The First Descendant's real endgame begins after you defeat the Hanged Man Void Intercept boss fight, a challenge in itself. You'll receive a few quests pointing you toward endgame hard mode content, like mission runs and operations in Kingston. There's a significant jump in difficulty here and you'll probably feel pretty weak.
Have no fear. It's a good idea to try and jump in with some other players to help you grind out those first level 100 items that will start to level the playing field. Then it's time to start farming and grinding for endgame upgrades.
Upgrading Your Modules
The easiest way to get your character up to speed is to focus on upgrading modules.
You might've largely ignored this to this point in the game, but having a good module loadout is the difference between getting melted in the endgame and being ready for your first hard mode bosses.
We recommend that you focus on:
- Increased DEF
- Increased HP
These two modules can be applied to any Descendant and will be useful across your entire account. They also provide a lot of survivability against harder enemies.
That being said, this is still dependent on the Descendant you are using. For example, maxxing out your character's skill power and damage might make more sense, especially if you're playing a nuking character like Gley or Bunny.
We also recommend making sure that you've got good Antibody modules for the content you're currently facing. Each area in hard mode does have different damage attributes assigned to it and the bosses also deal specific damage types.
Weapon Modules
In terms of weapon modules, you want to upgrade modules on your chosen weapon. In our case, we have the Thunder Cage Ultimate weapon, so we updated any modules that provide flat Firearm ATK as you will have modules that provide a percentage increase, greatly increasing damage.
There are a lot of choices for different weapons in The First Descendant, and you'll eventually get your hands on Ultimate weapons that best suit your build.
Reactor And Components
Did you know there's a built-in filter for where certain Reactors and Components can drop? You can access this via the world map. On PC, just hit F and you can filter out loot drops based on your needs.
If you've got a good idea of what build you want to go for already, this will help you target-farm specific drops.
Starting The Grind
There are a lot of things to grind in The First Descendant. What you decide next really depends on your goals. If you feel a little lost, you can't go wrong with farming Kuiper Shards which are the material required to continue upgrading your modules.
How To Farm Kuiper Shards
Kuiper Shards can be acquired in a variety of ways, including:
- Dismantling unused modules
- Farming missions
- Using boosters from the Battle Pass
- Equipping Reactor components that improve Kuiper drop rate
- Hard mode farming
Our favorite farming spot — and one that has been popular in the community so far — is the Anticipated Ambush Point mission in the Sterile Land Rockfall Region.
Descendant Farming
If you're keen to stay out of the cash shop, it's time to think about what other Descendants you'd like to unlock in the game. All Descendants can be target-farmed.
The easiest way to do this is to visit Anais in Albion and check the research panel, then investigate which areas you can farm for which Descendant materials.
However, we recommend that you focus on two Descendants (if you don't already have some in mind.)
- Enzo
- Sharen
Enzo is useful for unlocking Encrypted Vaults. Using Enzo makes the minigame so much easier, and you'll get more rewards — including a lot more Kuiper — if you use Enzo while doing your vault farming.
Sharen is useful because of her Stealth. This allows you to complete Infiltration missions quickly and easily, guaranteeing better rewards and cutting down on combat time.
Both these Descendants will make grinding the game easier.
