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With over a dozen Descendants to earn inThe First Descendant, there are bound to be a few that stand above the rest. While virtually all characters are viable with the right build and mindset, investing in the right characters early on can make the endgame grind much smoother.
We’ll be looking at every character in The First Descendant and ranking them in a tier list. Characters are ranked based on their combat effectiveness against large hordes of enemies, bosses, and the utility they bring to a group. Before we get to ranking all the Descendants, let’s cover our ranking criteria first.
Updated August 01, 2025, by Charles Burgar:Patch 1.0.5 brought tons of balance changes and much-needed bug fixes to certain Descendants, notably Yujin and Blair. We’ve updated this tier list to reflect these recent changes. Luna has also been given a temporary placement on our list since she’s a fairly new character. Once we’ve discovered her potential, we’ll give Luna a more accurate placement.
Tier List Rankings
It’s still early days for The First Descendant, so rankings are subject to change as the meta evolves and more player discoveries unfold.Rankings are based on personal testing, community findings, and extensive theorycraft.Here are the rank categories:
Luna
S-Tier Descendants
These characters are firmly cemented in The First Descendant’s meta—short for “most effective tools available.” If you need something done, these characters tend to be your best picks. Give them some investment, and they’ll eclipse all other Descendants in overall efficiency.
Bunny
Bunny has the two most important things for a meta character:speed and damage.She damages foes as she sprints. Built for range and skill power, she trivializes most content.
Bunny is the single best character for farming missions and dungeons in the game. No Descendant comes remotely close.
Gley
Gley is the best character forweapon builds.She buffs all weapon damage, can give her guns infinite ammo, and has an augment for Massacre that lets her one shot Colossi.
Gley is the best weapons platform in the game. She needs a good weapon and some investment to truly shine.
A-Tier Descendants
A-tier Descendants are in a great spot and have a firm place in the meta. They deal great damage, have solid clearspeed, and are relatively easy to play. Some require more investment than others, but all of these characters can match the S-tier category with some practice.Ultimate Valby didn’t move the needle on her overall performance, so she remains an A+.
Valby
Valby has ahighly flexible kitthat’s good at just about everything. She has excellent AoE damage and mobility.
Supply Moisture also gives her firearm critical chance, making her a great bosser. She’s at thetop of A tier, just shy of S.
Lepic
Lepic’s ultimate ability, Overkill, provides some ofthe highest single-target DPSin the game. With a good build, most Colossi can be slain within 15 seconds.
Lepic requires high investment and player skillto use properly, which is why he’s just shy of the S tier.
If you main Lepic, he easily rivals Gley as the strongest bosser in the game.
Ajax
Ajax is ajack of all tradeswho can do just about everything. He has great damage, excellent survivability, and tons of build options.
His build variety is stifled throughmodule polarities, which hurt Ajax more than most characters. A min-maxed build forces Ajax into a particular playstyle, hurting his versatility.
Once Nexon releases loadout-specific polarities (source), Ajax will easily sit in the S-tier category.
Freyna
Freyna hasS-tier clearspeedonce you get her Contagion augment and a few Catalysts installed. Her ultimate also does great boss DPS.
She requires high investment to get going, hence her placement in A tier instead of S.
B-Tier Descendants
Our B-tier category has some great Descendants that are held back by a lackluster base kit or lengthy cooldowns.With the right build, these characters can easily compete with the A-tier Descendantsand even rival the S-tier category. You’ll need a certain Transcendent mod and some Catalysts before these characters start to truly shine.
Yujin’s Ranking
The current ability DPS meta prevents us from ranking Yujin any higher. For more casual players who don’t have endgame builds, Yujin is closer to a B+ or A-. He’ll see far more use once we get harder endgame content.
Enzo
Enzo canmake any weapon critically hitwith his Supply Firearm Enhancer augment, turning him into a competitive bosser and support hybrid.
He isn’t quite as powerful as Gley,but his group utility makes Enzo a welcome addition to any squad. He’s also the best character for farming vaults.
Viessa
Viessa is apure casteronce you have a good build on her. You can cast Blizzard every six seconds with a 90% CDR build, giving her excellent clearspeed and solid boss DPS.
Viessa requires the Cold-Bloodedness augment and half a dozen Catalyststo become remotely powerful. But once you put in the investment, she can forgo weapons entirely.
