How to quickly get DZ Ranks? | Dark Zone The Division Guide

Your DZ Rank is important when purchasing items from vendors inside of the Dark Zone.

DZ Ranks are equally as important as the normal levels of experience of your character. They won't increase the effectiveness of your character on their own, but reaching a specific rank (30th or 50th) is a requirement to purchase items from the Dark Zone vendors, or to be able to open some of the chests hidden in this area.

This is why you should level up as quickly as possible. There are three ways of acquiring the experience needed to advance DZ Ranks. Those are:

• Eliminating computer-controlled enemies (NPCs).
• Eliminating other players that become Rogue.
• Become a Rogue and eliminating other players.

Eliminating computer-controlled enemies (NPCs)

The Dark Zone is literally filled with those enemies, as they travel in large groups, patrolling the streets. Killing them will reward you with a fixed amount of Dark Zone experience. This is the most arduous and time-consuming method of acquiring higher DZ Ranks, but at the same time the safest - getting killed by neutral enemies won't cause you to lose your experience points and precious items, such as the DZ Funds and DZ Keys.

Eliminating other players that become Rogue.

A lot more effective option when it comes to acquiring experience points for your DZ Ranks (ranging from several to over a dozen times more experience points than after a regular kill of an NPC). However, this is also the least dependable method as well.

First things first - players that decided to become Rogue and hunt other people are a bigger threat to you than you are to them. They will be prepared that someone is coming for them, and you can be sure that they have more experience fighting other players than you have - both of those will give them a huge advantage over you. Note that they can have friends beside them, who will attack you as soon as you focus your attention on the enemy.

Second problem is the fact that you can't really depend on this method. There aren't a lot of players that decide to go Rogue, and even when someone appears on the map, all the players in the entire Dark Zone will hunt him / her. This means that most of the times you won't be able to even reach the place before the Rogue is either dead, or their time as a Rogue has come to an end and they reverted to a "normal" player.

Become a Rogue and eliminating other players

A situation completely opposite to the one described above - this time it will be you who will become a Rogue and will hunt other players. You can become a Rogue the moment you attack a non-hostile player - you must deal a specific amount of damage and single stray bullet won't be able to cause it. As soon as you become a Rogue, all other players will be able to attack you freely (they won't turn Rogue when they attack you). Additionally, your current location will be visible to other players - your icon will flash on their maps. The higher your Rogue rank (which increases as you kill more players), the more often you will pulse on other players' maps and you will be easier to hunt.

Simply killing other players won't give you points towards your DZ Ranks - you must escape their pursuit as well. As soon as you become Rogue, a timer will appear on your character - it will be replenished whenever you enter gunfight with another player. If you manage to run from other players and the timer ends, you will be given a huge amount of experience points for your DZ Rank - sometimes enough to get a few ranks in one go!

However, to complicate things, dying as a Rogue comes with some nasty consequences. First things first, you will lose some DZ experience points - sometimes enough to even drop to a lower rank. Additionally, you will lose DZ Funds, DZ Keys and all the items you had in your DZ inventory.

As soon as the pursuit timer reaches zero, or when you die from the hands of another player, your Rogue status will be removed and you will again become a normal player.