We Now Know What Weapons Changes Are Coming To The Division

A few days ago Ubisoft spoke of a new patch for The Division that would shake up the balance of weapons in the game. They didn’t supply us with specifics until now. Today a new blog post detailed the changes being made to weapons, and why it had to be done.
Basically the rebalance is occurring because there are a handful of weapons that everybody has figured out do the job best, and so nearly everybody has started using just that handful. Ubisoft sees that as a failure on their part; there should be a greater variety of preferences, and to make that happen, they’re leveling the field and nerfing weapons like the AUG and the Vector.

• SMGs now have a crit hit damage bonus rather than crit hit chance. It is much harder to reach a higher critical hit chance now, and you will have to make more stat choices when selecting gear in order to take advantage of the new bonus.
• LMGs receive a bonus that increases their damage to targets out of cover by about 25%. The design of LMGs is to force people into cover and control areas with their large magazine sizes.
• Shotguns receive a stagger bonus against NPC. When shooting targets, you have a high chance of causing them to stumble and lose their balance. This will not affect other players, however. Shotguns are also receiving a buff to their base damage that scales with the weapon’s level and up to a maximum of 30%.
• Assault Rifles receive a bonus to enemy armor damage. This allows Assault Rifles to be a powerful weapon in PVE situations.
• No changes were made to the bonus on Marksman Rifles

As for AUG and Vector weapons, they won’t be as powerful anymore: damage they deal will be reduced by 50 percent.