I’ve spent the last three months grinding every mission type in Nexon’s free-to-play looter shooter, and one question pops up in every Discord server and comment section I visit: is the first descendant pve mode as deep and rewarding as fans hoped it would be when it launched? For players who love grinding for loot, testing weird builds, and taking on giant screen-filling boss fights with friends, the short answer is yes, but there are a lot of common pitfalls that can make your first 20 hours feel frustrating and unproductive. I’ve made almost every mistake in the book while leveling up 7 different descendants to max rank, so this guide breaks down everything you need to know to have a smooth, fun experience, whether you’re playing solo or with a full squad of four.
What Makes Is The First Descendant PVE Stand Out From Other Looter Shooters?
If you’ve played games like Destiny 2, Warframe or Outriders, you’ll recognize a lot of the core loop here, but there are a few key differences that make this PVE mode feel unique. First, the movement system is far more dynamic than most competitors: every descendant has a grappling hook, double jump, and unique mobility skill that lets you zip around maps and scale vertical surfaces in seconds. You won’t spend 10 minutes walking from one objective to another here, even in the open world zones.
Every boss fight has multiple breakable parts that reward bonus loot if destroyed before the boss dies, so fights reward careful targeting instead of just spamming your strongest attacks. For example, the giant Void Worm boss has six glowing weak points along its body, and destroying all of them before you kill it doubles your chance of getting an exotic weapon drop. That adds a layer of strategy you don’t get in a lot of other looter shooters, where boss fights just boil down to dealing as much damage as possible as fast as possible.
Mods are account-wide once unlocked, so you don’t have to regrind them for every new descendant you unlock. That’s a huge quality of life feature that makes experimenting with new characters way less of a grind. You can swap your best damage or survivability mods over to a new character in 30 seconds, instead of spending 10 hours farming for the same mod drops all over again.
Core PVE Mission Types You Should Prioritize Early
Not all PVE missions are created equal, especially when you’re a new player still working on leveling up your first descendant and building a usable weapon collection. A lot of new players waste hours on low-reward activities just because they’re available, but focusing on these mission types first will get you to endgame content 2x faster:
- Void Intercepts: These 10-15 minute missions are the fastest way to earn rare mod drops and descendant upgrade materials, even if you’re playing on the lowest difficulty setting. You can run them matchmade with random players, and even a full squad of new players can clear them without too much trouble.
- Resource Survey Missions: Run these once per day per resource type, they give 3x the usual amount of ore, polymer, and fusion cores you need to upgrade weapons and descendants. They only take 5 minutes each, so you can knock out all three daily runs in 15 minutes before you start longer missions.
- Void Boss Raids: Unlock these once you hit player level 20, they’re the only way to get exotic tier weapons and the highest rarity descendant skins and passive perks. You’ll want to run these with a pre-made squad if you’re doing hard mode, but normal mode is easy enough for random groups to clear most of the time.
You can ignore open world collectible hunts for the first 20 hours or so. Most collectibles only give small amounts of cosmetic currency, and you’ll be able to grab them way faster once you unlock a hoverboard mount at level 18. There’s no reward for collecting them early, so save that for when you’re waiting for a raid queue to pop or taking a break from grinding.
Optimal Solo And Team PVE Build Rules For New Players
The game doesn’t do a great job of explaining build basics, so a lot of new players end up running builds that are either all damage with no survivability, or all survivability with no damage that takes forever to clear missions. You don’t have to follow the meta to have fun, but these basic rules will make every mission feel way less frustrating.
For solo play, always slot at least two health regen or shield regen mods on your descendant, no matter what their base role is. Even if you’re playing a high-damage character like Bunny, you’ll get one-shot by elite enemies if you don’t have any defensive mods slotted. It’s better to take 10% longer to clear a mission than to die 5 times and have to restart from the last checkpoint.
For team play, you don’t need a perfectly optimized comp for most normal difficulty content, but having a rough balance of roles will make hard mode runs way smoother. You’ll usually want one tank character to draw aggro from bosses, one support character to heal the team and apply buffs, and two DPS characters to focus on breaking boss parts and dealing damage. Popular picks for new players are Freyna as a tank, Viessa as support, and Kyle or Lepic as DPS, but you can make almost any character work if you build them correctly.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with off-meta builds either. I’ve run hard mode raids with a full squad of support characters built for damage, and we cleared it just fine. The meta is just a guideline, not a rule, and part of the fun of the PVE mode is finding weird builds that work for your playstyle.
Common PVE Mistakes That Waste Your Time And Resources
I made almost all of these mistakes in my first two weeks of playing, so I’m saving you the frustration of learning them the hard way. Most of these mistakes cost you hours of grind that you don’t have to put in if you know what to avoid.
Only upgrade rare or higher rarity weapons that fit your build, because lower rarity weapons become completely obsolete once you hit level 15. A lot of new players waste thousands of upgrade materials on common or uncommon weapons they get in the first 10 levels, and then have to grind for materials all over again when they get their first good rare weapon. Save your upgrade materials for weapons you plan to use for at least 10 levels.
Another common mistake is saving your ultimate ability for boss fights only. A lot of the time, using your ultimate to clear a wave of elite enemies that are blocking your objective or about to wipe your team is way more useful than saving it for a boss that you’ll fight 5 minutes later. Ultimate abilities charge really fast, so you don’t have to hoard them. I usually use mine as soon as it’s charged, unless I know a boss is 30 seconds away.
Don’t ignore the void trace system either. Void traces are a common drop from most missions, and they let you reroll mod stats to get perfect rolls for your build. I wasted hundreds of mod upgrade materials on bad mod rolls for the first two weeks, before I realized I could fix a mediocre mod with 10 void traces instead of grinding for 3 hours for a better drop. You’ll get way more value out of your mods if you take 30 seconds to reroll bad stats.
At the end of the day, whether you’ll enjoy is the first descendant pve mode comes down to what you want out of a looter shooter. If you love fast paced action, satisfying loot drops, and co-op play that actually rewards coordination, you’ll probably sink dozens of hours into it without getting bored. Just follow the tips in this guide, avoid the common mistakes, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different descendants and builds to find what fits your playstyle best. The base PVE mode is completely free to play, so there’s no risk to giving it a shot if you’re looking for a new game to play with friends.