The First Descendant: Best Transcendent Modules

Discover the best character-based Transcendent Modules (Mods) in the First Descendant to elevate your gameplay and boost your builds!

The First Descendant Best Transcendent Modules

The First Descendant has many collectible aspects to ensure you can reach your maximum damage potential with your character. Multiple aspects of a game combine to make our builds potent weapons of mass destruction. The base of every build starts with the Transcendent Module, these mods change aspects of the character to adjust the gameplay style and gameplay loop.

What are Transcendent Modules in the First Descendant

Transcendent Modules change specific skills or passives and are distinct to each character (Descendant). These changes allow skills to gain multiple charges, adjust the damage scaling of a skill, and remove the need for certain resources. With a high initial mod cost, Transcendent mods are meant for end-game players looking to squeeze the final bit of performance from their build. Whether it be more damage, reduced cooldowns, or unique buffs, Transcendent mods are the cornerstone of any build in the First Descendant.

Mods are essential for boosting the potency of skills and attributes of a character. Transcendent Modules are the most powerful and adjust how a character plays. With only one slot for skill-based mods making the decision for which mod to use determines the gameplay loop you will be trying to create. Since they are mighty, they are exceedingly rare as well. Most mods have a less than 5% drop rate making them a grind to obtain. Also, Transcendents Modules may seem expensive to use in builds, however, unlike other mods they decrease in cost as you level them up. This makes them great to slot into a build when fully leveled, as they are incredibly cheap.

Best Transcendent Modules in the First Descendant

The best Transcendent mods are specific to your character and most useful ability, amplifying a powerful skill to its fullest potential. Blair uses Truly Deadly Cuisine to gain even more damage from his Ultimate skill Deadly Cuisine. Bunny uses High-Voltage Transcendnet mod to increase down of her AOE based skill, while Gley uses Blood and Iron to further increase Firearm Critical hits. All of the characters have multiple choices of mods available but some clear outliers boost the utility of the characters above others.

  • Ajax: Matrix Recomputation – Modifies Expulsion to grant allies buff
  • Blair: Truly Deadly Cuisine – Giant Fireball deals instant damage
  • Bunny: High-Voltage – Reduces targets of area-of-effect skills while increasing damage and range
  • Enzo: Supply Firearm Enhancer – Summons devices that upon touching increase Weak Point DMG and Critical Hit Rate
  • Esiemo: Cluster Bomb – Detonated attached bombs spawn more bombs
  • Freyna: Contagion – Spreads Room 0 Trauma after killing an enemy inflicted with it
  • Gley: Blood and Iron – Power of Life stacks gained from Firearm Critical Hits
  • Jayber: Turret Engineering – Using skills to recover the HP of turrets
  • Kyle: Collision Instinct – Dash inflicts a stun on enemies hit
  • Lepic: Firearm Master – Reloading and changing weapons increases Skill Range and Skill Power
  • Sharen: Overcharged Edge – Active Camouflage consumed Shields instead of MP
  • Valby: Supply Moisture – While on water, increases Skill Critical Hit Rate, Skill Duration, and FIrearm Attribute Trigger Rate
  • Viessa: Hypothermia – Using skills, inflicts Ice Needle instead of Ice Shackle
  • Yujin: Duty and Sacrifice – Grants HP Recovery and HP Recovery per second to allies

Best Ajax Transcendent Module

The Best Ajax Transcendent Module is the Matrix Recomputation as it builds into his power fantasy of a team-supporting tank. It does this by allowing us to manually activate a DEF boost for ourselves and a shield buff for allies.

Matrix Recomputation Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Modifies Expulsion to grant a buff that helps allies survive
  • Capacity Cost: 16
  • Socket Type: Cerulean
  • Exclusivity: Ajax and Ultimate Ajax

The Matrix Recomputation mod is amazing to Ajax as it allows him to support his allies even more than normal. Ajax is known for his shields and barriers providing allies safety while they deal damage to bosses. This mod allows him to boost one of these two non-shield skills to provide some additional survivability to his allies. Since we need to rotate abilities to enhance our skills with our passive, this grants an easier rotation and extra perks for just using our Expulsion skill.

