And how could you? How could anyone?? The Division generally speaking isn't that difficult; all of the side-missions and Encounters can be handled solo at the recommended level, and the missions themselves are pretty breezy for the most part, too. Normal mode missions will of course go a little smoother in a full group, but they're still very manageable if there's only two of you, if not maybe even the one in some cases. Hard mode missions definitely require a full group, but they're pretty manageable, too. So long as people know to revive and have enough skill to continually keep shooting enemies in the head, it's not too bad.

Then... then you have Challenging, and Ho-Lee-Fuck. All of a sudden this now seems like a completely different game. A game where gear and speccing your mods in certain ways actually seems to matter. Where teamwork is key to success, and all of those flashbang, EMP, and shock grenades suddenly have a use.

Challenging missions are Hard Core. I've chosen to separate the word even just to emphasis how truly fucking brutal they are. I played my first one minutes ago as it's a Daily - that it's one of the later missions against the LMB certainly didn't make things easier. But still, I was not prepared. I figured that now all enemies would be Elites (AKA Yellow health bar guys) and that would mostly be the gist. Hmm, seems acceptable. I've raided plenty of 'Landmarks' in the DZ on my own - with enough patience and again with enough skill to aim for the head successfully we should all be home for dinner flicking our phoenix coins in the air!

...NOPE

For one thing, yes, the enemies are all Elites. But they're also two levels higher than your level cap, and there's no respawns. If you're not revived in time, then you're just a slab of meat left on the floor unless somebody is kind enough to put in the 50 years it now takes to revive you completely.

One particular differentiator that soon dawned on me is that... this isn't the DZ. The DZ is an open-world, with its entirety your battleground. The missions, however, are of course much more constrained. Meaning there's less room to actually move and/or flee for safety. So, what the Mission quickly entailed was an awful lot of genuine shock and awe as I'm downed sometimes within a split-second as I pop my head out of cover to shoot - sometimes I don't even need to pop out of cover as there'll be some fucker that's flanking you from the side.

The group I was in was comprised of randoms with no headset communication, so there was no proper strategy to employ beyond just doing whatevs and hoping it works out. Which in turn put us all at a severe disadvantage that now more than ever sorely stuck out. We actually managed to work our way through most of the mission, that is until we reached the library segment. The arena is extremely tight with very little place to form a proper defence. What's more, the battle begins with a couple of shotgun rushers that, like everything else, can withstand a copious amount of bullets while can most likely take you down in one from like the other side of the world. Seriously, fuck those guys. Nothing destroys an entire team quite like one of those pricks charging your way. Even though we went through some wipes before hand, this was the one where we were simply banging our heads against the wall. It got to the point where one guy left, and though the remaining three of us continued valiantly, we all eventually parted our ways in silence. No doubt with every sort of vulgar word in the book seeping out of our mouths all the while. I know I certainly left frustrated.

Not at my team, but for how much of a jump the game takes. Again, it's as if this is almost a different game altogether! Hyperbolic just a skosh, but the point still stands as mentioned before that now, all of a sudden, some actual strategy must be employed. Debuffs are now a thing - a flashbang is far more useful than a regular frag grenade is certainly. The enemies seemingly have power levels to match the Z fighters they're so durable, and Oh My God can trying to get in and/or out of cover feel so incredibly finicky and awkward. Everything I knew about how The Division played has been turned topsy turvy. I'm now rethinking all of my stats, my talents - how then to pair them with my abilities. And hey, maybe I should actually start making use of all of those incendiary and explosive bullets for a change.

Goddamn. What is this, an RPG?

Just have everyone stack Smart Cover with health recovery and Support Station with ammo recovery and your entire team will be nearly invincible AND have unlimited ammo.

This completely breaks the game and will probably be nerfed soon, but there it is.

You are definitely right here. So much about the game was just easy and didn't require teamwork to really be there. The hard versions of missions were challenging when leveling up. But at level 30, the hard difficulty plays more like the normal difficulty earlier in the game. It was a total breeze.

Then I tried Challenging and the very first fight of the mission my entire team was murdered. Murdered was too light. We were completely annihilated so hard that every member left the group and gave up before we even respawned. Of course, I tried the Challenging difficulty only a day after I reached level 30. My gear since then has gotten much better and my DPS tripled as well. I think the challenging mode will be equatable to a hard mode dungeon at max level for any other MMORPG. Though this is not what I would call a raid. (I have heard hints from developers of 8 man missions which I would consider a raid in MMO terms.)

I'm not at the level yet for Challenging though I think if my friends were all in a group with me then we might have a shot at it. I don't think the Challenging difficulty is enough for a true endgame though. They certainly need Raids and not just increased difficulty of older missions you already completed. Need them Destiny Raids. God I hope it's coming.

Its a gear thing, at this point i'm doing the Hard mode missions solo and doing the challenge mode in a group of 3.

125k DPS, 50k HP.

Do the HM stuff and buy some blueprints for better gear.

I've had the game since Friday but haven't had a chance to play. How many difficulties are there? And is it mission by mission, or do you choose one for the whole campaign?

