The First Descendant: Blair Build & Best Loadout

Welcome to The First Descendant Blair Build Guide.

In this guide, we will explain how to create a powerful build for the Blair Descendant. We’ll cover how the skills work and which weapons, stats and modules you need to create the most powerful build for Blair. Visit The First Descendant Builds page for more TFD Character Builds.

He can clearly distinguish cooking from incineration. He enjoys cooking for his teammates.

Blair was a cook at the HQ. He was once ambushed by a bipedal Colossus brandishing fire while camping out in an operation site.

The campsite was set ablaze by the Colossus, but he ran into the storehouse to at least save some of the ingredients only to find himself trapped inside. His knees buckled under the intense heat and acrid smoke, and the ingredients in his arms started to burn even though they were yet to be touched by the nearby flames. Moments later, he regained consciousness and saw fierce flames rising from his hands.

Following the incident, he stuck a hand-drawn picture of the Colossus on his cabinet and trained harder than anyone else to become a Descendant. Even after finally becoming an official Descendant, he still loves to cook and is in charge of making snacks for his teammates.

Table of Contents:

• How to play Blair
• Skills Explanation
  • Blaze Up
  • Extinguish
  • Burn Taste
  • Deadly Cuisine
  • Pitmaster (Passive)
• Descendant Modules
• Best Weapons & Weapon Modules
• Reactor
• External Components
• Blair’s Story

Here is a quick list of the pros and cons of the Blair Build for The First Descendant.

How to Play Blair in the First Descendant

Blair is a fairly beginner-friendly Descendant in TFD because his skills are all simple and easy to use, and his passive is easily triggered by using these skills without giving it much active thought or strategy. That said, understanding how Blair’s skills and passives fit together obviously makes you better at playing him.

Blair’s combat style is centred around setting enemies ablaze, causing the Burn debuff to tick for extra damage over time and creating fire AoEs, which also deal damage over time to any enemies too close to the flames. Blair excels at dealing DPS to groups of enemies due to these skills.

Blair’s passive is called Pitmaster, and it rewards players with extra Critical Hit Chance for having Flame Zones active (the buff can stack up to three times for the maximum bonus), and you also get extra Critical Damage when you attack an enemy who is Burning. This passive incentivizes the proper use of Blair’s skills and emphasizes the importance of proactively finding ways to catch as many enemies as possible in Blair’s fire AOEs.

Once sufficiently levelled up, Blair can throw a giant fireball with the Deadly Cuisine skill. On impact, this fireball splits into three smaller fireballs, which fall nearby and explode. This skill not only activates all aspects of the Pitmaster passive, it also deals huge damage to groups of enemies and is pretty good against single-targets too. The large cooldown of this skill does mean that you shouldn’t be too wasteful with it when possible, but don’t be too afraid to use it, either.

We also ranked Blair’s kit and playstyle and added him to our The First Descendant Tier List – Best Characters.

The First Descendant Blair Skills Explained

In this section, we are going to explain the skills available to our Blair Build in the First Descendant, how each skill works and the best ways for you to use them.

Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Blaze Up	Spurts flame to deal damage to nearby enemies and creates a Burn Zone. Burn Zones inflict constant damage and Burn effect to nearby enemies.
	Extinguish	Retrieves Stoves in the battlefield and restores Mana. Retrieving Stoves increases DEF for a short period of time.
	Burn Taste	Spurts flames forward. Enemies near the flames’ arrival point are inflicted with constant damage and Burn effect.
	Deadly Cuisine	Throws a large fireball forward. Large fireball splits into small fireballs causing extra explosion. Explosion damage inflicts the Burn effect and creates a Burn Zone on the ground.
	Pitmaster (Passive)	Critical Hit Damage increases when attacking Burning enemies. Critical Hit Chance increases depending on the number of active Flame Zones.

Blaze Up

Spurts flame to deal damage to nearby enemies and creates Stove. Stove inflicts constant damage and Burn effect to nearby enemies.

Blaze Up Skill Description:

• Fire – Dimension
• Spews fire and creates a Flame Zone on the ground.
• Enemies that enter the Flame Zone receive continuous damage and are inflicted with Burn.

