If you’re one of many players in Tom Clancy’s The Division who is ignoring crafting, or doesn’t know about it, that ends today.
Crafting is one of the best aspects of The Division, and here’s why:
If you can’t view the video, crafting allows you, as a player, to have more control over your experience in The Division. Instead of praying for the mercy of the randomly-generated loot (RNG) gods for a weapon, gear, or mods with your preferred bonus, you can craft one.
You can only create items for which you have the Blueprints. Blueprints are usually found as rewards for completing side missions, but the best can be found in the Dark Zone.
There are five types of crafting materials in The Division: Tools, Fabric, Weapon Parts, Electronics, and Division Tech. Just like the game’s loot, there are different tiers for each. The scale from common to rare runs green, blue, (there are no purple materials), and yellow.
However, this doesn’t mean common materials are useless. You can convert materials to upgrade them. For example, you can turn five green materials into a blue material, and so on up the scale.
You’ll obtain crafting materials in The Division through two primary ways: looting them from locations, and deconstructing items.
If you look at your minimap while in-game, you’ll sometimes see light purple areas. These areas indicate where crafting materials are present – most of the time, they’re shops. Conveniently, the kinds of store generally indicates the kind of crafting material you’ll find inside (computer stores have electronics, etc.). If you explore the location, you’ll find small boxes, and looting them produces crafting materials. Division Tech is generally only found in the game’s Dark Zone.
The other method, deconstructing items, is easy. It’s also recommended. If you sell your items, vendors will pay you maybe ten percent of what they would charge for a similar item. It’s a bad deal, unless you really need cash for a particular item.
Deconstructing weapons, gear, or mods provides crafting materials, and saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent hunting for them. To do this, select a weapon in your inventory and hold the appropriate button. You can also mark several items as junk and deconstruct them all at once. Once this is done, The Division informs you what the deconstruction yielded.
With that said, I’d advise you not to just craft things without thinking about The Division‘s end-game. The level cap sits at 30, which means you probably want to hold off until that point. If you don’t, you’ll likely find something better quickly in the game, wasting your crafting materials.
If you are going to try your hand at crafting, look at investing in the Recalibration upgrade in the Base of Operations’ Tech Wing. This upgrade enables the switching (re-rolling) of an item’s stats. Also look at investing in the Division Tech Materials upgrade, which lets you convert Division Tech crafting materials into other materials at the crafting station. Division Tech is pretty special, though – and is often used in the creation of some of the game’s most powerful weapons. Still, in a pinch, it’s a useful perk.
Have you tried crafting? Did you find these tips helpful? Let us know in the comments.
