The Steel and Sons is an exotic Rifle in The Division 2 that arrived with the Broken Rain Incursion in Title Update Y8S2.3. It fires as a full-auto ACR-style rifle and leans on a stacking talent that rewards clean body-shot-to-headshot play, which has pushed it into rotation for Rifle builds alongside the Breaking Point and Aces & Eights gear sets.
Quick answer: Run the Broken Rain Incursion. The two bosses each have a 1% drop chance, and the weekly locked chest in the final room has a 10% drop chance when opened with a Steel Creek Cypher Fragment.
Where the Steel and Sons exotic Rifle drops
The rifle is tied to the Broken Rain Incursion, the second Incursion, which went live on August 11, 2026. There are three ways to earn it, each with a different rate.
| Source | Drop chance | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Iris Steel boss | 1% | Per clear |
| Marguerite Steel boss | 1% | Per clear |
| Final room locked chest | 10% | Once per week |
| XB-35 “Phoebe” Marauder | 1.47% | Red Moon Rising event |
The locked chest at the end of Steel Creek opens once each week with a Steel Creek Cypher Fragment, and that single unlock carries the best odds of any single roll. Because the chest resets weekly, plan your repeat clears around the reset to keep taking that 10% chance.
Outside the Incursion, the XB-35 “Phoebe” Marauder quadcopter boss from the Red Moon Rising event can also drop the rifle at a 1.47% chance. This route is only available while that event is running.
Shakedown talent explained
The exotic talent is called Shakedown. It asks you to land body shots to build stacks, then cash them out with a headshot on the same target. Switching to a different enemy wipes your stacks, so the talent rewards staying locked on one target.
- Body shots add 1 stack to an enemy for 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 4 stacks.
- Any hit on a new target clears every stack.
- Each stack grants the weapon 4% more Amplified Damage.
- A headshot against a target carrying stacks spends them all, with each stack adding 11% Amplified Damage to that shot.
- When you break an enemy’s weakpoint, they receive 30% more Amplified Damage from you for 5 seconds.
The most efficient loop is to destroy a weakpoint first to open the +30% window, stack up to four with body shots, then land a headshot to detonate all four stacks. In PvP the talent is weaker: stacks last 6 seconds, cap at 3, give +3% per stack, the headshot pays +7% per stack, and the weakpoint bonus drops to +5% for 3 seconds.
Its item description reads, “An artisan’s only as good as their tools.”
Attributes, mods, and recalibration
The rifle comes with two fixed core attributes and one open secondary slot with a randomized stat.
- Core: Rifle Damage
- Core: Critical Hit Damage
- Secondary: Random Bonus
The strongest reroll for the secondary slot is Damage To Targets Out of Cover (DTTOC). It applies as a multiplicative bonus, which produces higher output than any other secondary option.
First obtain Inaya’s Steel and Sons recalibration blueprint. Then use a crafting station to alter the secondary stat; each attempt consumes one Exotic Component.
Fixed weapon mods
The rifle carries its own permanent mods. These cannot be recalibrated or changed through Tinkering.
| Slot | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Optics | +15% Critical Hit Chance |
| Magazine | +10 Rounds |
| Underbarrel | +10% Weapon Handling |
| Muzzle | +10% Reload Speed |
At 420 RPM, this rifle fires in full-auto, with an optimal range of 45m. Recoil rises quickly when you shoot outside cover, so Weapon handling on your gear helps steady the reticle for reliable headshots.
Gear that pairs with Shakedown
Because Shakedown builds around amplified damage and weakpoint destruction, it slots well into the updated Breaking Point gear set. Useful additions include the Overdogs exotic gloves, the Fox’s Prayer named kneepads, and the Equalizer named chest piece. Once you have the rifle, you will know a roll landed when it appears in your inventory as an exotic Rifle with the Shakedown talent and the four fixed mods listed above.
