The First Descendant: Gley Build & Best Loadout

Welcome to The First Descendant Gley Build Guide. In this guide, we will explain how to create a powerful build for the Gley Descendant. We’ll cover how the skills work and which weapons, stats and modules you need to create the most powerful build for Gley. Visit The First Descendant Builds page for more Builds.

Some point out that Gley becomes irrational during battle, but she is more rational than anyone.

Table of Contents:

How to play Gley
How to unlock Gley
Skills Explanation
Modules – Important!
Infinite Ammo Trick
Gley Build Setups

AoE Farming Setup
Boss DPS Setup
Budget Setup

Ultimate Gley Setups – ULTIMATE!
Best Weapons
Reactor
External Components
Smooth Grapple Hook
Gley’s Story

How to Play Gley in the First Descendant

With any Gley Build you want to prioritize to have a 100% uptime on your third skill, this allows you to get infinite ammo! This can easily be achieved with the right skill cooldown reduction and skill duration increase modules.

Basically, to achieve infinite ammo, your third skill needs to have a longer duration than its cooldown. More info on that in the Increased Sensory Skill explanation section.

Our optimized builds use the Massive Sanguification Gley exclusive Module. This has a huge effect on our build. It makes us more tanky, doubles the range, removes the cost of the skill and when you are frenzied, you immediately get three life orbs to activate your ultimate. The only downside of this is that it drains HP, but we will manage.

That means our AoE setup allows us to deal insane AoE damage in a wider area than Bunny’s skills while also making us unkillable. Our Single-Target setup benefits from the infinite ammo trick, so we can constantly shoot without having to reload.

We also ranked Gley’s kit and playstyle and added her to our The First Descendant Tier List – Best Characters.

How to Unlock Gley in The First Descendant

Let’s take a quick look at how to unlock Gley in the First Descendant. To unlock Gley you have to purchase her from the store or research her. You need the following items to research Gley:

1x Gley Enhanced Cells

246x Monad Shard
430x Silicon
38x Cooling Metallic Foil
1x Gley Enhanced Cell Blueprint
200k Gold

1x Gley Stabilizer

519x Metal Accelerant
292x Felctorite
60x Complex Carbon Activator
1x Gley Stabilizer Blueprint
200k Gold

1x Gley Spiral Catalyst

363x Nanopolymers
408x Ceramic Composite
99x Synthesized Artificial Viometal
1x Gley Spiral Catalyst Blueprint
200k Gold

1x Gley Code

Location 1 – Intercept Battle: Common Grave Walker: Amorphous Material Pattern 002
Location 2 – Intercept Battle: Hard Dead Bridge: Amorphous Material Pattern 069
Location 3 – Intercept Battle: Hard Molten Fortress: Amorphous Material Pattern 124
Location 4 – Agna Desert Hard – Abyssal Void Fusion Reactor – Agna Desert Miragestone Deposit

400k Gold

When you visit Magisters Anais at the Research Institute you can hover over each item. Then click on Acquisition Info and it will tell you where this specific item drops. For a more in-depth guide, please visit the How to unlock Gley in The First Descendant guide.

The First Descendant Gley Skills Explained

In this section, we are going to explain the skills available to our Gley Build in the First Descendant, how each skill works and the best ways for you to use them.

 

Frenzied

Increases Firearm ATK and Penetration, but reduces HP Recovery.

Frenzied Skill Description:

Non-Attribute – Singular
Enter Frenzied state.
In Frenzied state, increases Firearm ATK and Penetration, but reduce HP Recovery.

How to use Frenzied:

Frenzied allows you to toggle Gley between her normal and Frenzied states. This determines how most of her other skills will function. When Frenzied you lose health, but can restore it by killing enemies and taking their Life Spheres, allowing you to stay in Frenzy for longer. You can leave Frenzy whenever you want by using the skill again. You can do this without worry, as the cooldown of Frenzied is only 1 second.

Life Siphon

Damages enemies in range while recovering your HP. Grants additional effects depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.