While Matric Recomputation is the best Ajax Transcendent Module there are other great options for abnormal playstyles. For example, Void Charge scales your Void Walk and Expulsion damage based on your DEF. This allows Ajax to become a bruiser tank dealing large area-of-effect damage while still providing shields and cover for his allies.

Best Blair Transcendent Module

The Best Blair Transcendent Module is the Truly Deadly Cuisine as it builds into his ultimate skill that deals massive single-target damage. Instead of an area-of-effect damage over time skill, it becomes a powerful single-target burst damage skill.

Truly Deadly Cuisine Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Significantly increases the damage of Giant FIreball. When the Giant Fireball explodes, Small Fireballs and Flame Zones do not spawn.
  • Capacity Cost: 15
  • Socket Type: Almandine
  • Exclusivity: Blair

Blair has fantastic mob-clearing skills that wipe out hordes of enemies fast. However, he can somewhat lack in burst damage with his ultimate, Giant Fireball, being more useful for large-area damage than a single target. However, Truly Deadly Cuisine mod changes this by front-loading the damage of the Giant Fireball into its impact. Although, this does reduce its area damage by removing its additional Fireballs and Flame Zones that would traditionally spawn at the impact location. So instead of a significant amount of its damage coming from the ticking Flame Zones and Fireballs, the damage comes from the impact of the skill itself. This makes it fantastic for a single target while still retaining much of Blair’s area damage kit.

Even though Truly Deadly Cuisine is the best Blair Transcendent Module there are other great options for boss weapon damage. For example, Back Draft converts your Flame Zone absorption into increasing Weak Point DMG and Firearm ATK instead of Skill Power. This changes how Blair would traditionally play by moving him from a skill-based damage descendant to a weapon-based one.

Best Bunny Transcendent Module

The Best Bunny Transcendent Module is High-Voltage as it boosts her area damage and range. It does this by reducing how many enemies can be hit by our skills.

High-Voltage Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Reduces the number of enemies that Thrill Bomb and Lightning Emission can strike. Increases range and damage instead.
  • Capacity Cost: 15
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Ultimate Bunny

High-Voltage may seem counterintuitive for a Bunny build as it reduces how many enemies can be hit with her area-of-effect skills. However, its potency comes when facing end-game mobs as they have significantly more health. She can still easily clear waves of trash enemies even with a reduction in enemies hit but now she can guarantee any large enemies hit die in one shot too. Also, since her range in increased you no longer need to worry about being as close to enemies. This helps her survivability by removing the likelihood of her getting surrounded and body blocked by enemies.

While the High-Voltage mod is the best Bunny Transcendent Module it is exclusive only to Ultimate Bunny. Therefore, it can be hard for free-to-play players to gain access to exclusive mods as collecting the parts to craft an ultimate descendant is quite the grind to just use extra mods. However, you can use Electric Condense as a single-target damage source that does require some build-up but packs a massive punch when released. It does this by converting your Maximum Power skill into a form that causes damage around her the more energy you use before it goes off.

Best Enzo Transcendent Module

The Best Enzo Transcendent Module is the Supply Firearm Enhancer as it builds into his power fantasy of a team-supporting descendant. Supply Firearm Enhancer spawns a device that boosts everyone’s Weak Point DMG and Critical Hit Rate who touches it.

Supply Firearm Enhancer Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Summons a Firearm Enhancement Device. Touching the device grants Weak Point DMG and Firearm Critical Hit Rate Up.
  • Capacity Cost: 114
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Enzo

Enzo is one of the few turret-based characters in the game. However, unlike traditional turret characters, he offers more than a healing drone and a damage drone. He has multiple buffing abilities within his kits that allow him to support his allies by providing ammo, buffs, healing, and damage. Supply Firearm Enhancer mod boosts his utility by providing additional damage buffs to his allies. This allows him to lean into his support character power fantasy without sacrificing any other utility of his kit.

While Supply Firearm Enhancer is the best Enzo Transcendent Module there are other great options for different playstyles. For example, Fcous Fire spawns a combat drone for himself that increases its duration with Critical Hit attacks. Also, you gain additional explosive drone stacks. These scales the damage available for Enzo allowing him to be a partial support and partial damage descendant within one kit.

Best Esiemo Transcendent Module

The Best Esiemo Transcendent Module is Cluster Bomb as it builds into his power fantasy of explosions, explosions, and more explosions. Spawning additional explosives at the location of detonated attached bombs allows Esiemo to deal massive area and boss damage.

Cluster Bomb Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Detonating an attached bomb creates additional explosives at the detonated location.
  • Capacity Cost: 14
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Esiemo

Esiemo is the epitome of a weapon of mass destruction. He has multiple explosives, the ability to detonate them when he wants to, and can turn himself into a nuke that blows up after hitting enemies. The Cluster Bomb mod feeds into this by generating more bombs by exploding attached bombs. Since Esiemo has a passive that you want to detonate more bombs at once for additional damage, this causes even more damage when you do. One of the best aspects of Cluster Bomb is it just works without changing builds or playstyle.

While Cluster Bomb mod is the best Esiemo Transcendent Module there are other great options for people wanting different playstyles. For example, Explosive Evade spawns Landmines when rolling. This allows Esiemo to spawn near-infinite bombs while only needing to spend MP to detonate them when at maximum stacks. However, you will be non-stop rolling as a playstyle which could be very boring for some.

Best Freyna Transcendent Module

The Best Ajax Transcendent Module is Contagion as it builds into spreading as much poison as possible. Since we have multiple ways to inflict enemies with Room 0 Trauma, this effectively makes the poison spread uncontrollably once a single enemy has died.

Contagion Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: When an enemy inflicted with Room 0 Trauma is killed, There is a contagion of Poison surrounding it.
  • Capacity Cost: 17
  • Socket Type: Rutile
  • Exclusivity: Freyna

Freyna is known for her mob-clearing clearing potential as she can put down large damage puddles of poison that kill enemies as they spawn. Her Room 0 Trauma inflicts enemies with ticking damage over time debuff. The Contagion mod makes this poison spread easily to nearby enemies allowing enemies to continue to eliminate each other without Freyna needing to assist. Since Freyna already has a potent kit, this just acts as a passive to increase her effectiveness even more.

While Contagion is the best Freyna Transcendent Module there are other great options for a more supportive playstyle. For example, Toxic Stimulation grants Plague Bodyarmor to nearby allies. This increases your allies’ DEF and allows them to infect any enemies who shoot them with poison.

Best Gley Transcendent Module

The Best Gley Transcendent Module is Blood and Iron as it allows Gley to infinitely gain charges for her skills. It does this by allowing generate Power of Life stacks without the need to spawn and collect Life Orbs.

Blood and Iron Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Life Orbs can no longer be acquired with the Thirst effect. Instead, Power of Life can be obtained when attacks land Firearm Critical Hits.
  • Capacity Cost: 16
  • Socket Type: Cerulean
  • Exclusivity: Gley and Ultimate Gley

Gley is known as one of the best boss damage dealers in the game due to her ability to sustain infinite ammo. With the Blood and Iron mod, you can maintain bullets as well as your ultimate bullet count. If built properly, Gley can maintain infinite ammo allowing her to use rocket launchers, her ultimate, or a machine gun to deal damage without ever using a bullet.

While Blood and Iron is the best Gley Transcendent Module there are other great options for slower fire rate weapons. For example, mods like Super Senses modify the Maximize Lethality duration but lock the fire rate of the weapon. This allows someone to build easily into the infinite weapon spam without a significant amount of mods into Skill Duration. However, it does lock the fire rate to hand cannon speed making it only good for slower-firing weapons.

Best Jayber Transcendent Module

The Best Jayber Transcendent Module is Turret Engineering as it keeps your turrets healthy with longer durations. It does this when using a skill that heals our turrets and extends their duration.

Turret Engineering Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: When using a skill, recovers the HP of all summoned turrets and extends their duration. Turrets do not switch to Enhanced mode.
  • Capacity Cost: 14
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Jayber

The Turret Engineering mod is amazing for Jayber as it allows him to keep a high uptime on his turrets and not have to worry about them dying to a few enemies. However, it does remove the ability to enhance your turrets. This negative is negated by building into Jayber to increase the effectiveness of his turrets to the point they don’t need to be enhanced. Also, it frees Jayber from having to constantly babysit his turrets, keeping them on the battlefield and enhancing new ones.

