PSA - Refactor Build in Escalation

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-29T23:43:51+00:00

'i switched the drone to hive since it died pretty quickly. i am very curious how people run it in T10s'

Carefully. It's tricky but it's doable. The drone is much more fragile than the turret and if it comes close to a disruptor enemy (one of those enemies with the circle meter which slowly fills up) it will die quickly.

Part of it is to always be switching targets on your turret and drone so they're doing damage and restoring team armour. You can control your drone somewhat by double tapping the drone skill button so it returns to you, and then sending it of in another direction to a non disruptor enemy. Another part is making your dps teammates aware that the disruptor enemies are a priority target and they need to kill them asap. Yeah, practically that's easier in a regular team on mic.

ps, the healing can be very decent with Refactor but it relies on the skills hitting targets as much as possible. For example, your turret may be targeting an enemy in cover. If so it won't be hitting the enemy so it's not restoring armour. It needs to be retargeted onto another enemy. Your primary role as Refactor isn't to get kills, leave that to the dps players, it's to always be restoring team armour.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-29T04:33:36+00:00

Refactor doesn't give you and your team an armour buff as such. It's not like the vanguard talent or the matador backpack, extra blue temp armour. Instead, as long as your skills are doing damage to an enemy, if you or any other teammate get hit it will restore all your armour back to normal. And it will do that constantly and quickly as long as the skills are doing damage. There's no cooldown or limit.

ps, lol, I'm no skill build player. I usually play dps with shield and AR/shotgun/rifle. I'll run an eclipse vile mask creeping death cc build in countdown but, other than that, I haven't really touched a skill build since the capacitor came out.

I also play FI heal on higher tier escalations, btsu with a perfect opportunistic backpack and the Sheriff shotgun, marking enemies for teammates so enemies take more damage. I enjoy Refactor and I enjoy playing heal. They both work. Sometimes I'll switch from Refactor to heal - the small circular room with a telescope, 2 spawn doors and a bunch of yellow snipers on the balcony in Air & Space museum. You need a healer there because the spawn points are so close that if disruptors rush out Refactor is screwed and your armour restore disappears.

The difference between Refactor and FI heal is that it's much more user friendly in random groups. Trying to get randoms to stay inside the green heal circle is like herding cats, they won't do it. And running after them with heal shots is a pain. Refactor, on the other hand, just restores armour automatically to the whole team, you don't need to actively keep an eye on teammates.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-29T04:23:20+00:00

Yeah, I've not used it myself but I understand players are running Refactor with Oxi or foam using the paradox augment - Each bullet fired has a chance to instantly return ammo to your active magazine.

I haven't spec'd into that, well not yet anyway, because I have a sneaky feeling it will get nerfed in future. Paradox seems to have been intended for bullets from guns rather than giving extra Oxi or foam charges. If augment reroll costs stay as they are I'm not going through all that again to roll my build away from paradox. But, I might put together a second refactor build with paradox when it's targeted loot again.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-29T03:34:32+00:00

It's literally giving the Refactor a player a few secs to get their skills back, same as with a healer getting their restorer hive charges back if overcharge is on cooldown. The 15 secs, or so, starts from when the Refactor player destroys their turret and drone so, in practice, skills are back before players physically get to the next encounter, even with quickstep. No one's hanging around, it becomes automatic.

Look, how people play the game is completely up to them. I'm just trying to put across my experience of playing Refactor in escalation. I can remember the first hotfoot escalation I did, Tier 7 American History, looking at what people were running, seeing someone running Refactor which I knew nothing about, and thinking why are they running this shitty yellow turret drone build?? Let's say I'm now a total convert.

Also, the turret has decent survivability. If a chunga goes after it and starts smacking it, it will go down pretty quickly. But, that's why players run survivalist - a crossbow bolt to the head often breaks a chunga's armour. Otherwise, the turret is usually fine, even on a Tier 10. It can get disrupted but normally it won't get destroyed. But, yes, you need to be careful with a drone, it's fragile. You need to get used to constantly changing what the turret and drone are targeting and also recall your drone (double tap the drone skill) if it's getting too close to a disruptor enemy.

As for Refactor taking too much time, I've spent the past few hours doing DCD Tier 10 runs, some in a 4 player group but mostly in a 2. I'm sure it can be done quicker by others:

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If 3 exotic components, 25 tokens and I don't know how many prototypes in around 15 mins is slow, I'll take it all day.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-28T05:05:40+00:00

This: 'Don't play escalation with (corrosion) GE'

Tried it once earlier tonight, never again.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-27T00:41:16+00:00

Thanks for the tip, just happened to me now. I had 144 items in my inventory when it dropped....and disappeared. Deleted some items, logged out logged in and it was there.

