Gear Score just influences the min-max stats you can roll on gear. A high-roll 260 MMR could very well be objectively better than a low-roll 295 MMR. If you like what you have and are effective with it, then don’t worry about the gear score - especially when you’re not even near the cap yet anyway. You’re going to be growing out of the stuff you have equipped constantly, just like going from 1-30, if not faster.
This is also why I wouldn’t bother with recalibration until you’re at or near the cap, and you’re trying to squeeze a little more out of the stats on your preferred loadouts. Doing it for stuff you’ll outgrow in a couple of hours is just a waste of materials.
Thanks, very helpful. I’ve never been one to worry about “achievements” etc. as much as just enjoying the gameplay and I found myself getting anal retentive about recalibrating my gear etc. every time I picked up a new piece of armor - which is every time I wander out into the streets. I’m at about 290 without doing any missions on WT1, just patrolling the streets and finding firefights and control points to tackle. I could actually really enjoy the game just walking the streets and taking on bad guys whereever I find them, and since I reserve missions and strongholds for co-op play with my brother, that’s about all I’ve done since hitting WT1 a few days ago. I’ll not worry about recalibrating unless I happen to be at the White House for other reasons (at least at this level.)
FWIW, I still experiment with weapons, because it’s fun and there’s a lot of them, but I keep coming back to a high damage (43K) MMR with a good M60 LMG. Every time I swap out the MMR for an assault gun or rifle, I find myself thinking “I could have killed this guy in one shot with my MMR.” I love someone opening up on my with a fixed gun, because that means they’re standing still, a one headshot kill. I use the LMG where I would use an assault gun, i.e. anywhere they’re too close for the MMR. Having used an assault rifle for the whole game, I’ve gotten pretty quick at acquiring and taking out bad guys with it, even when they are on the move, and frankly it’s just really satisfying clear a battlefield with one shot kills.
Yellow Elites seem to be fairly immune to my MMR due to their heavy armor, but I can hit their weak spot and then try to get shots in while they are vulnerable. But frankly I usually clear the field of everyone else, then pop up my assault turret and pull out the 100 round LMG on Elites.
I assume, even though I haven’t been at WT1 long, at about 290 I’m close to being able to take on the missions, since I can take control points solo without a lot of problems. But I’m in no rush, so I’ll probably just try to get to 300 for the fun of it before tapping my brother and clearing the missions and stronghold. Until then, I’ll walk the streets of D.C. like an old time Texas Ranger (“One riot, One Ranger” LOL)
Once you’re full on weapon parts, sell those. Once you’re full on printer filaments, sell excess mods.
Armor that isn’t high-end quality (yellow), deconstruct until you’re full on materials, then sell what you can’t use.
It used to be even worse. What you’re seeing is AFTER an attempt to rebalance the required skill points for mods.
They want people to actually run “skill builds”, alongside DPS and tanky ones, but very few people actually are. Pretty much everyone just piles on the DPS.
Yeah, because why sacrifice all your DPS to maybe get a 25% damage boost to your assault turret or something? Why not just do significantly more damage with your primary weapons?
I don’t know what they were thinking by not having Skill Power contribute to… the power of your skills. The fact that it’s nothing but a threshold for equipping skill mods makes it a dead stat, especially with how anemic a lot of the mods are. It also doesn’t help that outside of the Chem Launcher and Assault Turret, very few skills are very compelling, especially with their ridiculously long cooldowns.
The Division 1 had issues with skills at launch as well, but I heard they eventually got better. It’s pretty frustrating to see the company make the same mistakes after already learning from them over the past three years.
Skill builds were totally viable in the first game. You can see videos out there of people running legendary missions solo with just Tactician’s gear using skills.
The only reasonable explanation I can come up with here is that work must have began on TD2 before TD1 1.3 was released, and Massive didn’t bother updating TD2 builds as they continued to tweak TD1. Two entirely different teams; left hand not talking to the right hand.
Yep, basic Gunner overview video below, and patch notes (reddit and Ubi)
This guide to unlocking it (taken from PTS) looks convoluted, LOL. I think Gold/Ultimate (I forget what word is actually used) gets it unlocked automatically and the process instead unlocks cosmetics.
That’s been my theory as well. I know after the launch of TD1, they hired the former PlanetSide 2 lead (Matt Higby, I think his name is?) and he took over the post-release development and seemed to help turn the ship around. I haven’t seen his name associated with TD2.
I love it. I’m waiting for my brother so we can coop the actual missions and stronghold on WT1, but in the meantime I’m patrolling the streets solo, taking control points, territory control, going through the tunnels, and having a blast. I’m at GS 301 at the moment. I love ARs, but I keep going back to my MMR/LMG loadout. When I use my AR I get frustrated that I could have taken that guy out quickly with one headshot with my MMR; I tend to find a spot at a decent distance, with cover, then initiate, take out a lot of the bad guys with one shot head shots, switch to the LMG with it’s seemingly endless ammo for anyone rushing, etc. I hit those little flying drones with my MMR as soon as they let them fly and immediately take out the guy controlling them.
Yeah, I ran into a Black Tusk Aerial Drone when I was wandering the streets around the Campus. I heard it, saw it down the street and thought it was a supply VTOL and ran to it to get the supplies when it dropped them. Suddenly it is firing rounds and missiles at me! I ran to a truck and hid behind it and played peek a boo taking my shots, dropping my chem healing rounds to heal up, running around the truck for cover, etc. You can disable the propellers, that seems to be a weak spot. Nice drop after killing it. I’ve had three so far at WT1.
I suppose since I’m at GS 301 and all the drops are now at 290 mostly some 300 I need to go ahead and do the missions to move up to WT2. But I’m enjoying just patrolling the streets, taking control points, ambushing supply convoys, etc.
