The Division 2’s first post-launch episode is out now

The Division 2’s first free post-launch episode, D.C. Outskirts: Expeditions, is now available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Episode 1’s content is currently only available for Year 1 Pass holders, but will be made available for all players on July 30th. However, the changes included in Title Update 5 are available for all players from today.

This first episode introduces two new missions to the game: Manning National Zoo and Camp White Oak. The first sees players fighting through the zoo to take down Emeline Shaw, the leader of the Outcasts. While the second involves capturing the leader of The Black Tusks.

The final piece of content included in this episode is the Expeditions feature, which sees players fighting through three unexplored locations. Completing all three will unlock a treasure room full of loot.

Elsewhere, players are getting a Call for Backup reward system, a Discovery Mode difficulty for the raid, new weapons and gear, and more ways to earn Blueprints.

Finally, today’s update makes some big changes to skills to bring skill builds up to par with weapon-based builds. A big component of this revamp is the introduction of a Skill haste stat, which replaces Cooldown Reduction. Read developer Massive Entertainment’s reasons behind the changes below:

We took a hard look at the current meta. The builds that are fun, effective and popular. We knew that skill builds, while it being something people want to play with, was nowhere near competitive. We knew there was an explosives damage build that was on the fringe of popularity, but none that actually relied on really good skill mods driven by skill power.

We analyzed the best damage builds and survivability builds out there and looked at their efficiency – how fast they kill, how fast they can clear content, how fast they can take down enemies – and mapped that to our skills. How much more power do skills need to get from 3K skill power (our current maximum requirement on skill power mods) to compensate for all the damage bonuses the player is “giving up” on gear to reach that skill power?

Then we looked at each skill and what it should be good at (burst, sustain, single target damage, survivability etc) and went to work tuning the mods to make a skill build approach the efficiency of a “red” damage build or a “blue” tank build. To that effect, here are the current changes to skill mods power levels, and in some cases base numbers, on skills.

Take a look at the full patch notes for Title Update 5 here.