Throughout The Division 2, you’ll find a resource called SHD Tech that will allow you to add perks to your character. These permanent buffs affect everything from allowing you to carry more weapons to getting bonuses for how well you play. While farming for SHD Tech can be easy, knowing which perks to pick can be confusing at first.
With over a dozen perks to choose from, each with several levels you can acquire, which are the best perks to get in The Division 2? This guide will help you pick the best perks for your character.
THE BEST PERKS IN THE DIVISION 2
After you unlock the Quartermaster early on in The Division 2, you’ll be given a short tutorial for how unlocking perks works. Each perk requires a certain amount of SHD Tech to acquire and once you unlock a perk, its benefits are permanent. Some perks will give you new abilities and some even unlock new items, like mods for your weapons.
As you go through the tutorial, you’ll be forced to unlock your first major perk, the weapon slot upgrade. This perk allows you to permanently equip two primary weapons and one secondary weapon. From there, you’re free to choose whatever perk you like.
Getting Restock level one and two will automatically refill all of your armor kits and grenades whenever you enter a safe space like a settlement or The White House. This is a great starting perk, especially if you use safe spaces for fast travel while working your way through main and side missions. Since you can only get more armor kits and grenades off of fallen enemies, this ensures you’ll always enter a new mission fully stocked.
To support the Restock perk, grab at least the first level of the Armor Kit and Grenades perks. Each level of these perks allows you to carry an additional armor kit or grenade. If you max out the Armor Kit and Grenades perk, you’ll get even more benefit from the Restock’s ability to refill both items.
Another set of early perks worth getting are the various Accolades perks. Each level of Accolades gives you XP bonuses for defeating enemies. Since most of what you’ll be doing is taking down bad guys, you might as well get XP bonuses for doing so. As you progress through the Accolades perk tree, you’ll get different boosts for different types of kills:
- Level 1: XP bonuses for headshots
- Level 2: XP bonuses for multi-kills
- Level 3: XP bonuses for kills by triggering enemy weak points
- Level 4: XP bonuses for kills with environmental objects
- Level 5: XP bonuses not dying (surviving) for long stretches of time
The next set of perks to unlock affect weapon mods. The Magazine, Muzzle, Optics, and Grip perks unlock permanent mods that you can attach to any weapon. As you unlock each level of these perks, you’ll gain new mods that you can attach to your primary and secondary weapons:
- The Magazine perk affects the amount of ammo you can have per matching gun type.
- The Muzzle perk adds attachments that suppress the sound of your guns.
- The Optics perk gives you several options to assist your aiming.
- The Grip perk unlocks several attachments which aid in gun stability.
You can mix and match these perks with all of your guns, so no need to worry about losing them once you’ve unlocked them.
From there, it’s up to you to figure out which perks seem the most valuable. Some of them will open up more spaces for crafting materials, while others let you create multiple loadouts. The perks in The Division 2 allow for flexible gameplay, but our recommendations will give you the best starting place.
Once you’ve unlocked most of the perks you want, you’ll likely have spare SHD Tech sitting in your inventory. You can use your extra tech to unlock skill variations at the Quartermaster. If need more resources, check out our SHD Tech farming guide.