If you’ve spent hours running missions in The First Descendant and hit a wall with your mastery rank progress, you’re far from alone. I spent my first 20 hours with the game grinding the same low-tier void missions over and over, confused why I was barely gaining a quarter of a rank per play session. It wasn’t until I talked to a group of veteran players and tested different strategies for another 30 hours that I figured out what actually moves the needle for rank progress. If you’re stuck trying to figure out how to raise mastery rank the first descendant, this guide breaks down all the tested, low-effort strategies I used to jump 7 ranks in less than a week, no mindless grind required.
Understand What Actually Counts Toward Mastery Rank Progress
Most new players assume mastery rank only goes up when you clear missions, but that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about the progression system. Mastery rank is account-wide, so progress you make on any character, module, or collectible carries over to your entire roster permanently. That means you don’t have to stick to your main character to make progress, even playing a random Descendant you unlocked for fun can move your rank bar forward. The system is designed to reward you for exploring all parts of the game, not just grinding the same content you already know you like.
It’s also important to note that first-time completions give far more mastery XP than repeat runs. You’ll get a huge chunk of XP the first time you clear a new mission difficulty, unlock a new Descendant, or add a new module to your collection, but repeat runs of that same content give a tiny fraction of that reward. That’s why so many players get stuck at the same rank for days: they’re running the same easy mission 20 times in a row, when they could get the same amount of XP from one first clear of a higher difficulty tier.
Core Activities That Directly Help You Raise Mastery Rank in The First Descendant
Once you know what counts toward progress, you can focus your playtime on the activities that give the biggest XP payout for the least amount of effort. I’ve tested all of these personally, and these are the only activities I prioritize now when I’m working on ranking up. None of them require you to have perfect gear or a full squad of meta characters, either, so they work for new and mid-game players alike.
These are the four highest-yield activities for mastery rank gains, in order of how much effort they take relative to the reward:
You don’t have to do all of these activities every time you play. If you hate grinding for Descendant unlock materials, focus on module upgrades and challenge clears instead. If you love testing new characters, unlocking and leveling Descendants will feel like fun, not grind, and you’ll rank up without even trying. I personally focused on unlocking every common and rare Descendant first, and I jumped 3 full mastery ranks in 2 days doing that, no extra grind required.
Avoid These Common Mistakes That Slow Down Mastery Rank Progress
Even if you’re doing the right activities, small mistakes can cut your rank progress in half without you even noticing. I made almost all of these mistakes in my first month of playing, and fixing them instantly doubled how fast I was ranking up. Most of these mistakes come from common advice new players hear about optimizing for endgame gear, which actually works against you when you’re trying to raise your mastery rank.
Don’t waste time grinding the same low-tier mission on repeat. I see so many new players running the first void intercept mission 20 times a day to get low-tier upgrade materials, but this gives almost no mastery XP once you’ve cleared it for the first time. You’re far better off pushing to a higher difficulty tier, even if it takes twice as long per run, because the first clear XP bonus is worth 10+ runs of the lower tier.
Don’t ignore low-rarity modules and characters. A lot of players trash common and uncommon modules as soon as they get rare ones, and skip unlocking common Descendants because they’re not “meta”. But each of these small unlocks and upgrades gives a tiny chunk of XP that adds up to full rank ups over time. I unlocked 4 common Descendants I had ignored and upgraded all their base modules, and gained almost an entire rank for less than an hour of effort.
Don’t hoard upgrade materials for “perfect” modules. It’s tempting to save all your upgrade materials for a legendary module with perfect stats, but you can always re-roll module stats later, and upgrading any module to max gives you immediate mastery XP that you don’t have to wait for. I hoarded 600 module upgrade materials for a month waiting for a legendary crit damage module, and when I finally spent them on random modules I already had, I gained an entire mastery rank instantly.
Optimize Your Play Sessions to Maximize Mastery Rank Gains
You don’t have to play 10 hours a day to rank up fast. I only have 2-3 hours a day to play, and I was still able to hit max mastery rank in less than 3 weeks by optimizing my play sessions to cut out wasted time. These small tweaks take almost no extra effort, but they add up to huge gains over time.
Stack daily and weekly challenges before you start a play session. Before I load into any mission, I spend 2 minutes checking my daily and weekly challenges to see which ones overlap. For example, if I have a challenge to defeat 50 robotic enemies and clear 2 void intercept missions, I pick a void intercept mission that has lots of robotic enemies, so I finish both challenges in 2 runs instead of 5. This cuts my playtime in half for the same amount of mastery XP.
Play with a small group when you’re pushing higher difficulty tiers. You don’t need a full 4-person squad of meta players to clear higher difficulty missions, but 1-2 other players let you clear them 2x as fast as you would solo, so you get the first-clear mastery XP bonus much faster. I usually play with one friend who plays a support Descendant, and we can clear difficulty 4 void missions almost as fast as we can clear difficulty 2 ones solo.
Spend 10 minutes at the end of each play session cleaning up small progression tasks. Instead of logging off right after your last mission, take 10 minutes to level up a low-level Descendant you don’t use, upgrade a few modules you’ve been ignoring, or turn in codex entries you’ve unlocked. These small tasks take almost no time, but they add up to huge mastery gains over a few weeks. I do this every time I play, and I usually gain at least a quarter of a rank every week just from these 10-minute sessions.
If you have extra time, you can also work on filling out your codex by scanning new enemies and collectibles. Each new codex entry gives a small chunk of mastery XP, and you’ll often unlock codex entries naturally while you’re running missions, so you don’t have to go out of your way to find them.
At the end of the day, raising your mastery rank doesn’t have to mean 12-hour grind sessions that leave you burnt out. The tips above are all tested from dozens of hours of play, and they work even if you only have 1-2 hours a day to play the game. Once you stop focusing on mindless grind and start targeting the high-yield activities we covered, you’ll be shocked how fast you hit the rank thresholds you’re aiming for. If you’ve been struggling with how to raise mastery rank the first descendant, pick one of the strategies we covered to try in your next play session, and you’ll see progress before you know it.