The First Descendant character tier list

Emily Stander
Ajax, Bunny and Blair in The First Descendant

With a ton of characters with a range of abilities to choose from, our The First Descendant character tier list will answer any questions you have about the current meta.

Here are all The First Descendant characters ranked, including the best starter character and who you’d want to pick if you mostly play solo. 

Best The First Descendant characters ranked

TierDescendants
S TierBunny, Gley, Jayber, Valby, Yujin
A TierLepic, Freyna, Kyle, Luna
B TierViessa, Ajax, Enzo
C TierSharen, Blair, Esiemo

Tiers explained

  • S-tier: Meta characters that stand above the rest.
  • A-tier: Powerful characters that are a strong alternative to the S-tier picks with very few drawbacks.
  • B-tier: Niche picks that only really work in certain situations.
  • C-tier: Best to avoid them unless they’re your favorite characters.

Each character was decided by looking at how much utility their skills offer and what the payoff would be against how difficult it is to learn them. Since The First Descendant is a purely PvE game with a focus on teamwork, we also looked at how well characters synergize with others.

S Tier

Bunny

  • Skills:
    • Rabbit Foot (Passive)
    • Thrill Bomb
    • Light Speeding
    • Lightning Emission
    • Maximum Power

Rabbit Foot always ensures that you have your electric bar up, and together with Light Speeding, you can constantly move around enemies and Electrocute them. Her Ultimate, Maximum Power, shoots a massive beam of Electricity out to clear mobs quickly.

Bunny‘s mobility is unmatched, which makes her an excellent DPS choice for crowd control. Maximum Power also doubles as a great option for single-target damage, and she’s overall one of the strongest picks in the game right now.

Bunny in The First Descendant
Bunny’s mobility and damage make her incredibly strong.

Gley 

  • Skills:
    • Thirst (Passive)
    • Frenzied
    • Life Siphon
    • Increased Sensory
    • Massacre

Gley can be difficult to master, but once you get the hang of her Life Siphon and creating Life Spheres, she surpasses the issue of being a bit of glass cannon. She has incredible long-range potential with Frenzied, making it easy to dominate enemies before they get close.

She even has a bit of a support element with Increased Sensory, which creates an area where bullets are not consumed and HP is restored while you’re in it. Overall, Gley’s got a bit of everything, and she outclasses many Descendants because of this variety.

Gley in The First Descendant
Gley’s Life Siphon and damage potential are what put her in S Tier.

Jayber

  • Skills:
    • Turret Sync (Passive)
    • Assault Turret
    • Medical Turret
    • Multi-Purpose Gun
    • Reactivate

Jayber’s strength lies in his versatility, as his turrets can either heal or do damage depending on what you need. He’s a fantastic team player, and there’s not much you can pin down as a weakness with him.

Additionally, his Ultimate Reactivate allows him to call turrets back and place them back already enhanced, shaving down precious seconds in a fight. This means you can pretty much always have enhanced turrets on the field, healing and doing damage.

Jayber in The First Descendant
Jayber’s versatility is unmatched.

Valby

  • Skills:
    • Water Intake (Passive)
    • Bubble Bullet
    • Plop Plop
    • Laundry
    • Laundry Bomb

Valby is another Descendant with incredible versatility, as her abilities give her powerful potential for crowd control and pure damage. Her Passive, Water Intake, means that she consumes less mana when she’s standing on water, and it’s incredibly strong alongside Plop Plop.

She also has great mobility with Laundry, which lets her fly around and create even more water that also damages enemies. Overall, she’s a fantastic choice for a pure DPS character in The First Descendant.

Valby in The First Descendant
Not having to worry too much about mana makes Valby a DPS machine.

Yujin

  • Skills:
    • Stop Overreacting (Passive)
    • Solidarity Healing
    • Restructure Serum
    • Stimulant Spray
    • Hyperreactive Healing Ground

Yujin is overall an incredible support character because of his unparalleled ability to heal teammates and remove debuffs. 

