The First Descendant

The First Descendant

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TFD Descendant Modding for Beginners
By KiroTheImmortal
To Explain the Unexplained in Modding
While there is plenty of guides showing what to mod and the loadouts you should go with, I find there is little to no information on the mechanics of modding and how the numbers play together. The purpose to this guide is to help explain some of the basic modding of a Descendant. I will focus exclusively on how the mods work and what to look for rather than the meta state of the game.
   
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Skill Stats that Can Be Modified
To begin I'm going to list what can be modified by Modules and what they do and how the modules Interact with them
    Stat Name - Positive Effect / Negative EffectGeneral Description
  • Cooldown - "-X%" Reduces the time / "+X%" Increases the time
    Generally takes place after the start of an ability but some (Sharen's Invisibility) begin after the ability is finished. This is how long before you can use the ability again.

  • Duration - "+X%" Increases the time / "-X%" Reduces the time
    Length of effect after trigger. Some abilities have multiple duration within them, but all are governed by mods.

  • Range "+X%" Increases the Range / "-X%" Reduces the Range
    The area or distance an ability can effect. Will appear as "m" and mods will effect it manipulatively.

  • MP Cost - "-X%" Reduces the cost / "+X%" Increases the cost
    Cost of the skill to activate or channel.

  • Skill Power- "+X%" Increases power of the equipped Reactor / "-X%" Reduces power of the equipped Reactor
    Mods with "Skill Power" effects the base strength of abilities by increasing the Reactor's Skill Power stat to each ability.

  • Skill Power Modifier "+X%" Increases the power of the Skill Modifier/ "-X%" Reduces the power of the Skill Modifier
    Mods with "Skill Power Modifier" effects scaling of Skills themselves. This will appear as Skill Power +XXXX%. where +X% from mods will be additive
How to Mod
Preamble
In here I'm going to be talking about how the mods work and what should be considered when modding. I'm going to break down this part into 4 parts: Up-time(Cooldown vs Duration), Efficiency(Skill Cost/MP Max and Duration), Effectiveness(Skill Power + Modifier and Range)

Up-Time(Cooldown Vs Duration)
Up-Time Here will be defined as how often can you use the ability vs how long the ability lasts.
This is pretty simple and straight forward there's not much really dive deep into.
To start there is two types of cooldowns. Those that begin on the ability cast and those that begin on ability finish.
On Ability Cast
These are the ones that you can get a positive Up-time. I'm Going to use Enzo's 4th as my example because i find it the most satisfying to hit Up-Time Neutral. Enzo's 4th starts off with a pretty awful up-time: 90s cooldown with 7.5 Duration at max level. This gives us an 82.5 second wait between cast. To get positive up time here is just throwing off any mods that give Positive of both. (Multi-talented best frand). My enzo is at 28s(10.2s) cooldown and 10.2s Duration. Simple, but I want to talk about things to consider.
So cooldown's are able to be reduced far more potently than Duration. This is something important to look at. Notice in my Enzo example I went from 90s to 28s without Multi-talented, and 10.2 with multi-talented. However, I only got my duration to 10.2s. Overall the game more % attached to cooldowns than it does for Duration. Multi-Talented for example gives -20% cooldown while it only giving +6% Duration
When considering up-time management cooldown is the easiest to modify and duration the hardest. I did not mention abilities that have no duration. These will only have up-time effected by cooldown.

Efficiency(Skil Cost/MP Max and Duration)
Efficiency is going to be the ratio of Skill cost and MP Max as well as I will throw in some explanation of Duration's influence.
Skill Cost does not have many high %'s to reduce but each one is extremely effective. Skill cost not only increase the effectiveness of + MP Max, but also reduces the effects of -MP Max mods. It also makes mana orbs and effects like MP in combat/MP out of combat more effective. Costing less MP means needing less MP. Making mods like whats in the thumbnail "Skill Simplification" which gives 84.5% Skill Power Modifier and Max MP -25% a lot more valuable.
Duration increases your efficiency by which allows you to cast less and get more use out of what was spent. IE. 10s duration- MP Cost: 10. This equates to 1 MP/s. Increase the duration to 11s now your looking at .9 MP/S. 10% more efficient and also increasing your up-time by 10%

Effectiveness(Skill Power + Modifier and Range)
This is where things get more chaotic. As mentioned before mods with "Skill Power +x%" effects the BASE value given by your Reactor and "Skill Power Modifier +x%" effects the modifying stat given to abilities. Modifier is always additive to modifier. (200%+50%=250%) stat.

  • Skill Power x Modifier = Output
  • Skill Power == Value showed on Reactors + Skill Power %
  • Modifier == Modifier given to abilities.

If you look at the image above Enzo's 4th has 15% modifier. This means he gets 15% of modifier to start.
Example: Skill Power = 1000
  • Skill Power x 15.9 = 159
Example: Skill power + Skill power 50% = 1500
  • Skill Power x 15.9 = 238.5
Example: Skill Power = 1000 Skill Modifier + 50%
  • Skill Power x 65.9 = 659


When working with a skill that has a low base Modifier there is a massively larger growth in Skill Modifier. 50% Skill power doesn't translate directly to 50% but comes out to be 49.68%. However, +50% Skill Power Modifier translates to something like 314% more output.

Changing the example to a large base Modifier: Viessa 4th

Example: Skill Power = 1000
  • Skill Power x 1435.2 = 1,435,000
Example: Skill power + Skill power 50% = 1500
  • Skill Power x 1435.2 = 2,152,800
Example: Skill Power = 1000 Skill Modifier + 50%
  • Skill Power x 1485.2 = 1,485,200

Now in these examples it is shown that Adding 50% Skill power now does translate to a 50% increase where as adding +50% Modifier only translate to a 3% damage growth.

Range is going to increase your Effectiveness by increasing how many targets can be hit. Buffs mean less chance of Missing an ally when they are far away and dps skills mean in general large counts of targets can be hit.

Mechanically range is not working. Each ability is supposed to have a cap but that cap does not work.

Base range is 100% adding range is additive to this value with 200% beeing max for modding
  • 100 + 0 = 100 2m x range = 2m
  • 100 + 50 = 150 2m x Range = 3m
  • 100 + 200 = 300 2 mx Range = 6m

Missing Info I will add at a later date
Arche Acceleration
Skill Speed and Range increase Modifier effects projectiles and their flight speed and distance.

Survival Traits.
Reactors and their effects on modding
Element mod and Skill type mod effects and explanation.
3 Comments
KiroTheImmortal  [author] 5 Oct, 2024 @ 8:07am 
@zzzz Exactly. So functionaly what happens when you reduce your MP cost it gives you more effective mana the same way that armor gives you more effective hp.

With the amount of mana cost reductions compared to Max MP modifiers its better to look to mana cost reductions, and not be afraid of a little less mana via Max MP loss.

MP drops also do not scale % max mana but flat allowing you again to not realy need to fear Max MP reductions.


As an added bonus increasing your duration also reduces effective mana cost Via Mana Cost : Time as your ratio
brojo satoru 5 Oct, 2024 @ 6:55am 
from what i know, skill cost and mp work independently.

skill cost reduces the cost of ur skills at a fixed value, independent of the amount of MP. it also does not increase the effect of mana orbs, only MP modifier will do that.
Xamul 17 Aug, 2024 @ 1:58pm 
Nice Guide, very helpfull:steamthumbsup: