‘The Division’: Ubisoft Nerfs Phoenix Credits, And Midas SMG Gun In The Dark Zone

Tom Clancy’s The Division is gaining popularity and with it comes glitches or broken portions of the game. The good news is there was a patch released this morning that took care of the Midas SMG gun by nerfing it to give the game balance in the Dark Zone, especially when it comes to end-game content, according to VG 24/7. The “Trained” talent has been disabled on the SMG.

Extraction complete! Dat Magnum tho… #TheDivision pic.twitter.com/9YVIa71geM

— Arekkz Gaming (@Arekkz) March 10, 2016

It all boils down to the constants of your stats in respect to the attributes. Those that remained fixed are the “talents” and with the Midas weapon comes with it the following. First is the Vicious talent that’s always active and increases critical hit chances by 13 percent while at full health. Then comes Self-Preserved, which gives The Division player a three percent heal rate for every critical hit made with the Midas SMG.

(Not safe for work. Profanity and video game violence)

Finally, the “broken” talent that was nerfed by Ubisoft in the recent update is the Trained talent. The wording of it is as follows.

“Critical hits increase Signature Skill resources by 4.60%.”

The Division exploit regarding the Midas comes into play when the Signature Skill ties into a recharge rate lasting 10 to 13 minutes, but coupling the Training talent with the Midas leads to a recharge rate of 30 seconds, according to VG 24/7. The SMG brand of guns typically already have their own natural critical hit percentage and utilizing a skill base tied to the Signature Skill of, say the Tactical Link, can be advantageous.

According to US Gamer, the path optimizes your already existing critical hit percentage and damage dealt by buffing it. The damage is 50 percent along with the critical hit buff of 20 percent. All of which only lasts the duration of 12 seconds for enemies within 25 meters. The recharge rate is 14 minutes, one second. All this is how it should be in-game.

As you can see with YouTuber Arekkz Gaming, he was witness to this shocker as this ability kept repeating itself in The Division. Prior to engaging with enemies in Madison Square Garden, he burned out his Signature Skill to demonstrate the exploit.

The display here shows critical hits landing most frequently via the orange numbers, which allows for the unfathomable and broken recharge rate of this ability, as in wash-rinse-repeat.

Though it was funny at first, in the long run, it can lead to a serious imbalance in The Division’s Dark Zone PvE area as this can lead to an almost infinite damage boost to the player using the Midas SMG.

The Division was also host to another game exploit in the farming of Phoenix credits for the Dark Zone. Apparently one could utilize these credits to purchase blueprints for high-end equipment, and a strategy to utilize this was made available on Gear Nuke.

Watch out for squirrels in #TheDivision's [M] Dark Zone: https://t.co/b6wzxXwfxT pic.twitter.com/s1gSLBIgnz

— Xbox (@Xbox) March 12, 2016

This morning’s update for The Division looks to have also nerfed Phoenix credits when it comes to the bosses, according to claims made on Reddit. People thought that they spent a short amount of time (one admitted two days) obtaining a good amount of those credits. The update put a stop to this, and some have claimed this would put a serious gap between all those who put time into building up their characters with high-end weapons pre-nerf, and those who still have some catching up to do.

“There will be a massive power gap between these players grinding for better gear and the players who already exploited the glitch and got the best gear.”

The Division sub-Reddit had a heated debate going back and forth about the small percentage of people who farmed the Phoenix credits via the game’s exploit, and those who believe that it would be a good idea to throttle things to a reasonable level. The players who didn’t dedicate much time to grinding it out in the Dark Zone had their say.

“Because there were farmers exploiting an easy grind. You aren’t supposed to be fully kitted out in high end gear four days after the game comes out. They needed to slow the progression down. It makes sense.”

What Culture also came up with other things that they thought needed fixing in The Division. The number issue being the lone laptop.

Tom Clancy’s The Division is currently out for the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

[Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images]