The First Descendant Guide | Best Nell Build and Setup

Here's a guide on the best Setup for Nell Build in The First Descendant.

Game Guide by Ragib Rawnak on Aug 08, 2025

Nell has a unique way of playing that is different from what was expected at first.

This guide covers both her ability-based builds and gun builds in great detail, breaking down both void erosion content and general mobbing situations in The First Descendant.

The First Descendant Guide, Best Nell Build and Setup

Shattered Heart Transcendent Module

The Shattered Heart Transcendent Module changes Nell's kit in a big way by making Gaze of the Abyss an attack skill. This module fires enhanced breach spikes and makes suspension stacks with breach spikes.

The most important thing about this module is that it gives you a 20% skill critical hit rate, which turns Nell into a character that focuses on vital hits right away.

Importance of Scanning

Nell's whole kit is based on scanning threats. If she doesn't have scanned targets, her powers don't work as well.

When foes are scanned, her first ability does 100% more damage, more damage in a burst, and has an extended range.

This scanning feature is crucial for maximizing her abilities in The First Descendant.

Ability #1 Breach Spike (Ability)

Breach Spike shoots two sets of three projectiles each, which hurt people with skill power. The damage boosts and more extended range you get from scanned targets are things that you can't get with regular range changes.

Ability #2 Breach Link

Breach Link makes a gravity field around you that slows down enemies' movement and does 300% more damage to weak spots. Every half a second, the field continues to deal damage.

When launched by hand, the cooldown goes down, and your movement speed goes up. But if you use your third ability to explode, these bonuses won't work in The First Descendant.

Ability #3 Gravitic Reversal

Your second ability has to be active before you can use Gravitic Reversal. It groups enemies and explodes the gravity field, which lets you use your central damage powers on them at once.

Ability #4 End of Suspicion

With End of Suspicion, you can fire big bullets that hit more than one target.

This power does 100% more damage to enemies that have been scanned in The First Descendant.

The First Descendant Guide, Best Nell Build and Setup

Setting Up the Void Erosion Module

To get more critical hits, start with Skill Insight. Next, focus on Skill Concentration to deal more skill-critical damage. Finally, take Front Lines.

When put together, these three modules give you a 97% critical hit chance. It might look like Emergency Measures is a good idea, but Skill Insight does more damage in this situation.

You can add Increased HP to make yourself more durable, or you can use HP Amp instead. Equip Nimble and MP Conversion to handle cooldowns. Nell needs to use her skills all the time, so lowering the wait is essential.

For managing power, add Maximize Conservation. If you don't have this part, you might run out of mana during long battles. If the MP rolls of the parts were better, this might not be needed, but Maximize Conservation makes life better in The First Descendant.

With Focus on Non-Attribute and Focus on Tech, you can direct your attribute modules' power toward non-attribute and tech damage.

Weapons

The Blue Beetle Scout Rifle works well with fusing skills, so use it. When Nell's first and second powers work together, the fusion buff happens.

For 10 seconds, your skill's critical hit rate goes up by 115%. This buff keeps you up almost all the time and raises your critical hit rate to 97%.

Nell can hit 1,400 sprint speed when she spams her second ability, so put sprint speed cores on your weapon in The First Descendant.

The Required Components

The Enlightened Mage set gives power boosts that aren't based on attributes. When skills are used three times to build stacks, detonating does a lot of damage. Based on tests, this set does more raw damage than the latest Dimension Destroyer set.

The Dimension Destroyer set is different because it calls down meteors when you get 10 stacks.

Even though it looks excellent and consistently does more damage, its peak damage is a little less than that of the Enlightened Mage in The First Descendant.

The First Descendant Guide, Best Nell Build and Setup

Tuning and the Reactor

Use a tech generator that does skill critical hits and cooldown rolls. For this build, these numbers are the most useful.

For arcade tuning, choose Focus Boost to lower the cost of skills when you beat enemies, Neuros Stimulation to restore MP, and Deploy Harden Shell to reduce damage.

