The First Descendant: Best Ultimate Gley Build Guide

Discover the Best Ultimate Gley Build Guide for The First Descendant and create a powerful character with Skills, modules, and weapons.

Creating an effective build in The First Descendant involves carefully selecting and optimizing various components of your character, including modules, reactor stats, weapons, weapon mods, and skills. We will focus on optimizing your skill power and survivability for an Ultimate Gley build. Let us walk you through creating the best Ultimate Gley Build in the First Descendant with our guide below.

This build guide has been updated for Hotfix 1.0.5 of The First Descendant.

Best Ultimate Gley Build Guide for The First Descendant

Ultimate Gley is unique amongst The First Descendant characters, not using shields, but HP recovery through kills. She has two states, one being Frenzied, where she increases damage but decreases HP recovery. Therefore, she plays at a high-risk, high-reward style based on aggression and kills outside of frenzied to restore health.

Gley overall feels like one of the strongest characters in The First Decesendant due to her damage, survivability, and skill combos. However, her overall power is limited due to her complexity and unique gameplay features. If you pick Gley, commit to learning to activate and reactive Frenzie when needed. If you do, she’s one of the most powerful but also the most complex and different.

Ultimate Gley Build Pro	Ultimate Gley Build Cons
Damage	Complex
Skill Kit	High Risk
Life Leach	Low Mobility

Features and Mechanics for Ultimate Gley Build in The First Descendant

The following list presents all the essential Ultimate Gley Build Features and Mechanics for the First Descendant:

• Best Modules: Massive Sanguification, Stim Accelerant, and Walk a Tight Rope
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute
• Best Reactor: Materialized Phase (Non-Attribute and Dimension)
• Best Weapon: Thunder Cage
• Best Weapon Mods: Defense Master, Action and Reaction, and Concentration Priority
• Best External Component: Annihilation Set
• Skills
  • Frenzied
  • Life Siphon
  • Increased Sensory
  • Massacre
  • Thirst (Passive)
• Playstyle: Sustained damage dealer with max HP build and no shields.
• How to Unlock: Can be purchased or crafted
• Story: Gley doesn’t care how powerful her gear is so long as she can kill Vulgus and save her daughter.

How to play Ultimate Gley in The First Descendant

An effective Ultimate Gley build relies on three key factors: equipped weapon, character modules, and player skill. Gley’s gameplay centers on absorbing life spheres from defeated enemies, which boosts her overall power. Additionally, she can activate a Frenzied mode by consuming health (HP), significantly increasing her damage output. This requires a strategic balance between gathering life spheres and carefully using HP to maximize damage potential when it’s safe to do so.

Area Damage and Single-Target Damage: Ultimate Gley’s damage depends more on her weapon as it assumes the stats of her weapon while getting boosted by her skill power. Her abilities enhance her ATK or defense rather than dealing elemental damage. She is highly effective at single-target damage but can also deliver strong AOE damage with the right equipment and ammunition.

Movement and Speed: Gley has average mobility and speed for the game. However, use caution with her Increased Sensory ability. Activating it while in a Frenzied state will decrease her Movement Speed.

Bosses and Ultimates: Gley excels at dealing with bosses, as most of her abilities focus on single targets.

Defenses and Survival Tips: Many of Ultimate Gley’s abilities have two versions, depending on whether she is in a Frenzied state. The non-Frenzied versions focus on defensive buffs or HP recovery, allowing you to prioritize survival over damage based on the situation. This dual functionality provides flexibility, making her adaptable in various combat scenarios.

