DPS - Life Steal build in The Division 2 The Division 2 guide, tips

Last update: 12 April 2019

A character build in Tom Clancy's The Division 2, which focuses heavily on life steal - healing through dealing damage. This is a very situational build, requiring very specific equipment, but making the character literally unkillable in the process while simultaneously allowing the player to deal absurd amounts of damage. In this chapter you will find all the information needed to build a character focused on life stealing.

• General information
• Active abilities
• Equipment
• Specializations
• How to play + tips

General information

While building a character focused on life stealing, you will need to take care of several things before it can function efficiently. For this purpose you will need:

1. The main weapon with high rate of fire (RPM). The best choice here, quite obviously, will be an SMG weapon, preferably a Vector. This weapon has a huge RPM value and can deal immense damage to the enemy, but its effective range is limited to medium distance. It will, however, work brilliantly in this build. This weapon should have the Strained talent, giving the character +10% Critical Hit Damage for each 5% of missing armor.
2. A Backpack with the Safeguard talent. This talent gives the character a buff that increases incoming healing by 150% for 20 seconds. This is a key component of this build.
3. Gloves with the Clutch talent. This talent causes every critical hit to restore 15% of health and 2% of armor of the character.
4. Body Armor with the Berserk talent. It gives 10% additional weapon damage for each 10% of missing armor.
5. High Critical Hit Chance stat on the character. Thanks to that, the Clutch talent from the Gloves will activate with every second shot, allowing you to restore huge amounts of health and armor while attacking.
6. As high Health parameter as possible - this will be explained further in the chapter.
7. The Demolitionist specialization. You need the Spray and Pray and Crisis Response abilities from that specialization. The former will increase the SMG damage by 15%, the latter will cause your main weapon to have its magazine replenished each time the armor of the character reaches 0.

Acquiring items with those attributes and talents will not be an easy task and will require time, but the effect is well worth the effort. Detailed description of how the build works can be found in the further part of this chapter.

Active abilities

This build is quite special, as there are no requirements when it comes to active abilities - you can use any of them, as the entire build focuses around dealing damage with a SMG weapon. A good choice, however, is the Turret with the default upgrade - allowing you to divert some of the attention of enemies from your character - and a Chem Launcher with the Reinforcer upgrade, allowing you to restore armor in a tight situation.

Equipment

The equipment is the most important aspect of this build. In order for it to function properly, you will need the following items:

1. A high rate of fire (RPM) SMG weapon, preferably a Vector. The weapon must have the Strained talent that offers +10% critical damage for each 5% of missing armor.
2. Items increasing Health and Critical Hit Chance attributes. The Wyvern Wear brand set is ideal here, as it offers a high boost to critical hit chance and critical hit damage. You should also consider using one piece of Mirakami Industries brand seat, as it offers +8% to total Health.
3. Gloves with the Clutch talent - it causes the character to restore 15% health and 2% armor with each critical hit.
4. Body Armor with the Berserk talent. Thanks to it the character will receive +10% weapon damage for each 10% of missing armor.
5. Backpack with the Safeguard talent. This talent gives a 150% incoming healing boost to the character for 20 seconds after killing an enemy.
6. Second main weapon allowing you to fight on a long distance. SMGs are weapons that are effective up to 20-30 meters - their damage falls off considerably on longer distances. You should equip either a Marksman Rifle or a Rifle for your second weapon to be able to take out dangerous enemies (snipers, engineers, medics) from a long distance.

A LMG weapon can also be used in this build, but it needs to have a high RPM value - the faster the weapon shoots, the more you will be able to heal. You should still stick to SMGs, as that weapon type offers a huge bonus to Critical Hit Chance.

Specializations

In this case you need to use the Demolitionist specialization, due to two specific passive abilities:

1. Spray and Pray - the ability increases SMG damage by 15%, giving a tremendous boost to damage.
2. Crisis Response - it causes the magazine of the currently used weapon to be replenished each time the armor of the character drops to 0.

Note - Crisis Response was changed in one of the recent patches, giving it a small internal cooldown. It reduced its effectiveness, but it still is viable and a crucial part of this build.

How to play + tips

Once the item acquisition is completed, you will need to learn how to effectively use them in combat. The entire gameplay with this build focuses on synergy between several factors. Your goal here is to balance around 0 armor points all the time, replenishing it above it and going to 0 again. There are several reasons for that:

1. Once a character goes to around 0 armor points, it will receive a tremendous boost to damage. The Strained talent (from the weapon) will offer +200% critical hit damage and the Berserk talent (from the armor) +100% weapon damage. This, in conjunction with a high critical hit chance will cause enemies to simply melt instantaneously.
2. To prevent the character without armor from getting killed, you needed to acquire items with +Health attribute. This will allow you to survive enemy fire.
3. Here comes the life stealing aspect from which the name of the build came. With each critical hit (the character should have 50-60% critical hit chance), the character will restore 15% health and 2% armor. What is more, if you manage to kill an enemy, the values will be increased by 150% for 20 seconds - each hit will restore 37.5% of total health and 5% of total armor, allowing you to restore your entire health bar with only 3 critical hits. With the help of Vector's huge RPM value will cause your character to be unkillable as long as you keep attacking an enemy.
4. In a normal situation the magazine of the Vector would quickly be empty. This is where the passive ability - Crisis Response - from the Demolitionist specialization comes in. Once the armor of your character goes to 0, the magazine will be replenished to maximum. Due to the fact that you will be balanced around 0 armor all the time, the magazine will be refilled constantly, even when you will be fighting against a single enemy. You will not have to reload your weapon during combat.

By looking at the above points you can see that the higher the rate of fire (RPM) of the character, the more you will be able to heal yourself. Additional Health points will also cause the character to be more durable, as each shot will restore more health points. As long as you will be attacking an enemy, the character should be unable to kill.

Note - one of the recent patches to the game changed the way in which the Crisis Response and the Safeguard talent work. They both now have a small internal cooldown, preventing them from activating all the time. It decreased the effectiveness of the build, but it is still highly viable and fun to play.