Nexon revealed in a developer video that changes are coming to Serena and Ines in The First Descendant. The goal is to maintain freedom when choosing Descendants, rather than just opting for the strongest one.
In a dev note video on July 13, The First Descendant community director, Jason Lee, announced that the July 15 update includes additional balance changes for Ines and Serena.
“We place great importance on an environment where various Descendants can each have their own strengths and be used together across a wide range of content,” Lee said.
When it comes to Serena, Lee said the team is adjusting the way her Redemption skill works, splitting it into base and AoE damage. This change isn’t a direct nerf. Instead, it improves single-target damage while keeping AoE damage under control.
He added that with upcoming growth features, the performance gap between Serena and other Descendants could exceed acceptable levels. Those features likely include Transcendent Weapons coming in August. Transcendent Weapons are meant to be a long-term grind like Ascendant Modules, and if they are anything alike in terms of power, Serena’s performance would skyrocket.
Serena’s power isn’t going anywhere, though. Two new Transcendent Modules for Serena that incentivize skill-based gameplay are coming to The First Descendant with the July 15 update. On top of that, the skill synchronization value is increased from 0.496 to 1.177.
A character that’s currently outperforming other Descendants is Ines. To address that, the upcoming update includes changes to her Dark Current. However, the developer stated that it will monitor her performance after the patch to ensure it doesn’t fall below intended.
For the most part, Nexon had prioritized buffing underperforming characters rather than nerfing overperformers. This comes after community backlash on Ines’ nerfs last year. Unfortunately, the approach also created an endless loop of power creep, especially with Serena’s release.
The exact breakdown of changes to Serena and Ines will be in the July 15 patch notes later this week. The update also introduces a reworked Void Intercept Battle mode and monthly balancing for Blair.
