For lo, when a new loot game is released, there shall quickly emerge new ways to farm that loot without putting in much effort. So it is written, so it shall forever be. And so it is with Tom Clancy’s The Division.
Update 3/21: Ubisoft Massive is issuing a substantial new patch that will make it impossible to farm using this exploit. It was fun while it lasted! Take a break, Bullet King. You’ve earned it.
I’ve been away from the game much of the week while visiting San Francisco for GDC, but upon returning I heard from reader Robert A., who explained a good way to farm loot and Phoenix Credits relatively quickly without expending much energy. (He described it as a “Division loot cave (sorta).” Heh.)
Here’s what you have to do:
Go to the Autumn’s Hope safe house, which is located in the northwest of the map, just next to the Dark Zone. Head out of the safe house and immediately take a right:
When you get to the street, take a left:
Equip your pulse radar ability and ping the area to highlight the group of four enemies who are likely standing near the intersection ahead of you.
One of those enemies will be a yellow-bar boss named the “Bullet King.” Go kill him, but be sure not to kill his three red-bar lackeys. (If you kill him and all his minions, he’ll never spawn for you again.) He’ll drop some purple specialized gear, and you’ll also be rewarded with a few phoenix credits. There’s also apparently a small chance he’ll drop a high-end item, but he hasn’t done that for me yet.
Let his lackeys kill you, which shouldn’t take too long if you stand still. You can run and grab the loot if you want, but you don’t have to—it’ll stay put even if you die. (In fact, as commenter Bearded Bastard points out, you don’t even have to die—you can just run back to the safe house and the boss will reset. Mind that you have to go all the way back into the safe house for it to reset.)
Respawn at the safe house and repeat. The Bullet King will be there again, and you can kill him again.
I tried this farming method some last night, and I got some solid gear out of it. Better, I got enough phoenix credits to get me to where I could buy a high-end blueprint I had my eye on, and enough junkable items that I’m starting to amass a decent amount of crafting materials.
This kind of mindless farming might not be your cup of tea—it’s certainly not as fun as teaming up with some friends and hitting the Dark Zone—but it is a decent way to pick up some phoenix credits, a few decent specialized upgrades, and some crafting materials. Plus you can do it while zoning out and listening to podcasts.
Go forth, noble warriors, and tell the Bullet King I said hello.