The First Descendant Guide | The Best DPS Build for Hailey

Here's a guide on how to set up the perfect DPS build for Hailey in The First Descendant.

Game Guide by Ragib Rawnak on Aug 08, 2025

Hailey has become a boss-melting powerhouse in The First Descendant in the recent update.

You can now do as much damage as top-tier builds thanks to significant improvements to her skills and the way her weapons work together, especially with Cryo Rounds and the newly improved Peacemaker Hand Cannon in The First Descendant.

This guide will show you how to set up everything you need to kill bosses quickly, even enemies that are immune to the damage type you choose.

The First Descendant Guide, The Best DPS Build for Hailey

Understanding Cryo Rounds

Hailey's Cryo Rounds' power is the main way she increases your damage. This Curse system works by giving enemies stacks that do more damage when they are hit.

Before, this mechanic added 50% more damage, which meant it did 1.5 times as much damage. With the most recent buffs, this now does 200% more damage on top of the damage that started the stack.

You can stack Cryo Rounds up to nine times, which means you can make nine shots in a row that each do 200% more damage than the base damage in The First Descendant.

Currently, rapid-fire weapons are the most popular. However, Hailey does better with weapons that hit very hard than with weapons that fire quickly because she can use all nine stacks with a single ability use.

The Peacemaker Hand Cannon

The Peacemaker is your primary weapon for this build because the Nazeistra, the Peacemaker, and the Perforator have all recently been given buffs that make hand cannons better.

With a 10x crit damage multiplier and a 10x weak point damage skill, your Peacemaker becomes very strong.

Since changing the weapon's fire rate doesn't help it in any way, you can only focus on mods that increase damage in The First Descendant.

You can get all nine Cryo Round stacks almost quickly with the Peacemaker, unlike slower hand cannons that are hard to use.

The weapon's weak point damage recently got 4x better, which makes it great for quickly killing bosses when used with Hailey's debuff system.

The First Descendant Guide, The Best DPS Build for Hailey

Weapon Configuration

When you're building your Peacemaker, put a lot of thought into crits and weak spot damage. You can pick the chemical damage based on the target.

For example, fire damage is good against Gluttony, and Toxic damage gets you ready for the Abyss Hangman, which is weak to toxic. Poison Priority, deadly Enhancement, and Toxic Circulation can be used to make builds more deadly.

As this weapon is only used for bossing and not for mobbing, Toxic Circulation works perfectly because you won't be firing it very often, so you won't have to worry about cooldowns.

You can build the weapon almost completely for raw damage output because it doesn't need any fire rate mods, crit rate mods, or extra crit mods.

Weak point damage stacks and becomes very important because your overall damage is increased by about three times when you use Cryo Rounds in The First Descendant.

To get the most out of weak points, use Aiming Plus, Weak Point Sight, and Special Sight. You could change the weapon magazines to get more shots, but most bosses won't be able to handle the first wave of fire anyway.

When it comes to cores, double crit damage rolls, and gun size should go first. The fact that the build works even without cores shows how powerful this combination is.

Other helpful numbers include poison attack, critical hit damage, damage against colossuses, and firearm attack over critical hit rate in ideal situations.

The First Descendant Guide, The Best DPS Build for Hailey

Setting Up the Reactor

Instead of options like Shellcrusher, equip the Annihilation Set for external parts. This is because Shellcrusher increases fire rate in ways that don't affect the Peacemaker.

The Annihilation Set gives you simple damage boosts that make your output better.

The build doesn't depend too much on Reactor stats, so you can choose any Reactor you want. If you can, select reactors that lower skill costs and cooldowns first in The First Descendant.

However, the choice of reactor won't have a significant effect on performance.

Setting up the Arche Tuning

Put Defense Neutralization in the top place of your Arche Tuning board. If you make a complete skill hit, this lowers your defense and elemental resistance, making your attacks much more powerful.

Make sure you choose crit rate, crit damage, advantage affinity, extra firearm attack, and Defense Neutralization as important parts even before you hit level 40.

Setting up Inversion Reinforcement

Choose your chemical focus based on the weakness of the enemy you want to kill. You can use fire on Gluttony and poison on Exeutor, or you can match the element that your enemy is most sensitive to in The First Descendant.

Increasing your moving speed will improve your quality of life, but it won't directly affect the damage you deal.

When your HP drops to 50% or less during intercept fights, you might want to add void resistance.

This lowers the damage that comes at you and makes it easier to survive, since you'll be low on health during tough boss fights. These defenses don't make your damage better, but they do make it less likely that boss strikes will kill you.

The First Descendant Guide, The Best DPS Build for Hailey

Utilization in Combat

Instead of clearing a lot of mobs, this build is great at beating bosses and special enemies. Most enemies won't make it through the first attack, so you'll only use the Peacemaker once per boss fight.

The tool works well even against enemies that are resistant to the type of damage you choose. For example, Death Stalker and Defiler are examples of enemies that are resistant to toxic damage in The First Descendant.

To get the huge damage boost when fighting bosses, use your Cryo Rounds debuff first and then your Peacemaker shots right after.

Targeting weak spots, dealing critical damage, and the 200% extra damage from Cryo Round stacks all work together to make lethal burst damage that can kill most bosses in seconds in The First Descendant.

Also, check our The First Descendant Review and other guides below: