Added to The Division 2 alongside Year 5 Season 3 Vanguard are three new exotic items for players to get their hands on. While two are on the season pass free track, so getting them is simple enough, the third requires a little more effort.
Vindicator is a new exotic rifle that besides a striking green and black paint job has a pretty interesting talent and solid stats. Exotic hunters will want to get it regardless, but fair warning, you may need to put in a little bit of a grind to get hold of it.
How to get the Vindicator in The Division 2
The good news is that actually acquiring the Vindicator rifle is fairly simple. There's no lengthy project chain to complete, it's available to buy from a vendor. Specifically, it's available from the Descent vendor, as it's exclusive to this game mode.
The bad news is that it requires a not insignificant amount of NSA Tech to buy. With a price of 350, if you're a casual Descent player (as I am) or if you're yet to step into the game mode at all, you're going to need to sink a bit of time into playing it. But hey, it's still a lot less cost than the Descent exclusive cosmetics.
You also see the stats on the weapon before you buy it, which is a nice touch. Right now there doesn't seem to be a blueprint for it, though, as there is for other exotics in the game. When visiting the blueprint vendor, there's nothing for sale, so for now, you can't re-roll it once you have it.
It's stacked with mods for accuracy, stability, and range. The tl;dr is that it's something of a laser beam. It has a fast RPM, and because it's so stable you can just keep rapid firing at the highlights in your scope (thanks to the talent that amplifies damage by 75% to these highlighted body parts) without missing.
How to get NSA Tech from Descent
Simply put, you have to play Descent. The further you go, the more NSA Tech you can acquire in a single run. It isn't all about defeating the Nemesis, you can get NSA Tech without ever running into the big boss.
Where you need to be are the Arena rooms at the end of each loop. The more loops you complete, the higher the NSA Tech you'll receive upon completing the Arena. It is possible, however unlikely, to get all 350 that you need from a single run, because you can just keep on going, even after beating the Nemesis.
But after about Loop 5 the rooms start to get increasingly difficult, even if you select the "easy" ones. There's no shortcut, unfortunately, you just have to keep going until you get what you need.
While completing the loops, you can also sometimes encounter additional rooms that have a high value target in them. If you hit these rooms instead of the regular ones, though they are more difficult, they'll also reward you with NSA Tech once you despatch the target and complete the room. The rewards are significant, so it's worth taking a gamble. The rewards scale up as you progress through loops as well. For example, on loop 5, I hit a HVT room with a handy 29 NSA Tech reward for completion.
What is Descent?
If you're new to Descent, it's a roguelike mode where you start from scratch each time without any of your SHD gear. You put together a build as you progress, gradually getting stronger and stronger. You can play solo or in a group, but the NSA Tech rewards won't be any different if you play with friends.
Be it multiple shorter runs or fewer longer ones, the best way to progress is however you most feel comfortable. It doesn't matter if you choose the easy rooms on the way to the Arena. If that's what you prefer, and it gets you there faster, go for it. If your sole purpose is getting NSA Tech to get hold of The Vindicator, it really doesn't matter.