How to unlock Ultimate Gley in The First Descendant

To unlock the Ultimate Gley character in the First Descendant, you should speak with the Magister Anais in the Albion Mountains to conduct research for materials. Below are the required research/crafting materials for Ultimate Gley:

• Ultimate Gley Enhanced Cells
  • Metal Accelerant x1168
  • Hardener x869
  • Thermal Metallic Foil x 58
  • Ultimate Gley Enhanced Cell Blueprint
  • 450,000 Gold
• Ultimate Gley Stabilizer
  • Carbon Crystal x1247
  • Reverse Charging Coil x1023
  • Cooling Metallic Foil x85
  • Ultimate Gley Stabilizer Blueprint x1
  • 450,000 Gold
• Ultimate Gley Spiral Catalyst
  • Monomolecular Extractor x1123
  • Ceramic Composite x919
  • Common Carbon Activator x32
  • Ultimate Gley Spiral Catalyst Blueprint
• Ultimate Gley Code

Ultimate Gley’s Exclusive Equipment

Ultimate Gley’s ultimate equipment is her Life Absorbing Battlesuit “Deathseer”, which is her cosmetic special suit that is automatically given to the player upon acquisition of the Ultimate Descendant. You can access it by clicking details in the Descendant menu and customizing the appearance of her suit. Below are the details on Ultimate Gley’s Exclusive Equipment:

“By reverse engineering Gley’s emission-type Arche ability-enhancing battlesuit, this equipment literally enhances absorption rather than emissions, taking Gley’s unique battle skills to new heights. The original design was meant to be used in the helmet, but at Gley’s request, the visor was modified to sacrifice some protection in favor of a more specialized purpose.”

Skills

The premise behind an Ultimate Gley build is her Frenzied state. When paired with the unlimited ammo buff from Increased Sensory and the massive damage from her Massacre skill, she becomes a true boss-melting powerhouse. However, entering Frenzied, casting your ultimate, or using your Increased Sensory skill uses health as a resource. So it’s very important to manage your health and maintain lower health for increased damage for our Massacre skill but safe health to make sure you don’t fall over. If you are low make sure to switch out of the Frenzied state to collect any healing items as you will gain increased healing from them. You will want to recognize your state based on Gley’s appearance, skill bar colors, and UI.

Below are the skills of Ultimate Gley’s character:

• Frenzied: Increases Firearm ATK and Penetration but reduces HP Recovery.
• Life Siphon: Damages enemies in range while recovering your HP. Grants additional effects depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.
• Increased Sensory: Applies different effects depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.
• Massacre: Switches the equipped weapon to Massacre. Enemies hit by Massacre take heavy damage and are afflicted with additional effects, depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.
• Thirst (passive): Gley cannot have Shield or MP. Defeated enemies drop a Life Sphere. Obtaining a Life Sphere restores HP and adds a stack of Power of Life.

Best Skill for Ultimate Gley

Frenzied is Ultimate Gley’s best ability because it’s what makes her such a dominant boss damage descendant. While active, it gives a boost in Firearm ATK and Penetration at the cost of reduced healing. However, the negative of the skills can be negated by toggling the buff off when collecting Life Spheres or other sources of healing.

The user interface will display a stack bar at the bottom of the screen where normal MP is displayed. This indicates how many Power of Life stacks you have available for your skills. Killing enemies generates Life Spheres while a non-Frenzied state generates more. Collecting these grants Power of Life Stacks allows you to use your other skills. You must have three charges to activate any of your other abilities.

One of these skills, Increased Sensory allows you to not use ammo when firing your weapons for a short time. When paired with Frenzied, you are buffing your weapon’s damage and gaining free ammo to tear into enemies with. This allows Gley unrivaled boss damage without the need for an intense skill rotation, or managing MP use and regeneration.

Gley’s massacre skill causes her massive damage by consuming your Power of Life stacks for ammo. With our Increased Sensory skills, we gain unlimited ammo for our ultimate Massacre ability. This allows us to deal massive damage and sustain that damage forever if we have the right modules and equipment.

