The First Descendant: Hailey Build & Best Loadout

Welcome to The First Descendant: Hailey Build & Best Loadout. In this guide, we will explain how to create a powerful build for the Hailey Descendant. We’ll cover how the skills work and which weapons, stats and modules you need to create the most powerful build for Hailey. Visit The First Descendant Builds page for more Builds.

All Hailey Build Setups are compatible with each other.

Table of Contents for the Hailey:

• How to play Hailey
• How to unlock Hailey
• Skills Explanation
• Modules – Important!
• Hailey Build Setups
  • Boss Setup
  • Farming Setup
  • Budget Setup
• Best Weapons
• Reactor
• External Components
• Smooth Grapple Hook
• Hailey’s Story

How to Play Hailey in the First Descendant

Hailey is best played as a pure single-target Descendant. Her sniper-based skills destroy anything in their path. However, you can also play her with a decent AoE farming setup. But obviously, Hailey won’t get close to the efficiency of a Bunny Farming Build. Therefore I recommend maxing her out for single-target only. All setups below are compatible in case you want to swap things around. I will also show you a basic Hailey Budget Build Setup.

Her third skill Cold Fury allows her to get insanely high crit chance without having to invest anything into it. This allows you to focus on maximizing damage with other mods. The only downside of using the third skill is that you get slowed down a bit, but it doesn’t matter when you can one-shot most bosses.

First, you need to have a good Sniper Rifle, preferably Percing Light, because her skills interact with your equipped weapon’s base damage. One thing to note is that any modifier mod isn’t important for Hailey, as she already has a sky-high modifier. You want to focus on increasing her skill power as much as possible, as seen in the Hailey Build Setups below.

Apart from that you should be able to hit weak points on bosses to really maximize damage.

How to Unlock Hailey in The First Descendant

Let’s look at how to unlock Hailey in the First Descendant. To unlock Hailey you have to purchase her from the store, or research her. You need the following items to research her:

• 1x Hailey Enhanced Cells
• 1x Hailey Stabilizer
• 1x Hailey Spiral Catalyst
• 1x Hailey Code
• 400k Credits

Note: Hailey acquisition is more difficult since you don’t need to farm Amorphous Materials but actual parts of items that are currently time-gated.

When you visit Magisters Anais at the Research Institute you can hover over each item. Then click on Acquisition Info and it will tell you where this specific item drops. You can view an in-depth guide here on How to get Hailey in The First Descendant.

Hailey Skills Explained

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

Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Cryo Rounds	Fires a Cryogenic Round at enemies in front to deal damage and inflict Cryo. Enemies inflicted with Cryo receive additional damage from firearm attack.
	Storm Snare	Fires a glacial beam at an enemy to deal powerful damage and inflict Cryo. Inflicts Knockback and Flash Freezing to nearby enemies.
	Cold Fury	Grants Cold Fury to Hailey. This effect gradually stacks. The more it stacks, the more Movement Speed decreases and Critical Hit Rate for firearms and skills increases. Becomes immune to Knockdown while the effect is active.
	Zenith	Equips her Unique Weapon. When hitting an enemy with the Unique Weapon, deals additional Chill skill damage with greatly increased Penetration. Recovers a portion of MP upon successfully attacking Weak Points, and partially decreases the Cooldown when the skill ends depending on the number of fired bullets.
	Safe Strategic Retreat (Passive)	Firearm Weak Point Damage increases when Hailey is further away from enemies, but decreases when she approaches them.

Cryo Rounds

Cryo Rounds itself isn’t a strong skill. However, it allows us to get the Cryo stacks to 9, which will benefit our other skills. By having Cryo max stacks, we will get additional shots from other skills that benefit from the 50% damage buff that we add with our Storm Snare skill.

Storm Snare

Storm Snare deals insane damage to the target and adds the Cryo effect to the target (max 9 stacks), which gives us a 50% damage increase on our target as long as stacks are active. Each successful hit on the target will remove a Cryo stack.

Cold Fury

Cold Fury increases our Crit Hit Rate to insane levels (this is also the reason why we don’t have any Crit Hit Rate mods). This skill costs quite a bit and slows you down. Best to use this if fighting against high level targets only.

Zenith

Zenith is our main single-target damage skill. It deals insane damage especially if set up correctly with the other skills that give you higher Crit Hit Rate and the 50% damage increase. Zenith is also affected by what weapon you use. With the correct weapon we will deal way more damage (Base Damage = Same as Equipped Weapon) and also extend our magazine from 4 to 8 shots!

We use the Piercing Light Sniper Rifle because it has the highest base Firearm ATK.

Safe Strategic Retreat (Passive)

This passive allows us to deal more damage to the Weak Point of an enemy if we stand further away from the target!

How Modules Work in The First Descendant

Modules in The First Descendant are the bread and butter of all Descendant Builds. There are a few important things to remember about modules. This is for both Descendant and Weapon Modules.

While most builds require you to increase Module Capacity with an Energy Activator (you get two for free), they won’t require you to reduce the Module cost with Crystallization Catalyst. However, if you want to truly min-max a build, you will need plenty.

1. How to increase your Module Capacity
2. Module Levels and Cost
   1. Kuiper Shards & best way to farm!
3. Reduce the cost of Modules
4. How to farm Modules

How to Increase Module Capacity

You get a base of 45 Modules for every Descendant character. And you can increase this up to 85 currently. First off, always slot a Sub Attack Module (Slot 7). When you increase this to the max level you will get an additional 10 Module Capacity. if you use a Crystallization Catalyst on the Sub Attack Module, you even get 15 extra slots. You will see this in the setup below.

Additionally, you can use an Energy Activator to increase your Module Capacity by another 20. However, these are fairly hard to farm, only use them on your best Descendants.

Lastly, increasing your Mastery Rank will also increase Module Capacity. Rank 1 gives you 25 Module Capacity, Rank 20 gives you 50 Module Capacity. That is how we reach the 80 Module Capacity that you see on most builds.

1. Slot a Sub Attack Module (and max it out to get +10 capacity, crystallize it for +15)
2. Use an Energy Activator (2o extra capacity)
3. Increase Mastery Rank (25 base capacity, max 50)

Weapons: Basically the same, but because you don’t have Subattack Modules, the Energy Activator gives you 30 instead of just 20 extra capacity.

You can also read my in-depth guide on how to increase Module Capacity in The First Descendant if you need more information. Or my Best Energy Activator Farm Spots and our Best Crystallization Catalyst Farm Spots. I tested all of the grind spots by myself and have already farmed plenty of these items with this method.

Module Levels and Cost

Modules can be enhanced (leveled up) with Kuiper Shards in The First Descendant. Enhancing Modules increases their power. At higher levels, the power will increase way more than at lower levels. Therefore it is always recommended to max out the most important Module first.

Here is an example of a must-have Module called Increased HP for our Descendant. You will notice that we start at 22%, but at the max level, we get a whopping 218.5% increase in health!

Transcendent Modules are the exception; they decrease Capacity Cost with higher levels!

For an in-depth overview, please visit our How to Level Up Modules in The First Descendant guide.

How to Farm Kuiper Shards

Kuiper Shards are used to level up Modules. We have a guide on the Top 3 Kuiper Shard Farming Locations in the First Descendant. We explain how to most efficiently farm Kuiper Shards (300-500k/hour) and show the amount you need to level up mods. As a summary, to max out a Module you need:

• Normal Modules: 103’100 Kuiper Shards
• Rare Modules: 206’200 Kuiper Shards
• Ultimate Modules: 309’300 Kuiper Shards
• Transcendent Modules: 515’500 Kuiper Shards

Always max out the most important Modules first, we will showcase the order below.

How to Reduce the Cost of Modules

To reduce the cost of Modules you need Crystallization Catalysts in The First Descendant. These require a lot of time investment, most builds won’t require you to get many if any at all (Budget Setup). But if you want to completely min-max you need to get plenty of them as technically, every slot can have a specific socket type to half the cost.

Modules have Socket Types. Our Increased HP Module has the Cerulean Socket Type.

• Module: Increased HP
• Socket Type: Cerulean

This is important because if we place our Increased HP Module in the fitting Socket Type, it will half the cost of the Module!

How to farm Modules

Most Modules can be acquired fairly easily, but the higher-quality ones (Ultimate, Transcendent) are more tedious to obtain. Here is the easiest process to farm Modules quickly.

Open Map > Swap to Access Info > Select Modules

Here, you can find all Modules and their drop locations. If a module drops from several locations, it is recommended to select drop locations with higher drop chances.

There isn’t really much more to this. Simply check the location and go farm. Normal and Rare quality Modules have 30-50% drop chances in most cases. Ultimate ones range around the 5% mark and Transcendent ones can be a tough cookie with around 2% drop chance.

We will list the best farming location of modules in the next step of the guide.

Best Hailey Build Setups for The First Descendant

In this section, we are going to look at the different best Hailey Build Setups for The First Descendant. I will show you an optimized Boss DPS and AoE Farming setup and a Budget setup. The optimized setups require a lot of Crystallizations. The Budget setup requires none.

All setups require you to have used your Energy Activator to increase the Module Capacity. Here are the Top 3 Kuiper Shard farm spots, you will need plenty to upgrade all Modules!

• Hailey Boss Build: Skill-based damage
• Hailey Farming Build: Skill and Weapon-based damage
• Hailey Budget Build: Starter setup
• Note: All Builds are compatible with each other

How to get Modules: Read the Module Farming section.

85 Module Capacity How? Read the basics Module section.

Hailey Boss Build

The Hailey Boss Build is focused on max single-target damage while also being able to stay alive easily. To get the maximum out of Hailey’s skill damage, you need to have a good Piercing Light sniper rifle setup and a good reactor.

Hailey Boss Modules Explanation:

• HP Amplification: + Max HP, – Max Shield
• Chill Specialist: + Chill Skill Power
• Dangerous Ambush: More damage against Bosses
• Spear and Shield: + Def, + Skill Power
• Skill Concentration: + Skill Critical Hit Damage
• Mid-Air Maneuvering: With this you can grapple even air!
• Increased DEF: + DEF
• Front Lines: + Skill Critical hit Damage and Critical Hit Hite
• Singular Specialist: + Singular Skill Power Modifier
• Nimble Fingers: – Skill Cooldown
• Glacial Syncytium: + Critical Hit Resistance, + Chill Skill Power

Slot	Module	Mod Level	Socket Type	Crystallized
1 (Skill Module)	Empty
2	HP Amplification	Max	Cerulean	Yes
3	Chill Specialist	Max	Cerulean	Yes
4	Dangerous Ambush	Max	Xantic	Yes
5	Spear and Shield	Max	Rutile	Yes
6	Skill Concentration	Max	Almandine	Yes
7 (Sub Module)	Mid-Air Maneuvering	Max	Malachite	Yes
8	Increased DEF	Max	Rutile	Yes
9	Front Lines	Max	Almandine	Yes
10	Singular Specialist	Max	Rutile	Yes
11	Nimble Fingers	Max	Rutile	Yes
12	Glacial Syncytium	Max	Almandine	No

AoE Farming Hailey Build

The Farming Build for Hailey in The First Descendant focuses on mostly the third and first skill. The build itself is built around our weapon Thunder Cage. The third skill boosts our weapon critical hit to almost a 100%, increasing damage tremendously. The first skill can be used to get 50% more damage on tougher enemies.

Budget Hailey Build

If you are just starting you can use this Hailey Budget Build to start with in The First Descendant.

Best Weapons for the Hailey Build in The First Descendant

Our The First Descendant Hailey’s best weapon is the Piercing Light Sniper Rifle that we use in boss fights. The reason being her skills are heavily influenced by what weapon you use. For example with the right mods you can double the amount of bullets from her fourth skill Zenith. We use Piercing Light over Afterglow because Piercing Light has a higher base firearm ATK value which is important for our skills damage.

As a secondary boss weapon you want to use Enduring Legacy to maximize damage if the boss doesn’t instantly die.

And like always, for farming I recommend the Thunder Cage weapon.

• Piercing Light (Boss Primary)
• Enduring Legacy (Boss)
• Thunder Cage (Farming)

Piercing Light Build Setup

The Piercing Light is the best sniper rifle for Hailey because it has the highest base Firearm ATK in the game. This is important because Hailey’s skills scale of the weapons Firearm ATK. So you could use another weapon but you would deal less damage because other weapons often have lower Firearm ATK.

Piercing Light Modules Explanation:

• Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
• Better Concentration: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Weak Point Sight: + Weak Point Damage
• Weak Point Expansion: + Weak Point Damage
• Maximize Weight Balance: + Rounds per Magazine
• Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
• Better Insight: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate
• Focus Fire: + Weak Point Damage, + Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Concentration Priority: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage, – Reload Time Modifier
• Expand Weapon Charge: + Rounds per Magazine

Slot	Module	Mod Level	Socket Type	Crystallized
1	Rifling Reinforcement	Max	Malachite	Yes
2	Better Concentration	Max	Almandine	Yes
3	Weak Point Sight	Max	Malachite	Yes
4	Weak Point Expansion	Max	Malachite	Yes
5	Maximize Weight Balance	Max	Cerulean	Yes
6	Action and Reaction	Max	Malachite	Yes
7	Better Insight	Max	Almandine	Yes
8	Focus Fire	Max	Malachite	Yes
9	Concentration Priority	Max	Almandine	Yes
10	Expand Weapon Charge	Max	Cerulean	Yes

Stats you want for Piercing Light:

• Weak Point Damage
• Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Bonus Firearm ATK (vs Colossus)
• Firearm ATK

Enduring Legacy Build Setup

Enduring Legacy is one of the most powerful weapons in The First Descendant. It is best built with a high crit rate and crit damage as well as a focus on Fire ATK due to its unique ability that lowers the enemy’s Fire Resistance. It is recommended to get the unique ability to max stacks. That means you will have to farm 5 copies of this weapon (1x + 4x to absorb).

How to get Enduring Legacy in The First Descendant.

You can also use Mental Focus instead of Sharp Precision Shot if you prefer that. However, in my experience, Mental Focus is only better if you can always unload the full magazine without interruption. And because that almost never happens, I prefer Sharp Precision Shot because you can build max stacks back faster.

Enduring Legacy Modules Explanation:

• Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
• Fire Rate UP: + Fire Rate
• Better Insight: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate
• Better Concentration: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Expand Weapon Charge: + Rounds per Magazine
• Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
• Fire Priority: + Fire ATK, – Reload Time Modifier
• Concentration Priority: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage, – Reload Time Modifier
• Fire Enhancement: Adds Fire ATK equal to 30% of Firearm ATK
• Sharp Precision Shot: – Fire Rate. While pulling the trigger, + Fire Rare, – Recoil and Firearm ATK +6% every 0.5s, max 10 stacks.

Slot	Module	Mod Level	Socket Type	Crystallized
1	Rifling Reinforcement	Max	Malachite	Yes
2	Fire Rate UP	Max	Xantic	Yes
3	Better Insight	Max	Almandine	Yes
4	Better Concentration	Max	Almandine	Yes
5	Expand Weapon Charge	Max	Cerulean	Yes
6	Action and Reaction	Max	Malachite	Yes
7	Fire Priority	Max	Almandine	Yes
8	Concentration Priority	Max	Almandine	Yes
9	Fire Enhancement	Max	Almandine	Yes
10	Sharp Precision Shot	Max	Xantic	Yes

The best stats you can pick for Enduring Legacy are the following below, anything from blue to gold quality will do just fine.

• Firearm ATK
• Fire ATK
• Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Cirearm Critical Hit Rate

Best Thunder Cage Build Setup

This is a high crit rate setup for the Thunder Cage. Thunder Cage has a unique ability that deals massive AoE damage. You can use this both for farming and bossing if you don’t have any other weapons yet. Thunder Cage is already powerful without maxing out its unique ability.

Thunder Cage Modules Explanation:

• Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
• Fire Rate UP: + Fire Rate
• Electric/Chill/Fire/Toxic Enhancement: Adds Elemental Damage Equal to 30% of Firearm ATK
• Edging Shot: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate, – Firearm ATK
• Firing Fiesta: When reloading, rounds are not consumed for a short duration
• Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
• Better Concentration: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage
• Better Insight: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate
• Concentration Priority: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage, – Reload Time Modifier
• Expand Weapon Charge: + Rounds per Magazine

Slot	Module	Mod Level	Socket Type	Crystallized
1	Rifling Reinforcement	Max	Malachite	Yes
2	Fire Rate UP	Max	Xantic	Yes
3	Electric Enhancement	Max	Xantic	Yes
4	Edging Shot	Max	Almandine	Yes
5	Firing Fiesta	5/10	Xantic	No
6	Action and Reaction	Max	Malachite	Yes
7	Better Concentration	Max	Almandine	Yes
8	Better Insight	Max	Almandine	Yes
9	Concentration Priority	Max	Almandine	Yes
10	Expand Weapon Charge	Max	Cerulean	Yes

Budget Thunder Cage

This here is the Thunder Cage Budget setup that won’t require any Crystallization Catalysts. However, it requires an Energy Activator to reach the 80 Module Capacity.

Thunder Cage Budget Modules Explanation:

• Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
• Fire Rate UP: + Fire Rate
• Firing Fiesta: When reloading, rounds are not consumed for a short duration
• Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
• Concentration Priority: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage, – Reload Time Modifier
• Expand Weapon Charge: + Rounds per Magazine

Slot	Module	Mod Level	Socket Type	Crystallized
1	Rifling Reinforcement	Max	Malachite	No
2	Fire Rate UP	Max	Xantic	No
3	Empty
4	Empty
5	Firing Fiesta	Max	Xantic	No
6	Action and Reaction	Max	Malachite	No
7	Empty
8	Empty
9	Concentration Priority	Max	Almandine	No
10	Expanded Weapon Charge	Max	Cerulean	No

Best Reactor for Hailey 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 Hailey build. The better your Reactor is, the more damage your skills will deal to enemies.

The name of a reactor can be determined by the following. For example a reactor with the name Frozen in it means it is good for anything that deals Chill damage.

The First Descendant Hailey’s attribute is Chill and her skills use the following types:

• Singular (Storm Snare, Zenith)
• Dimension (Cryo Rounds, Cold Fury)

Our primary damage skills are Storm Snare and Zenith. That means you want to get a Frozen Singular Reactor.

Optimal stats to get for the Frozen Singular Reactor:

• Singular Skill Power Boost
• Chill Skill Power Boost
• Skill Critical Hit Damage

How to find the Location of Reactors

Reactor drop locations change every day. Not many players know this. Now there is a reactor search function in-game. Go to the map and press on Difficulty Level Rewards. Here, you can see where all the reactors have dropped.

Note: It is possible that no such reactors drop currently. Come back here every day and check if one drops.

If our specified reactor drops in an area, you go there and farm missions and monsters. There will be plenty of reactors dropping from monsters all over the place, any monster works.

In our example, we can actually farm them in the Muskeg Swamp area today. This changes every week, therefore always check this.

External Components

Finally, we have the best External Components for the Hailey Build in the First Descendant.

The best External Components set that works with the Hailey Build is the Slayer Set. It drops on Pyromaniac hard difficulty. If you can’t get this yet, don’t worry too much about it; just use what you already have. The set gives us even more ammo and Skill Power.

It is important to stack as many DEF and HP stats as possible, that will increase our survivability by a lot. Therefore, if you don’t have any Slayer components that have this, I recommend swapping to random external components with good HP/DEF if you fight against Colossus.

Smooth Grapple Hook for your Build

Using the standard Grapple Hook in The First Descendant can be a pain, and it feels kinda frustrating at times. Don’t worry, there is a way better alternative that will make it a joy to use the grappling hook!

It is called the Mid-Air Maneuvering Sub Module. I use this on all my The First Descendant Builds because it improves grappling by so much.

With this Module, you can attach your Grapple Hook to anything, even air! That means you can simply aim towards the sky and Hook up your grapple hook there for guaranteed fast movement!

Here is a guide on how to get the Mid-Air Maneuvering Sub Module in The First Descendant. It won’t take a lot of effort, but it will definitely improve your build and overall gameplay in The First Descendant.

Hailey’s Story in The First Descendant

“Take out every enemy in every mission, and everyone returns alive.”

The 33rd Sniper Squad’s operational mantra has never been followed, since the reality is that half of the unit is KIA in every operation. Perhaps that is why rumors of jinxes began to spread throughout the unit. The first, missions always go wrong. The second, someone will always be detected, and they’ll always die. The exact opposite of their operational mantra. These chilling jinxes also reached the ears of the youngest member of the unit, Hailey Scott.

Hoping that these jinxes could be broken, Hailey’s 33rd Sniper Squad and the 16th Recon Squad headed out to the Snowfields in search of the Vulgus Fortress. Thanks to the Recon Squad’s efforts, Hailey and her sniper squad were able to set up a vantage point and wait at a good location. Now all they had to do was launch a reconnaissance stealth drone. But here was when the first jinx struck. The Vulgus troops, who were armed with thermal sensors that could easily detect human body temperatures, spotted them. The Vulgus immediately pinpointed the Recon Squad’s location and began attacking them. Hailey and her sniper squad quickly pointed their rifles at the enemy and waited for their targets to walk into the crosshairs amid the ensuing chaos.

“Ugh…! 33rd Sniper Squad… cease fire and retreat! RUN!”

Hailey couldn’t believe her ears. She couldn’t turn her back on her allies who were still alive and fighting to the bitter end. This wasn’t what she became a soldier for. She’d never disobeyed her superiors before, but this time, she decided, she would. Hailey straightened her position, closed her eyes, and recited the operational mantra like a prayer.

“Take out every enemy in every mission, and everyone returns alive.”

“Hit every enemy locked in the crosshairs. And we’ll all return alive.”

After a few deep breaths that dispersed in the wind, Hailey opened her eyes calmly. Her icy cold eyes locked on the enemy with pinpoint precision. Even the sounds around her seemed to be frozen. One shot, then another shot. Each time Haley squeezed the trigger, an enemy crumbled like bent grass. The enemies panicked and turned up their thermal sensors, but they couldn’t find her. And so, the Vulgus forces were wiped out by a single unseen sniper. Not only was it a victory, but it was also the moment when the squad’s operational mantra, which had never been achieved, was finally accomplished by Hailey, their youngest member. When asked by her superiors how it felt to be the exception to the rule, she smiled and said, “I’m happy. It happened just like our operational mantra says.” With that, everyone including Hailey who was deployed in the operation managed to return safe and sound.

Upon reviewing the operation report, HQ wondered how Hailey was able to snipe so many Vulgus without being detected by their thermal sensors. Even if her body temperature did drop, it wouldn’t have been low enough to evade detection by the thermal sensors. It didn’t make sense unless she had Arche. Eventually, Hailey was tested for an Arche factor, and was found to have ‘Supercooling Arche’ abilities that enable her to drop her body temperature to extreme levels and fire Arche clusters instead of bullets. So, Hailey left the sniper squad that she had grown so fond of and officially became a Descendant. But even as a Descendant, Hailey vowed to keep the legend alive, still reciting the 33rd Sniper Squad’s operational mantra.

“Take out every enemy in every mission, and everyone returns alive.”

Related Content:

• The First Descendant Builds Database
• The First Descendant Character Tier List
• The First Descendant Best Characters – Top 3