Tank | Roles and character builds The Division Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

General information

Your main role as a tank in the Tom Clancy's The Division is to divert the attention of your enemies, so that they focus their fire on you, instead of your teammates, allowing them to do their jobs - deal damage. Building a tank in this game differs severely when compared to other games - you won't accumulate absurd amount of health to survive the attack of enemies. Instead, you must focus on increasing your Skill Power.

This is because of the fact, that even while having 150,000 health points, enemies on the Challenge difficulty and some of them in the highest districts of the Dark Zone will be able to kill you in a few shots. This is even more evident when dealing with enemies equipped with shotguns - they can deal absurd amount of damage, able to kill a normal character in a single shot.

Having huge Skill Power will allow you to negate that with the help of the Ballistic Shield, which will be your main tool. After activating it, the character generates a shield, that can withstand gigantic amounts of punishment. Proper amount of Skill Power is crucial, as it will allow your shield to soak up over 500,000 points of damage, multiple times more than when using normal health. Additionally, a shield that has been broken can easily be replaced by reactivating the ability.

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 your shield to have over half a million health points. Additionally, all of your abilities will be more effective, and they will have significantly reduced cooldown times.
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.
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 Ballistic Shield and any other ability you are going to use (more on that can be found further in this chapter).
Health, ranging from 50,000 to 60,000. You won't be taking damage without the shield, but that amount will come in handy when the enemy flanks you from behind, or when you are forced to reactive the shield.

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 tank.

Abilities and talents

Ability selection is rather optional - the only one that you must use is the Ballistic Shield. As far as the mod on that ability goes, you should use the Reactive Targeting one - the shield will have more health, and the enemies will be pulsed when they attack you (making them receive more damage from your allies). A good choice is the Assault Shield as well - enemies will be knocked back when you fire at them, which will be useful when you are constantly rushed by enemy shotgunners.

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

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.
First Aid, with the Overdose mod. It comes in handy when you have problems with keeping up your shield - you can simply "heal" it (you will need the "Resourceful" talent from the Backpack to do so).
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.
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.

Selecting the second ability should depend on the abilities the rest of your team will use. If there's someone responsible for healing, as well as someone who focuses on supporting (meaning that First Aid and Smart Cover won't be needed), take the Pulse to increase the damage of your team.

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.

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

Critical Save - 40% damage reduction after using a medkit will allow you to take a lot more damage before your shield breaks.
One is None - 50% chance to give you the bullet back when you hit the enemy head. The less time you spend on reloading your weapon, the higher the chance that the enemies will lose interest in you and will go attack your teammates.
On the Move - killing an enemy while on the move will give you a 30% damage reduction for 10 seconds. As you won't be hiding behind cover, this is perfectly suited for a tank.
Precision - hitting the enemy in the head will pulse them. It will allow you to mark the enemies for your teammates to focus their attention on.

Equipment

When it comes to weapons, you will be limited to a sidearm only, as you will be using a Ballistic Shield. You should look for a pistol with good accuracy, large magazine and the "Coolheaded" talent. The talent will cause your headshots to reduce the cooldowns on your abilities. You can install only the silencer for the pistol, and you should look for one that increases your threat (Increased Threat). Thanks to that, the enemies will more likely attack you, instead of your teammates.

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 - you should take either Rapid or Vigorous.
Mask - Rehabilitated talent. You will be often between numerous enemies, who will cause various status effects. Thanks to that, you will be able to regenerate your health (and your shield, provided that you have the "Resourceful" talent on your backpack).
Backpack - without a doubt the Resourceful talent. Thanks to that, all the healings done by you will also regenerate the health of your Ballistic Shield.
Gloves - Decisive talent. You will be using a sidearm all the time, and increasing the damage you deal with it won't harm you.
Knee Pads - pretty much any talent for that item.
Holster - similarly to the above one. Talents from this group are focused around using covers, which you won't really need to do.

How to play

As it was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, your main role will be to force the enemies to focus their attention on you, attack them from a close distance and prevent them from reaching your allies. In order to do so, you must:

Always position yourself in such a way, that you are facing the enemy. The Ballistic Shield takes damage only from the enemies in the front, meaning that enemies standing behind you will deal damage to your character instead.
Don't rush into a huge group of enemies - they will quickly surround you and you won't be able to block with your shield properly.
If extremely annoying enemies (such as the ones wielding shotguns) are approaching the area, you can block the entrance to your allies by standing in it. Unfortunately, your allies won't be able to do much as well, as you will be blocking their bullets, but it can give you a little bit of time to think of your next move.
Don't split from your team. Your task is to protect them, and not to fight with an enemy standing 50 meters away from them, when your allies are stomped into the ground by a group of shotgunners. You shouldn't be further than several meters away from your team.
If you noticed that the shield won't hold out, hide behind a cover, discard it (by selecting a main weapon) and activate it again to gain a new, fresh shield.
If there's a medic in the team and he has a backpack with the "Resourceful" talent, ask him to heal you whenever he has the chance (when the heal is not needed elsewhere). This way your shield will be able to withstand a lot more damage before breaking.
If you can, try to use a pistol with the "Coolheaded" talent. Each time you hit the enemy in the head, the cooldown times of your abilities will be reduced, allowing you to constantly use your abilities.
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.

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