The First Descendant: How to prepare for Season 3

The First Descendant’s next major update, Breakthrough (Season 3), is bringing a lot of new content, and while it’s hard to say what the new meta will be, it's better to prepare for everything. Along with new Descendants, there will be weapons, enemies, modules, and lots of components that require resources to upgrade.

If you are a returning player, a lot of things have changed. We have a guide covering all major changes to the game since Season 1 if you are curious. That said, this guide will help you prepare for the upcoming season.

How to prepare for The First Descendant Season 3

While the update will introduce new items, the old ones won’t suddenly become obsolete. This is something the developers have mentioned and are focusing on keeping everything viable. This means you can farm some must-have items before the update.

Stock up on upgrade materials

Grab all the basic materials (Image via Nexon)

Season 3 for The First Descendant will introduce new Descendants, weapons, and upgrade items. Each weapon in the game can use a maximum of 50 Crystalization Catalysts, while a character can use up to 60. Furthermore, let’s not forget about the Gold and Kuiper requirements for mod upgrades and material requirements for component enhancement.

If you’ve been playing daily, the resource may not be the biggest concern, but for new and returning players, here are a few things you can do to save up on resources:

Gold and Kuiper

Dismantle modules for Kuiper (Image via Nexon)

Complete the two Invasion missions. Both missions can be done twice, and each successful run rewards over one million gold. Use a gold booster to increase the reward. For Kuiper, complete 400% dungeons with a Kuiper booster active, along with regularly dismantling duplicate mods at Albion’s Module Master.

Crystalization Catalyst and Energy Activator

The event shop is a great place to acquire upgrade materials (Image via Nexon)

If you plan to upgrade the new Desecendants and weapons as soon as possible, you’ll need a lot of these. Crystalization Catalysts are the most important item, as each character can easily use over 10 for a multi-purpose setup. Energy Activator is required one per character or weapon to increase mod capacity.

You can acquire eight Crystalization Catalysts and three Energy Activators from the 1st anniversary shop. However, we recommend farming more catalyst blueprints through Amorphus materials by running 400% dungeons.

Other resources

Target the materials you need (Image via Nexon)

Various upgrade materials can be obtained by dismantling junk Reactors and External Components. Weapons can also be dismantled to craft enhancement materials at Anais. Target farming a material isn’t recommended, as there’s no information on crafting requirements for new weapons and characters.

However, if you want to build something now, press J and navigate to Library. You can find all items and their farming locations by selecting and pressing F.

Focus on upgrading the strongest weapons and Descendants

Try to build a multi-purpose Descendant (Image via Nexon)

It may be tempting to try all kinds of weapons and characters, but upgrading can take a lot of Crystalization Catalysts, especially when a single character requires at least six for a build to work. With less than two weeks remaining for the next major update, it’s better to upgrade the best ones you have and save resources.

For Descendants, Ultimate Freyna or Ines are some of the best mobbing characters in the game. However, if you haven’t played the game for a while, Ultimate Bunny is still strong due to the Arche Tuning and External Component cores.

Weapons are equally important in The First Descendant (Image via Nexon)

Having a strong weapon is also equally important in case your character runs out of juice during a fight. Furthermore, some missions feature enemies with shields that can only be damaged by specific weapons. Getting a strong one should not be a problem due to the ongoing 1st anniversary celebration.

Collect enough tokens to grab a weapon box from Anais. You can improve them by purchasing more boxes and enhancing their unique ability. We recommend picking Greg’s Reversed Fate/Thundercage for general mobbing and The Last Dagger/Enduring Legacy for bossing.

Complete your Arche Tuning board

Arche Tuning in The First Descendant is an easy way to improve damage (Image via Nexon)

To make your character even stronger, max out your Arche Tuning board. The fastest way to do that is the hard mode Sigma Sector. Each run will grant you 1,500 Arche XP, with the first run of each day providing a bonus 4,000 XP on each of the two missions.

Acquire a booster from Reina on Albion to speed up the process. The mission is around 5 to 10 minutes for each run, depending on the team. These missions are also a great way to farm Serena, one of the Strongest Descendants in the game, along with different cores and other materials. Completing the board for one character also grants XP to the ultimate variant and vice versa.

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About the author

Mayank Singh Rathour is an MMO writer at Sportskeeda. He graduated from college with a degree in Business Administration and has over two years of experience as an esports journalist.

Mayank was introduced to gaming at an early age and played Contra, Double Dragon, Castlevania, etc., on his Nintendo DS. When he was a little older, Counter-Strike — a title that majorly helped develop his passion for gaming — became his favorite pastime. Though he's played a bunch of games since then, his love of CS has remained strong. Shroud, a former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro, is an inspiration to him. He's also a fan of series' esports scene, following teams like Vitality, NAVI, and The Mongols closely.

When Mayank has some free time, he plays basketball and helps people build PCs.

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Edited by Adarsh J Kumar