While Turret Engineering is the best Jayber Transcendent Module there are other great options for different playstyles. For example, the Immediate Pruge Code allows Jayber to turn his turrets into electrical storm nukes. It explodes all turrets and causes lightning storms at their locations. This takes Jayber from single target damage and a support descendant to an area-of-effect damage dealer.

Best Kyle Transcendent Module

The Best Kyle Transcendent Module is the Collision Instinct as it helps survivability and increases his group utility. It does this by adding a stun after Dashing to an enemy keeping them locked down for longer.

Collision Instinct Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: After a Dash, inflicts Stun at the end of a Knockback. However, the DEF increase effect is not applied.
  • Capacity Cost: 16
  • Socket Type: Almandine
  • Exclusivity: Kyle

The Collision Instinct mod is amazing for Kyle as it allows him some additional mob control by allowing a skill to knock back and stun. This keeps large health enemies crowd-controlled longer to give him and his allies time to eliminate the target. However, it does take away the additional DEF gained by impacting an enemy. This is canceled out by stunning the enemies as they can’t deal damage if they are stunned. Also, Kyle has multiple charges of his Dash so he can focus on controlling a single enemy while his allies take out the weaker ones.

While Collision Instinct is the best Kyle Transcendent Module there are other great options for mob farming playstyles. For example, Self-Directed Eruption allows him to pull enemies into his and deal massive area damage by consuming his magnetic force. This allows Kyle to become a walking black hole keeping everything close together for your allies to sweep aside.

Best Lepic Transcendent Module

The Best Lepic Transcendent Module is the Firearm Master as it boosts his skills’ damage and range. It does this by us swapping or reloading our weapons to get these boosts.

Firearm Master Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Reloading weapons increases Skill Range. Changing weapons increases Skill Power.
  • Capacity Cost: 15
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Ultimate Lepic

Lepic has quickly become a great boss-melting descendant capable of taking our hard-mode bosses in less than ten seconds. With the Firearm Master mod, he can boost his ultimate damage make it a nuke on bosses, and bake some before they even get to move. It does require some preparation and a small rotation to replicate the damage Lepic can do but it’s very easy to maintain and understand. The biggest benefit of this module is it doesn’t have a negative drawback built in and works like a passive rather than a complex set of conditions to activate.

While Firearm Master is the best Lepic Transcendent Module there are other great options for non-bossing playstyles. For example, Explosive Stacks gives us additional grenade charges and generates grenades by using ammo. This allows for a fun gameplay loop of constant grenades and weapon spam.

Best Sharen Transcendent Module

The Best Sharen Transcendent Module is Overcharged Edge as it allows us to get the highest uptime on our Ambush buff. It does this by allowing us to use shields instead of MP for our activation.

Overcharged Edge Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Modifies Active Camouflage to consume Shields instead of MP. Ambush damage increases by the amount of Shields consumed.
  • Capacity Cost: 14
  • Socket Type: Cerulean
  • Exclusivity: Sharen

The Overcharged Edge mod is amazing for Sharen because it gives us constant uptime on the Ambush buff. This allows for high on-demand burst weapon damage with little to no setup. With mods that reduce our shields to 1 at all times, you can activate our cloak and then immediately exit for high ambush uptimes. This works because the Ambush damage increase is based on the percentage of consumed shields. With only 1 shield to consume, this is easy to activate and maintain.

While Overcharged Edge is the best Sharen Transcendent Module other great options don’t require weapons. For example, Battlesuit Melting Rounds allows our area-of-effect damage skill to gain additional stacks to deal constant massive damage to bosses or mob spawns. This turns Sharen from a burst damage descendant to all-purpose usage.

Best Valby Transcendent Module

The Best Valby Transcendent Module is the Supply Moisture as it allows her to be a skill-based damage dealer. It does this by giving Skill Critical Hit Rate, Skill Duration, and Firearm Attribute Trigger Rate for standing in her water.