Life Siphon Description:

Non-Attribute – Dimension
Deals Damage to enemies within range while recovering HP. HP Recovery depends on how many enemies you hit.
Hit enemies are afflicted with additional effects depending on Gley’s state.
When in Frenzied state, DMG increases, and increases even more if current HP is low.
When in non-Frenzies state, gains Vigor for a certain period of time and decreases incoming DMG. Vigor stacks according to the number of enemies hit.

How to use Life Siphon:

Life Siphon grants Gley another way to heal while in Frenzy mode, so she is not completely reliant on Life Spheres. It also deals decent AOE damage and effectively drains HP from enemies.

To a certain extent, Life Siphon is a high risk high reward type of skill, since when Frenzied the damage will ramp up further if your HP is low.

Increased Sensory

Applies different effects depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.

Increased Sensory Description:

Non-Attribute – Singular
Applied different effects depending on Gley’s state.
When Frenzied, applies Maximize Lethality during which bullets are not consumed for a certain period of time, but Movement Speed decreases.
When Non-Frenzied, applies Maximize Recovery during which the drop rate of Life Spheres and Recovery increase for a certain period of time.

How to use Increased Sensory:

For our Gley builds you will notice that we have plenty of Skill cooldown reduction and Skill duration increase modules. These are here to get this skill to a higher duration than its cooldown. That way we achieve infinite ammo!

Massacre

Switches the equipped weapon to Massacre. Enemies hit by Massacre take heavy damage and are afflicted with additional effects, depending on Gley’s Frenzy state.

Massacre Description:

Non-Attribute – Dimension
Switches the equipped weapon to Massacre. Massacre is influenced by certain stats of the equipped weapon, such as Firearm ATK power and Fire Rate (excluding Explosive ATK), and damages enemies.
The bullets loaded are affected by the amount of Power of Life owned.
Enemies hit by Massacre suffer damage and are inflicted with additional effects depending on Gley’s state.
When Frenzied, deals additional damage, or deals great damage if current HP is low.
When Non-Frenzied, the enemies hit are Stunned.

How to use Massacre:

At its baseline, Massacre deals the same amount of damage as your regular weapon. However it can deal twice as much damage per shot if you are Frenzied and about half empty on health. This is another risk/reward skill for Gley. If you want to take the risk of fighting while heavily damaged then you can get potentially awesome damage buffs from the Massacre skill.

Remember that you need to have at least three Power of Life saved to use Massacre.

Thirst (Passive)

Gley cannot have Shield or MP. Defeated enemies drop a Life Sphere. Obtaining a Life Sphere restores HP and adds a stack of Power of Life.

Thirst Passive Description:

Non-Attribute
Gley cannot have Shield or MP.
Instead, when in Non-Frenzied state, decreases incoming DMG.
Enemies killed by Gley have a chance to drop Life Spheres.
Upon acquiring a Life Sphere, recovers HP proportional to Max HP and acquires Power of Life.

How to use Thirst:

The Thirst passive is always active. Take note of the fact that Gley doesn’t have MP or a Shield. Thirst allows Gley to heal by killing enemies, and is a vital aspect of managing her abilities, many of which cost Power of Life to use, which can only be gained by picking up Life Spheres generated by Thirst. Gley’s playstyle is different to most other characters in The First Descendant – if you enjoy a strong risk/reward playstyle then Gley might be the correct class for you.

How Modules Work in The First Descendant

Modules in The First Descendant are the bread and butter of all Descendant Builds. There are a few important things to remember about modules. This is for both Descendant and Weapon Modules.

While most builds require you to increase Module Capacity with an Energy Activator (you get two for free), they won’t require you to reduce the Module cost with Crystallization Catalyst. However, if you want to truly min-max a build, you will need plenty.

How to increase your Module Capacity
Module Levels and Cost

Kuiper Shards & best way to farm!

Reduce the cost of Modules
How to farm Modules

How to Increase Module Capacity

You get a base of 45 Modules for every Descendant character. And you can increase this up to 85 currently. First off, always slot a Sub Attack Module (Slot 7). When you increase this to the max level you will get an additional 10 Module Capacity. if you use a Crystallization Catalyst on the Sub Attack Module, you even get 15 extra slots. You will see this in the setup below.

