If you’ve spent any time running Void Intercepts or farming resource caches in The First Descendant, you’ve probably hit a wall where you can’t access your favorite new descendant or high-tier mission because your rank is too low. I’ve been there too: I spent three days grinding the same low-level missions wondering why I was barely making progress, before I figured out the optimized path to level up fast. If you want to learn how to increase mastery rank in The First Descendant without wasting hours on pointless grind, this guide breaks down every proven method I’ve used to jump 12 ranks in less than a week.
Prioritize unleveled gear and descendants to speed up how to increase mastery rank in The First Descendant
Every time you level a new descendant or weapon from 1 to 40, you get way more mastery XP than re-leveling something you already maxed. Mastery XP is only awarded once per unique item or descendant level up, so that one-time bonus is the fastest way to gain ranks early on. A lot of new players make the mistake of sticking to their main and the one assault rifle they love, never touching the other guns or characters they get from random drops. That means you’re leaving thousands of easy mastery XP on the table every run.
Even if you don’t plan to use a shotgun or a support descendant long-term, slot them into your loadout for a few missions to earn those one-time XP gains. You don’t have to invest any rare resources or mods into the item to get the full XP reward, so there’s zero downside to testing out new gear for a couple runs. You don’t even have to use them actively: just have them equipped while you play with a partner, and you’ll still get XP for them as you complete objectives. I tested this myself when I was stuck at rank 17: I swapped my maxed-out main for a level 1 Gley and my go-to sniper for a level 1 grenade launcher, and I gained two full ranks in just two Void Chaser runs, no extra grind required.
Complete weekly and daily mastery challenges for guaranteed rank boosts
The in-game challenge tab has a rotating set of missions that give direct mastery XP rewards, not just regular loot or in-game currency. Weekly mastery challenges give 3 to 5 times more XP than standard mission rewards, so you should knock these out first before you do any casual grinding. Most of these challenges line up with activities you’re already doing, so you can stack rewards to cut your grind time in half. The highest-value challenges to prioritize every week include:
A lot of players skip these challenges because they think they’re too much work, but most take less than 20 minutes to finish if you plan ahead. For example, if you’re already running Void Intercepts to level a new shotgun, you can knock out both the weapon leveling and the weekly challenge in the same run, doubling your XP gain for the same time investment. Just remember to check the challenge tab first before you start your play session, so you can plan your loadouts and missions to stack as many rewards as possible.
Run high-difficulty group missions for accelerated XP gains
Solo missions are fine for casual play, but group missions on hard or very hard difficulty give a 120% XP boost for all players in the squad, plus extra loot drops that often include new weapons and descendants you can level for more mastery rank. You don’t need a pre-made group to take advantage of this either: the in-game matchmaking system works really well for most mid-tier missions, and most players are happy to carry a lower-level player as long as you contribute to objectives.
I used to avoid group missions because I thought I’d hold the team back, but I found that even if I was using a level 5 support character, I could still help heal the team and collect resources while they took down bosses, and I walked away with 3 times more XP than I would have gotten playing solo. One thing to note: don’t jump into the highest difficulty missions if you’re below rank 10, because you’ll get one-shot by most enemies and won’t be able to contribute at all. Stick to hard difficulty first, then move up to very hard once you have a few maxed weapons to use for support.
Avoid common grind mistakes that waste your time
Even if you’re following all the best strategies, small mistakes can slow down your rank progress by hours. The first mistake most players make is selling low-rarity weapons before they level them. Even a common white-grade pistol gives you mastery XP when you level it to 40, and it only takes two short missions to max it out. Never sell a new weapon or character until you’ve fully leveled it, even if you think it’s useless. The only exception is if you already have an identical copy of the same item that you’ve already maxed out, since you won’t get extra XP for leveling duplicates.
Another common mistake is grinding low-level missions over and over again. Once you can clear a mission on hard difficulty, there’s no reason to run it on normal anymore: you’ll get less XP, worse loot, and you’ll miss out on the higher difficulty challenge rewards. I made this mistake early on: I ran the same normal difficulty open world resource farm for two days, and I only gained one rank, when I could have run hard difficulty Void Chaser missions and gained three ranks in the same amount of time. The last mistake to avoid is ignoring open world XP collectibles. The resource caches and hidden lore items scattered across each open world zone give small amounts of mastery XP each, and if you pick them up while you’re doing other missions, you’ll gain extra rank progress without any extra work.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to spend 8 hours a day grinding to level up fast. The best way to get consistent progress is to plan your play sessions around stacking rewards: level unmaxed items while you complete weekly challenges, run group missions to get extra XP boosts, and skip the low-value activities that don’t move the needle. If you follow these steps, you’ll learn how to increase mastery rank in The First Descendant faster than you thought possible, and unlock all the endgame content, rare characters, and powerful mods you’ve been wanting. Just remember to take breaks every few runs – you don’t want to burn out before you get to the fun endgame content.