His position in S Tier is largely thanks to his Ultimate, Hyperreactive Healing Ground, which heals, removes debuffs, makes your team immune to debuffs and increases his own attack power. 

Coupled with his Passive, Stop Overreacting, which increases teammate HP temporarily and helps him revive them quicker, he’s overall by far the best support class in The First Descendant.

Yujin in The First Descendant
Yujin’s overall support potential makes him the best in the game.

A Tier

Lepic

  • Skills:
    • Close Call (Passive)
    • Grenade
    • Overclock
    • Traction Grenade
    • Overkill

Lepic is an easy character to learn with strong DPS potential, but he falls slightly short of S Tier because he doesn’t have the same versatility in clearing enemies. 

His Close Call passive and Traction Grenade, however, are some of the strongest abilities in the game – where one makes sure he can survive for longer, and the latter makes killing enemies a breeze.

Lepic in The First Descendant
Lepic is the strongest starting character.

Freyna

  • Skills:
    • Unauthorized Bullet (Passive)
    • Toxic Trauma
    • Defense Mechanism
    • Decomposed Poison
    • Venomous Baptism

Freyna is another strong DPS character in The First Descendant with strong DoT potential, especially while using Decomposed Poison, which poisons enemies and forces them to leave footprints that poison even more. Defense Mechanism gives her great survivability, and overall, she’s a strong pick in any situation. 

She falls slightly short of S Tier because of her lack of versatility and heavy reliance on her skills to get value. Additionally, she struggles against bosses, and she has lower mobility than other Descendants.

Freyna in The First Descendant
Freyna’s toxic abilities make her a strong choice.

Kyle

  • Skills:
    • Experienced Technician (Passive)
    • Repulsion Dash
    • Magnetic Bulwark
    • Magnetism Spurt
    • Superconductivity Thrusters

Kyle is an incredibly strong Tank choice with amazing mobility and high damage potential. He can be difficult to master, but he makes up for all the weaknesses Ajax struggles with, making him the best Tank in the game right now. 

Mostly, he has excellent mobility, especially with his Superconductivity Thrusters which allow him to fly into enemies and deal damage when he lands. He falls short slightly because he has to be in melee range to get effective use out of his skills, but it’s not a massive deal considering how easy it is to survive difficult fights with him.

Kyle in The First Descendant
Kyle is the best Tank in the game right now.

Luna

  • Skills:
    • Improvisation (Passive)
    • Stage Presence
    • Passionate Stage
    • Relaxing Act
    • Delightful Stage

Luna is the first new arrival to the roster, and she’s a great addition to any team composition. She’s got a lot of utility with abilities like Passionate Stage, which increases the Skill Power and Skill Critical Hit rate of her team.

This works particularly well with her Improvisation passive, because Enhanced skills buff up Skill Power even more. She can also reset her allies’ cooldowns with Delightful Stage, making the entire team a powerhouse for damage and healing.

Overall, she’s got a strong kit, but she can be a bit difficult to learn because you need to time the notes. As such, she falls just short of S Tier, but she remains an incredibly strong pick overall.

Luna in The First Descendant
Luna provides her team with a lot of utility to make them stronger.

B Tier

Viessa

  • Skills:
    • Ice Sphere (Passive)
    • Frost Shards
    • Frost Road
    • Ice Wave
    • Cold Snap

Viessa falls into B Tier because of her weaker damage stats and boss damage. You may also find yourself struggling to survive while playing her. She’s very reliant on having the best build to get value out of her abilities, and she’s also one of the weaker solo-player choices. 

Overall, though, she can be a strong debuff character with skills like Frost Shards and Ice Wave, both of which inflict Ice Shackles. This stacks, which means that you can get value if you hit your shots well.  

Viessa in The First Descendant
Viessa’s got potential but falls short more often than not.

Ajax

  • Skills:
    • Event Horizon (Passive)
    • Orbit Barrier
    • Void Walk
    • Expulsion
    • Hypercube

Ajax’s main problem is that he has very little damage potential when you’re only looking at his abilities. He’s a solid starter pick, but he can be challenging to master and is heavily reliant on using the right Modules to be strong. 