I've seen mentions of Challenging and figured it was just the regular hard mode.

@csl316: You can pick per mission (which makes sense as the entrance to each mission area has 1-click matchmaking so you can flip difficulty there and it'll populate the level as you walk in with suitable foes for how many are in your group and the difficulty) either Normal or Hard. A solo play seems tuned more to Normal (if you go in as soon as you've just about hit the minimum recommended level) but good players or people who over-gear or out-level may want to solo on Hard.

Then you hit the level cap of 30 and Challenging unlocks. It's the properly hard, doesn't scale to solo play, final form of each mission but not every mission will have a Challenge mode (not sure if they plan to add it to the ones missing it later or just those missions were not suited to scaling up for end-game). Simply completing a Challenge mode missions will provide you with end-game currency to (once you've collected enough) buy the top gear.

There are (at 30) also dailies that are two randomly selected missions on Hard at 30 and one Challenging mode mission. Doing these gets you a bonus of that end-game currency so you can get some of the end-game gear just doing Hard mode missions (you also get a couple of coins for every named boss you kill at level 30).

There is an achievement & uPlay badge for playing through every mission on Hard at 30 so the game does at least suggest that you'll want to go back and try the Hard missions when at level 30 even if you've not been repeating them before that (to play with friends or so on - you only get significant xp to progress your character the first time you complete a mission so repays are more for fun and drops rather than spamming a single mission to try and boost your level).

After running the normal missions solo on Hard, I thought I might have had a chance on the "Challenging" difficulty since it seemed doable at that point. I didn't realize that they make every enemy elite level! That sounds like some kind of Hell at my current level (20). Unless it matches them to your level if you're by yourself, which I doubt it would do in such a team-oriented game.

The first time I tried the challenging daily we wiped as soon as we arrived on the roof. The heavies pushed us back into the elevator and we got blown up.

Second time we got pushed back into the elevator, but the AI bugged out and didn't shoot at us so we could take down the 2 heavies without problems. After that it was pretty much smooth sailing. That rooftop though. It's the most difficult part.

My first time with a challenging mission was a success but boy it was rough. People going down and reviving each other constantly. And as said in the opening post, fuck the shotgun guys! They don't care about how much ammo you pump into them, they just keep running at you and one or two shot from them is enough to take down a player. Even the big dudes are better than them, since they are slow.

On the bright side, the reward is on par with the difficulty.

Needs more Burning Crusade era WoW references.

I'm happy to report that I have since beaten a couple of Challenging missions! Not that LMB mission I mentioned in the OP mind you, but still! Success! Honestly the one where you recruit Benitez amidst the motorway with all of the cars everywhere isn't too bad. It's still difficult, but so long as everybody knows to stick to the higher ground when possible it's manageable enough to where I'm not intimidated at the prospect of replaying for more yellow drops. Plus the rioters are the easiest faction - no shotgun-wielding fuckers! Defending the JTF lady was probably the most difficult part of it all truth be told.

The other was taking down Larae Barrett, which was more akin to my original experience speaking for the difficulty. Fortunately with my better gear on hand I was now a lot more survivable. And thank the Lord for that yellow LMG they're selling in the advanced weapons vendor!

Glad to see that even with randoms the Challenging Difficulty missions are still very doable. Or... at least the two I've done. I can't say I'm any more enthused at the idea in trying that LMB one again, however.

Also tear gas grenades best grenades.

I did my first one today. It was a bit rough. I'm sure I was under-geared compared to the rest of the team. We never completely wiped, but it was a bit tedious (Larae Barrett mission). I never want to see those stairs or elevator again. The final encounter was relatively simple since we have room to manuver. I love this game, but I wish the boss fights were a bit more interesting than killing adds and filling a different NPC model with bullets. Hopefully that'll come with the incursions.

If I can get a yellow drop every day from this stuff (hopefully one i can use), this doesn't seem terrible.

@thatonedudenick: You're guaranteed a high end gear piece for every completion of a Challenging mission, whether its a daily or not. Its just the flat, straight reward for it along with 30 Phoenix credits. You could replay the same mission for hours to gear up if you wanted. Lexington Event Center and Lincoln Tunnel are the "easiest" challenging mode missions in the game.

All missions on challenging are completeable as long as there is some coordination. For the initial wave of rushers, make sure at least 2 people have 2 different forms of crowd control. Fire from the incendiary seeker mines, grenades, bullets, or turret. Shock from the sticky grenade or turret. Disorientate from the gas cloud from the seeker mine or grenade. Or blind from the flashbang. Use one right after the other, not all at once, and note that enemies are immune to the same debuffs for a short period of time. That should buy everyone enough time to shoot down the rushers, as long as everyone stays back and has some cover.

