The chaotic expanse of Washington, D.C. in The Division 2 is host to a staggering number of weapons. As a market-standard feature for looter-shooter titles, these weapons are categorized under several rarity levels, such as standard, high-grade, and so on. The rarest of these are ‘Exotics,’ which stand out because of their unique ‘Talents’ or passive traits.
As the Exotics are a variant of pre-existing weapons in their specific class, these talents are more often than not what set them apart. Of course, not all of them offer the same amount of panache or power. The following, however, are considered the best in their respective slots by the playerbase.
5 best Exotic Weapons you can get in The Division 2
5) Lady Death
For SMG connoisseurs who love an aggressive run-and-gun playstyle, Lady Death is likely the most satisfying weapon The Division 2 for them. It is a heavily augmented version of the CMMG Banshee.
Like all named weapons in the game, it boasts a distinguished look, a smaller stalk, and a spiky knuckle implanted on the barrel.
The exotic talent ‘Breathe Free’ directly promotes a more mobile approach to gunplay. You gain 4 stacks per second while moving and double that amount for sprinting until it caps out at 32 stacks.
Gunshots consume 1 stack for a 75% increase in damage for that round. Uniquely, killing enemies also grants you a 20% movement speed buff for 10 seconds.
4) Eagle Bearer
The Eagle Bearer is an Exotic variant of the P460 assault rifle in The Division 2. When you get around to using the weapon, the first notable difference from the P460 is its convenient handling with a unique recoil pattern.
The mods on the Eagle Bearer, while not as overtuned as those on St. Elmo’s Engine, do place it far above the average assault rifle. Its saving grace is the interaction between its twin Talents.
‘Eagle’s Strike’ incrementally boosts the accuracy of the weapon as you keep firing, much like Hyperion weaponry from the Borderlands franchise. This is meant to aid its need to rack up precision headshot kills to trigger its other talent.
A headshot kill grants you the ‘Tenacity’ buff that lasts for 10 seconds. Further headshots increase the buff’s potency by 5% per hit. Depending on how many headshots you can keep chaining, Tenacity delays up to 80% of the damage you take while it is active.
Tenacity then completely negates this delayed damage depending on how many enemies you kill within its duration. Killing one enemy reduces 33% of the damage approximately while getting 3 kills means 100% damage mitigation.
3) St. Elmo’s Engine
A guaranteed drop for reaching level 90 in Year 5 Season 1 Broken Wings reward track, the St. Elmo’s Engine is a new Exotic assault rifle. It matches most gold-standard assault rifles in the game with a high rate of fire, good handling, and a forgiving reload time to boot.
The unique passive St. Elmo’s Engine offers is called ‘Actum Est.’ Successful hits on opponents generate 1 stack that lasts permanently. If you pile up 100 stacks, the stacks reset, and the magazine is converted to shock ammo upon the next reload.
100 stacks might be a big ask on paper, but it is manageable thanks to an average 850 rounds per minute fire rate. The real reason for this assault rifle’s huge uptick in popularity is not strictly its Talents, but rather the mods.
The mods for St. Elmo’s Engine are all excellent, significantly boosting the critical chance, critical damage, and weapon handling in tandem with each other.
2) Pestilence
Pestilence is a beastly exemplar of the LMG weapon class. It boasts good up-front damage and caps out at a decent 600+ rounds per minute with its 100-bullet magazine. However, its rise to fame as an Exotic is owing to its borderline overpowered Talent.
Dubbed ‘Plauge of the Outcasts,’ the unique passive makes it so that hits with this weapon apply 10-second damage over time. This scales off the weapon’s damage, dealing a tenth of its damage per tick.
The tick damage differentiates itself from a regular bleed status in Division 2 by virtue of the fact that it stacks up to 50 times.
Consequently, Pestilence is one of the best-in-class equipment for room clearing.
1) Scorpio
Scorpio is likely the biggest contender for the most universally loved shotgun in the series. This works best with perks from the Gunner specialization but is not limited to it per se. Regardless of what build you go for, the Scorpio delivers both damage and single-target control in spades.
Scorpio is bestowed with arguably the most unique and fun traits in the game. It is a semi-automatic trigger shotgun that shoots venomous pellets that apply ‘Septic Shock’ stacks.
A stack lasts 10 seconds by default. Shooting the target any further resets the duration and applies additional stacks with additional effects.
The first stack poisons the target, the third stack disorients it, and the sixth stack shocks it. At the seventh stack, it reaches its maximum possible stacks and makes the target 20% more vulnerable to all sources of damage.
Realistically, most opponents die much earlier than you can apply the seventh stack. If not, the multiplicative damage bonus seals their fate.
This weapon truly shines in potential when you also equip the Vile exotic armor piece. Vile boosts all status builds but especially turns Scorpio into an absolute top-notch DPS machine.
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