The First Descendant tier list (September 2024): All characters ranked

The First Descendant doesn't require a tier list if all you want to do is have fun. All of the playable characters offer their unique flavor, and personal taste plays a big part in what character will be the most performant. However, the game does not achieve its design goal of balancing the Descendants - some do get a larger bite of the pie.

Since some characters do fare much better than others in specific end-game goals, it is possible to arrange all The First Descendant characters in a tier list. If you're lost on what Descendant to farm or invest your Energy Activators into, this can act as a good guideline.

Disclaimer: Our The First Descendant character tier list is based on a combination of what's meta and what holds up well in our estimation. As such, some degree of subjective bias is involved in this article.

The First Descendant mobbing tier list: Best characters for farming missions and Operations

To make a helpful tier list for The First Descendant characters, the first thing we need to look at is mobbing. This game is all about the grind, so the better a Descendant can deal with Vulgus hordes, the better off they are.

Tier	Characters
S-tier	Valby, Bunny
A-tier	Gley, Freyna, Viessa, Jayber
B-tier	Lepic, Ajax, Kyle, Esiemo, Blair, Enzo, Luna, Hailey
C-tier	Yujin, Sharen

Here's a breakdown of what the tiers entail:

S-tier Descendants are unparalleled in fodder-clearing speed, and they're the ones you use for farming mobs.
A-tier characters have a propensity for mobbing, but they have downtimes, resource management, and other hassles.
B-tier Descendants have in-built nuke abilities, but they struggle with clear speed compared to higher tiers.
C-tier characters are simply not viable for horde-clearing in a sustainable manner at this point.

The First Descendant bossing tier list: Best characters for Void Intercept battles

Void Intercept Battles are the ultimate DPS checks in The First Descendant. These hulking bosses are a good avenue to gain more weapon and Descendant components, and thus a critical progression milestone.

Any First Descendant tier list would be incomplete without ranking characters based on viability in Void Intercepts. So here's our bosisng tier list:

Tier	Characters
S-tier	Gley, Lepic, Hailey
A-tier	Valby, Jayber (solo), Enzo, Sharen
Elements-tier	Viessa, Freyna, Bunny, Blair
B-tier	Ajax, Kyle, Yujin, Luna
C-tier	Esiemo

Note that both of the First Descendant tier lists (mobbing and bossing) provided here may vary a lot in practice. During gameplay, the totality of the build and the context (boss resistances) can skew the results quite a lot. In other words, there may be a lot of swapping between A and B tiers on this list in how things pan out.

Here's what the categories on the First Descendant bossing tier list entail:

S-tier characters have innate bossing power that cannot be replicated with other specs.
A-tier Descendant cannot solo bosses as effortlessly as S-tier contenders. However, they provide unique bonuses that come in handy during Void Intercept battles.
Element-tier characters can be good at specific bosses which are weak to specific element types.
B-tier characters have some degree of useability in bossing encounters or specific boss mechanics.
C-tier Descendants have skillsets that do not provide much use for Void Intercept bosses. They can pull through only with god-roll meta weapons.

The First Descendant tier list breakdown: Best characters ranked

Our overall tier list for First Descendant characters will be somewhat more vague compared to the mobbing and bossing lists. There are some good 'overall' character, but the state of the endgame warrants only Void Intercepts as the 'hard' content. The overall tier list is thus based on how well the characters fare in various activities, taking into account the resource sink needed to make them viable.

Tier	Descendants
S	Valby, Bunny, Gley
A+	Lepic, Hailey, Enzo
A	Ajax, Viessa, Yujin, Sharen, Jayber
B	Blair, Freyna, Kyle
C	Esiemo, Luna

Below, there are individual character breakdowns, why they're the tier they are, and nuances you need to be aware of.

S-tier characters in The First Descendant

Valby is the best character in The First Descendant, and she sets the bar for other Descendants to follow. While she is not the pinnacle of power-curve like Gley, she sets a simple criteria to quality for S-tier: does a character do anything better than Valby?

