Summary
- Phantom Pain is an underwhelming rare tier rifle with a 50% drop chance, suitable for beginners.
- Eternal Willpower boasts balanced stats with a 50% drop chance for players completing Baggage Transport Base.
- Caligo's Horn, from The Corrupted Zone mission, has a unique aesthetic and a good choice for a spray-and-pray combat.
The First Descendant is a live-service looter shooter, renowned for its fun gunplay and stunning visuals. Players are tasked with saving humankind from an alien race, and can play alone or with friends to complete goals. The plot is compelling and fun to follow as well.
The First Descendant: Best Sniper Rifles, Ranked
First Descendant has a decent range of sniper rifles available, although some are much better than others.
Assault rifles are a staple of almost every third-person shooter, and The First Descendant is no different in this regard. There is a range of assault rifles available, from the standard tier, to the rare tier, to the ultimate tier. Some of these assault rifles are pretty lackluster, but there are others that are great weapons.
6 Phantom Pain
A Good Basic Assault Rifle
- Tier: Rare
- DPS: 167
- Rounds: 33
- Fire Rate: 722
- Critical Rate: 9%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.5
- Reload Speed: 1.61 seconds
Players can head to The Fallen Theater area of Kingston and complete the Magister Lab to try and farm the Phantom Pain assault rifle in The First Descendant. There is a 50% drop chance for the rifle from this location.
Phantom Pain takes the bottom place on this list simply because it is the most underwhelming of all of the rare and ultimate tier assault rifles in the game. It is pretty easy to farm though, especially for solo players, and is a good weapon for players who are just starting to put an assault rifle build together, as it is better than the standard assault rifle.
5 Eternal Willpower
Best For Accurate Players
- Tier: Rare
- DPS: 232
- Rounds: 25
- Fire Rate: 499
- Critical Rate: 20%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.5
- Reload Speed: 1.9 seconds
Eternal Willpower is another fairly easy-to-farm weapon in The First Descendant. There is a 50% chance of this assault rifle dropping when completing the Baggage Transport Base mission, which can be picked up in the Agna Desert.
Eternal Willpower is nicely balanced, with respectable damage output, a good level of critical chance, and a decent critical modifier. It is only slightly let down by its low magazine size and slow reload speed. However, for players who are good at placing their shots, Eternal Willpower can be a viable weapon choice.
4 Caligo's Horn
Unique Looking Assault Rifle
- Tier: Rare
- DPS: 178
- Rounds: 30
- Fire Rate: 631
- Critical Rate: 9%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.5
- Reload Speed: 1.68 seconds
Completing the mission The Corrupted Zone: Vulgus Strategic Outpost gives a 50% drop chance on the Caligo's Horn assault rifle in The First Descendant. Players will find this mission in The Corrupted Zone area of Hagios.
Caligo's Horn has a pretty unique model, and seems to be made from some sort of animal horn. Aside from the esthetics, the stats also make it unique. It has quite low damage output, but a high rate of fire and decent magazine size. This makes it a great choice of assault rifle for a spray-and-pray style of combat, even if each individual shot doesn't deal as much damage.
3 EXCAVA
Cash Shop Only Weapon
- Tier: Ultimate
- DPS: 293
- Rounds: 36
- Fire Rate: 588
- Critical Rate: 3%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.2
- Reload Speed: 2 seconds
The EXCAVA assault rifle is only available to The First Descendant players who are willing to put their hand in their pocket and spend some money in the cash shop. There are two ways to get EXCAVA for cash. Firstly, the player can pay Caliber to purchase the Premium Upgrade, and then simply collect the weapon. Secondly, the player can buy a Battle Pass and level it up to level 16, and then collect the weapon.
Is it worth paying real-world money for the EXCAVA assault rifle? Possibly, especially if the player is not likely to be able to unlock one of the other ultimate tier assault rifles any time soon. It is a decent enough weapon, but far from the best.
2 Fallen Hope
Top Assault Rifle Contender
- Tier: Ultimate
- DPS: 181
- Rounds: 35
- Fire Rate: 600
- Critical Rate: 12%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.7
- Reload Speed: 1.7 seconds
Unlocking the Fallen Hope assault rifle in The First Descendant involves first getting hold of the blueprint as a reward, and then collecting all the required research materials to perform the research task. The player then takes Anais in Albion to begin the research project.
Fallen Hope is a medium damage but high rate of fire assault rifle. It has good magazine capacity and above-average critical chance and critical damage modifiers. For people who prefer shooting more bullets than being entirely accurate, this could be a good choice of weapon.
1 Divine Punishment
The Best Assault RIfle
- Tier: Ultimate
- DPS: 175
- Rounds: 35
- Fire Rate: 705
- Critical Rate: 10%
- Critical Damage Modifier: 1.7
- Reload Speed: 1.55 seconds
It must be said that either Divine Punishment or the previously covered ultimate tier assault rifle, Fallen Hope, could have taken the top spot in this list. They are very similar, and the choice between them is likely going to come down to which one the player unlocks first.
The First Descendant: Best Shotguns, Ranked
The First Descendant has a wide range of weaponry available to players, and this includes some pretty good shotguns.
Stats-wise, Divine Punishment is very similar to Fallen Hope, with slightly less damage and a slightly higher rate of fire. It does have a 2% lower critical rate as well, but this is pretty trivial when comparing the two. As with most non-cash shop weapons, the player will need to get hold of the blueprint and research it to unlock Divine Punishment.
The First Descendant
- Released
- July 2, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Nexon Games
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Third-Person Shooter
- OpenCritic Rating
- Weak
