The Division 2 - Why Survivalist Specialization Is So Much Fun 

Easily dropping the fire grenade under the black tusk helicopters as they drop into it while you mow them all down is the most satisfying part of the specialization

The incendiary grenade is the ace in the hole for me

I started Survivalist (moved on to fill out the other two trees and am right now building an explosive build so “maiming” Demo) but out of all of them, I like the Survivalist the best. You made all good points in the video. AR Damage is awesome, free ammo is great, and the crossbow is just handy for area suppression or damage. The main things that you didn’t touch on though are probably my favorites. Having so many ways to benefit from status effects makes Survivalist the kind of status. Their grenades are great for both area suppression as well as filling the group with special ammo. Between knee capper and the grenades, my teams always have more special ammo than they know what to do with. The armor kit is amazing. Not only is it a 100% heal to you, but everyone within 10m. That’s huge for saving your buddies. Speaking of saving your buddies, the mender drone is really good also. It moves fast and leaves healing patches on the ground which are quite strong. It also rolls along the ground and doesn’t get in your face like the mender turret. It’s better for PvP because it’s harder to shoot the floor drone than the floating drone. Just all around a great specialization. Great if you are solo, but also a very good group player.

Great Video. When I started I assumed I was going to pick the Sharpshooter because in D1 I used the marksman rifles so much but I've ended up using the AR's pretty much exclusively and originally picked Survivalist for the AR damage boost. I've had a blast with it and love your videos on survivalist. Keep them coming!!!!!

I really like the incendiary grenades.

yep i use it. i thought i would be a demolitionist. same reasons as you for switching. love the incendiaries. the medium to semi- long range of the AR. crossbow is 1 shotting most golds, including the hunters. been trying to convince myself to level up the sharpshooter but its hard to put the crossbow down.

I went survivalist right out of the gate and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoy it for many of the reasons you covered in the video. But, yeah, I stumbled across the mad bomber perk, and that is just fantastic. I'm a grenade lobbing maniac. It's a nice specialization that allows you to be effective with explosions while maintaining a strong automatic weapon in your primary slot.

I love the crossbow & the incendiary grenades. Keep coming back to it. Even now that I'm trying out an LMG build I don't want to give up the crossbow & grenades. With the 2 piece with 20% weapon handling and the Lullaby for reloading it is working out ok.

I use grenades a lot (playing mostly solo) and the “Mad Bomber” perk is superb, particularly as any kill with the thrown grenade means you get that grenade back in your inventory. Anyways - love the channel. Have a good weekend, sir.

I still love my LMG demo main build, but I also like my new survivalist medic build. I look forward to playing it in raids. The healing bonus and healing seeker mines are two cool features.

Running SV as a fire bug, with the grenades, and a flame turret is really fun

The destructive Talent can roll on all six pieces of gear pair that with one piece of China Light and that's a lot of Boom Boom

This was my fav spec from the get go, mostly for the AR talents, but also the nade. I felt the spec weapon was pretty lackluster at start, but after using it for a while now, it is my fav spec weapon by far

when I read about the traits my first thought was a crazy aoe support aspect..make sure you toss the flame turret in a good spot and watch the magic no to mention the cocktail grenade you can really make cover lots of area once you master you timing...grenade there force them to roll into flame turret and stick them with the bow absolutly love it

I love sending a bolt into flame tankers canisters and watching them explode. In challenging missions this is especially great as the splash damage can hit upto four other enemies. Following that with a incendiary grenade is just the icing on the cake 🙂

I love the survivalist, it’s the only specialization I have completed. It’s great for the sheer fact that you get to use the incendiary grenades for the campy NPCs

Great guide thanks

Agreed, favorite spec. Rocking demo atm tho because I haven't found any good ARs for WT5 yet

I like been survival, cuz of the grenades and the Assault Rifle, the talent tree has a 25% damage buff for it, as for the shutguns too

I've fully leveled the Demo tree and have been enjoying it, might start working on Survivalist next to see how I like it.

Hell yeah showing survivalist some love I am a survivalist player the moment I get to play it on beta I loved it Love the grenade , the cover to cover skill ammo gain , and oh don’t forget when you heal you heal your team members too I could go on but I’ll leave it at that

I chose survivalist day 1 bc i could share medkits an regen ammo

Cool vid man, thanks. I have my mad bomber build set up with grenadier for the extra explosion damage and grenade launcher damage. Got the build up to 126.5% explosion damage. I can sacrifice some of that damage for the survivalist and give that a go instead.

Yet another good vid. Don't normally put a comment on but was taken aback how polite he is. In a world where shouting down ppl is the norm.