Additionally, you can use an Energy Activator to increase your Module Capacity by another 20. However, these are fairly hard to farm, only use them on your best Descendants.

Lastly, increasing your Mastery Rank will also increase Module Capacity. Rank 1 gives you 25 Module Capacity, Rank 20 gives you 50 Module Capacity. That is how we reach the 80 Module Capacity that you see on most builds.

Slot a Sub Attack Module (and max it out to get +10 capacity, crystallize it for +15)
Use an Energy Activator (2o extra capacity)
Increase Mastery Rank (25 base capacity, max 50)

Weapons: Basically the same, but because you don’t have Subattack Modules, the Energy Activator gives you 30 instead of just 20 extra capacity.

You can also read my in-depth guide on how to increase Module Capacity in The First Descendant if you need more information. Or my Best Energy Activator Farm Spots and our Best Crystallization Catalyst Farm Spots. I tested all of the grind spots by myself and have already farmed plenty of these items with this method.

Module Levels and Cost

Modules can be enhanced (leveled up) with Kuiper Shards in The First Descendant. Enhancing Modules increases their power. At higher levels, the power will increase way more than at lower levels. Therefore it is always recommended to max out the most important Module first.

Here is an example of a must-have Module called Increased HP for our Descendant. You will notice that we start at 22%, but at the max level, we get a whopping 218.5% increase in health!

Transcendent Modules are the exception; they decrease Capacity Cost with higher levels!

For an in-depth overview, please visit our How to Level Up Modules in The First Descendant guide.

How to Farm Kuiper Shards

Kuiper Shards are used to level up Modules. We have a guide on the Top 3 Kuiper Shard Farming Locations in the First Descendant. We explain how to most efficiently farm Kuiper Shards (300-500k/hour) and show the amount you need to level up mods. As a summary, to max out a Module you need:

Normal Modules: 103’100 Kuiper Shards
Rare Modules: 206’200 Kuiper Shards
Ultimate Modules: 309’300 Kuiper Shards
Transcendent Modules: 515’500 Kuiper Shards

Always max out the most important Modules first, we will showcase the order below.

How to Reduce the Cost of Modules

To reduce the cost of Modules you need Crystallization Catalysts in The First Descendant. These require a lot of time investment, most builds won’t require you to get many if any at all (Budget Setup). But if you want to completely min-max you need to get plenty of them as technically, every slot can have a specific socket type to half the cost.

Modules have Socket Types. Our Increased HP Module has the Cerulean Socket Type.

Module: Increased HP
Socket Type: Cerulean

This is important because if we place our Increased HP Module in the fitting Socket Type, it will half the cost of the Module!

How to farm Modules

Most Modules can be acquired fairly easily, but the higher-quality ones (Ultimate, Transcendent) are more tedious to obtain. Here is the easiest process to farm Modules quickly.

Open Map > Swap to Access Info > Select Modules

Here, you can find all Modules and their drop locations. If a module drops from several locations, it is recommended to select drop locations with higher drop chances.

There isn’t really much more to this. Simply check the location and go farm. Normal and Rare quality Modules have 30-50% drop chances in most cases. Ultimate ones range around the 5% mark and Transcendent ones can be a tough cookie with around 2% drop chance.

We will list the best farming location of modules in the next step of the guide.

Massive Sanguification Module Explained

The optimized Gley Build setups below require the Massive Sanguification Module, which is the pillar of the strong setups below. This is by far the best Module that Gley currently has in The First Descendant. She is way more tanky with this. It doubles the range of your second skill, makes your second skill don’t cost anything, and while frenzied, you get three Life Orbs instantly so you can use your ultimate. The only downside it has is that it drains HP on activation.

Gets Tankier
2nd Skill 2x range
2nd Skill free of cost
While Frenzied, you get 3 Life Orbs instantly
Drains HP on activation

Note: Whenever you use your second skill in frenzy you lose 15% of your health. In most cases, you instantly recover it. However, if that isn’t the case you can leave frenzy and then use your second skill to heal (instead of draining HP),

Where to get Massive Sanguification: It drops from Dead Bride on hard difficulty, it has a low drop chance.

