The First Descendent - Thunder Cage Build

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Thunder Cage is the first and most easily farmed legendary weapon that is very good even into Hard Mode endgame content.
You can get through most of the Normal mode game without it and complete overland missions solo, but once you are in Agna Desert and beyond, going solo is really rough as the sheer number of enemies coming at you can be overwhelming and the unique ability of Thunder Cage to explode enemies becomes more or less essential.

In this article we will go through a Thunder Cage build that is not strictly based on looking for the highest Damage-Per-Second (DPS) number. There are a number of factors which make Thunder Cage better as a weapon against massed enemies so we aim for the highest "damage per bullet".
As we look at the modules used, we'll discuss why we chose them.
An excellent resource for experimenting with weapon builds is The First Descendent Weapons Builder if you want to experiment on your own. Because weapons can have various traits which further adjust a weapon, we'll use The Weapons Builder to show our Thunder Cage build as if it had no traits at all.

Basic Weapon

Before looking at the modules, here are some important things to understand:
  • Base Firearm ATK
    • A firearm has a Base Firearm ATK value. When modifiers increase Firearm ATK, they use this base value, not the currently adjusted value.
    • So if a weapon has a Base Firearm ATK of 100, and you have two modules that add +10% and +20% respectively, your adjusted Firearm ATK becomes:
      • Base 100 plus
      • 10% of base plus
      • 20% of base
      • for a total of 130.
  • Base Firearm Critical Hit Rate
    • Firearm Critical Hit Rate works similarly to Firearm ATK.
    • On the page where you insert modules into your firearm, it reports a "Firearm Critical Hit Rate". This is NOT your adjusted chance of scoring a critical hit.
    • Instead, this is the adjustment to the Base Firearm Critical Hit Rate. For Thunder Cage, this is 20%.
    • So if the game reports a Firearm Critical Hit Rate of 82% on the module page, your actual Critical Hit Rate is 20% x (100% + 82%) or 36.4%.
  • Base Firearm Critical Hit Damage
    • Similarly, Critical Hit Damage works the same way as Critical Hit Rate. Thunder Cage has a Base Critical Hit Damage multiplier of 2x.
    • So a Firearm Critical Hit Damage modifier of 200% results in a net multiplier of 2 x (100% + 200%) or 6x damage.
  • Secondary Bonuses
    • Various purple modules have secondary bonuses of +1% ATK, +1.5% Critical Hit Rate, or +6.5% Critical Hit Damage. We compared them with a benchmark of Actual Critical Hit Rate 35% and Actual Critical Hit Damage of 6x:
      • +1% ATK translates to ( 1% + (1% x 35% x 6) ) = 3.1% more damage
      • +1.5% Critical Hit Rate translates to (20% x 1.5%) x 6 = 1.8% more damage.
      • +6.5% Critical Hit Damage translates to (35% x (6.5% x 2)) = 4.55% more damage.
  • Attribute ATK
    • When you add Attribute ATK, this is not factored into the calculations in the weapon information panel.
    • Attribute ATK, like Firearm ATK, is based off Base Firearm ATK.
    • When your weapon scores a Critical Hit, Attribute ATK is also multiplied. Because of this, we will consider Attribute ATK to be the same as adding Firearm ATK, although the game will treat it differently as enemies such as Colossi in Interceptions can be stronger or weaker against various elements ("Attributes").
    • Attribute ATKs can inflict a special status. The chance of this happening is based on the weapons' Attribute Status Effect Trigger Rate, and for Thunder Cage is is 4%.
  • Recoil
    • There are two effects to Recoil: Kick and Spread.
      • Kick
        • If you don't try to aim or adjust your aim at all and just hold down the button to fire your weapon, your weapon will slowly kick upward with each shot. This is Recoil.
        • However, for practical purposes, you will be actively adjusting your aim, so even a recoil penalty of 20% can feel negligible, at least for Thunder Cage and it's basic recoil.
      • Spread
        • The reticle for Thunder Cage is a small circle and shows where 100% of your bullets will land.
        • When your Accuracy or Recoil score improves, this circle is small. When they get worse, this circle is bigger. 
          • If you have a Recoil penalty, adding either Accuracy increase or Recoil decrease modules will both reduce this circle, which makes both viable for reducing Spread.
        • If you are moving, this circle gets bigger. When you continuously fire your weapon, this circle will also get bigger.
    • Handling Recoil
      • With a small investment in Accuracy you can actually get quite a small reticle for Thunder Cage, making it fairly good at hitting targets long-range.
      • If you don't want to invest in Accuracy or Recoil, then try standing still and just tapping the trigger. This lets the reticle shrink in between your short bursts. With Thunder Cage, you often only need to kill one target and cause it to explode to kill the rest nearby.
  • Reload
    • Submachineguns have a fairly good Reload Time but obviously any delay due to reloading will reduce your damage output. However, we take into account the fact that generally you may have to stop shooting and reposition when faced with dangerous enemies and during that time you should obviously reload if you can.
    • In team situations where one person will have the attention of the boss and the rest can focus fire, then any delay in damage output will be more significant.
    • We decided on a balance by increasing Rounds per Magazine instead.
  • Special Modules
    • The various special effects of Special Modules are typically conditional and not factored into the displayed weapon stats even if there are effects without conditions.
  • Weak Point Damage
    • Weak Point Damage is also very popular for increasing damage, but in practice we found that it is very hard to consistently hit Weak Points even against large targets like Colossi.

