I think I'm about done with the Division for a little bit. I'll spoiler story/end game stuff in case anyone is bothered.
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After you storm the stronghold and finish the games story off, you'll get what is almost a victory speech from your commander, however it's cut short but a cut scene showing an invasion from a force called the Black Tusk. They've essentially pulled a Cersei Lannister and waited for you to wipe out Hyenas and True Sons then made their move. They bring with them tech gear and more elites to deal with.
The map will reset into what is known as World Tier 1 and everything will become dynamic. Control points will no longer stay yours once taken. The 3 other forces will also battle them between themselves, so it wont be uncommon to find 2 of them squabbling in the streets before you even get there. Certain parts of the map will be covered in a red layer, to show they've been invaded by the Black Tusk, who are now using Strongholds as bases. Your job now is to complete story missions again, but with a twist on some of them. Enemies are now stronger and tougher.
Once you do story missions you unlock the Strongholds again. Once you finish those you'll advance into World Tier 2 and the process repeats up to World Tier 5. Everything getting harder each time.
If you've been ticking off side missions at a decent rate you should be in or around level 30 before you hit World Tier 1. Once you advance, levelling turns into improving your gear to earn a higher gear score. It's capped at 300 at WT1 and increases by 50 each tier you go up.
What this does mean is that thee's little to no point in matching your gear up or fine tuning your loadout until you hit WT5.
Once you clear WT5 the map is essentially clear of all missions, but every Thursday at 10am the Black Tusk invade certain missions and a stronghold again. Once you've hit gear score 500, this is your chance to start putting a build together. However getting to the point of needing 1 or 2 specific items slows you right down.
If you get one good stat on an otherwise bad piece of armour, you can shuffle it across to another piece of the same type on your re-calibration bench, Which does help with the builds. It can also sort of overclock your gear above 500 too. This is pretty much where I'm at now.
There's soon to be an update bringing in 8 player PvE raids which promise the best gear. However there's a patch coming with it that will nerf certain stats and talents. The other major change is that the current best loot you can get will no longer be available in standard gameplay. You have to go into the Dark Zone for that.
The Dark Zone does seem good fun, but loot doesn't drop as normal. Some does, but other stuff in there drops as "contaminated."
To get that to be permanently yours you have to extract it. You also can't see the stats until then. This is where Dark Zone becomes frustrating. If you have contaminated loot it shows as a big yellow bag on your backpack. You have to attach it to a helicopter drop line, it'll sit there for 15 secs or so, then be off back to mother base. At any point between, other players in there can turn rogue and kill you to take it. Even when it's attached to the line, they can cut it down and put it back on themselves.
I've probably extracted about 10 times now and every time bar one, I've been alone in the area, but the extra one time me and another player were in a stand off. Just before the chopper got there he turned rogue and tried to off me. I managed to kill him, but a team of 4 then rocked up and obliterated me. Going solo in there is risky business.
I've enjoyed the grind to here but this raid doesn't have a defined release date. Anywhere from tomorrow to 4 weeks away I've heard mentioned.