Jayber
Jayber’s turrets deal solid damage with some investment, allowing you todeal damage with minimal input.He’s ideal for farming Void Fragments and most defense missions.
Catalysts and theAttacking Compulsionaugment are needed to make him competitive in endgame.
Yujin
Yujin is ahealerwho can double as a DPS through the Proliferating Allergy augment.He’s a great choice for public matchesand Void Intercept fights.
Healing isn’t a hard requirementfor endgame content currently, so Yujin doesn’t see much use.
C-Tier Descendants
Descendants in the C-tier category have problems in their kit that can’t be fixed with investment, making them tough to recommend outside of niche scenarios. These characters might excel in a particular area, but their clunky abilities prevent them from rivaling the A and B-tier Descendants.
Blair Buffs
Blair’s recent buffs didn’t noticeably affect his performance. AoE buffs are nice, but Blair’s issues lie in his clunky abilities and long cooldowns, none of which were addressed in Patch 1.0.5.
Sharen
Sharen is the only character who caninfiltrate outposts, making her a hard requirement for farming certain characters.
For gameplay, she has a powerfulone shot buildwith Active Camouflage and snipers, but her clearspeed is virtually non-existent.
Slow animations and lengthy wind-ups make Sharen feel extremelyclunky to play.
Kyle
Kyle can dealmillions of damage with his ultimate… when it works.Almost every ability in his kit can bug outand stop working. He isincrediblyinconsistent.
Shield investment is requiredto scale his damage, which is the single worst defensive mechanic in the game.
Esiemo
Esiemo feels like aworse Lepic. His ultimate falls behind Lepic’s Overkill, and the rest of his kit lacks any form of utility or survivability.
No good augments or modulescan save this character’s clunky kit. Damage is solid, but Lepic deals just as much and is less frustrating to play.
Blair
Despite community sentiment, Blair actually dealsgreat damageif you scale Skill Power and critical stats. With Truly Deadly Cuisine, Blair’s ultimate can deal millions of damage in a single hit. High CDR lets you cast it every 8-10 seconds.
Despite this, he isextremely clunky to play. His first ability is used solely to ramp his passive, and his flamethrower skill greatly limits your mobility.
A min-maxed build with Truly Deadly Cuisine is requiredto make Blair remotely usable. Anything less and he’s arguably a D-tier character.
D-Tier Descendants
It’s painful to place the newest Descendant in this tier, butLuna’s kit is far too cumbersome to use.All of her abilities require you to use her unique weapon, an auto-aim pistol with pitiful damage output and a note mechanic that heavily punishes you for firing too fast. Try to use this like Gley’s Massacre, and Luna’s entire kit stops working. Luna isn’t buffed by her own auras either; she gets different buffs instead, none of which stack with one another.
This wouldn’t be an issue if Luna could modify her skills for high uptime, but she can’t.None of her buffs are affected by Cooldown Reduction, so you need towait 45 seconds to cast your ultimate,which is the only skill that generates Inspiration (your custom resource) at a reasonable interval. If you don’t use your fourth ability,it takes over a minute to cast asingleenhanced aurathat lasts for 8-10 seconds, and that’s with a high duration build. It’s not worth the hassle.
MP cost modifiers do not affect Luna’s weapon drain, so you may’t brute force a high RPM build with her pistol. You need to shoot in sync with the music.
There are so many modules that don’t work on Luna that we aren’t sure if she’s bugged. You can somewhat bypass these restrictions by installing Potent Collector to generate Inspiration from kills, butyou need to have Luna’s weapon equipped to cast anything.You’re stuck with a mediocre pistol whether you mod for it or not. There’s no way you can feasibly fix this character, even with her Transcendent Modules. Until she gets changed, do not play Luna.
With her signature pistol, Luna can play one of three songs, eachgranting a unique buff. Playing 10 songs will empower your next one.
Luna’s gun drains MP if you shoot at the wrong time. Notes go on a longer cooldown if missed.
Luna isunaffected by CDR(excluding failed skills for some reason), so your buff uptime is severely limited.
Her gun does poor damage, and hernon-enhanced buffs are fairly weak. Only her empowered songs are worth using, none of which have high uptime.
