The First Descendant Mastery guide: How to rank up quickly

The First Descendant is the latest MMO-lite title from Korean developer Nexon, known for their other live service games like MapleStory or, more recently, Blue Archive. While its main draw is its high graphical fidelity thanks to Unreal Engine 5, the core structure and progression system in the game is taken from other established MMO looter-shooter titles. Particularly, its leveling system takes a lot of inspiration from Warframe.

Like Warframe, your account-wide progression in The First Descendant can be easily tracked by your Mastery Rank. This is essentially an overall index of your completion of the game's content, both through clearing its map and interaction with the game's various weapons and Descendants.

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The First Descendant Mastery Rank explained

Primed Hands location on the Albion map (Image via Nexon)

The First Descendant Mastery Rank can be viewed anytime in the inventory screen under your Descendant's level. Mastery is a separate experience pool that increases when you rank up Descendants, weapon proficiency, and clear a mission for the first time.

Once you increase the Mastery experience up to a certain threshold, you can increase your Mastery Rank by going to Prime Hands in Albion. Unlike Warframe, you do not need to attend a Mastery Rank test to rank this up. Any extra Mastery over the required amount automatically contributes towards progress for the next Rank.

There are several benefits to increasing Mastery Rank. Each new one makes your potential power ceiling higher by increasing the maximum possible rank of all modules, extra Storage capacity, mod capacity, and equipment inventory. Additionally, certain Mastery Ranks unlock core game mechanics:

• Mastery Rank 3 unlocks the ability to upgrade Reactors of all rarity, which can be performed at any workbench.
• Mastery Rank 5 unlocks weapon transmission, i.e., upgrading the level of a selected weapon to another dummy weapon's level, using 5x Phase Exchangers. This can be done at any workbench.
• Mastery Rank 5 also unlocks the ability to combine modules, which works similarly to mod fusion from Warframe.
• Mastery Rank 7 unlocks unique abilities on legendary weapons and the access to interact with them via any workbench in the field or in Albion.

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The First Descendant level-up guide: What is the best place to get levels quickly?

Kingston Special Operations is the best leveling location in the open beta (Image via Nexon)

Obtaining any form of experience contributes more Mastery, as long as both your selected equipment and weapon are not at their maximum proficiency. Easy Mastery gain, therefore, simply comes down to efficiently ranking up your Descendant and gear.

As of the open beta build of The First Descendant, the best way to do this is through grinding endless mode missions that can be accessed through the Special Operations terminal rather than the overworld map.

Also, the open beta build does not adequately scale enemy experience with the mob level. Therefore, it is better to take on lower-level Special Operations, specifically Kingston Mine Blocking. To easily clear waves, party up with a mob-clearing Descendant like Bunny.