Do not use Deploy Resonance Device because the duration and weak point damage boosts do not help this style of play in The First Descendant.

If you're having problems with mana, set your tuning board to favor enhanced MP recovery. If not, focus on HP. Get all of the skill damage and critical hit rate nodes.

Add Non-Attribute Cohesion to stack the power of non-attribute skills. The remaining nodes are crucial and must be present for optimal performance.

Mobbing Build Variations

To improve your expandable range for general mobbing, switch out Maximize Conservation for Amplification Controls.

This change significantly increases the area of impact of your second ability.

Instead of using Focus on Tech, switch to Focus on Fusion for your focus modules to transition from tech to fusion. When you mob, your second and third abilities work together a lot more than your single-target damage in The First Descendant.

Change the reactor

For mob situations, switch from a Tech Reactor to a Fusion Reactor. Keep the skill critical hit damage and downtime stats in the same order in The First Descendant.

Differences in Playstyles

When you're mobbed, your second ability spam and second-third ability combo kill most of the enemies. The bigger range is more useful than the void erosion build's single-target focus.

Alternative Gun Build

Nell's fourth power changes to Gaze of the Abyss when she doesn't have the Shattered Heart Transcendent Module.

This ability makes all gun strikes hit weak spots, no matter where you aim, and increases the damage done to weak spots.

The First Descendant Guide, Best Nell Build and Setup

Setting up the Build

When you beat an enemy with Veteran Tactics, you have a 19% chance of resetting a random skill's cooldown.

This makes Gaze of the Abyss more useful because it doesn't go away until its rest timer runs out in The First Descendant.

For cooling benefits, Focus modules should aim for Focus on Non-Attribute and Focus on Fusion.

You can use your second ability and leave it active instead of detonating it. This lets foes gain weak point damage stacks and slower movement speed.

Add Conservation and MP Conversion to help you keep track of your resources, Shot Focus to help you deal damage with your gun, and Veteran Tactics to help you restart cooldowns.

You can use your second skill to hit as many enemies as possible by adding Skill Expansion and Maximize Range.

Skill Duration

Skill Extension only changes Gaze of the Abyss's base duration. It doesn't change the highest duration that can be reached by scanning and killing enemies.

Since you hit maximum duration no matter how much you invest in base duration, building duration doesn't add much to your quality of life in The First Descendant.

Weapon Suggestions

When Malevolent hits weak spots, it gets more bladed cogs, which makes it work well with Gaze of the Abyss. When the Perforator hits a weak point, it causes a blast. The sure weak point mechanics help both weapons.

For Malevolent, use Weak Point, Have Aiming, and Overwhelm to deal the most damage to weak points.

Changes should be made to the magazine size, the chill, and the fire rate. Gun chill, fire rate, firearm attack, rounds per magazine, weak point damage, and chill attack should all be core numbers.

For Perforator builds, the focus is on chill, the rate of firearm critical hits, the rate of fire, and damage boosts from factions in The First Descendant.

In this setup, Aiming, Weak Point, Spite, and Special Sight work together to provide a 10x weak point increase.

The First Descendant Guide, Best Nell Build and Setup

Choices for Components

The weak points in the Weak Point Ricochet set take more damage, and close monsters are also hurt.

But HP may not be as easy to find as standard two-piece Shell Crusher and two-piece Ballistic combinations.

The four-piece Ballistic adds more ricochets that work well with Gaze of the Abyss's weak point promise.

Making changes to Gun Build Defense for arcades. Even though Nell is not a trait descendant, neutralization becomes useful for gun builds.

While defense and resistance stripping don't enhance her powers, they do improve her guns, making this a significant advantage when fighting resistant enemies in The First Descendant.

Choose critical damage and critical rate boosts for weapons that focus on critical hits, or choose multi-hit bonuses for weapons that deal more than one hit.

Put the delay first to get more time to use Gaze of the Abyss, then add extra affinity damage, critical chance, and critical damage as you can.

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