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Expertise is the endgame system that lets you permanently push a weapon or piece of gear past its base stats by spending materials and combat time on it. It sits alongside gear score as a second progression layer at max level, and it’s why a max-roll item can still keep getting stronger long after you stop finding upgrades from drops. Developer Massive Entertainment and publisher Ubisoft built it as a long-term sink for high-end resources, tied into the same Tinkering Station you already use for crafting and recalibration.
The confusion starts because the system uses three terms that sound like synonyms and aren’t. Here’s what each one actually controls.
Expertise Level is the agent’s level with the Expertise feature, while Proficiency Rank is how proficient you are with a specific type of items, maxing out at 10 ranks. Grade covers individual item upgrades and displays on your item, for example “Lady Death, Grade 2.”
TL;DR
- Expertise Level is your account-wide cap on how high any item can go, and it tops out at 30
- Proficiency Rank is per item type and tops out at 10 — hit it and the item becomes upgradeable
- Grade is the actual upgrade tier stamped on one specific item, and each Grade point is permanent
- You raise Proficiency by using an item in combat or by donating materials to research it
- Everything routes through the same menu: Tinkering Station, Expertise, category, item, Research
| Term | What It Means | Cap | What It Affects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expertise Level | Your agent's overall level in the Expertise feature | 30 | How high you're allowed to raise any item's Grade |
| Proficiency Rank | How practiced you are with one specific item, brand or gear set | 10 | Whether that item type can be upgraded at all |
| Grade | The upgrade tier printed directly on one specific item | Equal to your current Expertise Level | That exact item's weapon damage or armor value, permanently |
Where to Get Expertise Progress in The Division 2
Getting the most out of your gear takes planning, and to earn Expertise Level you need to gain Proficiency Ranks by using an item, brand or gear set in combat, or by investing resources into researching them. Both routes feed the same bar. Playing with a weapon equipped ticks its Proficiency up passively while you do whatever you were already doing — story missions, Countdown, control point runs. Donating materials through Research does the same thing without requiring you to actually carry the item, which matters for weapon types or gear sets you never plan to use in a real loadout. Once you reach the maximum Proficiency Rank for a piece of equipment you become Proficient with it, and you may only improve the Grade of items, brands and gear sets you are Proficient with.
There’s a third, quieter route: donating spare copies of the same weapon or gear piece you’re farming, which some patches have streamlined with a bulk junk-donation option in the Expertise menu — useful if you’re running high-value target loops or a control point clear list like the one in the McMillan Reservoir Assault walkthrough and pulling duplicate drops anyway.
If you’ve spent time away from the game, the Expertise menu itself hasn’t changed shape, and the current season, Red Horizon, is as good a reason as any to log back in and check where your Proficiency ranks landed.
Warning
Because Proficiency Rank is tracked per item type, donating materials to a weapon or gear set you don’t actually plan to keep using wastes resources that could have gone toward something you’ll run at endgame. Check the table above before you commit anything through Research.
| Source | What You Get | Requirement | Who It Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using the item in combat | Passive Proficiency progress on that item | Have it equipped and play normally | Anyone already running that build |
| Donating materials via Research | Proficiency progress with no item equipped | Materials, at the Tinkering Station | Types you don't enjoy playing but still want maxed |
| Donating duplicate drops | Proficiency progress from spare copies | You need actual duplicates of that item | Farmers pulling repeat loot from the same source |
| Upgrading a Proficient item | A permanent Grade increase on that copy | Materials plus Expertise Level headroom | Players locking in a finished loadout |
Not everyone has the evenings for this — The Division 2 boosting covers the same ground with someone else on the keys.
Step-by-Step: Raising an Item's Grade at the Tinkering Station
Follow this sequence to get it done fast.
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1
Open the Tinkering Station
accessible from your Base of Operations or any major settlement hub.
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2
Select Expertise
this opens the separate tab from crafting and recalibration.
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3
Pick the category, then the item
weapons, gear pieces, brand sets and skill variants each sit in their own list.
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4
Choose Research, then Donate Materials
this is the exact menu path Ubisoft documents: access the Tinkering Station, select Expertise, choose the category and item, then select Research followed by Donate Materials, and finally choose the resource to donate.
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5
Reach Proficiency Rank 10
at Rank 10 you're considered proficient with that item, and you can upgrade it with resources.
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6
Select Upgrade to raise Grade
back in the Expertise tab, select the category, choose the item, then choose Upgrade to spend materials and raise its Grade.
Best Expertise Farming Methods
Nobody at Ubisoft has published a materials-cost table for any of this, so the honest way to size the grind is in the system’s own units rather than made-up hour counts: every item type needs its own climb from Proficiency Rank 0 to 10 before it can even be upgraded, and every single item you care about then needs its Grade pushed up separately, all the way toward the Expertise Level 30 ceiling. Treat 30 as the ceiling today rather than a permanent one: Ubisoft’s own description ties the maximum to how many items exist to become proficient with, and it has moved upward as seasons added gear. There is no official total hour figure for finishing this account-wide — treat any number you see elsewhere as a guess, not a published fact.
| Method | Speed | Effort | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Running normal content with the item equipped | Steady, passive | Low | Leveling proficiency while doing missions or Countdown you'd play anyway |
| Donating research materials | Consistent, resource-limited | Low effort, high material cost | Types you refuse to actually play |
| Farming duplicate drops in the Dark Zone or on control points | Bursty, loot-dependent | Medium to high | Players already running a PvE Dark Zone farming loop |
| Focusing one item at a time instead of spreading materials thin | Efficient per material spent | Requires discipline | Anyone trying to clear the next Expertise Level threshold fast |
Expertise Rewards and What You Unlock
Why Grade Upgrades Never Wear Off
A Grade point applied to a specific weapon or gear piece stays on that exact item forever. It isn’t a consumable buff, a seasonal bonus, or something that resets with a new patch — it’s a stat baked into that copy, which is also why the game bothers printing the Grade number directly on the item’s name.
Why Expertise Level Is the Shared Bottleneck
Even if a weapon is fully Proficient and you’ve stockpiled every material it needs, you cannot Grade it past your current Expertise Level. That’s the part that trips people up: Proficiency tells you an item is eligible, but Expertise Level tells you the actual ceiling, and it’s shared across your whole account rather than tracked per item.
| Reward | How You Get It | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Higher weapon damage on one specific gun | Grade upgrades on a Proficient weapon, paid in materials | Permanent DPS increase on that exact copy |
| Higher armor value on one specific piece | Grade upgrades on a Proficient gear piece | Permanent survivability increase on that exact copy |
| A higher Grade ceiling account-wide | Raising your overall Expertise Level | Raises the cap for every item you'll ever upgrade, not just one |
| Freedom to swap builds without losing progress | Becoming Proficient across more item types | Progress is account-wide, so trying a new loadout doesn't reset anything you already earned |
Common Misconceptions About Expertise
Grade Is Not the Same as Gear Score or Rarity
Grade is a separate axis from an item’s base gear score or color rarity. A high-rarity drop with no Grade upgrades performs at its base stats until you actually spend materials on it through the Tinkering Station — the loot rarity and the Expertise Grade don’t move together automatically.
Hitting Proficiency Rank 10 Doesn’t Auto-Upgrade Anything
Reaching max Proficiency Rank only unlocks the option to spend materials on that item — it doesn’t apply any Grade increase by itself. You still have to go back into the Expertise tab and manually choose Upgrade for each Grade point.
This Isn’t the Same System as SHD Watch
Expertise, SHD Watch and Keener’s Watch all sit in different corners of the endgame menus and get mixed up constantly because they’re all long-term account progression tracks. If you’re trying to sort out watch attributes specifically rather than weapon and gear Grades, that’s covered separately in the SHD Watch guide.
Our Take: Is Expertise Worth Grinding?
Our Take
Worth it for your main loadout, not worth chasing across everything you own.
The permanent stat gain is real and it stacks with everything else in your build, which is exactly why it’s tempting to try to max every weapon type you’ve ever picked up. The smarter play is narrow: get your actual go-to weapons and gear set fully Proficient and Graded first, then decide if the account-wide Expertise Level ceiling is worth chasing for its own sake. Spreading materials thin across dozens of item types you’ll never equip is the single easiest way to feel like you’ve made no progress at all.
Sources and Confidence
This table separates what the studio has confirmed from what comes out of press previews, and what is still just circulating. Every link below was fetched before publishing.
| Claim | Where it comes from | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Expertise Level, Proficiency Rank and Grade are defined as three separate stats | Ubisoft support for the current cap; the Intelligence Annex explains why it moves | Official |
| Proficiency Rank maxes out at 10, and reaching it makes an item eligible for upgrades | Ubisoft (Intelligence Annex: Expertise) | Official |
| The exact menu path is Tinkering Station, Expertise, category, item, Research, Donate Materials | Ubisoft Help | Official |
| Becoming proficient in a gear or weapon type grants one Expertise Level of that type | Ubisoft Help | Official |
| A later update added a bulk ‘Donate All Junk’ option to the Expertise menu | Grokipedia (community-compiled reference) | Unconfirmed |
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