The First Descendant: Best Ultimate Smithereens Build Guide

Discover how to get the Ultimate Smithereens, the best modules, best stats, and more in our weapon build guide for The First Descendant!

Best Ultimate Smithereens Build Guide in The First Descendant

The Smithereens is an Ultimate weapon in The First Descendant, with a strong DPS potential that is entirely dependent on player shooting skill. Its unique ability only procs after hitting an enemy with all bullets. However, the payoff is a massive boost to Critical Hit Rate and a lesser boost to Critical Damage.

All Smithereens features in The First Descendant:

• Weapon Type: Shotgun
• Special Ability: Fearlessness
  • On hitting the enemy with all bullets, increase the Firearm Critical Hit Rate and Firearm Critical Hit Damage of this attack. Upon landing a Critical Hit on an enemy, grants the Firearm’s unique ability Amplification.
• Pros: Massive increase to Critical Hit Rate and Critical Damage
• Cons: Bonus depends on player skill and ability to target and hit the enemy without missing
• Best Characters: Any character, this is a good overall weapon to use against Colossi
• Best Mods: Commando Marksmanship, Better Concentration, and Weapon Tuning

Smithereens Advanced Stats

Below are the base advanced stats for the Smithereens at level 1:

• Firearm ATK – 20
• Fire Rate – 150
• Rounds per mag – 10
• Reload time – 1.6 seconds
• Crit rate – 1%
• Crit damage – 1.1x
• Weakpoint damage – 1x

How to Get Ultimate Smithereens in The First Descendant

The Ultimate Smithereens will require you to reach Mastery Rank Level 1 before you can craft it with Magister Anais in Albion. Additionally, once you collect all of the needed materials, you will have to pay a 100,000 credit/gold fee. Finally, it will take 4 hours of research time for the Smithereens firearm to be completed.

To Craft Ultimate Smithereens you will need the following materials:

• 1 Smithereens Polymer Synctium
  • Intercept Battle, Pyromaniac (Normal), with Amorphous Material Pattern: 036
  • Farm Amorphous Material Pattern: 036 at White-night Gulch zone, Mystery’s End operation dungeon
• 1 Smithereens Synthetic Fiber
  • Intercept Battle, Gravewalker (Normal), with Amorphous Material Pattern: 002
  • Farm Amorphous Material Pattern: 002 at Kingston zone, Magister’s Lab operation dungeon
• 1 Smithereens Nano Tube
  • Intercept Battle, Dead Bride (Normal), with Amorphous Material Pattern: 022
  • Farm Amorphous Material Pattern: 022 at Echo Swamp zone, Seed Vault operation dungeon
• 1 Smithereens Blueprint
  • Intercept Battle, Executioner (Normal), with Amorphous Material Pattern: 017
  • Farm Amorphous Material Pattern: 017 at Vespers zone, The Shelter operation dungeon

Finding all of the materials for Smithereens will require lots of different farming because the four items themselves do not drop from missions like other ultimate materials do. Instead, you will need to first collect specific Amorphous Materials Patterns and you then use at the end of Colossi fights for a chance at the crafting piece you need. Therefore, this will take more time than some other Ultimate weapon farms.

The methods we have listed above are the best grinds for each piece. However, if you wish to see all of the options check out the Acquisition Info for Smithereens from the Journal/Social menu.

Best Modules for Ultimate Smithereens in The First Descendant

Commando Marksmanship, Better Concentration, and Weapon Tuning are the best weapon mods for the Smithereens. Your primary goal on Smithereens will be too boost your Critical Hit Damage as much as you can. Commando Marksmanship and Better Concentration are key to this, so that as soon as you trigger the unique ability you’re dealing the highest amount of critical damage possible. Weapon Tuning is going to dramatically help increase the number of rounds per magazine, which is vital on a firearm that uses the harder-to-come-by Impact Rounds.

Best Beginner Mods for Smithereens

Below are the best beginner weapons mods for the Smithereens:

• Better Concentration – Firearm Critical Hit Damage +19%
• Rifling Reinforcement – Explosive ATK +12%
• Action and Reaction – Firearm ATK +15%, Recoil +5%
• Impact Round Charge Improvement – When acquiring dropped Special Rounds, change to 1 High Power Round for every 120 Rounds.

Slot	Module
1 (First Row)	Better Concentration
2	Rifling Reinforcement
3	(empty)
4	(empty)
5	(empty)
6 (Second Row)	Action and Reaction
7	(empty)
8	Impact Round Charge Improvement
9	(empty)
10	(empty)

Best Advanced Mods for Smithereens

Below are the best advanced weapons mods for the Smithereens:

• Rifling Reinforcement – Explosive ATK +12%
• Commando Marksmanship – Firearm Critical Hit Damage +8%, Firearm ATK +1%
• Weapon Tuning – Rounds per Magazine +8%, Firearm ATK +1%
• Better Concentration – Firearm Critical Hit Damage +19%
• Sharpshooter – Firearm ATK +8%, Firearm Critical Hit Rate +1.5%.
• Fire Rate UP – Fire Rate +6%

Slot	Module
1 (First Row)	Rifling Reinforcement
2	Commando Marksmanship
3	Weapon Tuning
4	(empty)
5	(empty)
6 (Second Row)	Better Concentration
7	Sharpshooter
8	Fire Rate UP
9	(empty)
10	(empty)

Maximum Module Capacity

When upgrading weapon mods, be aware there is an increased cost and a max module capacity of 80. The material needed is Energy Activators, and you will get one of these after playing through the end of the campaign, or you can craft them with Anais. Therefore, you want to balance increasing mods and not attempt to max out everyone. A balanced approach to firearm ATK, critical chance, and critical damage is the best (+3 or so to each).

Best Weapon Stats for Ultimate Smithereens in The First Descendant

In the First Descendant weapon stats are randomly generated for all weapons when they drop or are created via crafting. You can change (or re-roll) them through the Weapon Readjustment system, which is covered in more detail below.

These are the best weapon stats for Ultimate Smithereens in The First Descendant:

• Weak Point Damage
• Bonus Firearm ATK (vs. Colossus)
• Firearm Critical Hit Rate
• Bonus Firearm ATK (vs. Legion of Darkness)

In the First Descendant, weapon stats are randomly generated for all weapons when they are picked up as loot or picked up after crafting. You can change (or re-roll) them through the Weapon Readjustment system. Each weapon has four random traits or stats that can be rerolled to find the ideal trait. These regenerated traits are also random and so is their quality. Therefore, expect to spend a lot of materials to min-max the perfect roll.

How to Upgrade Ultimate Smithereens

The First Descendant provides several different avenues for upgrading and improving your weapons by using their repair station Workbench. The Workbench is located in the same general area as Anais and weapons seller Deslin on the west side of Albion.

Weapon Transmission

Each time you craft an Ultimate weapon in The First Descendant, after collecting it from Anais you will find that it is a low Level 1 firearm. However, you can easily bring it up to your current weapon level by using the Weapon Transmission mechanic at the Workbench.

Finally, you will need to reach Mastery Rank 3.

To level up Smithereens in The First Descendant you will need:

• Precision Phase Exchanger
  • 250 Liquid Metal
  • 50,000 credits/gold
  • 10:00 of research time

To get Superalloy and Liquid Metal in the First Descendant you will need to dismantle many weapons you don’t want by junking them. This breaks down the weapon into crafting materials you can use to make other items. Consequently, we highly recommend breaking down all of your excess weapons instead of selling them. Credits are easier to earn just by playing the game and completing missions.

Weapon Readjustment

In The First Descendant, the Weapon Readjustment mechanic allows you to use the Workbench to re-roll your weapon stats. Moreover, you can re-roll all of your stats at once, or lock individual stats you like and only re-roll the ones you want to change. Finally, you will need to reach Master Rank 4 in order to unlock Weapon Readjustment at the Workbench.

Here are the best weapon stats for Smithereen in The First Descendant:

• Weak Point Damage
• Firearm ATK
• Bonus Firearm ATK (vs Colossus)
• An Elemental ATK (chill, toxic, electric)

To change Smithereens stats in The First Descendant you will need:

• Fine Adjustment Control Axis x2
  • 200 Liquid Metal
  • 30,000 credits/gold
  • 1:00:00 of research time

Enhance Unique Ability

Each Ultimate weapon in The First Descendant comes with a unique ability that gives it a powerful effect and you can enhance the power of these abilities. This is another mechanic that you will use at the repair station Workbench, and it unlocks at Mastery Rank 5.

However, unlike Weapon Transmission and Weapon Readjustment there is no unique crafting material you will need to create and use. To enhance the unique ability of Smithereens, you will have to craft a duplicate. Then, take that Level 1 duplicate to the Workbench and sacrifice it to upgrade the Fearlessness ability to a stronger version.

How To Use Ultimate Smithereens

The best way to use Smithereens in The First Descendant is against Colossi single-target bosses because triggering the unique ability against packs of mobs will be difficult for most players. Fearlessness only procs after you have hit an enemy with all bullets, and doing so will give you a 100% Critical Hit Rate chance. Therefore, if you continue hitting the target without a miss, every bullet will deal critical damage. Use mods that amplify critical hit damage since you’ll likely be in close range with critical bonus damage.

Unfortunately, Critical Damage does not get as much of a boost, but you can improve that damage amount with mods like Commando Marksmanship and Better Concentration. Firing Smithereens at a Colossi weak point while Amplification is active will quickly take a boss to its knees so everyone can contribute to a strong DPS burn.

Additionally, for talented players, this could drastically shorten the rage mode of a Colossus. If you can trigger the Amplification effect while shooting the canister tubes, the whole party could get back to DPS-as-usual that much quicker.

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