If you’ve ever spent 45 minutes grinding the same void mission only to walk away with barely any weapon XP for your new legendary shotgun, you know how frustrating slow gun progression can feel in The First Descendant. I’ve put over 120 hours into the game, and I used to waste so much time running the wrong missions, equipping bad XP boosters, and grouping with players that tanked my XP gains. Today I’m breaking down exactly how to level up guns in The First Descendant without the mind-numbing grind, so you can get that maxed-out damage bonus and mod slots faster.
How to Level Up Guns in The First Descendant With Smart Mission Selection
The biggest mistake new players make is running random story or side missions to level their weapons, because these missions have low enemy density and tiny XP completion bonuses. Your best bet for fast gains is picking mission types built for XP farming, paired with enemy types that are weak to your weapon’s damage type to cut kill time down drastically.
Void Intercept missions on hard difficulty give 3x base weapon XP compared to standard story missions, thanks to their non-stop wave spawns and large end-of-mission XP bonuses. For example, if you’re leveling a fire damage shotgun, pick Void Intercept missions focused on infested enemies, which take 20% extra fire damage and let you one-shot most mobs without reloading. I used to get 2k XP per random story run, and now I pull 12k per 10-minute Void Intercept run just by matching my weapon to the mission’s enemy type.
You can also skip open-world exploration for weapon leveling, even if you see a lot of enemy camps scattered across the map. Open world kills give 50% less XP than mission kills, so you’re better off sticking to structured missions if you want to level fast.
Optimize Your Loadout and Group Composition for Max XP Gains
Even if you pick the right mission, a bad loadout or uncoordinated group can cut your XP gains in half. The first thing you want to do is stack your XP boosters correctly, because they multiply rather than add together for massive extra gains.
Always stack a permanent weapon XP booster with a temporary event booster if available – a 20% permanent booster plus a 50% event booster gives you 80% extra XP total, not 70%, which makes a huge difference over a long farming session. If you don’t have paid boosters, you can earn 10% temporary XP boosters from daily login rewards and hidden chests in mission maps.
When it comes to group play, you don’t have to play solo to get great XP. Playing with 1 other person gives both players 80% of the kill XP per kill, so you’re getting more total XP per minute if you both use coordinated builds to kill faster. If you play with 3 other people, that number drops to 60% per player, so stick to duos or trios for the best balance of speed and XP gains. Make these small loadout tweaks to squeeze even more XP out of every run:
Use XP Farming Rotations That Cut Grind Time in Half
Once you have your loadout and mission type sorted, sticking to a consistent farming rotation will help you avoid wasting time between runs and get the most out of your booster timers. My go-to rotation for all weapon types is the Coastal Supply Run on hard difficulty, which I’ve used to level over 20 different guns to max rank.
This mission has 6 waves of low-armor enemies that spawn in tight clusters, so even unleveled guns can get fast kills if you pair them with a supportive descendant like Viessa, whose frost slow makes all enemies take extra damage. The whole run takes roughly 8 minutes, and gives between 11k and 14k weapon XP per run with a booster active, which adds up to almost 100k XP per hour. That’s 3x faster than the XP you’ll get from random mission queues.
You can reset the mission immediately after the final wave ends without returning to the lobby to keep your booster active – this is a pro trick most players don’t know, and it saves you 2-3 minutes of loading time per run. Don’t waste time looting every chest during farming runs either, unless you see a chest that drops extra XP boosters. Looting adds extra time for minimal gain, and you’ll get more rewards overall by running more missions faster.
Avoid Common Mistakes That Waste Weapon XP
Even if you follow all the tips above, small mistakes can slow down your progression by hours. The most common myth I see new players believe is that you can swap to an unleveled gun right before the mission ends to get full XP for it, but that’s not how the game’s XP system works.
You need to have your unleveled gun equipped for at least 70% of the mission to get the full completion XP bonus, so you can’t just use your maxed out legendary for the whole run and swap last minute. You can still use a stronger gun for tough boss fights, just make sure you swap back to your unleveled gun as soon as the boss is dead to keep your equipped time high enough.
Another common mistake is running missions way above your current power level for extra XP. Higher level enemies do give slightly more XP per kill, but that gain is completely erased if you’re spending 10 bullets to kill one enemy instead of 2, or dying every two minutes and waiting for respawns. I made this mistake early on, running Nightmare difficulty missions to level a new rifle, and I was getting less than half the XP I got on Hard difficulty because I spent more time dead than killing enemies.
Finally, don’t scrap an unleveled gun just because you don’t like using it. Every gun you max out gives a permanent account-wide damage bonus for that weapon type, so even if you never touch the shotgun again after leveling it, you’ll get a 2% damage boost for all shotguns you use in the future. It’s worth leveling every gun you get at least once, even if you only use it for farming runs.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to spend 10 hours a day grinding to get your favorite guns to max rank. With the right mission picks, loadout tweaks, and a little bit of planning, you can cut your grind time by more than half. Now that you know how to level up guns in The First Descendant, jump into your next mission and test out these tips – you’ll be shocked how fast that XP bar fills up when you’re doing it right.