Supply Moisture Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: While on water, increases Skill Critical Hit Rate, Skill Duration, and FIrearm Attribute Trigger Rate. Reduction of MP consumption does not apply.
  • Capacity Cost: 14
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Valby

Valby has a lot of damage over time and burst skills to deal massive damage. With Supply Moisture mod we have massive boosts to our skills allowing them to constantly critically hit and last for longer. This allows Valby to deal damage with her skills as well as a weapon which boosts her output tremendously. It cost removed the reduction of MP consumption but this can be balanced out with MP regen stats and Max MP mods to round out her build.

While Supply Moisture is the best Valby Transcendent Module there are other great options for other playstyles. For example, Singing Water allows her to spawn a Seduction of Water that will taunt enemies into it dealing damage over time. This allows Valby a nice survivability tool to keep enemies’ aggression off her.

Best Viessa Transcendent Module

The Best Viessa Transcendent Module is Hypothermia as it allows for constant damage over time and burst damage. It does this by allowing us to stack Ice Needle on enemies dealing increased damage the more stacks they have.

Hypothermia Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: When using a skill, you inflict Ice Needle instead of Ice Shackle. When Ice Needle reaches a certain number of stacks, passive skills are triggered. Ice Needle: Continous damage to the target. Damage increases as it stacks.
  • Capacity Cost: 16
  • Socket Type: Cerulean
  • Exclusivity: Viessa and Ultimate Viessa

Hypothermia mod is perfect for Viessa as it allows her to deal consistent damage over time and easily triggers her passive. Her kit is a blend of Bunny and Freyna offering both area damage and speed. However, her abilities don’t have as much sustained damage, reducing their effectiveness in longer engagements. Hypothermia removes this negative allowing her to deal damage even if she isn’t actively engaged with that target.

While Hypothermia is the best Viessa Transcendent Module, there are other great options for different playstyles. For example, mods like Cold-Bloodedness boost her Skill Power while decreasing Skill Cost and Skill Cooldow. This allows her to focus more on her skills at the cost of not being able to move as fast or deal as much area damage by moving around.

Best Yujin Transcendent Module

The Best Jujin Transcendent Module is the Duty and Sacrifice as it builds into his power fantasy of a team healer. It does this by allowing him to grant constant HP recovery and recovery over time for allies.

Duty and Sacrifice Transcendent Module features and stats in the First Descendant:

  • Description: Grants HP Recovery and HP Recovery per second to allies in the Squad and Party.
  • Capacity Cost: 14
  • Socket Type: Malachite
  • Exclusivity: Yujin

Yujin’s power fantasy is in being the best healer in the game. He provides mass amounts of healing to keep your allies safe to deal damage. Duty and sacrifice boost his healing effectiveness by providing constant passive healing for his allies. Paired with his other abilities, he is sure to keep all of his allies safe and health bars healthy.

While Duty and Sacrifice is the best Yujin Transcendent Module there are other great options for healing. For example, the First Aid Kit sets up a first aid kit that your allies can use when needed to heal themselves. This allows us to focus on dealing with damage and your allies to get healing when needed. However, this doesn’t work as well in unorganized random groups as they might not know the location or how the first aid kits work.

How to Get the Transcendent Modules

Transcendent Modules can be found in multiple locations, however, most are found in Infiltration Operations, Hard Mode Bosses, and combining additional Transcendent Modules into a random one. With these mods being so significant to a build it’s important to know where and how to obtain them.

A lot of the best end-game Transcedent Mods are found as drops in hard mode boss fights. These are the height of difficulty in the game requiring full builds, team cooperation, and no small amount of damage. Also, they have a low drop chance of less than 5% overall drop rates. Secondly, they drop from various Infiltration Missions and have a chance to drop while doing hard missions in the overworld location. Although the drop chances of random mods are so incredibly low it’s not even listed within the game. Lastly, if you accumulate some extra Transcendent mods you don’t need, you can combine the mods at the module vendor in Albion. You place four random mods within the combiner and get one random module back. This can help get some additional mods you want at the cost of mods you don’t need or won’t use.


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