Warlords of New York, the first major expansion for The Division 2, adds something special for players that manage to reach the new level cap. At Level 40 and beyond, you’ll start collecting SHD points that you can spend on five Core Attribute categories; Offense, Defense, Utility, Scavenging and Misc. And you’ll earn a new SHD point for every level you earn past Level 40.
This replaces the old system, where you’d just earn an item cache. Now you’ll get these SHD points which provide incremental (and permanent) upgrades to your agent. That means you’ll still want to grind for XP, even after you’ve completed the expansion storyline in New York. Thankfully, there’s a new way you can rapidly increase your XP gains using yet another expansion-exclusive system — Directives!
Once the New York campaign is complete, you’ll unlock new Directives. You can toggle these on / off in the map menu. Directives are like difficulty modifiers. The more of these Directives you toggle on, the more XP you’ll earn. Each modifier gives you a +25% XP bonus, and some of them are incredibly easy to abuse.
Keep scrolling to learn how to rapidly increase your XP earnings with these new expansion systems. By using Directives and the new Global Difficulty, you can start raking in huge XP gains fast.
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Before you can start grinding for XP, you’ll need to reach Level 40 and complete the ‘Warlords of New York’ campaign. At Level 30, you’ll naturally reach Level 40 just by completing the new main missions and sub-missions. Just finish all the quests marked on your map, and you’re guaranteed to hit Level 40.
At Level 40 / DLC campaign completion, you’ll unlock three new systems — we’ll use two of these systems to earn permanent upgrades from the third.
- Directives (Difficulty Modifiers)
- Global Difficulty Settings (Set The Global Difficulty)
- SHD Levels (Infinite Leveling System)
Directives and the Global Difficulty can be set from the map menu. Directives allows you to further customize difficulty, and for each Directive you toggle on, you’ll earn +25% XP. Global Difficulty is exactly what it sounds like — increasing Global Difficulty means everything in the game world will be harder. Best of all, CP level will automatically increase when you enhance the Global Difficulty. No more tedious grinding required.
To earn a ton of XP, we’ll be using Directives and hunting CPs. You’ll want to toggle on the ‘No Regen’ directive, and the ‘Fog of War Revisited’ directive. No Regen makes it so armor does not regen between fights, and Fog of War removes the minimap. You can also toggle on ‘Cool Skills’ or ‘Special Ammo’ if you think you can handle even more challenge. I don’t recommend toggling ‘Ammo Hoarders’ on though — that starts you with less ammo, and enemies don’t drop. At harder difficulties, you’ll run out of ammo.
Next, you’ll also want to increase Global Difficulty. Start on ‘Hard’, then you can try ‘Challenging’ and ‘Heroic’ later. For each increase of Global Difficulty, you’ll increase all CPs from CP 1 to CP 2 / 3 / 4 automatically. Naturally, CP 4 gives you the best loot and XP for completing — it’s better to run a group for these!
For each Directive you toggle, you’ll earn +25% XP. With two toggled, you’ll earn +50% XP — and if you can somehow run with four, you’ll be getting +100% XP. Then you’ll get another boost in XP earnings from Global Difficulty. Knock over CP4s, collect the valuable loot, and run the circuit to rake in tons of XP. It’s currently my favorite grinding method, and it’s incredibly simple to setup.
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