How to use Blaze Up:

Blaze Up is an AoE DoT (area of effect damage over time) skill. It is good when fighting against groups of enemies, as you’ll get much more value from the AoE, although it’s still worth using against a strong single target for extra damage. The damage from Blaze Up is rather tame – the true value of the skill is its ability to inflict Burn on many enemies at once, playing into the Blair’s Pitmaster passive for extra Critical Hit Damage. The skill will also spawn a Flame Zone, increasing your Critical Chance (also thanks to the Pitmaster passive).

Extinguish

Retrieves Stoves in the battlefield and restores Mana. Retrieving Stoves increases DEF for a short period of time.

Extinguish Description:

• Fire – Singular
• Retrieves the Flame Zones created on the battlefield and recovers MP in proportion to the amount retrieved.
• On retrieval, gain Taste of Aggression for a period of time.
• Taste of Aggression increases Firearm ATK and Skill Power.
• Flame Zones summoned earlier are retrieved first.

How to use Extinguish:

You can use Extinguish to “pack up” at the end of an engagement, retrieving your Flame Zones in return for MP recovery. Alternatively, you can use the skill at an opportune moment in combat (for example, if you have a good shot on a boss Weak Point) to gain a modest buff to Firearm ATK and Skill Power, provided you retrieve at least one Flame Zone.

Burn Taste

Spurts flames forward. Enemies near the flames’ arrival point are inflicted with constant damage and Burn effect.

Burn Taste Description:

• Fire – Dimension
• Emits flames forward, inflicting continuous damage and Burn upon enemies near the fire.

How to use Burn Taste:

Another AoE DoT attack, Burn Taste is essentially a flame breath attack that will hit enemies at close range in front of Blair. Use it alongside Blaze Up to inflict enemies with extra Burn damage. Unlike Blaze Up, Burn Taste does not create a Flame Zone.

However, the upside of this skill is that the main DoT (not the Burn effect) ticks very quickly, so it’s very good when you need a rapid burst of damage.

Deadly Cuisine

Throws a large fireball forward. Large fireball splits into small fireballs causing extra explosion. Explosion damage inflicts the Burn effect and creates a Burn Zone on the ground.

Deadly Cuisine Description:

• Fire – Dimension
• Fires a Giant Fireball forward.
• On explosion, the Giant Fireball inflicts AoE damage to nearby enemies and splits into multiple Small Fireballs, which create additional explosions.
• Small Fireballs deal AoE damage to enemies near the explosion site, inflicting Burn and creating a Flame Zone.

How to use Deadly Cuisine:

Deadly Cuisine is your most damaging skill when playing as Blair in TFD. It is great against both many and single targets (especially if the single target is large). It creates three Small Fireballs after the initial hit, which then explode. The Small Fireballs actually deal more damage than the large one. They also apply Burn and create a Flame Zone, dealing extra damage over time and playing into Blair’s Pitmaster passive for extra Critical Chance and Critical Damage.

This skill has a very long cooldown and is expensive, so try to use it wisely. But at the same time, don’t hold off on using it too much – if you barely ever use it because you’re too weary of the long cooldown, then you’ll end up just wasting the damage potential of the skill!

Pitmaster (Passive)

Critical Hit Damage increases when attacking Burning enemies. Critical Hit Chance increases depending on the number of active Flame Zones.

Pitmaster Passive Description:

• Fire
• When attacking enemies inflicted with Burn, increases Firearm and Skill Critical Hit Damage.
• Increases Critical Hit Rate based on the number of Flame Zones created on the battlefield.

How to use Pitmaster:

Pitmaster is a passive skill, which means it is always active. It incentivises you to make the most of Blair’s ability to set enemies alight and create Flame Zones, as doing so will buff his other Skills and firearm attacks with extra Critical Chance and Critical Damage. This passive is quite beginner friendly because it works quite well by itself, as Blair will often set enemies alight as long as you are using his Skills. To get the most out of the passive, ensure you set alight every enemy that you are fighting, and have three or more active Flame Zones as often as possible.

Descendant Modules for our Blair Build in TFD

In this section, we will explain the recommended Descendant Modules for this Blair Build in the First Descendant.

Important! When equipping Modules on Blair, make sure that as many modules as possible are in a slot with a matching icon (top left corner on tooltip). This will halve their Module Capacity Cost.

Your Module Capacity Cost limits how many modules you can equip, and can be upgraded as you level up your character. Different modules have a different Capacity Cost, which generally depends on how powerful the Module is. This is a balancing system to prevent players from only equipping the strongest modules and having a totally overpowered character.

Learn here How To Farm Modules in The First Descendant for your Blair Build. And learn here How to increase Module Capacity in The First Descendant for your Builds.

Blair Leveling Modules Setup

You should be able to get the following Blair Leveling Setup with approximately level 25-30. This is a good base setup to have before preparing to farm the max-level Blair Build for The First Descendant.

We recommend using the following modules:

• Increased Shield – Increases your Max Shield
• Fire Specialist – Increases the Skill Power of your Fire skills
• Skill Expansion – Increases the Effect Range of your skills
• Focus on Fire – Improves the Skill Power of your Fire Skills, and slightly reduces Skill Cooldowns
• Dual Claw – Changes your Sub Attack to a Dual Claw attack. Increases Max Module Capacity
• Increased DEF – Increases your DEF
• Increased HP – Increases your max HP
• Flexislot – You can put a module of your choice here, or leave it empty. You may want to use defensive modules tailored to certain situations.

Blair Max Level Modules Setup

We recommend using the following modules:

• Skill Range Mastery – Improves the Range of your Skills
• Increased Shield – Increases your Max Shield
• Fire Specialist – Increases the Skill Power of your Fire skills
• Skill Expansion – Increases the Effect Range of your skills
• Focus on Fire – Improves the Skill Power of your Fire Skills, and slightly reduces Skill Cooldowns
• Dual Claw – Changes your Sub Attack to a Dual Claw attack. Increases Max Module Capacity
• Willpower Efflux – Increases your DEF and slightly improves HP Heal
• Increased DEF – Increases your DEF
• Increased HP – Increases your max HP
• Technique Manual – Landing a skill deals a portion of your Max HP as extra damage to the target. 8 second Cooldown per target.
• Flexislot – You can put a module of your choice here, or leave it empty. You may want to use defensive modules tailored to certain situations.

Best Weapons & Weapon Mods for our TFD Blair Build

In this section, we will explain the best weapons for our TFD Blair Build and the ideal weapon mods for them. The Thunder Cage Submachine Gun is the only important weapon for our TFD Blair Build Loadout.

We recommend using the following weapon for Blair in the First Descendant:

Enduring Legacy – Machine Gun

Enduring Legacy is a powerful ultimate-tier machine gun that puts a debuff on enemies when you hit them, causing them to be weak to fire damage.

If you don’t have Enduring Legacy yet, you can use a different Machine Gun weapon and it won’t affect the build much.

This is a high DPS weapon with a quick fire-rate. It suits Blair’s Build very well in The First Descendant due to its great damage output, allowing you to add to the fire from your summoned turrets with your own rapid hail of bullets.

We are using the following weapons mods for the Enduring Legacy Weapon:

• Rapid Fire – Improves Fire Rate, but decreases Accuracy.
• Rifling Reinforcement – Significantly increases Firearm ATK.
• Action and Reaction – Significantly increases Firearm ATK, but also increases Recoil.
• Concentrate Support Ammo – More Rounds per Magazine, and improved Critical Hit Damage.
• Marksman – Considerably improves Firearm Critical Hit Rate, and slightly improves Firearm ATK.
• Fire Enhancement – Adds Fire ATK equal to a portion of Firearm ATK.
• Concentration Priority – Greatly increased Critical Hit Damage. Increased Reload Time.
• Concentrated Fire – Slightly improved Weak Point Damage, and increased Critical Hit Damage.

Nazeistra’s Devotion – Hand Cannon

Nazeistra’s Devotion is a great secondary weapon for the Blair Build. It works especially well if you’re good at aiming and are confident at hitting enemy Weak Points.

