A complete guide on how to play as a Sharen character in The First Descendant, including her class skills, role, and everything you should know.
Sharen Character (Class) Overview
Sharen is the stealth assassin character in The First Descendant, and her playstyle revolves around utilizing her camouflage ability to attack from stealth. By doing so, she’ll then activate her passive which allows her to deal more damage, and also reset the cooldown on the camouflage. She can deal good damage and has the potential to be an effective party member, but player skill and good strategy on when and how to use her skills will be critical.
Sharen Character (Class) Features in The First Descendant:
- Role: Close-Range Dealer
- Feature: Sharen doesn’t resent the accident that happened to her in the past. In fact, the resulting cutting-edge cyborg body has become her deadliest weapon as an assassin.
- Battle Concept: Using camouflage, she can manage the distance from her enemies whenever she desires. She can ambush enemies anytime, anywhere.
- Pros: Stealth, Debuffs, Utility
- Cons: Lower Damage Ceiling
- Passive Skill: Assassinator
- Active Skills: Cutoff Beam, Active Camouflage, Impact Rounds
- Ultimate Ability: Flash Shortsword
- How to Unlock: Can be purchased or crafted
In The First Descendant, characters are your classes, each possessing unique skills, passives, and ultimate abilities. Additionally, as you progress in the game and collect materials, you can unlock more characters through research and crafting them.
The First Descendant class system resembles games like Destiny 2 and Warframe. You will have three standard abilities with cooldowns based on their power. You can also use multiple guns and accessories to develop your build. Furthermore, each class has its pros and cons and optimal usage. In this First Descendant guide, we will describe how to play the Lepic character, how to unlock him, and who would enjoy this class playstyle.
Should you play Sharen in The First Descendant?
If you like to play as the assassin-type, where you can deal burst damage from stealth, then Sharen would be the character and class you’re looking for in The First Descendant. While her basic rotation might not be complex, the difficulty in making her an effective damage-dealer will rely heavily on player strategy and execution. Moreover, her ability to disappear into stealth is her only skill that adds to her survivability. Sharen is a high-risk, high-reward character and likely shouldn’t be the first choice for beginners.
Who is Sharen? – Story
Sharen has long been a Descendant, fighting against the Vulgus on behalf of humanity. She has been training and fighting using her electric Arche abilities from a young age and is well acquainted with Ajax and Aisha. Moreover, she was an officer of Colon, an assassination force under direct command of the HQ.
One of Sharen’s most dangerous missions sent her out to assassinate Arculus, leader of the Vulgus Order of Truth. However, the scenario was orchestrated by the Vulgus themselves, and an ambush attack caused her great physical harm. It was a miracle that Sharen even survived, but she could rehabilitate thanks to the Magisters’ emergency prototype cyborg body. Furthermore, with technological advances, Sharen’s cyborg body has continued to receive upgrades since the original incident.
How to Play Sharen – Character Gameplay
Sharen is an assassin character in the First Descendant who uses her camouflage skills to move invisibly across the battlefield and deals serious burst damage when attacking from stealth. Her invisibility makes her highly mobile and gives her extra protection from targeted enemy attacks. Additionally, she can debuff enemies with a stun and deal Electrocution damage over time.
Much of Sharen’s gameplay loop will be going back and forth between Active Camouflage for invisibility, triggering Ambush State from stealth, and then killing again with another skill to reset the cooldown on Camouflage. Mixed in will be your basic attacks, the first of which deals an electric DoT and another which can inflict a stun on enemies.
Area Damage and Single-Target Damage: Sharen’s skills make her a single-target, burst damage type of character. Her only area of effect damage comes from her ultimate ability, which you will not trigger regularly. You want to prioritize her damage from stealth, along with her electric damage over time.
Movement and Speed: Sharen is a very mobile character who can move easily around the battlefield thanks to her ability to go invisible. She has no abilities that boost her speed, but it’s unnecessary when the enemy can’t see you to shoot at in the first place.
Bosses and Ultimates: Sharen’s regular burst damage can be very effective against bosses. However, her ultimate is a hybrid of AOE and DoT, and it’s not very effective at doing either.
Defenses and Survival Tips: Sharen’s survivability is built into her assassin abilities and her capacity for going invisible. Normally you’ll want to use Active Camouflage to deal damage from stealth. However, it can also be used when you’re in a tricky spot and need to distance yourself from an enemy.
How to Unlock Sharen in The First Descendant?
To unlock and play Sharen in The First Descendant, you must purchase her from the store or research her. Moreover, if you choose to purchase Sharen she will cost 600 Caliber, which is the premium currency. Otherwise, to craft Sharen, you will need:
- Sharen Enhanced Cells
- Flectrolite x292
- Reverse Charging Coil x455
- Pure Energy Residue x43
- Sharen Enhanced Cell Blueprint
- 200,000 Gold
- Sharen Stabilizer
- Superfluid x571
- Shape Memory Alloy x462
- Polyatomic Ion Particle x87
- Sharen Stabilizer Blueprint x1
- 200,000 Gold
- Sharen Spiral Catalyst
- Monad Shard x246
- Compound Coating Material x239
- Specialized Biometal x42
- Sharen Spiral Catalyst Blueprint x1
- Sharen Code
Finally, you must speak to Anais in the Albion Mountains area to craft Sharen. She will grant you access to the Research Institute, where you can choose to craft several additional descendant characters. Researching and crafting may wait several hours, so you may not get your desired character immediately.
Sharen Passive and Active Skills
All characters in The First Descendant have one passive skill, three active skills, and an ultimate to choose from.
- Passive skills: Passive buffs and bonuses are automatically applied or under certain conditions.
- Active and Ultimate skills: These are activated by a player (effects on demand) and vary by character. Each character has unique skills to match their role and playstyle.
When you play as the Sharen character or class in the First Descendant, you will strategically use the Active Camouflage skill to trigger invisibility, then attempt to kill an enemy from stealth to immediately activate Ambush. Furthermore, these synergize with her passive Assassinator. By killing an enemy in Ambush State by using one of her other skills, you reset the cooldown on Active Camouflage.
Passive Skill
Assassinator – In Ambush State, killing an enemy using a skill resets the Active Camouflage cooldown. This effect gains cooldown. When attacking, it increases damage against enemies who are not targeting the caster.
- Usage – You want to attack enemies that do not target you by either positioning or active camouflage. Always attack from the rear to take advantage and look for unsuspecting targets.
Active Skills
Cutoff Beam – Inflicts damage and Electrocution on the enemy in front with Cutoff Beam. Electrocution deals continuous damage at fixed intervals.
- Usage – your main single target damage ability with a low cooldown. Ideally, you open with this attack out of stealth to increase its damage.
Active Camouflage – hides self from enemy sight for a certain period of time. Attacking an enemy while in Active Camouflage state immediately ends Active Camouflage, but it activates Ambush and enables Sharen to deal more damage.
- Usage – longer cooldown with high MP cost, but camo for a while, and you want to use this to trigger your passive damage boost or to survive.
Impact Rounds – Fires built-in Impact Rounds from the arm forward, inflicting Stun.
- Usage – used for both aoe damage and a stun.
Ultimate Skill
Flash Shortsword – Creates multiple Shortswords and takes aim at a target. Pressing the skill button launches the Shortswords at the designated enemy, dealing AOE damage and inflicting Electrocution. Electrocution deals continuous damage at fixed intervals. The skill can be canceled while aiming without starting the cooldown by pressing the button.
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