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There's a skill in The Division called Pulse. It highlights targets for you and your teammates, and also adds some buffs, primarily crit chance and crit damage.

There are other ways to achieve this pulse effect than by activating the skill. For example, one of the turret mods makes the turret pulse enemies that it shoots at. Let's call these "non-skill pulses".

Do non-skill pulses inherently get any of the bonuses from the skill, such as increased crit chance, or does it just highlight them?

There are buffs on equipment that boost Pulse. For example, +5% pulse duration, or +1.5% pulse critical damage.

Do non-skill pulses benefit from any of these equipment buffs? Which ones?

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  • I should think it's just the 'tagging' effect, so you can see enemies behind cover and such. Otherwise it would make taking Pulse pointless, as people would take the turret, and get a turret as well as crit chance. Then you get into does the crit chance effect the turret ;)
    – Neon1024
    Mar 15, 2016 at 9:11
  • I wouldn't say worthless, I find it extremely helpful for finding all of the enemies before an ambush. But yeah, I think it's just for the highlight/tagging effect.
    – Shelby115
    Mar 15, 2016 at 12:12
  • @DavidYell Pulse is still far from useless. It counts enemies and shows them all in a large area at-will. It seems a little odd to me if it doesn't get the bonuses, at least while Pulse is active. Otherwise, I have some people pulsed from the turret, and some pulsed from Pulse, and no way to tell which ones I do extra damage to and which I don't.
    – DCShannon
    Mar 15, 2016 at 17:45

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The best answer I can find to this question is answered via MarcoStyle on youtube.

I would give the whole thing a watch as he describes the effects of two pulses in the same group, the turret marking pulse and the headshot talent pulse.

Additionally he talks about skill duration boosting skills and the nature of pulse as a one shot talent.

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    Video summary: an enemy has to be marked by the scan pulse for you to get bonuses hitting them; marks from other skills don't carry the inherit benefits of scan pulses in terms of increased crit % and dmg; the pulse from the headshot talent adds the benefits of a 0 skill power scan pulse; you can't reapply or refresh pulses from talents with skills or vice versa; more powerful scan pulses override weaker ones.
    – DCShannon
    Apr 18, 2016 at 11:24
  • This answers first part of the question, regarding whether the pulses from other sources get the bonus from the skill. But not the second part of the question, about whether equipment bonuses apply to pulses other than the one from the Scan Pulse skill. I think they probably do.
    – DCShannon
    Apr 18, 2016 at 11:25
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The passive pulse abilities allow you to tag the enemy, but do not apply bonuses.

Mod: Tactical Scanner
Damage is increased when attacking any hostile targets identified by the pulse scan.

Secondary weapon bonuses that add a pulse to the enemy, such as "Pulse on Headshot", simply allow easier tracking of the enemy you are trying to take out.

As an example of practicality, if a head-shot does not kill the enemy, it will usually send them into cover. By applying the red tagging effect, you can still see exactly where the enemy is. When the enemy decides to show their head, again, you will be far better prepared to take the critical shot.

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  • Assuming that's the in-game text, then that's good evidence that Tactical Scanner wouldn't apply to the other pulses.
    – DCShannon
    Apr 10, 2016 at 15:32
  • Direct from the menu
    – user106385
    Apr 10, 2016 at 17:11
  • Are you 100% that the pulse on headshot skill doesn't add the critical bonuses? I kind of assumed it did.
    – dougajmcdonald
    Apr 15, 2016 at 7:01
  • @dougajmcdonald, it doesn't appear to, for me. I use a marksman that deals 60k+ for a headshot, ATM, and I didn't note any difference in my crit damage. Have you noticed anything different?
    – user106385
    Apr 15, 2016 at 10:05
  • Personally I've not managed to test it out very well, but I've seen a few high end players suggesting it's worth taking as a talent for the pulse benefits (ambiguous I know!) so assumed the benefit would have been the crit. It could well be they were only referring to the situational awareness of having sometime tagged I'm not sure.
    – dougajmcdonald
    Apr 15, 2016 at 10:41

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