Hitting an enemy’s weakpoints with Nazeistra’s Devotion reduces their Defence by 30% for 3 seconds, indirectly buffing the damage of all of your attacks. A carefully-aimed shot from Nazeistra’s Devotion therefore makes for a great opener when fighting strong single targets.

Afterglow Sword – Sniper Rifle

Another great secondary weapon can help buff Blair’s damage if you hit enemy Weak Points. Hitting an enemy’s Weak Point with the Afterglow Sword will inflict Death Propagation, improving Weak Point Damage by 5% per stack. You’ll also get extra Critical Rate when hitting Commanders and Colossi with this weapon.

Please note that it’s perfectly fine to swap out the Hand Cannon or Sniper with a different weapon if you prefer something else; doing this won’t have any real impact on the build’s performance and is mostly a matter of personal preference.

Best Reactor Stats for Blair in The First Descendant

Your Reactor is a very important item that determines your skill damage and can also include extra modifiers that buff certain aspects of your build. The better your Reactor is, the more damage your skills will deal to enemies.

We recommend prioritizing using a Reactor with a high Skill Power and Sub Attack Power. Secondly, look out for a Reactor that buffs Fire and/or Dimension skills, as most of Blair’s damaging skills fall into these categories. After that, look out for Reactors with a boost to your Skill Critical Hit Damage, which will improve the amount of damage dealt when you land a critical hit.

One last thing to look out for is an Optimization Condition that you can easily fulfil with your Blair build. For example we have a Reactor that requires an equipped Sniper Rifle to meet the Optimization Condition. Meeting the condition increases the Skill Power of your reactor, so it’s important to meet this whenever possible.

External Components

Finally, we have the best External Components for the Blair build in the First Descendant.

With your External Components, you will be somewhat subject to RNG, at least until you’ve played the game for long enough to find basically every possible combination with good stat rolls.

In general, we recommend prioritizing components with the following stats:

• Max Shield
• Max HP
• HP Recovery
• DEF

Blair’s Story in The First Descendant

A chef who deals continuous damage and who manipulates fire.

Fresh vegetables, toast free of sawdust, savoury and thick soup, and a juicy, processed meat steak that has been perfectly matured and grilled. Such a meal would be considered excessive even during a festive period for the desperate members of humanity, but whenever this menu appeared at the mess hall, the troops were unable to hide their gloom. Known as “The Last Supper”, it was part of a military tradition where soldiers were fed this meal just before a dangerous operation.

As the best chef in Albion who has prepared the final meal for many years, Blair possessed an incredible talent for cooking which had even exempted him from conscription, but he no longer wished to cook for the military. After all, did his best cooking have any meaning for those who ate it with a heavy heart? Instead, Blair always wanted to be able to cook delicious meals for the troops who may be having their final meal on any given day, and he had a promising plan to realize this desire. If he could find and open the hyper-cold ingredients vault that had been designed a century ago, during humanity’s golden age, his plan would no longer be unachievable.

However, one day, there was an incident during which a Colossus had appeared above the ingredients vault which the Recon Squad had painstakingly discovered. After a failed intercept battle, the Colossus landed in Ingris and the nearby area was bathed in an infernal blaze. Hearing this, Blair followed the Descendants who had been deployed, only to find that the vault door had been twisted beyond imagination by the scorching heat and the ingredients within withering away in the flames. Stunned at this sight, Blair failed to realize that he had become the next target of the Colossus. Blair was engulfed in the flames that the Colossus spewed towards him, leading the Descendants present at the scene to believe this to be the end of Blair. It seemed that Albion’s greatest chef, full of dreams and romance, had met his demise.

However, their predictions would soon be proven wrong. A grappling hook shot out from the flames and lodged itself in the Colossus’ weak point, and Blair flew forward, bombarding the weak point with the fire emanating from both of his hands, and thus defeating the Colossus. In his moment of crisis, he had awakened as a Descendant.

After this, Blair found himself facing two choices: become a soldier as a Descendant, or remain a chef and continue to cook “The Last Supper”. Blair made the decision to become a Descendant. The reason: If he became a Descendant and incinerated all of the Vulgus, then “The Last Supper” would no longer need to be cooked.

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