If you’ve sunk 20+ hours into The First Descendant grinding missions, unlocking new characters, and maxing out your best gear, you’ve probably started asking how do you prestige in The First Descendant to unlock better rewards and push further into endgame content. I’ve prestiged 3 of my main descendants so far, and I made a ton of mistakes my first run that cost me almost a week of extra grind. This guide breaks down everything you need to know, from pre-requisites to post-prestige perks, so you don’t waste time on unnecessary steps that don’t move you closer to your goal.
What You Get From Prestiging a Descendant (Is It Worth It?)
A lot of new players avoid the prestige system because they worry they’ll lose all their hard-earned progress on a character they love. I was one of those players, so I put off my first prestige run for two weeks even after I hit the max level cap. The good news is the tradeoff is more than worth it for anyone who plans to stick around for endgame content. Prestiging is the only way to unlock the 10% global stat boost that applies to all your descendants, not just the one you prestiged. That means even your alternate characters will deal more damage and have higher health once you complete your first prestige.
You also get exclusive prestige-only skins, a higher mod capacity cap for the character you prestiged, and access to special Void Rift difficulty levels that drop rarer gear. You don’t lose any permanently unlocked cosmetics or account-wide progression when you prestige, so you don’t have to worry about losing that limited-edition skin you grinded 10 hours to get. The only temporary downside is you’ll have to re-level the character from level 1, but you’ll earn XP 30% faster for that character post-prestige to make the process smoother.
How Do You Prestige in The First Descendant: Exact Step-by-Step Process
The prestige process is pretty straightforward once you meet all the hidden pre-requisites, but a lot of players miss a step or two and get confused when the option doesn’t show up. First, you need to hit the current max level cap of 40 for the specific descendant you want to prestige. Next, you have to complete all 5 of that character’s personal story missions, which unlock gradually as you level them up.
You’ll also need to collect a specific set of resources: 500 Void Crystals, 100 Prestige Badges, and 1 Legendary Core. Once you have all those, head to the Descendant Terminal in the central hub of Albion, select the character you want to prestige, and the option will pop up at the bottom of the screen. Make sure you unequip all rare mods and gear from the descendant before you prestige, or they’ll be sent to your general storage and you’ll have to sort through hundreds of items to find them later. I made this mistake my first time, and I spent 45 minutes digging through storage trying to find my best damage mod for the character.
Fastest Ways to Farm Prestige Resources Without Burnout
Farming the required resources for prestige doesn’t have to take weeks if you focus on the right activities. I’ve tested almost every farming route in the game, and these three spots give the highest drop rate per hour of play, so you don’t have to grind for 8 hours a day to hit your goal.
- Void Rift Hard difficulty runs: Drop 15-20 Prestige Badges per clear, plus a 20% chance to get a Legendary Core if you finish the mission under 10 minutes. Most runs take 7-9 minutes with a decent squad, so you can farm 100 badges in less than an hour.
- Daily Resource Rush missions: Give 30-40 Void Crystals per run, and only take 3-5 minutes each if you run with a full squad. You can run 3 of these a day, so you’ll hit 500 Void Crystals in less than a week even if you only play an hour a day.
- Personal descendant repeat quests: Award bonus Prestige Badges for completing objectives specific to the descendant you’re planning to prestige. These also give extra XP for that character, so you can knock out two goals at once if you’re still leveling them up.
Running with a full 4-player squad cuts clear time in half for most farming missions, and gives a 15% resource drop bonus that stacks with any event boosts that are active. If you don’t have friends who play, you can use the in-game matchmaking for these missions, and most groups will be happy to have you as long as you meet the minimum gear score requirement. Avoid farming Void Crystals on normal difficulty, you’ll get 60% fewer drops for almost the same time investment, so it’s worth waiting until you have a high enough gear score to run hard difficulty instead.
Common Prestige Mistakes to Avoid for New Players
I made almost every possible mistake during my first prestige run, so I know exactly what pitfalls to watch out for. The biggest mistake I see new players make is prestiging a random descendant they don’t play often, just because they hit max level on them first. That’s a waste of resources, because you won’t get much use out of the character-specific perks, and you’ll have to grind to re-level a character you don’t even enjoy playing.
Another common mistake is not saving any XP caches before prestiging, so they’re stuck running low-level missions for hours to get their character back to a usable level. I keep 10-15 gold XP caches saved specifically for post-prestige leveling, so I can get my character back to level 30 in less than 30 minutes. Always prestige your most used main descendant first, since the stat boosts will make all your other gameplay easier even when you re-level them. You also want to make sure you don’t prestige right before a big endgame event, since you’ll be stuck with a low-level character and won’t be able to participate in the higher difficulty rewards until you re-level.
Now that you know how do you prestige in The First Descendant, you can skip the messy trial and error I went through on my first few runs. Take time to farm the right resources first, pick a descendant you actually enjoy playing, and don’t rush the process just to unlock the prestige badge early. The extra stat boosts and exclusive rewards are well worth the few days of grind, and you’ll notice a huge difference in your endgame performance once you finish your first prestige run. If you’re still stuck on any part of the process, you can always ask for help in the in-game community hub, most veteran players are happy to share their farming routes or squad up for resource runs.