The tech build i have now i started it with demolistionist because of the extra expolsive damage from that but i was running an assault rifle and an AA12 shotgun because i also run berserk to make up for some of the damage lose so i switched to survivalist to get the ar and shotgun bonuses which helps alot and i do lose a little bit of the explosive damage from demo but the extra gun damage helps and the 90% explosive bonus i get from the gear still works with the crossbow.

I started running the Survivalist with the incendiary grenade and I'm always maxing my special ammo but didn't know why until I learned it drops on kills with status effects

Hi if you aim directly at an enemy, the bolts will do a decent amount of damage, but the real use is when aimed at the environment. Once fired, the bolt will create an area of effect that will detonate like a grenade, doing damage and applying bleed status effects to anyone caught in the blast. This can be combined with the Incendiary Grenade perk, which lets your grenades give the burning status effect too, and the Survivalist Tactical Link that gives the team a 10% damage boost against enemies who’re suffering from status effects.

The crossbow is by far the most enjoyable signature weapon, I have to admit. It's very fun if you plug one in a yellow's face. Also, I used the fire grenades with the mad bomber talent a couple times. One massive sea of fire.

I have a dumb question, how do you equip your specialized weapon?

Same here too, I started as a Demo, then I discovered the Survivalist to be more fun, not mention, the signature weapon "auto aims" when pointed to the target over long distances...there have been many time where I missed so much with the grenade launcher..lol

Survivalist is the third specialist I played with, but now I am loving it. Personally speaking, it is the most friendly specialist for team players. It is so good in enemies group control. Meanwhile, you also can be a healer, and I always a healer in any MMO lol.

I miss the stuff that's in survivalist, but LMG is where its at.. (I started as survivalist, and was maining the LMG and AR sub)

Gonna run with survivalist , after I get through the last two boards . I have found Roosevelt Island to be the most challenging board for me as a solo guy . I haven’t used any team dynamics yet . I want to solo the main story line to the end , no matter what. Next toon will be all matchmaking all the way through .

Good shit bro

I haven't even tried the survivalist out yet, the crossbow sounded a bit "meh" to me so I leveled up sharpshooter first & have been working on demo here & there. After seeing this video I'll be giving it a shot for sure.

Just use the Fill Er Up talent I got it on my build now, it's a godsend in challenging with a lmg

Love this specialization and the bolt! I run ar, rifle, and smgs. However, I have all weapons dmg @11%, so I can use any gun I choose. extra 22% ar dmg@(13.3k dmg on Aug AR 🤩 optimistic)and extra 16% rifle dmg(33.4k dmg on SIG🤩 optimistic). 23%dte(stacking more dte to this build just wouldn't be fair, BUT I'm going to 😁. patience and berserk on gear, so far. I have no prob staying alive or dealing dmg from far, med, or close quarters.

What's up man I great Video and I agreed with you on the survivalist is amazing !

Bro gotta question how do you get 4 to 5 mod slots on the gear sets

I run survivalist with Berzerk, 83% DTE, 36% AR damage for damage. I run 2100SP for 12 charges to my Healing chem launcher. Safeguard + 15% survivalist healing is great. If I take off a little more damage I can run 2400SP and get 8 charges with +47% healing mod so that would bump me up to 212% chem launcher healing. I also then have mods for my flame turret that ups the duration to 220 sec. If you turn it off and on you can CC mobs for the whole fight. It is an amazing group support build. Oh, and I have the knee talent with +25% weapon handling.

I keep bouncing back and forth between SS and Survival, but it is mainly because of the Riflebuff combined with weaponhandling. Survival is better overall for tough content, but I allways liked the fastfiring semi-autos in every shootergame and I have not been able to make shotguns work for me so far (work in progress). I tend to not switch to shotgun when enemies are close because the AR does just fine, but then I run out of bullets and Im left with a closerange weapon only DOH.

I'v seen you state several times that the crossbow burns, it does NOT burn it bleeds which while the damage is likely similar it carries none of the CC benefit.

Hey man! From day one I had in mind survivalist, because of the healing and that burning granade. Now that I maxed my specialization I don't know what ill chose, sharpshooter maybe cuz of that drone. Ps: do you guys know if there is a way to change from a concussion granade to the fire one with oh evolving opening my inventory in the middle of the fight? This freaking annoying.

I always went with the survivalist I just think the grenade is amazing and the crossbow is badass

I picked survivalist cause I’m a group healer. So it was a no brained. I love this class.