Increased Sensory Infinite Ammo Trick

It is crucial that the Increased Sensory skill has a longer duration than cooldown for this build’s infinite ammo trick to work. We use plenty of cooldown reduction and skill duration increase Modules, as well as a Reactor that gives Skill Duration increase and Skill Cooldown reduction to further buff this. You might have to farm a bit to get the right reactor, but it is definitely worth it.

Best Gley Build Setups for The First Descendant

In this section, we are going to look at the different best Gley Build Setups for The First Descendant. I will show you an optimized Boss DPS and AoE Farming setup as well as a Budget setup. The optimized setups require a lot of Crystallizations. The Budget setup requires none.

All setups require you to have used your Energy Activator to increase the Module Capacity. Here are the Top 3 Kuiper Shard farm spots, you will need plenty to upgrade all Modules!

Tip: I recommend using the Gley Budget setup and then farm Ultimate Gley as fast as possible. Then use all the Crystallizations on Ultimate Gley instead of normal Gley. Why spend all the Crystallization Catalysts on Gley if you will get Ultimate Gley anyway sooner or later?

All the Setups below are also viable for Ultimate Gley.

How to get Modules: Read the Module Farming section.

85 Module Capacity How? Read the basics Module section.

AoE Farming Gley Build

This is a fully optimized AoE Farming setup for Gley in The First Descendant. We can deal AoE damage in a wider area than a Bunny Build with this setup.

Gley AoE Farming Modules Explanation:

Massive Sanguification: Allows to absorb Life Orb during Non-Frenzied state. AoE Damage, Skill free of cost.
Increased HP: + Max HP
Shield Conversion (DEF): + DEF, – Max Shield
Nimble Fingers: – Skill Cooldown
Skill Expansion: + Skill Effect Range
Focus on Non-Attribute: + Non-Attribute Skill Power, – Skill Cooldown
Mid-Air Maneuvering: Allows you to grapple anywhere, even air!
Stim Accelerant: + Max HP, – Max MP
MP Conversion: – Skill Cooldown, – Max MP
Focus on Dimension: + Dimension Skill Power Modifier, – Skill Cooldown
Maximize Range: + Skill Range, – Skill Power Modifier
Multitalented: When activating Dimension skill – Skill Cooldown. When activating 3rd skill, +30% All Attribute Damage

Boss DPS Gley Build

This bossing setup requires you to have a good Thunder Cage weapon. Thunder Cage goes insanely brrr with our infinite ammo and Mental Focus Module.

Gley Boss DPS Modules Explanation:

Massive Sanguification: Allows to absorb Life Orb during Non-Frenzied state. AoE Damage, Skill free of cost.
Increased HP: + Max HP
Spear and Shield: + DEF, + Skill Power
Nimble Fingers: – Skill Cooldown
Skill Expansion: + Skill Effect Range
Focus on Non-Attribute: + Non-Attribute Skill Power, – Skill Cooldown
Mid-Air Maneuvering: Allows you to grapple anywhere, even air!
Battle of Stamina: + Max HP, + Skill Duration
MP Conversion: – Skill Cooldown, – Max MP
Focus on Dimension: + Dimension Skill Power Modifier, – Skill Cooldown
Skill Extension: + Skill Duration
Multitalented: When activating Dimension skill – Skill Cooldown. When activating 3rd skill, +30% All Attribute Damage

Budget Gley Build

The Gley Budget Build won’t require you to have any Crystallization Catalysts. However, you need to have used the Energy Activator to get to a Module Capacity of 80.

This Budget Setup can be used to farm dungeons, fight bosses in groups. It should be your setup before you move into any other setups. The key thing to remember here is that we want to increase our HP and DEF so we don’t become a floor-crawler like many other players that constantly die because they don’t invest into HP and DEF.

While working on this, you should also try to get the Thunder Cage Weapon to max upgrade levels.