Frenzied

Frenzied Features in The First Descendant:

• Description: Consumes HP to enter Berserk mode. In Berserk mode, the distance weapon’s ATK and Penetration increase.
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute – Singular
• Cooldown: 1 second
• HP Cost: 10% of Max HP
• Firearm ATK Increase: 25%
• Firearm Explosive ATK Increase: 25%
• Firearm Penetration Increase: 51
• Incoming Recovery Decrease: 50%

How to Use Frenzied: this is the most important skill to activate to increase overall damage at the cost of Max HP. This skill has a low cooldown and is meant to be used frequently. Only activate Frenzied when your health is high, and you need increased damage. Your HP recovery will be low, so rely on Life Siphon or a non-frenzied state to kill enemies and recover health.

Life Siphon

Life Siphon Features in The First Descendant:

• Description: Deals damage to nearby enemies and restores HP. In Berserk mode, damage increases; in Normal mode, damage inflicted by enemies decreases for a certain period of time.
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute – Dimension
• Cooldown: 20 seconds

How to Use Life Siphon: This skill is the best way to recover HP in a frenzied state. The lower Gley’s HP, the better for the build, so it incentivizes you to risk it and drop low purposefully, then activate Life Siphon for an HP and damage boost. If low HP is in a non-frenzied state, it works to lower incoming damage and stacks that effect based on enemies hit. The damage radius is 6 meters, so use it near as many targets as possible.

Life Siphon Advanced Stats

Below are the advance stats for Life Siphon skill:

• Power of Life Cost: 4
• Damage: Skill Power x 317.5%
• Damage Range: 6 meters Radius
• Max Expandable Range: 300%
• Health Recovery Amount: Max HP x 5% per Enemy Hit
• Frenzied Damage: Skill Power x 453.3%
• Per 10% of HP consumed: Skill Power + 10%
• Non-Frenzied Damage Decrease: 2%
• Non-Frenzied Duration: 8.0 seconds
• Max Stacks: x10

Increased Sensory

Increased Sensory Features in The First Descendant:

• Description: Her Increased Sensory adds an infinite ammo effect for a certain amount of time during Frenzy, and when in a Non-Frenzied state, increases Movement Speed and HP Recovery during which Life Sphere generation is increased.
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute – Singular
• Cooldown: 40 seconds

How to Use Increased Sensory: another skill to increase damage at the expense of movement speed while in a Frenized state. You won’t consume bullets while Maximize Lethality is active, a perfect skill for a boss burn where you don’t need to move out of mechanics. In a non-frenized state, you gain increased life spheres and recovery, making it the best survivability skill. However, Increased Sensory has a long cooldown, so use sparingly.

Increased Sensory Advanced Stats

Below are the advanced stats for the Increased Sensory skill:

• HP Cost: 5% of Max HP
• Maximize Lethality
  • Duration: 5s
  • Running Speed: 50% Decrease
  • Sprint Speed: 50% Decrease
  • Movement Speed When Aiming: 50% Decrease
• Maximize Recovery
  • Duration: 10s
  • Running Speed: 30% Increase
  • Spring Speed: 30% Increase
  • Movement Speed When Aiming: 30% Increase
  • Life Sphere Drop Rate: 60%
  • Health Recovery Amount: 8% of Max HP

Massacre

Massacre Features in The First Descendant:

• Description: Changes current Firearm to Massacre. Adds additional skill damage during Frenzied state, and inflicts Stun effect on hit enemies.
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute – Dimension
• Cooldown: 1 second

How to Use Massacre: this skill acts as your ultimate ability, which switches the firearm to the massacre. Your Massacre firearm stuns enemies (non-frenized) or deals additional damage during the Frenzied state. Therefore, you want to activate Frenzie and swap to Massacre when your health is high and damage is needed. Additionally, you can use this as a defensive tool when under pressure and needing stuns to avoid incoming enemy damage.

