You’re mid-Void Intercept boss fight, your shots barely chip away at the enemy’s armor, and your co-op teammates keep pinging your loadout like they’re waiting for you to catch up. If that sounds familiar, you probably need to figure out how to upgrade weapon level in The First Descendant to close that power gap fast. I’ve spent 40+ hours grinding materials, testing upgrade paths across every weapon type, and wasting way too many resources on bad upgrades early on, so I’ve broken down everything you need to know to skip the guesswork and build a loadout that can handle endgame content.
Core Requirements to Upgrade Weapon Level in The First Descendant
Before you can boost your weapon’s level cap, you’ll need to tick a few non-negotiable boxes first. Skipping any of these steps will leave you stuck at the upgrade station with no way to progress, so double-check you have all of the following before you spend any resources. Weapon rarity directly impacts how many upgrade tiers you can unlock: common weapons cap at level 20, rare at 40, epic at 50, and legendary at 60, so prioritize upgrading higher rarity weapons if you want to progress to endgame.
- Weapon has reached its current maximum level from combat XP gain (you earn XP for equipped weapons every time you defeat an enemy)
- Sufficient Weapon Enhancement Crystals matching your weapon’s rarity (common crystals for common weapons, rare for rare, etc.)
- Elemental ore aligned to your weapon’s damage type (required for upgrades past +10, and for all legendary weapon upgrades)
- Enough credit to cover upgrade fees, which rise sharply with each higher tier of upgrade
- Unlocked the relevant upgrade milestone via story progression (you need to finish Act 2 to unlock T3 upgrades, and Act 3 for T4 legendary upgrades)
Best Ways to Farm Upgrade Materials Fast
No one wants to spend 8 hours grinding random missions just to get enough crystals for one upgrade, so I’ve tested dozens of farm routes to find the most efficient ones that cut grind time by 60% compared to blind play. Low-tier materials for common and rare weapons drop best from Normal difficulty Supply Run missions – you can finish these in 3 to 5 minutes each, and you get 2 to 3 enhancement crystals per run plus a stack of common elemental ore. For mid-tier epic materials, focus on Hard difficulty Void Expeditions; these also drop the rare boss drops you’ll need for T4 legendary upgrades later.
If you’re playing co-op, you get a 20% bonus to all material drops, so it’s always better to team up with 2 other players for farm runs instead of playing solo. Don’t sleep on the weekly vendor reset either: the in-game hub vendor sells 50 rare enhancement crystals every week for cheap credit, so make sure to grab those before the reset every Monday. Never sell excess lower-rarity enhancement crystals – you can convert 5 common crystals into 1 rare one, and 5 rare into 1 epic, at the crafting station, so you don’t waste any drops you pick up while farming lower tier content.
Mistakes to Avoid When Upgrading Your Weapons
I wasted almost 20,000 credit and 30 rare enhancement crystals my first week playing because I didn’t know these unwritten rules, so you don’t have to make the same costly errors. First, don’t upgrade every weapon you pick up. Only invest in weapons you plan to use for at least 10 hours of gameplay – if you’re just testing a new shotgun to see if it fits your playstyle, hold off on upgrading it past level 10 until you’re sure you want to main it.
Next, don’t ignore elemental alignment when upgrading. If you’re running a fire-focused build for clearing hordes of normal enemies, upgrading a frost weapon to max level is a waste of resources unless you’re actively planning to swap builds for boss fights. Also, don’t forget to unequip mods before you scrap a weapon you upgraded – if you scrap a weapon with attached mods, you lose those mods permanently, and some rare endgame mods are almost impossible to farm again. Avoid upgrading event-exclusive weapons unless they have permanent usability – many event weapons are only balanced to be strong for the duration of the event, so you’ll end up wasting resources on a weapon that’s useless for regular endgame content once the event ends.
How to Maximize Your Upgraded Weapon's Combat Potential
Upgrading your weapon level is only half the battle – you need to pair that level increase with the right mods and build choices to get the most possible damage output. For every 10 levels you upgrade your weapon, you unlock an additional mod slot, so make sure to fill those slots with mods that complement your weapon’s unique strengths, instead of just slotting the highest rarity mods you have. For example, if you have a legendary sniper rifle with 80% base critical hit chance, add critical damage mods instead of raw damage mods to get 3x more damage output on critical hits.
You should also match your weapon’s element to the mission’s enemy type whenever possible: you get 30% extra damage against enemies weak to your weapon’s element, so swapping between upgraded fire and frost weapons for different missions makes a huge difference in clear speed. If you’re playing co-op, coordinate with your team to cover all elemental types so you can take down boss shields in seconds instead of minutes. You can reset your weapon’s upgrade path for a small credit fee if you pick the wrong bonus stats – many players don’t know this, so they’re stuck with subpar random bonuses (like extra reload speed on a sniper rifle) that hurt their overall damage.
At the end of the day, figuring out how to upgrade weapon level in The First Descendant isn’t about grinding 24/7 – it’s about knowing what materials you need, farming them efficiently, and avoiding common mistakes that waste your hard-earned resources. Try out the farm routes and upgrade tips we mentioned, and you’ll notice a huge jump in your damage output in just a couple of play sessions. If you have a favorite max-level weapon build that works for both solo and co-op play, drop it in the comments below to help other players out.