Gley Budget Setup Module Explanation:

Increased HP: + Max HP
Shield Conversion (DEF): + DEF, – Max Shield
Nimble Fingers: – Skill Cooldown
Skill Expansion: + Skill Effect Range
Focus on Non-Attribute: + Non-Attribute Skill Power, – Skill Cooldown
Mid-Air Maneuvering: Allows you to use the Grapple Hook anywhere, even air!
Maximize Range: + Skill Range, – Skill Power Modifier

Because Modules get exponentially stronger with higher levels, we want fewer Modules but the ones we have should be maxed out.

Best Ultimate Gley Build Setups

Unlike some other Descendants, like Bunny, which uses an Ultimate exclusive module, we want to use the same Build Setups on Ultimate Gley as on normal Gley because Massive Sanguification Builds are by far the best option for both versions.

If this changes, I will update this section of the build.

Unlocking Ultimate Gley: How to unlock Ultimate Gley in The First Descendant.

Best Weapon for the Gley Build in The First Descendant

The best weapon you can get for Gley is Thunder Cage! It is even specced similarly to other builds, but the main difference here is that we want to use the Mental Focus Module instead of something like Firing Fiesta. Mental Focus gives 1% Firearm ATK bonus and stacks up to 150. And with our Infinite Ammo, we can keep this up at all time.

Priority: Enhance the ability level of your Thunder Cage. That means you will have to farm Thunder Cage 5 times to absorb them 1x Thunder Cage + 4x to absorb! After that, the Thunder Cage’s ability will be maxed out and deal insane AOE damage. After that, focus on getting Modules maxed out and Crystallization Catalysts.

This setup can be used for both Farming and Boss DPS.

Thunder Cage Modules Explanation:

Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
Fire Rate UP: + Fire Rate
Electric Enhancement: Electric Damage (Swap out with Fire/Chill, Toxic depending on enemy)
Edging Shot: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate, – Firearm ATK
Mental Focus: + 1% Firearm ATK, up to 150 stacks
Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
Better Concentration: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage
Better Insight: + Firearm Critical Hit Rate
Concentration Priority: + Firearm Critical Hit Damage, – Reload Time Modifier
Weak Point Sight: + Weak Point Damage

Vestigial Organ Rocket Launcher for our Gley Build

Thunder Cage is really all you need since it both deals insane Single-Target and AoE damage. However, I know players love to blow stuff up so here is an optimized Vestigial Organ Rocket Launcher setup.

Vestigial Organ Modules Explanation:

Rifling Reinforcement: + Firearm ATK
Fire Rate UP: + Fire Rate
Weak Point Sight: + Weak Point Damage
Deadeye: + Accuracy, + Firearm ATK
Stance Stabilizer: – Recoil. + Firearm ATK
Action and Reaction: + Firearm ATK, + Recoil
Real-Life Fighter: – Accuracy, + Firearm ATK
Weak Point Detection: + Weak Point Damage, + Firearm ATK
Fire Enhancement: Fire Damage (Swap out with Electric/Chill, Toxic depending on enemy)
Fire Priority + Fire ATK (Swap out if you change Fire Enhancement to correct elemtn)

Best Reactor for Gley in The First Descendant

Your Reactor is a very important item that determines your skill damage and can also include extra modifiers that buff certain aspects of your build. The better your Reactor is, the more damage your skills will deal to enemies.

The name of a reactor can be determined by the following. For example a reactor with the name Phase in it means it is good for anything that deals Dimension damage.

The First Descendant Gley’s attribute is Non-Attribute and her skills use the following types:

Dimension (Life Siphon, Massacre)
Singular (Frenzied, Increased Sensory)

That means you want to pick a reactor with the following names:

Materialized Phase: Boost to Non-Attribute and Dimension
Materialized Singularity: Boost to Non-Attribute and Singular

Because our The First Descendant Gley skills that deal damage are Life Siphon and Massacre, we want to get a Materialized Phase reactor!

Materialized Phase Reactor

Make sure to get the Materialized Phase Reactor with Thunder Cage mounting. As this will be our main and only weapon we use for any of our builds above. That way our Skill Power will get a 160% boost!

Best substats to get:

Skill Duration UP
Skill Cooldown

it is highly recommended to get the Skill Duration UP and Skill Cooldown. This makes it a lot easier to reach the infinite ammo setup.

