The Division 2

Yeah, when I played Div 1 I cleared out 100% of everything in each zone before moving to the next. Definitely going to do the same in Div 2. I am concerned about one thing though: it was a huge mistake in Div 1 to pick up any cell phones or other collectibles prior to hitting level 30 because of the huge amount of xp they gave towards caches (and there were weekend events where caches were doubled). I don't really want to have to make a second (/third/fourth) character again just to get lots of caches the most efficient way.

I'm kind of surprised they went with Destiny's dumb idea of 1 exotic weapon and 1 exotic armor. Div 1's exotics were nothing special aside from Ninjabike (before Classified sets anyway) and The House (for D3, never really understood why people went so nuts over it otherwise, and I had a perfectly rolled one) though, so maybe it won't really matter much.

With the introduction of brands I was kind of hoping they'd go with 4pc-bonus gearsets that included a weapon. So that way you could use 1 brand set and the other 3 slots + gun for the gearset bonus. Instead it sounds like classified all over again and brands will be ignored unless it's a set like Tactician in Div 1 where the 4/5/6 pc bonuses are much worse than what you can get from non-set pieces.

Specialization perk list someone put together on reddit:

It'd be a difficult choice, since there's definitely things that sound great and shitty about each one, except that it's such a pain in the ass to get ammo for anything but the sniper rifle (x10 when you're solo) that I can't see myself picking anything else. I also agree with the reddit thread that giving 15% dmg bonuses effectively locks you into using specific weapons with each spec and that's not good design. At least with sharpshooter I can carry a MMR and not feel like I'm fucking up by using a LMG in the other slot though, I suppose. Not like you'd ever want 2 MMRs on you and even if it does apply to rifles too, rifles were fairly crappy and not at all suited to dealing with an enemy that is suddenly in your face.

Division 1 gold edition is $9 on ubisoft right now, not sure I have the time to do anything with it though with DMC releasing in 2 days. Probably also no way to get through it before Div 2 drops? Worth?

It's a great deal, but I can't see how you'd get through it before D2 release (even the Friday one) if you're playing DMC too.

Yeah it's way too close to Div 2 release to be starting Div 1, unless you happen to have a lot of free time and just want to know more about the lore and how the US got caught off guard and needed The Division in the first place. You can probably find a summary of the plot somewhere, I actually like the story line, especially the parts about the rogue Division agents (don't want to give away too much more than that).

Can you switch specializations or is your character locked into one once you choose?

Survivalist looks good to me for soloing, which I used to love doing in the Nomad set. Sharpshooter would be decent also because if it's anything like Div 1 you can cheese a lot of content from range. Demo and sharpshooter for group end-game content.

Is it one pool of points that gets refunded when you swap or will you have to grind to fill out the others (plus the 3 dlc ones)?

I also wonder if it's possible to ignore a shitty perk, like the sharpshooter one that cuts the armor kit in half in exchange for removing status too. Do not want.

Getting ammo for the crossbow seems like a pain in the ass with how slow grenades were to get out and use.

I was swimming in sniper ammo while not knowing how to get it.

I ran out of xbow ammo and never could figure out how to get more.

I was interested in the xbow, but yeah, status effects to get ammo? No thanks. I never bothered with that shit in Div 1 and never felt I was missing anything. Plus, the benefits of Sharpshooter, IMO are just way way better.