Support | Roles and character builds The Division Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

General information

A support character is quite similar to the medic - your main task is to support your team. The only difference is the fact, that while a medic focuses on healing teammates, your task is to deal damage to enemies and to prevent them from moving around the battlefield.

Your main goal will be to accumulate the highest amount of Skill Power you can manage. Thanks to that, your abilities will deal huge amount of damage, their duration will increase, and the cooldown times will be decreased. Objects created by the abilities, such as the Turrets and covers, will be more durable.

A very important characteristic of this build is the adaptability of it - given the huge Skill Power required for it to work, you can use it to deal immense damage with offensive abilities, and in extreme cases play as a tank of the team.

Key attributes

Things that are required for this build to work are as follows:

• High Skill Power - ranging 40,000 - 45,000. It will allow you to use your abilities constantly, whereas your offensive abilities will deal immense damage. Skill Power also increases the effectiveness of the Turret.
• Skill Haste - which is basically the cooldown reduction in this game. The quicker your abilities take to reset, the more often you will be able to use them.
• If possible - Firearms. You won't be focusing on dealing damage, but it's good to be able to dish out some of it between using abilities.
• Armor. This will decrease the amount of damage you receive from enemy bullets. Remember that armor has no impact on the amount of damage received from other sources (you will need exotic resistance for that). An optimal value should be between 4,500 to 5,000 points of Armor. You shouldn't increase it further, as the amount of damage reduction quickly diminishes with when armor value exceeds 5,000 points.
• Protection vs Elites. Most of high-leveled enemies are classified as "elite", which means that each 1% of this stat will reduce the damage they deal to you by 1% as well.
• Bonus to a specific ability (as a minor attribute on gear): to Turret and any other ability you are going to use (more on that can be found further in this chapter).
• Health. A bare minimum ranges from 50,000 to 60,000. You shouldn't go below that, as some of the enemies will be able to take you out with a single bullet.

Naturally, you will be able to play having lower values than those recommended above, especially because reaching them will take some time, but the above ones should be your final goal - if you manage to do so, your character will be extremely effective as a support character.

Abilities and talents

Your main ability will be the Turret, with the Dragonbreath mod. It's not used to deal huge damage (but those will be nice as well), but to set the enemies on fire, preventing them from doing anything from a few seconds.

As far as the second ability goes, you can choose:

• Sticky Bomb with the BFB mod. This ability, given your Skill Power, can deal huge damage - you can easily reach 250,000 points of damage. Additionally, it has a chance to cause bleeding, which means that every affected enemy will receive from 400,000 to 500,00 points of damage! Alternatively, if you don't need damage, you can use the Flashbang mod, which will stun enemies.
• Seeker Mine with the Cluster mod. It deals less damage than the Sticky Bomb, but you don't have to worry about aiming it, as it will home on the target on its own. It's extremely effective to flush the enemy out of the cover. The mod can be changed to the Gas Charge, which will disorient enemies.
• Smart Cover, with the Recharger mod. Thanks to that you will be able to give your allies an absurd bonus to protection (almost 70%!) and to damage. Additionally, the cover will now heal them by a small amount each second, as well as give some cooldown reduction.
• Pulse, to increase the damage dealt by your team (with your Skill Power the bonus will be enormous). The best mod for that is the Tactical Scanner, giving even more bonus damage.
• Mobile Cover, with the Extension mod. A cover made by this ability will be able to withstand up to a million points of damage, allowing the players hiding behind it to be safe. Additionally, it's perfectly suited to block narrow passages - the enemies won't be able to jump over it, they can only run around it.

When it comes to support role, selecting the second ability depends on your own preferences, as well as the abilities used by your allies.

When it comes to signature skills, you should take the Survivor Link. Skill Power has no impact on the effectiveness of signature skills, but it reduces the cooldown time significantly. Additionally, this ability is the best from the signature ones - 80% damage reduction will cause your teammates to be practically immortal for the duration. If you want more damage for your allies, take the Tactical Link instead.

Talent which should be taken with this build are as follows:

• Wildfire - 30% chance that an enemy that was set on fire will cause other nearby foes to be ignited as well. Perfectly suited to use with the Dragonbreath Turret.
• Shrapnel - similarly to the above one, but this time it causes bleeding. Perfectly suited to use with the Sticky Bomb, with the BFB mod.
• Death by Proxy - disrupting an enemy ability will increase the Skill Power of your character by 20% for 30 seconds. To disrupt an enemy, simply cause a critical hit shot to his head, or use a Sticky Bomb with the Flashbang mod.
• Strike Back - when your health reaches the last segment, you will receive a 20% cooldown reduction.

Equipment

You should focus on using an Assault Rifle, or a Sniper Rifle. Both of them will allow you to fight on a medium / long range, on which you should be fighting all the time - it decreases the chances of getting attacked (and killed). When selecting mods for your weapons you have a total freedom, but you should take a silencer that decreases the threat (Reduced Threat), making the enemies less likely to attack you.

The rest of your gear should have stats mentioned at the top of this chapter, and as far as their talents go, you should look for the following ones:

• Body Armor - Robust talent. All talents on the Body Armor are quite optional for the support class, but additional armor is always worth it.
• Mask - Rejuvenated. The first one will cause the medkits to remove the status effects (which prevent you from using abilities).
• Backpack - Inventive talent, which increases your Skill Power when you are at full health.
• Gloves - Savage talent. It gives a bonus to damage against targets without cover. Stay away from the Reckless talent.
• Knee Pads - pretty much any talent for that item.
• Holster - similarly to the above one. It should be taken in accordance to your style of play. If you tend to move between covers all the time, you should take Nimble or Recovered. If you stay behind the same cover, take the Sturdy talent.

How to play

As it was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, your main task is to support your team, hold enemies at bay, cause various status effects to your foes, and attack enemies when your abilities are either on cooldown, or not needed. In order to do so, you must:

• If you aren't playing with your friends who are familiar with your playstyle, tell your allies that you are using a character that is built around supporting the team and let them know which abilities you are planning to use. Thanks to that they will be able to take other skills, support you, and prevent you from dying.
• Don't' split from your team, as it will end up badly - in a quick death. You should stick to your team, who will be able to divert the attention of your enemies from your character, while you focus on healing.
• If there's another support character in the team, you can alter your build, so that you can play as a healer character instead. In extreme cases, you can even play as a tank, as it requires a high amount of Skill Power, which you have.
• The Pulse ability, thanks to your Skill Power, will significantly increase the amount of damage your teammates do. Remember to use it whenever it's possible, especially because of the fact, that it should now have similar cooldown time and duration time.
• Place your Turret with the Dragonbreath mod in narrow passages, so that enemies passing it will be asset on fire. Focus all of your attacks on an ignited enemy to quickly get rid of the threat.
• If you are using the Sticky Bomb, try to hit as many enemies as you can - thanks to that you will increase the damage dealt by the ability, or cause more enemies to be stunned.
• Use the Seeker Mine to flush enemies out of cover.