He remains a solid Tank pick with abilities like Hypercube, which grants a dome-like shield to protect your teammates, and Expulsion which knocks enemies back when you’re getting overwhelmed. He could use some work, though, and these abilities tend to only get A-Tier level strong with the right build.

Ajax in The First Descendant
Ajax is a strong first character choice but struggles in the long run.

Enzo

  • Skills:
    • Shoot Support (Passive)
    • Start Supply
    • Explosive Drone
    • Enhance Combat Suit
    • Perfect Support

Enzo’s strength as a support character is utility, giving his team the ability to restock on ammo with Start Supply and also increase ammo capacity of everyone around him with his Shoot Support passive. It’s an interesting take on the support character, but it does mean his utility is very one-note. 

He doesn’t offer much in terms of damage, and his survivability is average. It’ll be interesting to see where he falls in the meta later down the line, but right now, Yujin is a much stronger choice.

Enzo in The First Descendant
Enzo falls short of utility among the other support characters.

C Tier

Esiemo

  • Skills:
    • Adventitious Habit (Passive)
    • Time Bomb
    • Blast
    • Guided Landmine
    • Arche Explosion

What makes Esiemo strong is that you can control your explosions with Blast, so you’re not just wildly throwing explosives and hoping for the best. Both Guided Landmine and Time Bomb stick to enemies, so his abilities overall synergize really well.

His downfall is mostly that he doesn’t have much in terms of survivability and his damage can be incredible underwhelming, especially toward the endgame.

Esiemo in The First Descendant
Esiemo can clear enemies out incredibly quickly.

Sharen

  • Skills:
    • Assassinator (Passive)
    • Cutoff Beam
    • Active Camouflage
    • Impact Rounds
    • Flash Shortsword

Sharen’s concept is very cool, and she’s the only real stealth character in The First Descendant, but she’s too reliant on the perfect setup to get value out of her kit. Despite Assassinator being a strong passive with the increased damage buff, the payoff ends up not being worth the effort.

Her only real strength is stunning enemies with Impact Rounds, but her boss damage and AoE damage are both outperformed by other characters. She’s one of the weakest picks because there is someone who does what she can better and quicker.

Sharen in The First Descendant
Sharen struggles to get value without the right setup.

Blair

  • Skills:
    • Pitmaster (Passive)
    • Blaze Up
    • Extinguish
    • Burn Taste
    • Deadly Cuisine

Blair has an interesting mix of skills that are a lot of fun to play, but he’s by no means the strongest at AoE, boss damage, or crowd control, which puts him solidly in C-Tier. 

His main strength is his Pitmaster passive, which boosts his critical damage on enemies who have the burning effect. As such, he’s a solid choice for boss encounters, but otherwise, he doesn’t offer much that you won’t be able to get out of a different Descendant.

Blair in The First Descendant
Blair’s strength is in his critical damage potential.

Best starting Descendant

The best character to start with in The First Descendant is Lepic

Lepic has great abilities that are easy to learn, and he remains relevant until the later stages of the game. He has a great balance of big damage output that’ll help you through the first few missions easily, and he’s a solid pick for boss encounters. 

Best Descendant for endgame

Yujin is the best character for endgame activities in The First Descendant.

Yujin’s healing and support capabilities make him a fantastic choice for endgame content, especially when you’re playing with others. It all comes down to his Ultimate, which gives a boost to healing, immunity to debuffs, and boosts to damage and skill power. 

Best Descendant for solo players

The best character for solo players in The First Descendant is Jayber

Jayber’s turrets, which both help with healing and damage, mean that he remains a strong choice for solo players from beginning to endgame content. 

His abilities give the extra support you need without having to rely on others, and your own damage is increased when they’re on the field. Overall, he’s the best choice if you want to run any level of content solo. 

Each character in The First Descendant has their own strengths and weaknesses, so make sure you know the best builds for Bunny, Valby, Lepic, and Freyna to get the most out of them.

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