Massacre Advanced Stats

Below are the advanced stats for the Massacre skill:

• HP Cost: 15% of Max HP
• Minimum Use Condition: 3 or more Power of Life
• Damage: Same as Equipped Weapon
• Frenzied Additional Damage: Skill Power x 64.7%
• Per 10% of HP Consumed: Skill Power +10%
• Non-Frenzied Stun Duration: 2.7 seconds

Thirst (Passive)

Thirst Features in The First Descendant:

• Description: Creates Life Spheres upon killing enemies. Recovers HP and stores Power of Life when absorbing Life Spheres.
• Descendant Attribute: Non-Attribute

How to Use Thirst: this always active passive rewards Gley for playing aggressively and killing enemies. While not frenzied, you gain damage reduction and life spheres. This is how you replenish your HP; the amount is proportional to Max HP. Therefore, you want as much HP as possible to keep your survivability and replenishment high. Moreover, you want to constantly be aware of this unique mechanic and reactive Frenzied when needing HP, and Gley plays radically differently because of this passive alone.

Thirst Advanced Stats

Below are the advanced stats for the Thirst skill:

• Non-Frenzied Damage Reduction: Total Damage x 4%
• Life Sphere Drop Rate: 30%
• Health Recovery Amount: 4% of Max HP
• Duration: 8 seconds
• Power of Life Obtain Amount: x1

Descendant Modules for Ultimate Gley Build

Massive Sanguification, Stim Accelerant, and Walk a Tight Rope are the best modules (mods) for an Ultimate Gley Build in the First Descendant. Massive Sanguification changes how our Life Siphon skill works by allowing us to sacrifice HP for three stacks of Power of Life. This allows us to immediately be able to activate our ultimate skill without the need to generate Life Orbs during combat. Also, Stim Accelerant is the highest HP boosting module in the game. It does give a negative Max MP stat but we don’t have MP on Gley so it doesn’t matter. Lastly, Walk a Tight Rope provides a large boost in Skill Power Modifier and Firearm ATK when we are below 50% health. Since Ultimate Gley’s rotation requires the use of health to maintain her skills, we will often be below 50% health for this boost to be active.

In The First Descendant, modules are essential components that enhance and customize your character’s abilities, stats, and overall performance. Modules can be acquired through questing, missions, loot drops, and vendor items. Moreover, you have limited resources to slot mods; therefore, some slots may be empty depending on your chosen setup.

Ultimate Gley Best Modules for Leveling

Below is a list of the best leveling mods for Ultimate Gley Build in the First Descendant:

• Nimble Fingers – Skill Cooldown -6%.
• Dual Claw – Use a Dual Claw to attack when performing a Charged Sub Attack.
• Skill Extension – Skill Duration +X%, applies only to certain skills for each Descendant
• Increased DEF – DEF +16%.
• Increased HP – Max HP +22%.

Slot	Module	Quality
1 (Skill Module)	Empty	N/A
2	Empty	N/A
3	Empty	N/A
4	Increased HP	Standard
5	Skill Extension	Standard
6	Empty	N/A
7 (Sub Module)	Dual Claw	Standard
8	Empty	N/A
9	Empty	Standard
10	Nimble Fingers	Standard
11	Increased DEF	Standard
12	Empty	Standard

Gley Best Modules

Below is a list of the best mods for Ultimate Gley Build in the First Descendant:

• Massive Sanguification – modifies life siphon to allow absorption of life orbs during a non-frenzied state.
• Stim Accelerant – Max HP +23%, Max MP -4%
• MP Conversion – Skill Cooldown -9%, Max MP -4%.
• Increased HP – Max HP +22%.
• An Outstanding Investment – Skill Duration +20.5%, HP Heal +7.4%
• Skill Extension – Skill Duration +9%, applies only to certain skills for each Descendant
• Dual Claw —Changes sub-attack and gives additional mod sockets. You can also use mid-air or long-distance maneuvering.
• Nimble Fingers – Skill Cooldown -6%.
• Focus on Non-Attribute – Non-attribute skill power 19%, Skill Cooldown -6.1%.
• Focus on Dimension – Dimension skill power 17%, Skill Cooldown -6.1%.
• Increased DEF – DEF +16%.
• Walk a Tight Rope – When HP IS 50% or Lower, Skill Power Modifier +30%, Firearm ATK +30%
  • Can be replaced with HP Collector for more survivability when doing non-bossing content.

