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.
• Unbreakable now requires 11 Defense Attributes and no other Talents affecting Armor Kits.

Weapon Talents

• Frenzy - PvE
  • For every 10 bullets in a magazine capacity, gain +2% rate of fire and +2% weapon damage for 5s when reloading from empty.
• Frenzy - PvP
  • For every 10 bullets in a magazine capacity, gain +1.5% rate of fire and +1.5% weapon damage for 5s when reloading from empty.
• Killer
  • Now grants 30% critical damage for 5s.
• Preservation - PvE
  • Killing an enemy repairs 10% armor over 5s. Headshots improves the repair to 20%. (was 5%, 3s, 10%)
• Preservation - PvP
  • Killing an enemy repairs 5% armor over 3s. Headshots improves the repair to 15%.
• Preservation now requires 7 Defense Attributes.
• Reformation
  • Increased Headshot kill skill repair and healing to 50% from 25%.
  • Duration decreased from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Now requires 9 Utility Attributes.
• Spike
  • Increased skill damage from 25% to 35%.
  • Increased duration from 10 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Now requires 5 Utility Attributes.
• Strained
  • Increased missing Armor requirement from 5% to 10%.
• Unhinged
  • Reduced Damage Bonus from 25% to 20%.
  • Reduced Handling negative from 35% to 25%.
• Unstoppable Force - PvE
  • Killing an enemy now grants 2% Weapon Damage for every 25.000 Max armor.
• Unstoppable Force - PvP
  • Killing an enemy now grants 1% Weapon Damage for every 25.000 Max armor.

Vendors

• Vendors will now verify the players' highest achieved World Tier and offer items of that Gear Score, instead of offering items of the highest World Tier available in the group.

Weapons

• SOCOM MK20 SSR
  • Now has a skin slot from Specialized quality and up.
• Chatterbox
  • Damage increased.
• Sweet Dreams / Lullaby
  • Damage increased.
• Merciless / Ruthless
  • Damage increased.
• Pestilence
  • Damage increased.
• Liberty
  • Damage increased.
• TAC-50
  • Now has 2 zoom states.

Conflict

• Armor boost
  • Boost provided reduced by 50%.
• Armor value on nameplates
  • Improved visuals to better reflect how much armor an enemy has.
• Balance
  • All players are now scaled to Max World Tier Gear Score.
  • Primary stats are set to high-end values.
  • Normalized talent overrides are applied.
  • Budget distribution of un-normalized items is preserved.
  • No additional bonus is applied
  • Unlocked mods and talents from un-normalized builds are active.
  • Items above Gear Score 500 will be scaled to 500.
  • No bonus stats will be applied to these items.
  • Recalibration bonuses are not applied.
• PvP specific overrides
  • Weapon and Skill global damage modifiers.
  • Targeted weapon and skill damage modifiers.
  • Assault Rifles now have a 1.25 PvP damage scaler applied.
  • Skill behavior overrides.
• Damage boost
  • Boost provided reduced by 50%.
• The Conflict NPC was moved to a more prominent spot, next to the helipad outside the Base of Operations.
• Respawn
  • Respawning players are now much more likely to respawn with their teammates.
• Skills
  • Skill cooldowns no longer reset when a player is killed.

PvP

• Damage modifier reduced to increase time to kill.
• Skill modifier increased to let Skills have more impact in PvP.

Dark Zone

• Contaminated loot
  • Bosses now guarantee a contaminated loot drop.
  • Higher challenge landmarks can drop multiple contaminated items.
  • Basic, Veteran and Elite NPCs have their drop rate lowered, but now have a very high chance to drop contaminated loot.
• Dark Zone bag size
  • Default bag size increased to 6.
  • Tier 1 perk Bag Space now increases bag size to 8.
  • Tier 4 perk Bounceback now reduces Dark Zone XP lost on death.
  • Tier 10 perk increases bag size to 10.
• Dark Zone brackets
  • Reduced bracketing to:
  • Level 1 – 30.
  • Players in World Tiers.
• NPC AI
  • Reduced damage output.
  • Increased Time to Kill.
• Landmarks
  • Added a short cooldown to landmarks.
• Rogue
  • Removed cooldown.
  • There is still a 5 second toggle cooldown.
• Thieves Den
  • Now allows players to switch weapons.
• Occupied Dark Zone
  • Damage modifiers
  • Added a separate PvP damage modifier.
• XP
  • Reduced DZXP loss to 35% of the XP in your current Dark Zone rank when being killed.

GENERAL

Text Chat improvements

• Players can toggle displaying personal and group loot drops.
• Text chat will now lose focus after sending a message.
• Group tab will be populated with all raid members when queueing for a raid.
• Improved feedback when attempting invalid actions in text chat.

Settings

• Added a Neutral Lighting setting to all platforms.

PC

• Settings
  • Added "Anti-aliasing" graphics setting with new Ultra alternative for sharper image when in motion.

UI

• Character sheet
  • Will now properly update and display Accuracy, Stability, Recoil, Weapon Swap and Reload Speed from +Weapon Handling bonuses.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue where NPCs in the Bounty screen had broken animations.
• Fixed an issue where players on PlayStation 4 were unable to complete the Big Game Hunter commendation.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent players from completing the Side Mission Medical Camp Attack.
• Fixed an issue where armor values on AI in the Dark Zone scaled incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue where the Sniper Turret would aim at targets out of line of sight in PvP.
• Fixed an issue where Scanner Pulse and Remote Pulse were not properly affected by Skill Duration.
• Fixed various issues where Skill bonuses were not applied properly.
• Fixed an issue where bounties rewarded from Projects in Settlements were rewarding the wrong amount of XP and Credits.
• Fixed an issue where Clan Cashes would scale incorrectly when opened in another player's lower level session.