How to find the Location of Reactors

Reactor drop locations change every day. Not many players know this. Now there is a reactor search function in-game. Go to the map and press on Difficulty Level Rewards. In here you can see where currently all the reactors drop.

Select Electric and Singular. So you will see the correct type of Reactor we need. Lastly, select General Rounds because we are using Thunder Cage, which uses that type of ammo.

Note: It is possible that no such reactors drop currently. Come back here every day and check if one drops.

If our specified reactor drops in an area, you go there and farm missions and monsters. There will be plenty of reactors dropping from monsters all over the place, any monster works.

External Components

Finally, we have the best External Components for the Gley build in the First Descendant.

Currently, the best External Component set for Gley is called Annihilation. You get this by defeating Devourer on hard difficulty. This boosts Skill Duration as two piece effect and increases Firearm ATK with lower HP which is perfect for Gley.

Note: If you can’t get access to Annihilation yet, just use any External Component that gives HP or DEF.

Smooth Grapple Hook for your Build

Using the standard Grapple Hook in The First Descendant can be a pain, and it feels kinda frustrating at times. Don’t worry, there is a way better alternative that will make it a joy to use the grappling hook!

It is called the Mid-Air Maneuvering Sub Module. I use this on all my The First Descendant Builds because it improves grappling by so much.

With this Module, you can attach your Grapple Hook to anything, even air! That means you can simply aim towards the sky and Hook up your grapple hook there for guaranteed fast movement!

Here is a guide on how to get the Mid-Air Maneuvering Sub Module in The First Descendant. It won’t take a lot of effort, but it will definitely improve your build and overall gameplay in The First Descendant.

Gley’s Story in The First Descendant

A utility-type dealer who becomes stronger the more she gnaws on herself. Unleashes the rage inside her to quickly subdue her enemies. 

“If you keep looking after others until the very end, who look after you, Mom?” Dia Elias asked her mother. ‘Until the very end’ was the slogan of Albion’s Medical Corps, and it was the first time that their captain, Gley, faced someone who questioned this slogan. A question that had never been asked by, not asked to, someone who had declared and lived by this slogan all her life. Hearing this question from her own daughter brought about complicated emotions within Gley, but she could not grant her daughter’s request to allow her to protect herself. Gley, who had lost her entire family on the battlefield, was afraid. If she were to lose her daughter as well, then she would lose everything.

Undeterred by Gley’s stubbornness, Dia went to her mother’s old colleague and fellow military academy professor, Ajax, for a recommendation letter and thus enlisted in the military. Gley, feeling betrayed by Ajax, who knew of her past scars and yet still wrote the recommendation letter, refused to even speak to him.

Despite feeling much concern over her daughter, who had stubbornly become a soldier in the end, Gley decided to give Dia a chance and trust in her decision, which she would end up regretting when an incident occurred, in which all forces that had been deployed to the Vespers strike operation, excluding the Descendants squad, suffered massive casualties, with many going MIA. Among those who had gone missing were Gley and her daughter. While Albion Headquarters frantically searched for the missing personnel, Gley and Dia were subjected to horrible experiments performed by the Order of Truth. The mother and daughter duo were used as test subjects for the Order’s experiments to create a new ‘species’ by injecting Vulgus DNA into human bodies. Gley despaired at her situation, as she could only tremble in anger helplessly as her daughter’s agonizing screams echoed around her.

When Gley, who had lost consciousness in her rage and despair, came to her senses, she was met with the sight of her adjutant cowering in a corner and a completely destroyed intensive care unit. Regaining her composure, Gley asked “Where is my daughter?”, to which nobody replied. Just as she was about to enter another frenzy in her rage, her adjutant shouted, “Her body was never found! She may still be alive, Captain! We’re the Medical Corps, remember? We shouldn’t give up hope until the very end!”. HEaring this, she felt a warmth surround her body. Gley, who finally calmed down, felt a spark of hope. If Dia was still alive, then she could be saved. As it is the duty of the Medical Corps to never give up until the very end, Gley picked herself up. Her mission to retrieve her daughter was only beginning.

Related Content:

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TFD Sharen Build
TFD Freyna Build

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