I use survivalist and I loooove it. I think that the most important thing for me are the AR damage and the healing seeker mines. Also if I'm playing with someone I usually prefer sharpshooter over demolitionist because I can take care of Dogs and clusters of enemies and they can focus on tanks and taking down bosses' armor

I leveled up all three but love survivalist 😁

Straight up run the SCA-12 with the run and gun shield with the Pummel talent. Melts and i only have 130k armor

Also note if you hit an enemy with a crossbow. it has a crowd control effect about 3sec or more. Plus if 8 player raid comes out and everyone is survivalist. Survivalist Tactical Link - teammates get 10% bonus damage to targets with status effects. That's 70% for to the whole group to status effects enemies if it stacks

Destructive can roll on any armor piece, but there are probably better talents to use on certain pieces like berserk or safeguard.

Personally for me i love the crossbow and how it helps my rife and assault rifle but i also use the mender mine for healing which works very well

I'm having a ton of fun with my Survivalist Purgatory setup. Burn everything. It's a little more of a balanced build but can still speed run. Good damage and survivability. 228k armor 41k health unoptimized. 3 piece ongoing directive for the 25% burn damage. Unstoppable on fenris chest, safeguard on Alps backpack with hardened, and calculated on gila knees. The skill cooldowns can be a pain but with calculated you can run whatever. The healing seeker is pretty dope as well as the aurburst and the flame turret or the Firestarter Chem come in handy.

Although I am playing Gunner or Technician, I find that Survivalist is still perhaps the spec that is the one I have played the most. It is just a well rounded spec, and has excellent healing potential as well... which can be very appealing, and you never really touched on either.

I picked it first cause everyone said it was the worst at release. I love it. Can get some interesting talent combinations on ARs and Shotguns, plus D50 and the heal perks and skill mod was something I liked. Then the perks for status effects were just too good to pass up.

Survivalist ridgeway chest piece build? Sounds good

I love my Survivalist! Those incendiary grenades are awesome and I like supporting my party through healing. My only two gripes is that the specialization weapon seems to drop infrequently. I get enough where it's not a real issue, but it doesn't seems to drop as often as it should. That's been my experience. Also besides burning through the chem launcher and turrent it is really hard to cause any other staus effects by the player alone. You can only shock people using special ammo, talent, or environmental hazard. What about poison though? Unless I'm missing something you can't poison anyone by any means.

I’m thinking of making a build with it with the chest for extra grenade coverage to set as many enemies on fire as possible and having my AR have the ignited talent for 20% extra damage to burning targets.

I'm running Survivalist, but it was by accident that I chose it. (Clicking on anything to activate them) Not bad. I don't use the cross-bow, I just run it in the shadows. Works well for me.

LMG. 200 rounds. Exotic holster that when used reloads all weapons. So when you run out of your 200 bullets. Triple tap Y (on Xbox) and your back to a fully loaded LMG. It’s beautiful. Plus, (sorry I’m not on the game so I cannot remember names ) you put on these knee pads with the talent to heal your health and armors while in cover. So while your behind cover using your 200 round LMG your also healing. Fast. If interested in knowing the names of my gear. Just ask.

I think the Survivalist is the most versatile out of the three with some good damage perks, good defensive perks like the 15% protection from elites and 15% more healing. Think it's just one of the most well rounded specializations so far.

Survivalist is my main because I like the extra assault rifle damage and the increased healing. Not a big fan of the crossbow but I'm getting better with it.

Survivalists with 3 piece providence 2 piece fenris along with the P416/chatterbox melts I have my tree fully upgraded except the group heal. Tried demolitionist and switch right back because I missed that AR damage. P416 and breadbasket I’m doing 100k crit hit headshots per bullet.

Iam late, I jumped on survivalist first, as in I juz unlocked it was goin to start to try to unlock gunner until i saw ur vid , this fits my playstyle 100% vs gunner iam not a of fan lmg in the first place , so thanks

Top 3 reasons why I like the Survivalist 1) Crossbow 2) Crossbow 3) Crossbow In all seriousness, it has a perk for CD when in cover, bonus damage vs targets with a status effect, fire grenades go great with that previous thing I mention, free ammo when you do a cover to cover, AR bonus damage eff yea, and bonus healing when you wanna be the hero healer.

I really like the Survivalist and it's the only specialisation I have been playing since release. Actually I play a AR/Merciless Build, but I'm not very happy with it. I'm looking for a nice AR/Shotgun Build - tips or links are highly appreciated! ;-)

The crossbow is the best of both worlds it’s really accurate and does a lot of explosive damage.

I started with the survivalist and leveled it up all the way and then decided to start leveling up demolitionist. I was missing survivalist so much that I went back to it 😂

I am doing Demolitionist first for the extra LMG damage but I’ve tried all 3 so far. Using the Crossbow is more satisfying to get kills with and I’m going to switch as soon as I finish unlocking everything for the Demolitionist. Not sure if it’s just me but the specializations and brand sets are more interesting than the Gear Sets in this game. Later.

