The First Descendant: Best Thunder Cage Build (Best Builds, Characters & Roll) (2024)

Quick Links

  • How To Unlock Thunder Cage

    • Reach Mastery Level One, Then Gather The Materials
  • Best Character Build For Thunder Cage

    • Taking Advantage Of Bunny's Mobility
  • Best Modules For Thunder Cage

    • Focus On Your Critical Damage And Crit Rate
  • Best Weapons To Run With Thunder Cage

    • In Line With The Bunny Build, Choose From A Few Weapons

Thunder Cage is one of the first Ultimate Weapons you'll get in The First Descendant, and it's strong for many reasons. Its burst damage is excellent, making it useful for mowing down mobs and taking on bosses. With the right build, Thunder Cage can devastate a battlefield, but you'll need to unlock the ultimate version of the gun and level up fast to see it at its full potential truly.

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Generally, there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind when building any gun in The First Descendant. Each weapon has the same general "output" variables that all determine how well it will perform: Firearm ATK, Crit Rate and Damage, Fire Rate, Mag size, Reload Speed, Weak Point DMG, and Elemental DMG. It would be best to prioritize a few of these when building your weapon; in Thunder Cage's case, the mods you pick should focus on Crit Damage and Rate.

How To Unlock Thunder Cage

Reach Mastery Level One, Then Gather The Materials

In order to craft the Ultimate version of Thunder Cage, you'll have to craft it with Magister Anais in Albion. You'll need a few materials, plus some money to do so, which can be found in the following locations:

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Material

Location

Thunder Cage Polymer Synctium

Sterile Land Rockfall, External Reactor

Thunder Cage Synthetic Fiber

Sterile Land Repository, Kuiper Mine

Thunder Cage Nano Tube

Sterile Land Restricted Zone, High-Powered Jammer

Thunder Cage Blueprint

Sterile Land Ironworks, Logistics Facility

Gold x100,000

Missions

To find the four pieces of the Thunder Cage, head to the Sterile Land and then follow along with NothingButSkillz on YouTube for their exact locations. You'll need to run the subquest "Basic Weapon Training," which should walk you through the steps to find them all, but if you need more guidance, the video is a great walkthrough.

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The patch notes for The First Descendant's 1.1.0 Patch are live and the update features some fantastic improvements and an ultra-cool sharpshooter

You'll also come back to these missions a few times while you work on upgrading your Thunder Cage, as this is the only place you'll be able to collect the proper materials. As you upgrade your weapon, you'll head to the Sterile Lands again and again until Thunder Cage is fully upgraded. You should upgrade your mods one at a time rather than all at once, as having a fully upgraded mod in one slot is better than having a bunch of low-level mods.

Best Character Build For Thunder Cage

Taking Advantage Of Bunny's Mobility

The First Descendant: Best Thunder Cage Build (Best Builds, Characters & Roll) (2)

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Thunder Cage is a relatively short-range weapon; as an SMG, it has falloff for damage after 23 meters, progressively losing damage until you reach max falloff at 43 meters. For it to be effective, you need to be up close to your enemies and survive and get out of situations if they become sticky. The best character to play with Thunder Cage is Bunny, who thrives in fast-paced, close-range combat.

The best Bunny build focuses on electricity and keeping her abilities off cooldown. You should focus on maintaining Speed of Light to keep Electricity up. This will empower the rest of the kit and benefit your movement through Lightning Emission. Overall, this Bunny build works well with Thunder Cage.

Best Modules For Thunder Cage

Focus On Your Critical Damage And Crit Rate

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You can build Thunder Cage in infinite ways, but the value that critical damage can provide cannot be overstated. With this in mind, most of the mods you're going to slot will increase your crit effectiveness in one way or another, and they should be upgraded in a particular order. Here are the ten mods you should slot, upgrading them fully in the following order:

Mod

Focus

Rifling Reinforcement

Firearm Attack

Fire Rate Up

DPS

Better Insight

Crit Rate

Better Concentration

Crit Damage

Action & Reaction

Firearm Attack

Reload Insight or Focus

Cycle Time + Crit

Weak Point Insight or Focus Fire

Weak Point + Crit

Concentration Priority

Crit Damage

Insight Focus

Crit Rate + Damage

[Element of Choice] Enhancement

Elemental Damage

Once you've got your first mod, Rifling Reinforcement, slotted, please upgrade it to max before moving on to Fire Rate Up for the reason mentioned above. Catalyze your first nine slots, but leave the 10th one uncatalyzed. You're taking all these crit-related mods because of Thunder Cage's special perk; whenever you get a kill with the gun, you release an electric burst in the area around you, damaging any enemies nearby. A high crit rate will allow you to guarantee kills, pricing Thunder Cage's perk.

Its critical damage and rate also make it pretty useful in boss-DPS situations. You have a weak point mod in place to take care of those in boss fights, and as long as you hit your shots, you should deal decent damage to even bosses. While boss DPS won't lend itself to triggering those electric AoE explosions, the weapon itself will still put up good damage, particularly with a mid-range secondary and Heavy Impact weapon to compliment the playstyle you'll be maintaining with Thunder Cage.

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Best Weapons To Run With Thunder Cage

In Line With The Bunny Build, Choose From A Few Weapons

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Keep in mind the build you'll be running when choosing your secondary and heavy-impact weapon. With Bunny, remember that it's important to choose weapons that will get value in the close and mid-range fights that you will be taking. That being said, picking a Hand Cannon, Scout Rifle, or Beam Rifle will fulfill this niche for your secondary weapon.

For your Heavy Impact, pick either a Sniper or Grenade Launcher. If you struggle in Void Intercept battles, the sniper will help you pick off the boss from a distance. Any other time, the Grenade Launcher you choose will help you clear ads when they're too far away to be killed by your electric bursts.

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Thankfully, the secondary and Heavy weapon you pick for your Thunder Cage build is less important than your Thunder Cage itself. You can really pick from any of the best weapons in The First Descendant to complete your loadout, so don't worry too much about one specific weapon. Play whatever feels best for you, and if you don't like how something is working, re-evaluate as your circumstances change.

Source: NothingButSkillz/YouTube

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The First Descendant

Action RPG

Third-Person Shooter

Platform(s)
PlayStation 5 , PlayStation 4 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , Xbox One , PC

Released
July 2, 2024

Developer(s)
Nexon Games

Publisher(s)
Nexon

Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
The First Descendant: Best Thunder Cage Build (Best Builds, Characters & Roll) (2024)

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