Slot	Module	Quality
1 (Skill Module)	Massive Sanguification	Transcendent
2	Stim Accelerant	Rare
3	MP Conversion	Rare
4	Increased HP	Standard
5	An Outstanding Investment	Rare
6	Skill Extension	Standard
7 (Sub Module)	Dual Claw	Standard
8	Nimble Fingers	Standard
9	Focus on Non-Attribute	Rare
10	Focus on Dimension	Rare
11	Increased DEF	Standard
12	Walk a Tight Rope	Ultimate

Best Reactor Stats for Ultimate Gley in The First Descendant

Materialized Phase is the best reactor for an Ultimate Gley build in the First Descendant because it boosts the effectiveness of your Non-attribute and Dimension skills.  Non-Attribute is your descendant attribute, and Dimension increases Life Siphon and Massacre skill effectiveness. The most important part of your reactor is finding one with increased skill cooldown. Below is our recommendation for the best Ultimate Gley reactors:

1. Optimization Condition: Thunder Cage (Mounting)
2. Skill Power Boost Ratio
   • Materialized Phase: Boost to Non-Attribute and Dimension type
3. Bonus Conditions: Skill Cooldown, Skill Duration UP, and Dimension Skill Power Boost Ratio

In The First Descendant, reactors are powerful enhancements significantly impacting a character’s abilities, stats, and overall performance. They function as core components that provide substantial boosts and unique effects, enabling players to tailor their characters to specific playstyles and strategies. Change your reactor based on whether you need damage or survivability when using the First Descendant: Best Gley Build Guide.

Weapons for Gley Build

Thunder Cage and Vestigial Organ are the best weapons for an Ultimate Gley Build. The Thunder Cage provides a huge area of effect damage with its ultimate ability. Also, when using our Massacre skill it inherits the stats of the weapon making the fast fire rate and high critical damage of Thunder Cage our damage boost. The Vestigial Organ launcher shoots rockets with a chance to trigger the status effect. Ultimate Gley does not consume ammunition while using Increased Sensory meaning both our rockets and Massacre skill will not consume ammo. The following list presents the best weapon choices for the Ultimate Gley Build guide for the First Descendant:

• Thunder Cage- Submachine Gun
• Vestigial Organ – Launcher

Thunder Cage

Thunder Cage features in the First Descendant:

• Firearm ATK: 24
• Fire Rate: 666
• Reload Speed: 1.4 seconds
• Max Range: 23 meters

This weapon allows for Ultimate Gley to consume ammunition and fire off many bullets so this weapon is great for her. She can use the weapon as a mobbing weapon and then use her Massacre skill to get boosted by Thunder Cage’s stats. Build for duration and skill cooldown reduction and use when Increased Sensory is active. Below are the recommended traits for the Thunder Cage:

• Action and Reaction – Firearm ATK +61%, Recoil +20%
• Fire Rate Up – Fire Rate +25%
• Expanded Weapon Charge – Rounds per Magazine +49%
• Better Concentration – Firearm Critical Hit Damage +74.8%
• Edging Shot – Firearm Critical Hit Rate +43%, Firearm ATK -15%
• Rifling Reinforcement – Firearm ATK +32%
• Weak Point Sight – Weak Point Damage +35%
• Concentration Priority – Firearm Critical Hit Damage +120%, Reload Time Modifier -30%
• Better Insight – Firearm Critical Hit Rate +39%
• Mental Focus – Fire Rate -10%, When Firing a Firearm, Firearm ATK +1% for 2s (up to 150 stacks) Removes effect when reloading or changing Firearm.
  • Can be swapped with Sweeping Squad if using the weapon for mobbing and not bossing.

