The First Descendant Hailey guide: Best build, loadout, weapons, modules, and more

Hailey is the first sniper Descendant in The First Descendant, making her powerful and unique. If you want to make the most of her and destroy your opponents before they’re anywhere near you, you’ll need to know Hailey’s best build.

Hailey playstyle and skills explained

Despite Hailey being promoted as a marksman, her skills are also concerned with close-range battle. Make sure you have Hailey unlocked first.

Here is a list of all Hailey’s skills in The First Descendant:

• Safe Strategic Retreat is Hailey’s passive skill. The further away Hailey’s target is to her, the more weak point damage she’ll deal to them, up to 50% more damage should they be at least 25m away. However, if they’re close to Hailey, weak point damage will decrease down to half of its damage.
• Cyro Round launches up to nine Cyro Rounds to enemies in front of her, inflicting them Cyro. Enemies inflicted with Cyro receive 50% more damage from Hailey’s firearm attacks. This attack also inflict Flash Freeze, which slows enemies down slightly.
• Storm Snare unleashes a Chill Vortex around Hailey, damaging and pushing away all enemies around her. Then, she’ll fire a large and powerful beam, significantly hurting enemies and inflicting them with Cyro, meaning they’ll receive 50% more damage.
• Cold Fury is an interesting skill for it summons a little device to constantly inflict Hailey every second with Cold Fury for a maximum of 16 stacks. Each stack of Cold Fury decreases Hailey’s movement speed but increases critical hit chance and firearm penetration. Upon receiving all 16 stacks, Hailey will become immune to knockdown and gains more critical hit damage. Hailey will lose stacks upon rolling or grappling.
• Zenith equips Hailey with her unique weapon. This weapon is a staggeringly powerful sniper rifle with a scope, allowing for precise shooting. Zenith only has four default shots, although when they hit a weak point, you’ll gain back 15% MP.

Hailey’s crown jewel attack is Zenith, considering it’s a super powerful sniper rifle that’ll pair perfectly with her passive skill, giving you lots of incentive to target weak points and stay away from the action.

Her Cyro Round and Storm Snare skills will allow you to get out of crowds of enemies to make an escape to higher or further ground. And once you’ve reached a safe spot, you can safely pop Cold Fury to gain both critical hit chances and damage so long as you don’t move and have MP.

Considering Hailey’s skills, you’ll need to be constantly on the lookout for detached and high grounds to snipe away at enemies, targeting their weak spots. This makes Hailey an excellent Descendant for boss fights and for taking down elite enemies, although she’s only moderately useful at taking down crowds.

Best Hailey build in The First Descendant

Now that we understand how best to play Hailey in The First Descendant, let’s go over the best build to make the most of her.

Best Hailey Modules

The modules are what make or break a build in The First Descendant, so equipping the right modules for Hailey is crucial.

Let’s go over the best modules for Hailey in The First Descendant:

Hailey is already a moderately powerful Descendant, and if you play her right, her low survivability shouldn’t be too much of a problem. That’s why these modules are mostly concerned with Skill Power and MP.

The more MP she has, the more reliably you’ll be able to escape close calls and the more frequently you can use powerful skills like Zenith to decimate your enemies.

Long-Distance Maneuver is an essential skill that allows you to grapple to further places, scoring even higher grounds and escaping from further away. However, this doesn’t grant you immunity from ranged attacks, why is why there is a moderate DEF boost from some modules.

Best Hailey Reactor stats

Make sure not to overlook your Reactor for Hailey in The First Descendant. Picking the right Reactor can define your build, as they buff the overall skill power, although can influence it for different skill types.

All of Hailey’s skills attributes are chill, you’ll want one of the Frozen Reactors.

More specifically, you’ll want a Frozen Phase Reactor if you want to further buff Hailey’s Dimension skills (Cyro Round, Cold Fury).

Otherwise, you’ll want the Frozen Singularity Reactor if you’d prefer Hailey’s Singular skills to be buffed (Storm Snare, Zenith).

I’d recommend you choose the best Frozen Singularity Reactor you have, as both of those skills deal damage and they’re the most powerful skills of Hailey’s skillset.

Best Hailey External Components

External Components are the little bow on top of any build in The First Descendant, and yet they can be pretty powerful.

Considering the random nature of External Components, I’ll name the stats that you’ll mostly want to buff when it comes to Hailey:

• Max HP
• DEF

Her max MP is already pretty high, and is increased through modules. For extra survivability, I’d recommend increasing her DEF and max HP for any nasty surprises or ranged barrages.

Best weapon for Hailey in The First Descendant

The choice of weapon for Hailey in The First Descendant is a crucial choice considering her playstyle.

For Hailey, I’d strongly recommend the Ultimate Weapon Afterglow Sword.

This sniper’s special ability is Nightmare Reaper, which inflicts the Death Propagation effect upon an enemy upon hitting a weak spot, which increases the firearm attack Critical Hit Chance, making it perfect for Hailey’s devastating damage capabilities.

For Hailey’s other weapons, I’d suggest a powerful Assault Rifle and a Scout Rifle, as Afterglow Sword consumes High-Power Rounds, meaning you may need more commonly available ammo for prolonged engagements.

With this excellent build guide in mind, you can deck out Hailey with the best gear in The First Descendant and annihilate your enemies and bosses alike. If you’re still working on making the best Hailey build, make sure you have the best Ultimate Bunny build.