Gley: Best DPS Descendant

Gley is hard to beat for single-target DPS (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: A-tier
Bossing: S-tier
Rotation/build complexity: High

Among the S-tier contenders on this First Descendant character tier list, Gley has the riskiest playstyle - but the rewards feel well worth it. She's the definitive glass cannon, and fits the blood-mage archetype to a T. Sacrifice HP, gain damage, absorb HP from enemies, rinse, repeat, profit.

To top it off, she can even make her weapons temporarily not consume any ammo, which makes her the indisputable meta DPS option in Void Intercept Battles.

To learn how to unlock and play this character, you can consult our dedicated Gley build guide for The First Descendant.

Valby: Best Overall Descendant

The shape of water is never the same (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: S-tier
Bossing: A-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Low

By far our favorite Descendant in the entire game, Valby is the package deal that has it all - crowd control, damage, survivability, and the coziest playstyle for a beach episode. Valby's gimmick is spreading water puddles for high DOT, which enables the 'Vably run' farming meta.

The 'Laundry' debuff makes all affected enemies take 20% extra damage from Electricity and Chill. This makes her a core part of any end-game team comp looking for skill synergy between Descendants.

All of these are good advantages, but the CC is what truly makes her worthy of the S-tier in any character tier list for The First Descendant. Plip Plop, her mobility skill, also doubles as a knockdown spell - and it can knock down bosses too. In other words, a Valby build optimized for duration and skill CD reduction can make a lot of boss fights far more manageable.

Bunny: The people's choice award Descendant

Please stop taking Bunny to the Dead Bride (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: S-tier
Bossing: Element-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Low

Leaving aside your starter, all of the characters on this tier list have to be farmed separately. By comparison, the game practically railroads you into getting Bunny, and also lets you explore her backstory with her own personal questline.

There's good reasons that you will see a lot of Bunnies running around in Albion: she is good at every stage of the game, and particularly excels at mobbing. You don't have to worry about MP economy, just keep running and spamming your third ability to electrocute enemies to oblivion, and automatically break resource boxes around the map as a bonus.

With the right Bunny build, there is no downtime on her third ability. If you have some defensive stats to withstand stray bullets, there's no stopping you. However, note that Bunny is not a class optimized for bossing (outside of very few exceptions). Bunny is all you need, as long as you have another character like Lepic or Gley for Void Intercept battles.

Also Read: How to get Ultimate Bunny in The First Descendant

A+ tier characters in The First Descendant

These characters are not quite good enough to be S-tier, but their dominance of specific niches gives them more leverage on this tier list.

Enzo: Best Utility Descendant

Supply and demand, sir (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: B-tier
Bossing: A-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

Right now, Enzo is one of the only two 'loot-centric' Descendant we have. This automatically puts him above most other characters in this First Descendant tier list. After all, farming loot is the main goal of the game.

Enzo can get additional loot from decrypting Encrypted Vaults if he's the one opening them up. But the real potential shines through in Void Intercept Battles, as Enzo can generate ammunition for his team.

With some duration and skill CD on your Enzo build, you can help your team utilize special-round weapons at greater liberty.

Lepic: Best Starter Descendant

A French voice dub would make Lepic S-tier (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: B-tier
Bossing: S-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

With high enough skill power on your Lepic build, you can get one of the best bossing powerhouses in the current First Descendant meta. With the exception of the latest boss, Gluttony, Lepic is famous for being able to make short work of any Void Intercept battle.

Combine this with a short-cooldown instant nuke (provided you don't miss the grenade) and a skill module that increases Firearm ATK, and you have easily the best starter character as well as an A+ tier Descendant.

Hailey: The bossing Viessa

The Cold comfort of a reliable boss DPS skill (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: B-tier
Bossing: S-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Low

Introduced in Season 1, Hailey is the second Chill-based Descendant. Her mobbing is a bit lackluster even with copious amounts of range, and you'd be better off just using Viessa.

However, Hailey wins out in two specific categories. Firstly, Hailey hits hard where it counts: a well-placed shot on the shoulder-blade of a boss you mean to one-phase. The other category is the fun factor. Hailey's kit just the right balance between complex and flashy: once you get into the rhythm, it's hard to go back to Viessa.

A-tier characters in The First Descendant

A-tier Descendants pull their weight, and then some. These are solid characters with good skillsets, but they do not have the extra oomph that S-tier characters sport. Namely, S-tier characters are borderline broken, and A-tier characters a bit more balanced.

Ajax: The best tank Descendant

Toss a coin to your tanker (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: B-tier
Bossing: B-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

Ajax is the archetypal tank role of an MMORPG. He doesn't particularly excel at mobbing or dealing high single-target damage to bosses. What he excels at is defending his entire team. In specific Void Intercepts, this goes a long way in organized squads.

Ajax will get even better with the mid-Season 1 patch, where Nexon intends to introduce the highest difficulty tier of Infiltration content. Ajax's build, on the other hand, will stay the same. The ability to protect and enable glass cannons never falls out of meta.

Viessa: The other Chill-based Descendant

Do you wanna build a snowman? (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: A-tier
Bossing: Element-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Hard

Viessa is the hardest to play out of the three starter Descendants. In fact, starting out, Viessa feels weaker than the two others - but she just happens to be the only Chill-based Descendant in Pre-Season.

Viessa offers okay damage and crowd-control. The default kit is just a jack of all trades, master of none. However, with Aboslute Zero or Cold-Bloodedness, dedicated Viessa builds can specialize more into either mobbing or bossing.

Sharen: The Worst Best Descendant

Mobbing: C-tier
Bossing: A-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Hard

Out of all the Descendants on this tier list, Sharen is the most nuanced character to rank. On the one hand, her mobbing is quite bad, even compared to the much-ignored Esiemo. On the other hand, you can't play the game without Sharen, as some Amorphous Materials are straight-up locked behind her unique ability to extract additional drops from Vulgus Outposts.

The only 'stealth' class archetype we have in the game so far, Sharen is generally very fun to play. The issue is her skillset requires a lot of setup for a payoff that does not feel proportionately rewarding. However, if you play exclusively in a dedicated party comp, Sharen can certainly go up a tier or two - for the joy of playing a rogue if nothing else.

Yujin: The most underrated character in The First Descendant

An underrated intro for an underrated character (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: C-tier
Bossing: B-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

The sustained healing looks good on paper, but in practice, you will struggle to find a use case where it's necessary. Yujin fits completely into the traditional MMORPG healer archetype, and there is no place for a pure healer in the meta right now.

This is the general popular conception of Yujin, which is why he's not a meta character. However, if built right, Yujin can do a lot more than his lack of usage would imply.

He can be decent at mobbing with the Proliferating Allergy module. In bossing scenarios, Stimulant (buff from Solidarity Healing) increases Firearm ATK by quite a bit, making Yujin a good weapons platform that shares the perk with the whole team. In other words, Yujin is only a few buffs away from potentially becoming A+ tier, despite the lack of need for healing in the current endgame meta.

Jayber: The best solo Descendant

The Hackerman is a solo class in this game (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: A-tier
Bossing: A-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

The right pick for those who like playing summoners in role-playing games - or the Engineer in Risk of Rain 2. An end-game Jayber build makes it possible to have your auto-targeting turrets take care of mobbing as well as help with bossing.

This is both the bane and boon of Jayber, as his strong points can also be achieved by other means. Reliable weapon builds with high single-target boss DPS will outperform aggro-pulling shenanigans, and easier mobbing can be achieved by just running around on Bunny.

So why is Jayber A-tier in these categories? It's because Jayber is the most convenient Descendant to pick when you need a solo gig done hassle-free.