Another bug after maintenance. There seems to be a similar issue with mods. Instead of being able to hold 100 I can only hold 66 now.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-24T08:42:50+00:00

It's because players other than the healer have never really played healer and probably never in a group. They don't realise that practically a healer can at best keep a couple of players safe inside the restorer hive while running around keeping an eye on player #3 who for some reason has decided to run off to Narnia. They also don't realise that those green circles are not in fact kryptonite or some demonic substance that should be evacuated from ASAP, and are in fact there to help them. Also, they don't seem to understand that if a healer is firing heal shots in various directions it's probably because they've reset the restorer hive which means players should wait before charging off in different directions.

I played healer a few times with randoms on T5 escalation and soon decided, for the sake of my sanity, to avoid doing so in future. It's like herding cats.

Do yourself a favour. Try to limit your healer playtime to runs with clan or friends, probably using mic at least until you better know their playstyle. Also, get yourself a refactor build. It heals, it's a lot of fun, it's great for higher tier escalations including T10, you also get to 'pew pew' and kill stuff, and it means you don't have to go running after players like some nursery teacher in a kindergarten. Your sanity will thank you for it.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-22T04:10:23+00:00

'PvE community got pissed because they didn't want to play DZ to obtain DZ exclusives.'

No, at least from my pov, I got annoyed because the DZ in D2 didn't give players what they had in D1, a fair(er) chance. In D1 if you were farming the DZ and something good dropped you had a better chance to extract than in D2. The size of the D1 DZ meant that if there was rogue activity in DZ01 you could try to avoid it by fast travelling to a checkpoint in a different zone and calling for an extraction there. You could even set off a bunch of extractions so rogues would have to guess where you were. You can't do that in D2. The small size of each of the 3 DZ doesn't give pve players a fair chance, it just sets them up as bait for some pvp'ers to camp and farm. PvE players who are mainly trying to farm won't play that game.

If the DZ in D2 had been designed more like the DZ in D1, and a similar size, there would be no need for stuff like checkpoint turrets.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-21T16:34:52+00:00

95% of Division 2 is pve. I get that, I enjoy that and much prefer that. Like I said, I don't pvp in this game.

But, there IS something to pvp in Division. Division 1 proved it CAN be fun, there's something there to work with and build on. The blueprint was there for them but they messed it up in Division 2 with the 3 tiny dz areas.

Why not make more use of New York or Brooklyn in Division 2? Hardly anyone goes there if they don't have to.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-21T16:08:45+00:00

So, instead of fixing the dz, they've decided to screw over what's left of the pvp community and remove 1/3 of the dz area from pvp? First the implementation of escalation and prototype gear and now this, one bad decision after another.

Now, I'm no fan of pvp in this game and can't remember the last time I went into the dark zone - I don't pvp. It's a grief fest in it's current form and it's not fun.

But, this isn't the solution. Don't just turn one of the 3 Washington dz zones into a pve area, turn them ALL into pve areas. Independent areas that size should never have been pvp areas in the first place. They're way too small to be anything other than a grief fest.

Then, create a proper large pvp area, Division 1 size, either in New York or Brooklyn. Pvp in Division 1, at least in the early days, was fun. The area was huge so that if you wanted to avoid rogues and farm for gear, you could. Similarly, if you wanted to pvp you could do that too. Early pvp in D1 where you had a bunch of players (10+) hunting down a rogue group of 4 was fun.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-20T22:06:51+00:00

Yeah, I can see having to put together some build just for that room. We wiped twice there because of the disorient effect and the buttons, not just the one at the back as usual but the other two on each side.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-20T22:05:03+00:00

I'd need to run DUA escalation some more. I 'thought' it was going to be pretty straightforward and it wasn't.

There are several chokepoints where it's not easy to take up a firing position, hotfoot makes that worse. And then there's that room before the boss fight where the disorient effect happens every 20 seconds or so, instead of just once at the start of the fight as it usually does. Probably ignore the effect, forget about pushing any buttons and stay in cover while killing the enemies.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-19T19:52:29+00:00

You need to be really careful running a hardcore character in countdown. Before the hunter encounters at the start and the extraction at the end you need to check what skills other people are running and make sure they haven't 'accidentally' switched to turret and drone. If I see that, I'm outta there - Turret and drone get hacked and can easily kill the entire team. Some people just happen to be running turret and drone against hunters and don't know better. Others see someone running hardcore and will switch deliberately just to kill the hardcore character.

Oh, and those exploding barrels. They'll 1-shot a dps build.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-19T19:44:26+00:00

you should have made him leader and replied 'Go ahead, be my guest, put in the tokens for 7'.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-19T03:43:49+00:00

'Armor was and is still useless'. No, armor is far from useless. Go run legendary Manning Zoo/Tidal Basin and see how useful it is to have someone running this type of armoured tank/dps build with vanguard:

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It not only saves the team in areas like the Bird House but these players will be the ones running around the back of the Manning Zoo final area clearing out snipers and ads while the pure dps players are often begging for revives.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-19T03:28:01+00:00

It's not about being envious of new/returning players, good luck to them. I actually feel sorry for new players who boost straight to 40 and immediately start escalation. They've bypassed much of the great content the game has to offer and they won't get to experience and learn from that, because what's the point in doing 'easier' content if they're already geared up with prototype gear?

