Sell or deconstruct? Which one gets me better gear?

Patch 1.8

• Optimization Station
• Normalized PVP

Optimization Station & Division Tech

When deconstructing gear/weapons you have a chance of getting division tech now. It takes 50 to improve the stats on your gear via the Optimization Station.

Normalized PVP

The values of your stats are normalized in the two matchmade PVP modes (LastStand and Skirmish). This means you can have crafted lower tier gear with the right stat types but with bad values for these modes.

Money vs Gear

Ultimately it comes down to a choice between money and crafting materials. I would suggest going with crafting materials (deconstruct) unless you need money (which usually is only needed for re-rolling the stats on a piece of gear). One thing to note is that money can be converted indirectly to phoenix credits by purchasing the crates at regular vendors for 400K each which yields somewhere in the vicinity of 10-20 (not exact numbers; going from memory) phoenix credits.

Summary

Deconstruct unless you need Money or Phoenix Credits.

P.S. Always deconstruct Mods and Attachments. They don't have a high sell-value and electronic and tool parts are more likely to be used than the other two types of crafting materials.

I haven't played The Division in a while, but when I was playing crafting wasn't really a thing at all - it is better to just run missions to get better gear.

What I did was to deconstruct blue and purple gear, and sell yellow gear I didn't want. This gave me a good balance of materials (useful for some of the daily and weekly missions) and money to buy better items from the vendors.

It all depends on what you need it for, for example, thanks to how the Division have drastically buffed drops and crafting pieces such as cloth, electronics and so on i personally tend to sell any gear set pieces (if i don't need them) and then deconstruct anything high end, this was my go to method of making materials and a good sum of in game currency.

Eventually you'll run into a problem of too many materials as eventually you'll have what you need both weapons and gear wise so from that point just keep an eye on your materials whenever you need or want to craft anything but you shouldn't run into this problem as the materials you collect from bosses and generic enemies will typically compensate any time you spend crafting over time you spend doing missions.

NOTE: when doing this just a little heads up make sure you lock any items you think you'll never plan on selling.