If you get a second wave of 3+ rushers, make sure there are people with the Survival Link and Tactical Link skills up. These are basically your ults in a MOBA. They make you take 80% less damage and increase your damage and crit respectively. Your team should be able to clear new rushers after that. Then your shorter cooldown skills should be back up for the next wave.

if your team's DPS is lacking, kill order is also important. Use the marking feature and mark which enemies to focus fire on. Kill heavy gunners last, since they can take the most punishment and move the slowest. Kill medics first (and their medic bags if they're in sight). Next up should be commanders, since they boost damage and health of nearby allies and can harass you with grenades. Then take out engineers, they can hack deployables like turrets, seeker mines, etc. Their turrets also makes it risky to run out of cover from grenades. After that should be grenadiers, because they will constantly push you out of cover with their grenades, making reviving teammates almost impossible and put you into line of fire. if you have enemy snipers, wait until they pop up and take their shot, then immediate pop out and fire at them to keep them suppressed. They will stay in cover most of the time, and move from cover to cover, so don't focus all your attention on them. Just keep them suppressed, or they will one shot you. The turret with the range and damage mod is great for keeping snipers suppressed. They'll die pretty fast just from suppressing fire, since they have very little armor. At this point you should have most of the area clear to focus on heavy gunners and keeping them kited. Just remember to look at what available cover and running space you have behind you. Also keep in mind to tell your team to continue using their crowd control during all of this. Except for the last few enemies, save cooldowns for another potential wave of rushers.

If you have a group of friends you regularly play with, having a dedicated tank, DPS, and healer makes things a lot easier. I have a friend who is specced for threat, mobile and stationary cover, and all the rushers just magnetize to him while we burn them down.

Coordination and tactics can only do so much when five shotgunners rush your team and when shotguns enemies can possibly one shot you and your teammates. I despise the Russian Consulate mission because of shotgunners making it into a gamble if your team can survive that onslaught.

Absolutely. I've since finished that mission on Challenging (once again with randoms no less!), but my hatred for shotgun rushers has not diminished. They're literally the toughest obstacle in the whole game - even named boss enemies aren't as panic-inducing as a swarm of shotgunners charging your way.

What was funny about that mission was at the end you only have to kill the boss and collect the shade item thing - there's no ''kill all remaining enemies'' objective once that's done, or perhaps this was a bug?. In any case my team unloaded everything onto the boss and collected the thing, therefore completing the mission... to which we then all died by the wave of shotgunners that followed :P But again the mission was technically completed so it didn't matter by that point!

So far I've been able to complete every Challenging daily with randoms in matchmaking. Everyone either knows or figures out that they need to use buffs instead of attack skills, and there gets to be a kind of silent communication by just watching each other.

That said, the Power Plant is definetely something that even a good team alone can beat. To refresh your memory, that mission has a section with three seperate waves of enemies you must beat on a timer.

Normally, this is fine. After 5 hours in a variety of groups, it became clear this was now a DPS check. I never saw any group I was in get the final mob to spawn with more than a minute to spare.

Overall, I love the Challenging missions. They are, well, challenging, but not impossible. The Power Plant was just upsetting.

Some general advice for Challenging missions:

1. Fall back. Give yourself as much space to fight as you can.

2. The support stations all revive. The one that says something about it just does so automatically. Hold Square (I imagine X on Xbox) inside the ring to get yourself up. I like to have one guy use ammo station and one guy use the auto res in case shit goes down.

3. Look at your talents and make sure they are working well with your set up. Are you a support station guy? The talents for skill duration, or healing allies with a skill, are worth looking at. Smart Cover also benefits from these. Repo Reaper pairs wonderfully with Assault Shield. (which is still good but will need to be a lot less balls out than usual in Challenging)

4. The Liberator Assault Rifle synergizes really well with a buff provider build, and can easily break 100k DPS. It's well worth the investment.

@sdoots: I still haven't finished the powerplant mission yet, precisely because of the standoff with only eight minutes to spare. I enjoy playing them all the same mind you, because the Challenging missions actually brings all of the game's abilities and systems together - what once may have appeared useless is in fact a life saver ect.. Up until that point, however, a lot of the game mostly consisted of playing it like a pretty standard third-person cover-based shooter, but with numbers bouncing off of enemies and colour-coded loot. Which was rather fun for what it was, but it's now that the game's surprising depth and level of strategy really begins to shine.

It's unfortunate (and just really perplexing) that there's only four missions available to play on Challenging. I assume they'll add more down the line, but still.

I'd say one of the most interesting parts about doing the challenging missions is how you really have to check that ego at the door. The single player campaign sort of engrains this sense of juking and jiving around the enemies from cover to cover, but usually in a semi-aggressive stance of constantly advancing. In the challenging missions you are constantly retreating to put distance between yourself and the enemies which is an interesting change of pace. Also it really does make a lot more sense to stick together. While in a game like Destiny, clumping up can have deadly consequences, in the Division with several medic bags out it's nearly impossible for the entire team to wipe on a single grenade and straying from the group usually ends up costing the entire team one downed player for the entirety of the "rush."

It's interesting, but I think this is where I probably draw the line and start to fall off on the game. I've enjoyed it thoroughly from beginning to end, and I'll continue to plink away at it here and there, but the challenging missions are a bit too time consuming for my tastes. I can safely say I got more than my moneys worth, although I'm also kind of worried that if I want to even attempt the DLC content then I really need to start grinding for that gear now.