Year 8 Season 2 of The Division 2, called Into the Dark, builds its new loot around healing and support play. The season adds two Exotic weapons, an Exotic kneepad, a fresh gear set, a new brand set, and a sweeping pass over PvP weapon talents. Most of the new arsenal leans into skill repair, hazard protection, and group sustain rather than raw damage stacking.
Quick answer: The new Exotics are the Caduceus assault rifle and the Underboss SMG, plus the Nurse’s Kneepads. The new gear set is Ortiz: Reficere, and there is a new skill-focused brand set. The Caduceus comes from the season pass track, while the Underboss drops from the Climax mission.
New Exotic weapons in Into the Dark
Both new Exotic weapons amplify critical hits, but they fill very different roles. The Caduceus turns critical damage into group healing, while the Underboss tags targets to boost incoming damage.
Caduceus (Exotic Assault Rifle)
The Caduceus is the season pass Exotic and is built for sustained group healing. Its talent repairs you and your allies for a percentage of every critical hit’s dealt damage. During public testing the healing value sat at 2%, but feedback showed the higher figure was balanced, so the talent is set to repair for 3% of each critical hit’s dealt damage at launch.
Underboss (Exotic SMG)
The Underboss is a Climax-exclusive Exotic SMG earned by completing the season’s final mission. Its talent marks enemies when you hit them, and the weapon then deals +20% Amplified Damage to those marked targets. That makes it a close-range tool for softening up priority enemies before switching to your main weapon.
| Exotic | Type | Talent effect | How to get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caduceus | Assault Rifle | Critical hits repair you and allies for 3% of the hit’s dealt damage | Season pass track |
| Underboss | SMG | Marks enemies on hit; +20% Amplified Damage to marked targets | Climax mission (final mission) |
Nurse’s Kneepads (Exotic gear)
The Nurse’s Kneepads are the season’s new Exotic gear piece, and they fit the support theme directly. While equipped, both you and any allies within 10 meters receive 40% Hazard Protection. That reduces damage and effects from status hazards across your whole nearby group, which pairs well with the healing-focused builds the rest of the season encourages.
Ortiz: Reficere gear set
The new gear set, Ortiz: Reficere, is aimed squarely at healing and skill builds. It rewards stacking pieces with growing skill repair and efficiency, then changes how your healing skills behave at the four-piece bonus.
| Pieces | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 2-piece | 8% Skill Efficiency |
| 3-piece | 60% Skill Repair |
| 4-piece | Healing skill duration and range reduced by 30%; healing potency increased 10%; healing an ally grants them 10% Hazard Protection for 10 seconds |
The four-piece trade-off matters. Your healing skills cover less ground and last for less time, but they heal harder and pass along a short hazard buffer to the ally you heal. That makes Ortiz: Reficere a focused team-support set rather than a wide-area one.
New skill-focused brand set
A new brand set joins the season as well, and it supports skill builds across its three tiers. The bonuses scale as you equip more pieces.
| Pieces | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 1-piece | Skill Repair |
| 2-piece | Skill Haste |
| 3-piece | Skill Efficiency |
PvP talent rebalance and changes
Into the Dark ships with one of the largest PvP balance passes the game has seen, touching more than 300 weapon and gear talents. This is the first step in a longer effort, with skills, attributes, and status effects flagged for future updates. A functional anti-cheat system also goes live across PvP environments.
A few specific changes stand out from the final tuning:
- Tinkerer Exotic Mask is disabled in PvP.
- Determined now works like its perfect variant, so it can no longer be chained indefinitely.
- Heartbreaker gear set has its damage output and bonus armor gain reduced by 0.1% to keep it in line with global PvP balance.
- Core Strength gear set receives a 5% overall buff to its talent, with Skill Efficiency held at 10%.
The full talent list arrives alongside the patch notes at launch. The headline takeaway is that the new gear performed well in testing overall, with the Caduceus the main item that needed its value confirmed before release.
How to unlock the new gear
The two highest-priority unlocks have clear sources. The Caduceus comes from the seasonal pass track, so progress through the season to claim it. The Underboss requires you to clear the Climax mission, the season’s final mission, to earn the drop.
For builds, the Ortiz: Reficere set and the new brand set both reward skill and healing stats, and they slot naturally alongside the Nurse’s Kneepads for a dedicated team-support loadout. The Caduceus then turns your critical hits into a steady stream of group repairs, rounding out a kit centered on keeping allies alive.
No official launch date for Into the Dark has been confirmed yet. Based on the current season schedule, with Year 8 Season 1 Rise Up running into early July, the new season is expected to arrive in an early July 2026 window once the live date is announced.