I have just chosen my Specialization. I chose Survivalist as I mostly play in a squad with my friends. 1 is a Demolitionist, 1 Sharpshooter.. So I thought I would use Survivalist so we all have something different to contribute. Turns out it's a good one for me, since I'm the one in the group who actually uses grenades.

Does the bolt cause damage on its own (without explosion)? I have one-shot elites at close range and it seems the bolt damage alone kills them. Love this specialization. Crossbow fits my play style perfectly!

Yes! I hope they don't nerf anything. I LOVE this special. Hands down

You dont do dmg with the explosion on the big guys. They take only the damage from the bolt hitting them but not from the explosion

Fire grenades with the chem launcher flamer is my bread and butter in pve. Breezing trough content on every difficulty. And on some missions i switch to the fire turret for those choke pointy wave spawing like air and space museum. Also depending on the mission i use the directive set to give me more burn dmg and status effect galore. So yeah fire is king in pve.

Special ammunition generation was nerfed with the tidal basin update

Yeah I just switched from sharp shorter cuz I’m now getting many headshots

This is random but I have got 8 hunter masks so I have killer quite a few hunters but only got one key for the box in the White House. Shouldn’t I have more keys for it because I have killed a lot of hunters????

When the friestarter chem launcher radius was huge survivalist was absolutely amazing to play! Buff my chem launcher radius plzzz

Ignited on your AR is Survivalist friend ;-)

Thanks for having us all look at your Windows Taskbar...

Completed demolition first then survivalist and now I'm on specialist missing survivalist. It's just better.

Ive done all 3 and for me Survivalist is the Most Fun. I can 1 shot some boss with an Arrow while killing some red bars, If you add the 20% explosive perk to some of your gear you can do insane damage with it

Same! That AR tho

Yes if the ammo would drop ?! For the speculation that would be nice

I

You can roll Destructive on all 6 slots. But i dont think building explosive damage for survivalist is getting the most of it. Play how you want but building a build around the Cross bow with limited ammo. Isnt the best. I still dont quite understanding why an explosive bolt. Incendiary bolt would be awesome.

Granades and x-bow sure, but the 30% reload, stability and acuarcy in sharpshooter tree is soo good.

LMG and AR is the PVE combo I prefer, and it should always be about how YOU prefer to play. Two strong weapons are better than one. Rifles and shotguns rof is to slow for me. I like a very mobile aggressive play style, flanking and rushing them, so rate of fire and damage rule this style, while staying off the floor or constantly healing of course. Not saying it is superior for all, but it surely is for my play style....thx for the vid.

Fire Grenades are insane compared to flash bangs. But, The Lazer accuracy of sharpshooter and headshot dmg mixed with nemesis gives you overall higher dps. I'd more run Survalist with Dialed in with an AK in PVP with zerk and raw dmg stacked./Health/Vital.

I definitely need to look at more of the specialisations because I am currently focused on sharpshooter for the PvP benefits (reload speed, less chance of being critically hit etc)... But yeah, ARs are probably the best weapons in the game. As an aside, does anyone else think the hit registration in this game is a bit f*cked at the moment? I feel like it is and I've seen a few reddit posts to the same effect... ? Bearing in mind I play on console so my aim isn't as good.

Sawed off shotguns gains bonus damage from the shotgun and side arm talent

The problem or concern that i have with survivalist, is that don't have 30% stability on weapon i like the perks that's being offered, especially when you shoot more than 15m with AR

Mine healing by using refractor shield is awesome

I went survivalist because I had planned on being a group healer. I am now a glass cannon survivalist doing a nice, but meager 1.2m dps

Hard to say if I like survivalist, I never have any ammo to shoot the crossbow 🤣

This latest nerf has nearly killed the specializations. I ran Patomac on challenging last night and only got to use my crossbow twice.

I still prefer the demolishinist but closely followed by the survivalist

Ive been running Surv as my main spec since I hit 30. I think ARs are the most versatile weapon type, the incendiary is the best grenade (by a wide margin) and I even really like the heal seeker. The crossbow is fun, but I dont actually think its very good, there isnt really anything it does that the grenade launcher doesnt do way better (there are plenty of enemies who take no visible dmg from the xbow, but are easily 1-shotted with the launcher. Instant dmg is easier to use than the delayed explosion, and the drum mag on the launcher puts the xbow to shame).

Saddly I'm an SMG guy. Since Division 1 always been. I love running and gunning up close and personal

What gear piece can you get the mad bomber talent on?

I love being able to give armor to teammates when I use armor. Allows me to revive teammates then Use armor to get us both back in the fight.