What Does Weapon Proficiency Do in The First Descendant

In The First Descendant, our weapons are like our rather volatile children. They are loud, they make a mess, and you never want to trade them in when you like them. But what exactly is weapon proficiency in The First Descendant, and why should you care about it?

What Is Weapon Proficiency in The First Descendant?

Weapon proficiency is essentially a measure of how much you have used a particular weapon in The First Descendant. You can check the weapon proficiency levels in the Weapons List in the character menu. It is an account-based stat, not a character-based one, so every time you use a weapon it feeds into the same proficiency pool for that weapon, no matter what Descendant you are playing as.

The proficiency level is also weapon-specific, not weapon-type specific. This means that if you use the Ominous Hound assault rifle and get the proficiency level to increase, it will only increase for that weapon, not the Magnus AA, the Caligo’s Horn, or any other assault rifle in the game. The maximum weapon proficiency level is currently Level 40.

Now, you can passively increase the proficiency of any weapon by having it equipped as you are earning proficiency with another weapon by getting kills with it. This is slow going, however, and you are better off just breaking out the weapon and making sure you use it. Any of the longer wave-based missions are great for quickly earning proficiency due to the huge number of enemy spawns in them.

What Does Weapon Proficiency Actually Do?

Okay, here is where it gets interesting. Earning weapon proficiency in The First Descendant will do two things. First, it will help level up your Mastery Rank. This is an account-wide ranking that gives you access to important new systems and resources in the game, so you definitely want to level it up. This means you should be thinking carefully before you dismantle something. Better to rank something up early and have it done and added to your overall Mastery Rank than dismantle it and then need to find that same weapon again later on.

The other reason you want to get more proficiency in your weapons is that ranking them up will increase the mod capacity of that particular weapon. The more mods you can put on, the more powerful the weapon will be. You can increase the damage, reload speed, accuracy, and even add things like fire damage to your builds. Only after you have done this should you be exploring things like Crystallization Catalysts to further increase the power of your weapons.

Now that you know what weapon proficiency is in The First Descendant and why you should care about it, it’s time to hit the battlefield and start ranking it up.

The First Descendant is available to play now on PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox X|S, and Steam.