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

Gley is a difficult Descendant to use properly in The First Descendant thanks to her risk and reward playstyle. However, when you get the hang of it, she can become unstoppable.

How to unlock Gley in The First Descendant

First things first, to play with Gley in The First Descendant, you’ll need to unlock her first. Here’s how to get Gley in The First Descendant:

• 400,000 Gold
• Gley Enhanced Cells
  • 200,000 Gold
  • 246 Monad Shard
  • 430 Silicon
  • 38 Cooling Metallic Foil
  • Gley Enhanced Cells Blueprint
• Gley Stabilizer
  • 200,000 Gold
  • 519 Metal Accellerant
  • 292 Flectorite
  • 60 Complex Carbon Activator
  • Gley Stabilizer Blueprint
• Gley Spiral Catalyst
  • 200,000 Gold
  • 363 Nanopolymers
  • 408 Ceramic Composite
  • 99 Synthesized Artificial Biometal
  • Gley Spiral Catalyst Blueprint
• Gley Code

As you’ve likely come to expect, a lot of grinding is involved. But the worst part of farming isn’t acquiring the materials, but the forsaken blueprints.

So, to help you along, I’ve broken down the recommended methods for obtaining all the Core Research Materials (Blueprints and Code) needed for obtaining Gley:

There are some other ways to get a couple of these Gley Core Materials in The First Descendant, but these paths are generally the easier ones.

If you need a reminder of what you need in-game, then you can always press “F” to inspect the materials when in the Research Institute to see where you can get each research material.

Now that we know all about obtaining Gley, let’s go over her skills and recommended equipment.

Gley playstyle and skills explained in The First Descendant

To effectively use Gley in The First Descendant, you’ll need to best know her skills and how she plays for effective combat encounters.

Here are all of Gley’s skills in The First Descendant:

• Thirst is Gley’s passive skill that robs her of shields and MP. When Gley is in a non-Frenzied state, incoming damage is reduced. Thirst also makes it so that defeated enemies have a 30% chance of dropping Life Spheres, which when picked up grants Gley the Power of Life which heals her.
• Frenzied enters Gley into a Frenzied state. In this state, ATK is increased by 15% and penetration is increased by 51. However, any health pickups are made 50% worse and Gley receives 10% more damage.
• Life Siphon damages all enemies in front of Gley. She recovers some HP that increases proportionally for every enemy hit. If Gley is in a Frenzied state, the attack deals more damage. If Gley is in a non-Frenzied state, Gley gains Vigor for each enemy hit. Vigor increases her damage by 2% for each stack and lasts 8 seconds. She can only have a maximum of 10 Vigor for a 20% increase in damage.
• Increased Sensory increases her damage or recover, depending on what state she’s in. If in a Frenzied State, the skill grants Gley Maximize Lethality, which makes her slower but means shooting requires no ammo. If in a non-Frenzied state, the skill grants Gley Maximize Recovery, which makes her faster and increases the rate and recovery of Life Spheres.
• Massacre equips Gley with a unique weapon. You will gain bullets proportional to the amount of Power of Life currently held. Note that the damage of the unique weapon is the same as the damage of the equipped weapon (so switch to your most powerful gun!). If in a Frenzied State, damage is increased proportionally to HP consumed. If in a non-Frenzied state, all enemies hit are stunned.

When playing with Gley, you’ll be switching in and out of the Frenzied state to balance dealing damage and recovering HP. This makes Gley a difficult character to use, as whenever you try to deal meaningful damage, you’re very susceptible to getting knocked down with no shields to buffer damage.

Without shields, not only is your first line of defense gone, but you won’t benefit from any passive regeneration. You will be reliant on health pickups that can only be dropped from killing enemies. This awful balancing act requires skill but rewards you with incredible DPS rates.

If you are to play Gley, you’ll need to know the perfect moments to be in and out of the Frenzied state to balance damage and recovery.

Best Gley build in The First Descendant

Now that we know how best to play Gley in The First Descendant, let’s go over the best gear for her.

Best Gley Modules

The Modules that you equip for Gley will make or break the build. As you level up your Mastery, prestige Gley, and use Energy Activators, you’ll be able to hold more of these crucial Modules.

Here is a list of all the Modules I’d recommend for Gley:

The modules for Gley prioritize increasing her HP and DEF, considering they are the only things keeping her from dying.

As Gley is concerned with increasing her own attack damage, there are some modules that improves her damage output which pair beautifully whilst she’s in her Frenzied state. You’ll need to lean on this to provide the huge amounts of damage she’s capable of.

Make sure to upgrade your Modules to make the most out of them.

Best Gley Reactor Stats

Considering Gley’s skills are all Non-Attribute, you’ll want a Materialized Reactor, as these ones benefit from Non-Attribute Skills.

There are different types of Materialized Reactors that pair well with different skill types. In Gley’s case, the skills Frenzied and Increased Sensory are Singular Skills, and Life Siphon and Massacre are Dimension Skills.

If you want her Dimension Skills to receive higher damage, go for a Materialized Phase Reactor. If you want her Singular Skills to receive higher damage, go for a Materialized Singularity Reactor.

I’d personally recommend you go with the Materialized Singularity Reactor to make Frenzied a bit more powerful.

Best Gley External Components

Using the External Components to buff Gley’s survivability allows you to get as much HP as you can, which is a sensitive case for Gley.

As different components can help with the same stats, I’ll mention the stats that you’ll want to have increased and the most powerful External Components for the job:

• Increase HP
• Increase HP Recovery

Considering Gley only has HP, you’ll want to beef it up as much as you can.

You could also increase her DEF, but I’d personally recommend otherwise. One DEF External Component won’t hurt, however, as long as it’s a strong one.

Best weapons for Gley in The First Descendant

Considering Gley’s whole thing is that she can dramatically increase her firearm attack damage, you’ll need a solid gun that takes advantage of this. Preferably, you’d want a gun with a high rate of fire to be as punishing as possible.

And for that reason, I’d recommend the Ultimate weapon Python.

The unique ability of this submachine gun is Python Instinct, which inflicts Prey upon an enemy when you hit their weak point. This can stack up to 20 and each stack reduces the resistances of that weapon, which pairs very well with Gley’s increase of attack damage.

Also, Prey reduces Non-Attribute Resistance the most, which is a match for Gley’s skills. It also has an incredible fire rate and damage.

For your other weapon slots, I’d suggest you equip a powerful Hand Cannon and either a Tactical Rifle of Shotgun. Sniper Rifles and Scout Rifles aren’t advised for Gley considering she shouldn’t be standing still in her Frenzied state, as that could make her vulnerable.

Now that you know all you need to know to best utilize and equip Gley in The First Descendant, you’ll melt through bosses. Just make sure you know how to farm Gold to pay off anything you need.