The Division 2 has hit players with a big update, including the second Incursion to add to the content pool, along with a new exotic to chase, but from my experience, many players struggle with the mechanics and challenge at play. After completing over 20 runs, I’ve gathered the best tactics that helped most groups make good progress, and I hope they help you even more.
Broken Rain is a four-part incursion that will stress many builds and require either excellent coordination or extreme speed to work through. Each section of the dam and preceding woods is guarded by a member of the Steel family and gets progressively more difficult until the climax at the top of the dam, so gear up and get ready for some pain.
Lester Steel—The Lumberyard
After a brief run players find themselves in a medium sized Lumberyard filled with piles of wood and various machinery that serves as your first arena and the first boss is Lester Steel, a chainsaw wielding firebug that rushes at players with a lethal swipe and a beltful of Molotov’s. Thankfully there are no real mechanics during this fight aside from the growing threat of flames amongst the lumber and the semi-constant stream of adds and snipers that can one-shot many builds.
The core of the encounter is simple: do as much damage as you can while keeping the team alive. There are a few places you can kite the melee-oriented boss, but my best recommendation is a muddy region located next to the large orange crane. This allows players to dodge roll around the wide swings and offer the cleanest line of sight for the group while minimizing exposure to snipers. Simply stay alive and dump damage where you can until Lester is the first to fall.
Dwayne Steel IV – The Road
This one is where things hit a snag. This is a two-part encounter with a Payload Push before even getting to the big bad boss. Players will have to protect and escort a warhound strapped with explosives through the woods to reach the entrance to the Dam’s parking lot. Through constant ambushes and a lethal APC, this encounter serves as the DPS check. Can you kill faster than they can surround you? Once your team makes it to the entrance and deploys a bridge to cross to the gate, Dwayne and his adds and rocket pods will greet the team. This Riker’s Heavy-styled enemy will walk you down like a steamroller of death while you are peppered from all directions.
This encounter will require you to split off from one another, allowing one player to rush forward to clear the objectives before the Hound is blockaded by them, bolt forward past the enemies using the left wooden staircase to flank behind the APC, and get in real close to avoid gunfire to destroy the four plates. Once the APC is dealt with, the spawn rate of the enemies slows, but you must press forward to the bridge to hit two switches; one is located in a gatehouse on the waterline to the left of the bridge, while the other sits across the pathway and into a control room you’ll have to jump through the river to get to. Once you activate both switches, you get to the control panel of the Green Crane to drop the bridge into place before rejoining the crew on their push.
The actual boss arena is quite small and full of adds and rockets, and the mechanics are thankfully much more simple than the run-up; all you have to do is take out Dwayne’s backpack canisters to crack his armor to get some damage in. Rockets will be flying throughout the fight but don’t do nearly as much damage as the waves of enemies coming to reinforce the fight.
Iris Steel—The Generator
This singular encounter is where MANY players get frustrated, as it is, in my opinion, the roughest engagement of the entire incursion, forcing players to keep up with a demanding area mechanic as well as large swaths of enemies and eventually Iris herself. This encounter takes place in the bowels of the dam surrounded by generators requiring constant restarts even during Iris’ hunt. This all happens in a larger room with plenty of obstructions and cover, but with the amount of ads all over it, it’ll be a stressful time no matter where you bunker down.
The generator will require constant attention, as periodically through the encounter, it will experience errors, flashing bright red while the PA system warns of malfunction. Whenever this happens, players must repressurize the water system using valves available on each half of the room and a panel in the control room. Each generator has one panel, while a water valve operates two gens each to thankfully reduce interaction requirements. When Iris makes a shocking entrance, she adds a new step to the encounter, walking down your team with electricity-powered armor. During this period, whoever has aggro needs to direct her towards Tesla Tower, located throughout the environment, to dissipate her charge. When near empty, she will rush behind a generator to draw power and requires being hit by an EMP to stall her to allow DPS to occur.
Now this is an incredibly dense encounter; players have found a FAR more efficient way to handle Iris that will go a long way to help teams along. Negotiator’s Dilemma; a gear set all about sharing Crit damage amongst targets you mark—all you have to do is, with the set equipped, shoot Iris enough, even while immune, to generate a mark and then shoot any other enemy in the field. This damages Iris through her Faraday Cage and will be of help to teams dealing with the over-tuned encounter.
Marguerite Steel—The Dam
After a bit of running, players will find themselves in the final encounter atop the Dam and the final member of the Steel family, Marge. This encounter is a narrow strip full of obstacles, enemies, and electricity-prone metal plates along the floor. Before a team can even get the boss to enter the arena, one player must run a set of credentials from Tower 1 (the location players enter) to Tower 2 all the way down the strip while dodging nearly a dozen enemies, some snipers, and constant mortars. It’s a tough run, but someone’s gotta do it to get those sluice gates open.
The hardest part is once the final Steel sibling enters the fight, between the mobs, gates and the hit and run tactics of Marguerite. While eliminating ads, players will have to keep the gates from closing while destroying Marge’s three weakpoints: Mask and two backpack canisters. This forces her to rush to a supply box to grab some more of her good gas; a girl’s gotta stay high in the apocalypse after all. Each time she resupplies, a named Riker’s Heavy will enter the field that players must eliminate to grab a stick of thermite; this is to blow up her supplies. Do this four times, and you’ve finally, despite it all, made it to the proper DPS phase. Up until now Marguerite has been immortal and incredibly high, and once her supplies run out you’ll have your chance with no more mechanics aside from the gates.
If all goes well, you’ll be able to knock her out of the picture and secure the dam for good. It’s a lot to handle and a lot to process, but as time goes on, runs should go smoother the more people understand what’s going on, and I hope this helps, even a small bit, because it can be tiring teaching so many people individually