B-tier characters in The First Descendant

B-tier characters suffer from middle-of-the-pack syndrome. They're not bad per se; in some cases, they have potential to be A+ tier in the hands of a specialist. B-tier simply means they are not favored by the meta compared to the A-tier compatriots, be it for a lacklustre skillset or due to high barrier for entry.

Note that we are still calibrating this character tier list to how The First Descendant's release meta is shaping up, so expect some exchanges between the A-tier and the B-tier in the coming weeks.

Kyle: Best Solo-tank Descendant

Solo tanking is a thing, so Kyle has a place (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: B-tier
Bossing: B-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

Why is an overall B-tier character the best tank in The First Descendant? Because with high enough DEF and EHP, most Descendants can be very durable.

However, a proper tank can do this even on Hard Void Intercept bosses. A properly optimized Kyle build can shrug off enemy fire like it's nothing, and even dish the damage back.

Unlike Ajax, his 100% damage mitigation Barrier moves with him and fuels his Magnetic Force resource. The barrier especially lets you ignore a lot of damage when bossing, but the Magnetic Force you generate can also be spent for mobbing with the third skill.

While this means Kyle takes a bit of skill to manage his resource economy, he is surprisingly a highly versatile character, doing way more than a Tank archetype would imply. Above all, the potential to solo Void Intercept bosses makes him the easiest pick as the best tank character on this First Descendant tier list.

Blair: The best cook in Albion

Letting him cook isn't going to do much (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: A-tier
Bossing: Elements-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

The fire mage of The First Descendant, Blair suffers from a rather glaring design problem. You have to get right in the middle of enemy clumps to actually get your stacks on, which often leaves him in sticky situations. A min-maxed Blair build can still deal a lot of nuke damage - but other Descendants can achieve a far higher useability potential with the amount of resources that will take.

Blair was good enough to be A+ tier once. Specifically, for about a week, when Invasion Dungeons were solo-only. Since that's out now, there's not much Blair can do that Lepic can't do better. If you want the flavor of a fire mage, though, Blair gets much closer than Lepic's mercenary chic.

Freyna: Only Toxin-based Descendant in the game

This is what Saryn looks like in real life (Image via Nexon)

Mobbing: A-tier
Bossing: Elements-tier
Rotation/build complexity: Moderate

The toxin dispenser class is good in almost any game where this archetype is present. Unfortunately, Freyna is not a powerhouse when compared to her obvious inspiration, Saryn in Warframe. Her gimmick is the element-exclusivity: until the future Seasonal updates hit, Freyna is the only Toxic character in the whole game.

Her exalted weapon is only okay on certain bosses, and even in cases where the boss is weak to toxin, you'd be better off using Gley's Massacre. The one place where she should shine in theory is mobbing, but even here, she is bested by meta contenders like Valby.

Freyna's Toxin DoT gimmick is mathematically inferior to the TTK numbers of Bunny or Valby, and it's borderline criminal for the Toxin Arche to play second fiddle like this.

Here's a Freyna build guide if you're looking for one.

C-tier characters in The First Descendant

Simply put, the character put here on this First Descendant tier list need some sort of buff or skill adjustment.

Luna - The latest Descendant, Luna takes a lot of micromanagement with her own beats-per-minute minigame. You are rewarded with a kit that makes other Descnednats much more powerful, but Luna herself is not. Even with the Noise Synergy module, Luna is still only an okay mobber, and none the wiser in bossing.
Esiemo - Esiemo offers a few interesting concepts like buff-stripping, but this is not big enough in practice to put him on the map. There are good reasons you'll rarely ever see an Esiemo while idling in Albion. Namely, his kit looks fun on paper, but does very little in practice.

Our First Descendant tier list does not contain Ultimate characters, because they are only a marginally better variant than the originals. Similar to Primes in Warframe, Ultimates cannot make or break the overall potential of a character. They merely offer some minor stat enhancements, so consider them the same tier as their original counterparts.

Check out our other guides on The First Descendant:

Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul