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If you’re jumping into this new looter-shooter for the first time, discover the Best Character for Beginners in The First Descendant Ranked!
The First Descendant is a brand new free-to-play, looter shooter developed and published by the South Korean company Nexon Games. When the game launches on July 2, 2024 there will be a total of 14 different Descendants for players to choose from. Each Descendant character has their own unique abilities, weapons, and playstyles. Some have more complex skills and rotations, while others have cool aesthetics or play vital combat roles on missions.
In the First Descendant, you can select from three starting characters only: Ajax, Lepic, and Viessa. However, you can unlock more powerful characters as you progress through the story and game. We rank these starter characters in conjunction with later game characters to help you find out which Descendant is best for you in our Best Character for Beginners in The First Descendant Ranked guide!
Best Character for Beginners in The First Descendant
The best First Descendant characters for beginners are Ajax, Lepic, and Bunny. Ajax is the best overall starting (free) character due to his survivability and fun factor. Ajax can put up a shield, smash down enemies, and overall easy to understand and play. Lepic is another starting character who’s more focused on damage-throwing grenades. He’s a great choice for players familiar with Destiny 2, Warframe, and other shooters. Lastly, Bunny is the best overall character, but can’t be unlocked until you progress in the game. However, Bunny will have the most damage and speed and help you power level through the majority of the First Descendant.
Best Beginner Characters in The First Descendant Ranked:
- Ajax – The best-starting character due to survivability.
- Lepic – The second-best starting character, perfect for grenade spamming AOE.
- Bunny – Has the best damage and speed overall.
- Valby – Second best overall character, slightly less DPS than Bunny at end game.
- Jayber – The best solo character due to his turret skills.
- Blair – Best critical build and easy-to-execute damage over time (DOT) fire character.
- Sharen – Stealth and melee combined, but harder to play due to survivability issues.
- Esiemo – Good for AOE like Lepic but doesn’t get powerful until later levels.
- Freyna – The best DOT build, but harder to understand due to status effects poison.
- Enzo – Good support character, but weaker overall for beginners.
- Kyle – Tank without MP, hard to understand because of the different resource mechanics.
- Viessa – Also a starting character, but not recommended due to overall weaker damage.
- Yujin – Fulfills the support role only as a healer and will do very little damage.
- Gley – High risk, high reward playstyle, powerful, but likely too complex for beginners.
1. Ajax
Ajax is at the top of our Best Characters for Beginners list because this starting character has the best mix of defense and damage. He provides new players with a lot of utility and survivability, letting them stay in the game longer. Moreover, with a character like Ajax, you are in control of your own defense. You can pop up a Barrier as soon as you need it, and concentrate on damage when you have the breathing room.
For those familiar with the game, Ajax plays very similar to a Void Titan from Destiny 2. Ajax’s passive allows him to store Void Energy during battle, and once full it boosts the effectiveness of all his skills. He has two shield abilities, Orbit Barrier and his ultimate Hypercube. Both can be used to protect himself, as well as other allies on his team. Moreover, Ajax can also provide crowd control with abilities that generate a knockback and stun. Overall, Ajax is the perfect beginner character in The First Descendant with a strong emphasis on survival that will keep you in the fight.
2. Lepic
Although he doesn’t come with the natural defensive abilities that Ajax has, Lepic is a great second choice for beginners looking to pick their first starting character. Lepic’s basic gameplay look is to buff himself with Overclock. This will boost your attack and add Burn damage to your grenades. Then, you throw a Traction Grenade to suck enemies in and toss a basic grenade in to finish the job. This is incredibly useful because much of the early game is packs of enemies you need AOE to kill. The pull-explosion combo decimates trash packs fast and easy, making for fun leveling.
Additionally, Lepic’s passive gives you another survivability boost you don’t have to do anything to trigger. When you are killed Close Call gives you a chance to survive the otherwise fatal damage, giving you a second chance and letting keep on killing. This is like a “oh crap” passive which is nice when downed, but not helpful outside of getting overwhelmed. Lepic would rank higher if he wasn’t module-dependent or had an on-demand survivability skill. However, he still makes a great choice of starting character for beginners.
3. Bunny
Bunny is not only the best character in The Last Descendant but she is also well-suited for beginners. She incentivizes you to run constantly, collecting energy and discharging it for area damage. With Bunny, you are the fast largest AOE killing machine that isn’t overly complex. Sprint, jump, explode, and destroy everything nearby. The only reason she ranks as number three on our Best First Descendant Characters for Beginners list is that she is not one of the three starting characters. To play as Bunny you will need to unlock her by either paying Caliber (premium currency) or by collecting the necessary materials to research her.
However, she’s well worth the effort as her raw damage potential and hyper-mobility make her a blast to play. Her gameplay is based on electricity, which you generate by moving her around the battlefield at speed. Her maneuverability is so great it serves almost as a second shield, giving players extra survivability simply because she can be hard to hit.
4. Valby
Valby’s strength really shines in the end-game, but she’s not to be underestimated even in her early levels. She has a ton of mobility that will help keep a beginner player out of trouble and help with positioning for attack. Valby’s gameplay loop centers on throwing water to debuff enemies. You can stand in the water to recover MP which is your resource. You then continue to cast skills debuffing enemies and dealing AOE damage. Her Clean Up ability, in particular, is a great defensive and survivability skill.
Furthermore, you can easily help boost your damage by firing off her basic Bubble Bullet attack before enemies even arrive. It’s a basic DOT that will eventually pop to deal extra AOE damage. Valby’s a good choice for beginners because her abilities are easy to understand and execute, and you can make an impact in the game early on.
5. Jayber
Jayber earns a spot in the top five of our Best Characters for Beginners list because he’s the best solo character in The First Descendant, thanks to his summoned turrets. Moreover, Jayber is a great team ally as well because he’s able to both deal good damage and provide healing. Overall, he’s incredibly well-balanced and is useful in missions fighting against packs of enemies or taking on single-target bosses.
Consequently, this is a great combination of qualities for a beginner character in The Last Descendant. Being able to heal while still providing decent damage means you can level effectively without sacrificing survivability. A potent combination that will make beginner players feel strong.
6. Blair
If played effectively, Blair has even more potential as a powerful damage-over-time dealer than Freyna. This is due to his passive which increases his Critical Hit Damage when he attacks enemies inflicted with Burn. Nearly all of his abilities will create Flame Zones which will inflict this condition on enemies, so it’s just a matter of the correct placement and timing.
Overall, Blair isn’t as powerful as some of the other characters on this list, but he has a balanced skill set that allows him to handle most combat situations effectively. Additionally, his gameplay mechanics and abilities are fairly easy to understand. Beginners should be able to unlock him and with some practice start to see results.
7. Sharen
Sharen is the stealth assassin of The First Descendant, and she can camouflage herself into near invisibility. However, despite her ability to move across the battlefield undetected Sharen can still struggle with survivability. Therfore, this puts her in the middle of the pack on our Best Characters for Beginners list
As a high single-target damage dealer, Sharen will often need to be in the thick of the fighting, which puts her at high risk of retaliatory attacks. Additionally, to take advantage of her passive, you should prioritize striking an enemy that is not attacking you. This means her offensive gameplay requires more precision than just the basic ‘shoot-to-kill’, which means she may not be the best choice for beginners.
8. Esiemo
Esiemo is another fire character in The First Descendant, but his focus is on creating explosives that can be thrown around the battlefield and at enemies directly. Unlike Lepic, he can control the timing of the explosions, causing more damage with every additional bomb he places. Furthermore, he can also use himself as an explosive, charging into enemies with a stun and then dealing AOE damage in a burst.
However, Esiemo’s damage is not necessarily stronger than Lepic’s. Additionally, Adventitious Habit is rather risky and is also a weaker version of Lepic’s survival passive. Finally, Esiemo will likely require a lot of time investment to level and mod into a powerful character. If you’ve already put a lot of time into the better beginner character Lepic, then beginners may not have much of a reason to try Esiemo out.
9. Freyna
Freyna is a fantastic damage-over-time dealer and has one of the most consistent damage outputs of all the characters in The First Descendant. However, she is another Descendant that we rank lower on our Best Characters for Beginners list because of the complexity of her gameplay. To maximize the damage Freyna deals you must take full advantage of her passive by making sure that as many enemies as possible are afflicted with the poison effect before shooting them.
Thus, you will need to effectively weave her active skills to spread her poison as much as possible. Additionally, because most of her abilities are meant to inflict multiple enemies so she can cause massive AOE gun damage, it makes her weaker against single-target boss monsters. Moreover, while her AOE damage is great, it is still less than a character like Bunny (who is much more beginner-friendly) can produce.
10. Enzo
Enzo is a compelling support character in The First Descendant, who uses his unique Arche to call drones into the middle of a battle so his allies can instantly resupply. It’s an interesting concept, and just having Enzo as an active party will boost the ammo capacity of all allies within a certain radius of him. This could make him a highly desirable character in difficult boss fights that call for high-damage burns and lots of gunplay.
However, we have ranked him lower on our Best First Descendant Characters for Beginners list because his high utility doesn’t necessarily make him a good character for new players. Because Enzo’s core gameplay revolves around resupplying characters, your positioning, and ability to read the battlefield are priorities. Playing him effectively won’t be easy for beginners, who will likely want to just shoot and burn the boss down.
11. Kyle
Kyle will likely be the most popular end-game tank character in The First Descendant, but this specific support role makes him a less-than-ideal choice for beginners. Additionally, even if you’ve played the game as Ajax while working to unlock Kyle, his playstyle will still require some adjustment since he doesn’t use MP. Kyle has his own unique resource called Magnetic Force, which he collects and then discharges with his abilities.
Moreover, leveling Kyle could also be a struggle for beginner players without a team to run through missions with. On top of that, he doesn’t really shine until you’ve progressed and strengthened him with particular modules and weapons. Overall, Kyle is a good character with great potential but requires a heavy investment most beginner players will be put off by.
12. Viessa
Viessa is the third and final starting character that new players will get to choose from the first time they load up the game. Therefore, it may seem odd that we rank her so low on our Best First Descendant Characters for Beginners list. However, the truth is that Ajax and Lepic simply outrank her in nearly every possible metric. Especially those that are most important to beginners: survivability and damage.
Viessa’s role is primarily that of a debuffer, and consequently, she is a mix of AOE damage and support. Unfortunately, she doesn’t excel at either and there are better characters for both. If you like the effects of her ice-based abilities and are just looking to play with any Descendant until you can unlock the character you really want, then Viessa isn’t a bad choice. It’s simply that the other two starters are so much better.
13. Yujin
While other characters in The First Descendant possess abilities that are a mix of damage and healing, Yujin is a character who strictly fills the healer support role. Furthermore, most of his abilities are focused on healing and buffing the allies in his party. Consequently, only his ultimate will provide him with any self-healing, which limits his survivability.
If you’re coming into The First Descendant and are firmly set on playing the healer role, then Yujin should be your ultimate goal. However, outside of that he doesn’t bring much to the table. New players especially are likely to be most interested in the flashier damage-dealing characters. Moreover, because he doesn’t produce much damage outside of his weapon, Yujin will be difficult to level without an established team. Therefore, this is why Yujin ranks low on our Best Characters for Beginners list.
14. Gley
Gley is set to be a top-tier damage dealer in the First Descendant, but her complex gameplay, unfortunately, ranks her last in our Best Characters for Beginners list. Gley’s abilities revolve around her Frenzied and Non-Frenzied state, where she can do massive damage while in berserk mode. However, she doesn’t have a shield and relies on her ability to kill to gain Life Spheres for healing. Moreover, using certain abilities while in a Frenzied state can make her defenses weaker. You can offset some of this by using her abilities in a Non-Frenzied state, which can boost your HP Recovery among other things.
Overall, playing as Gley in The First Descendant will be a lot for a beginner to manage. Her gameplay mechanics require you to constantly balance health versus damage. While at the same time dealing with all of the current enemy mechanics the game is throwing at you. Gley is definitely a character you should strive to unlock in the future, but there are far better options for beginners when you’re first starting out.
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