Modules

All Module information is based on the maximum possible enhancement level. Using matching slot types for half module cost, the total build is 79 module points out of 80 maximum.

Rifling Reinforcement - Firearm ATK 32%
Action and Reaction - Firearm ATK +61%, Recoil +20%
Electric Enhancement - Adds Electric ATK equal to 30% of Firearm ATK
  • Thunder Cage comes with a fixed Cerulean slot ("C") so Chill Enhancement was also a possibility. However, the most dangerous bosses generally are unaffected by Chill special effects whereas they can still be Electrocuted for damage.
    • If an enemy is Electrocuted from a Critical Hit, the electrocution damage over time is also increased by the Critical Hit Damage multiplier.
  • When facing bosses that have strong resistance to Electric, it is probably not worthwhile to try to change the Attribute to match. And when you have assigned slot types to all 10 module slots, your build becomes really quite rigid.
    • If you want to temporarily swap, you could put a Chill Enhancement on the one Cerulean slot that comes standard with Thunder Cage, and swap the Xantic Electric Enhancement module with a Fire Rate module instead.
Electric Gunbarrel - Electric ATK +80%, Fire Rate -25%
  • This is +80% of Electric ATK only, so it works out to adding Electric ATK equal to (30% x 80%) of Firearm ATK, or 24%.
    • Total 54% Electric ATK.
  • Considering you will lose around 25% Fire Rate (depending on whether you have other Fire Rate adjustments), your Damage Per Second is obviously going to be much lower for the gain.
  • However, a Submachine Gun like Thunder Cage has a very small magazine (base 26) so unless you can somehow extend your firing time significantly without bullet cost, we consider a Fire Rate decrease to have limited effect as it will only take you slightly longer to empty your small clip. Examples of firing time without bullet cost include:
    • Firing Fiesta module (but can require tricky timing)
    • Gley's Increased Sensory skill during Frenzy.
  • Also, Thunder Cage is primarily for fighting weak mobs where you rely on the special electric area of effect burst to kill enemy clumps. So we are likely only using the weapon for short bursts instead of sustained fire where Fire Rate would be important.
  • If you are temporarily swapping out Electric Enhancement for Chill Enhancement, then you will want to remove this as well since it won't be applicable at all. There aren't many good choices left in Xantic but if you have enough module capacity you can put any module but at increased cost. Keep the module enhancement level low and it might still fit.
Better Insight - Critical Hit Rate +39%
Edging Shot - Critical Rate +43%, Firearm ATK -15%
  • There is obviously a huge tradeoff here at Firearm ATK -15%.
  • A Critical Rate of 43% is an increase in final Critical Hit Chance of 8.6%.
  • Assuming a final Critical Hit Damage multiplier of 6x, this translates to 51.6% more damage on average due to critical hits, which is worth a flat 15% decrease to Firearm ATK.
Better Concentration - Firearm Critical Hit Damage +74.8%
Concentration Priority - Firearm Critical Hit Damage +120%, Reload time -30%
Concentrate Support Ammo - Rounds per Magazine +30%, Firearm Critical Hit Damage +6.5%
Sharp Precision Shot
  • Module effect:
    • Fire Rate -20%
    • While pulling the trigger, Fire Rate +4%, Recoil -5%, and Firearm ATK +6% every 0.5s, up to 10 stacks.
  • The Firearm ATK bonus seems to affect the BASE Firearm ATK of the weapon as an increase in ATK from the Sharp Precision Shot module will also increase Attribute ATK from the Electric Enhancement module.
  • Obviously this is best for large-magazine weapons such as machineguns. In tests, emptying a full clip of 26 bullets got us to just 6 stacks or +36% ATK. Over the firing period, this averages to around +18% ATK. An extra stack is possible with a slightly larger magazine.
    • The bonus is based on sustaining fire over time, so a higher Fire Rate that exhausts the magazine sooner results in less of a bonus.
  • Play around with this and if you don't like it, swap it out for a Fire Rate Increase module, which is a much more traditional way to get a fat DPS number.

Summary

Firearm ATK +78% - 150%
  • Firearm ATK +78%
  • +54% Electric ATK
  • Around +18% average ATK from Sharp Precision Shot
Actual Critical Hit Rate 36.4%
Actual Critical Hit Damage Multiplier 6.03x


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