Vestigial Organ

Vestigial Organ features in the First Descendant:

• Firearm ATK: 128352
• Fire Rate: 199
• Reload Speed: 4.2 seconds
• Max Range: 150 meters

This weapon allows for Gley NOT to consume ammunition and fire off many rockets while Increased Sensory is active. With an increased fire rate over other launchers and status effects, this weapon is great for Ultimate Gley. Build for duration and skill cooldown reduction. Below are the recommended traits for the Vestigial Organ:

• Weak Point Detection – Weak Point Damage +5%, Firearm ATK +1%
• Bullet Rain – Fire Rate +8%, Firearm ATK +1%.
• Poison Priority – Toxic ATK +13%, Reload Time Modifier -8%.
• Electric Enhancement – Adds Electric ATK equal to 8% of Firearm ATK
• Sharpshooter – Explosive ATK +8%, Firearm Critical Hit Rate +1%.
• Defense Master – when defeating an enemy, DEF +120% for 10 seconds with a 25-second cooldown.
• Weak Point Sight – Weak Point damage +10%, Accuracy -5%.
• Stance Stabilizer – Recoil -8%, Firearm ATK +1%
• Rifling Reinforcement – Explosive ATK +12%

External Component

Due to increased skill duration, the Annihilation set is your best external component set. This set is available at Void Intercept battle, the Devour Hardmode. You want Max HP and Max DEF external components because Ultimate Gley does not have shields. Each external component will have three random traits. Look for increased HP, DEF, or one defensive stat with Toxic, Chill, Fire, or Electric Resistance. This will give you a balanced defensive approach; most survivability comes from these pieces. Below are the set bonuses for the Annihilation External Component Set used in the best Gley Ultimate Build Guide for the First Descendant:

• 2 Piece bonus: Skill Duration +5.7%
• 4 Piece bonus: Firearm ATK increases proportionally to the ratio of Maax HP to HP lost, up to +26% when HP is 50% or lower, MP Recovery -22%, HP Recovery +16%, for 10 seconds with 30 second cooldown.

Recent Updates and Changes for Ultimate Gley Build

The biggest change and update to Ultimate Gley during Season One is the addition of Invasions and Inversion Reinforcement. Players are rewarded for completion time and materials used for the newest Descendant Hailey. Inversions should be done often to work toward unlocking new gear and the newest Descendent.

Ultimate Gley’s Story in the First Descendant

“When Dia sees my eyes… she’ll know her mom has come for her.”

The Ultimate Descendant Project refers to a plan in which either the Ancestors’ technology and equipment found throughout Ingris, or their special Arche genes, are refined to suit the characteristics of active Descendants, then applied to them. The ultimate goal being to enhance all Descendants to reflect the Ancestors, the powerful predecessors of humanity.

But how do you enhance this distinctive, yet tragic, Arche ability that even the Ancestors did not have? Having gained her powers through the bio-experiments of the Vulgus, there was no official, or unofficial, Ultimate equipment suitable for Gley. Which is why the Magisters tried to shut down the Ultimate Project for her. Had they actually done that, there may have been bloodshed in Albion. Her desire for more power stemmed from her need to find her lost daughter, Dia, and is why Gley had great expectations for the Ultimate project.

Ultimate Gley’s Story Continued

With their lives being threatened, the concerned Magisters began working day and night, analyzing the characteristics of existing Ultimate equipment. In particular, they looked at Viessa’s which specialized in emission-type Arche abilities and provided much inspiration for the development of Gley’s equipment. If an ability specializing in emissions could be reverse engineered to become specialized in ‘absorption,’ there would be no better equipment for Gley.

Finally, the research was successful. The Magisters managed to save lives, and Gley now had powerful Ultimate equipment that exceeded her expectations. The truth was, for what she had in mind, she didn’t need its performance to be this powerful. As a grieving mother, so long as it allowed her to instantly kill every Vulgus she sees, as well as ensured her survival long enough to hold her daughter safely in her arms, it was enough.

Best Ultimate Gley Build Guide Summary – The First Descendant

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