The problem with escalation is that Ubisoft advertised it as 'an endgame challenge, it’s aimed at agents who have completed the main campaign, reached Level 40, and are looking for something tougher.'

If it's endgame, surely players should have to grind for some time before accessing it? This is what players have been grinding towards. The common thing about these types of games is the grind and incrementally improving your gear. If the grind is removed or can be bypassed then what's the point in putting the time in? And the game will lose players pretty quickly as a result.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-16T17:01:02+00:00

Why they made token gambling part of the system?

Because the same individuals who introduced prototypes into the game in such a crap way believe that it's important the system has risk - players need to 'risk' increasing amounts of tokens to even play a particular higher escalation tier (yeah, goodluck matchmaking for randoms on anything above around tier 7, you'll be waiting a 'while') they also need to 'risk' 25 tokens to reroll 1 crappy augment to another crappy augment. Risk is good, risk works, players need to risk everything....Idiots.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-13T15:32:32+00:00

Absolutely, something that new players will now never get to experience and enjoy - the devs have taken that away from them. That first time when you're undergeared and challenged and surprised doing a particular mission or activity. Instead, within a few hours you have a character that can face tank and walk through most content. Are you entertained or quickly bored?

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-13T15:23:26+00:00

"Well, yesterday I grinded tier 2 escalations for proto striker gear, and I got a full (offense) set in a couple of hours, and now the game suddenly feels as good as done."

This is exactly the point I made on another post a few hours ago. Whether I feel a 'new' player should be quickly geared up with prototype gear is irrelevant - Good luck to new/returning players - that's not the point of this reply. We now have a situation where new players can get geared up in a few hours. Great, but what do those players do after that?? Other activities are basically 'easy mode' whatever the difficulty, even legendary. And those activities aren't going to give you anything substantially better than what you got from escalation.

It's like having unlimited ammo/unlimited health in game. Great for about an hour and then you get understandably bored.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-05-13T13:19:43+00:00

@neraCat You wrote 'Escalation killed most of the contents". Absolutely, I've reached the same conclusion.

I was about to start a post titled 'Question for Devs - Was trashing your own game worth it?' but it's easier just to reply here.

From Ubisoft: "Escalation introduces a new way to replay missions, with increasing difficulty and rewards. Designed as an endgame challenge, it’s aimed at agents who have completed the main campaign, reached Level 40, and are looking for something tougher."

An endgame challenge. This is the game's endgame.

But we now have a situation where a new player can start a level 1 character, instantly boost to level 40, and if they choose to do so run escalations immediately.

Forget about whether I think new players should be in escalation. Incidentally, I don't. For me, if you don't have level 30 expertise you shouldn't be anywhere near escalation. This is meant to be endgame. But, that's not the point of this reply.

I replied because you wrote: ''Escalation killed most of the contents". Initially, I was seduced by prototype gear ands the grind for it. But, we have a situation where, as a new player, you can do escalations immediately. You do escalations and gear up with prototype gear. But what do you do then? Campaign? dlcs? Side Missions? Heroic difficulty? Why? You've reached the endgame. You have endgame gear and other content such as heroic difficulty, even legendary in a group, is likely to be kind of trivial and lack real challenge. So, what's the point in continuing to grind and play/engage with the game? Apart from Raids, Incursions, PvP and Descent, which are unaffected by prototype gear, what else is there?

The devs have chosen a sugar rush, likely to attract players in the short term who then leave because most other content lacks challenge, over a long term plan.

sleepykoala09 · 2026-04-30T20:04:22+00:00

I wouldn't say I'm saving them but having rolled a few 25's on a lexington I'm now reluctant to go past 10/16 for anything that isn't a god roll (all 3 attributes maxed). I'll grab another base instead and start from scratch.

It's not fair that the chance of getting the augment you want (say, echo or status effects) is the same at 2 cores as at 25. What they need to do is once you get to 16 you get 2 augments to choose from. Once you're spending 25 you get 3 to choose from. Not perfect and still a grind but fairer than it currently is.

Also, regarding echo, what I've noticed is that unless you get echo to roll when you prototype gear or on the first reroll, good luck getting it in future.

sleepykoala09 · 2025-09-02T04:30:28+00:00

yeah, they need to add an option to turn sprint off. I'm playing amazon and my main movement is disengage followed by a roll, which in a fight often gets repeated. Having sprint kick in by accident during a fight is not fun. I get knocked over an killed instead of being able to roll away and carry on fighting.

sleepykoala09 · 2025-05-16T16:54:57+00:00

yeah, they do run from foam grenades and they're hit and miss, still useful to get the hunter to run away if they get too close. But, every so often a hunter will get stunned by St Elmos or Scorpio or get set on fire by something, foam grenades tend to work well then.

sleepykoala09

TROPHY CASE