“Ines Getting a…Nerf??” The First Descendant Devs Announce a Character Rebalance in S2E2

They said it would never happen, but it looks like times are changing. The First Descendant devs announce a character rebalance is on the way, along with a dreaded nerf for Ines.

In the last few months, Nexon repeated time and time again that they want to avoid nerfing any Descendants. They want the players to experience the power-fantasy that TFD can provide and don’t want to lessen the enjoyment. However, the enjoyment did take a couple of hits as new characters dominated the scene. It began with Ultimate Freyna, who proved to be the best choice for melting masses of enemies. But when Ines arrived, she took over and is now considered the absolute best choice in the game (with Ultimate Gley arguably being a bit better at bossing). So much so that the players started complaining a bit, saying that the game boils down to one or two characters, and the other Descendants are practically there for show. Thankfully, the devs just had an announcement about the upcoming Descendant rebalance.

A Major Character Rebalance Is Coming to The First Descendant

We recently had a devlive broadcast, where the devs talked about the current state of the game, their plans for the future, how they plan to fix glaring issues, and of course, the upcoming S2E2 content, like Serena or the new Sigma Sector area. And during the “Future Adjustments” section on the broadcast, the devs touched on the subject of a character rebalance.

“The dev team takes the balancing very seriously. Because the performance gap is so wide between the Descendants currently, we do have difficulties in designing [new] content. So when we use the OP Descendants as our [standard], then most Descendants struggle in content. On the other hand, when we use the mid-performing Descendats, then the OP Descendants just rip through the content. 

So that’s why we considered delaying the Episode 2 Update to balance out the Descendants first. However, we understand that many players out there are really looking forward to Episode 2, so we decided to stick to our original schedule and provide the rebalancing patch after the Episode 2 Update.”

They continue saying that the performance updates will be applied across all Descendants, using Viessa, Valby, Bunny, and Hailey as a standard, and underperforming Descendants will be buffed.

On the topic of OP Descendats, Freyna can (and probably will) be countered with content adjustments. As for Ines, the devs say that they haven’t found a long-term balancing solution for her. “It was a difficult decision, but we decided to nerf her to Freyna’s level…The time calls for a decision for sustaining good quality content, so we ask for your generous understanding.”

They finish by saying that the point of this rebalancing patch is to bring up the underperforming Descendants. Someone asked whether Bunny will get buffed, but the devs stated that it is not something they are reviewing at this point. The first balancing patch will be provided in early April. For a reminder, the Season 2 Episode 2: Beyond the Void update is scheduled for March 13. This means there will be approximately a full month between the S2E2 and the rebalancing patch. 

While we understand why the devs avoided nerfing until now, we can’t deny that the game boiled down to only several of the characters being viable. Hopefully, this rebalancing patch will make everyone (or at least the majority) more or less equal and fun to play with.