Onslaught Stage 4 and 5 in The First Descendant: Requirements, Mechanics, and Rewards

Onslaught Stage 5 landed with the October 15, 2026 update, and it’s the new ceiling of the weekly Onslaught rotation in Axion Plains. Stage 4 didn’t go anywhere — both stages now sit side by side, and picking the right one is a gear decision, not a difficulty flex.

Getting in

• Clear Stage 4 once. That’s the gate. Until you’ve beaten Stage 4, Stage 5 doesn’t exist for you.
• Public Operations require 93,300 Arche Activity. Below that, Private Operations will still let you run Stage 5 — the threshold only applies to public matchmaking.
• Enter from Albion’s Tactical Transport Control or the world map content menu. Heads up: Stage 5 is a different location in Axion Plains than Stage 4, so don’t autopilot to the old marker and wonder why the encounter looks wrong.

How the stage runs

Stage 5 is six enemy waves, then a Colossus finale. The wrinkle is the Tyrant:

• A Tyrant marches toward the Energy Concentration Point. If it gets in, your team loses 10% Energy. Energy is your run — treat the Tyrant as the real boss until it’s dead.
• Barricades block its path. Use them. A barricade line buys you entire waves of breathing room.
• Killing the Tyrant wipes the Normal and Elite Vulgus around it, so focus-firing it early solves two problems at once.
• One trap for min-maxers: Stage 5’s normal monsters don’t carry a Weak Point Damage Adjustment, but the Tyrant, Commanders and the Colossus have added Weak Point Damage Resistance. If your build leans entirely on weak-point damage, check how much of your kit actually scales here before you commit reroll materials.

The rewards, compared

• Stage 5: one guaranteed Transcendent-tier Ancestors Module option per weekly run, and its Transcendent Weapon Loot can roll Quality 301 to 400 — this is the stage for players pushing top-tier Transcendent gear.
• Stage 4: still available, still two guaranteed Ultimate-tier module options per week. If you’re still building Ultimate equipment, Stage 4 hasn’t been replaced.
• The Stage 5 completion table also pays out on the order of 5 million gold, around 248,000 Kuiper Shards, and 367 Superconductive Cooling Units per clear as of Season 4 — the cooling units feed Ancestors Module rerolls, see the module guide.

What to bring

Nexon’s own benchmark is a Transcendent Weapon at Tier 4. Don’t read that as a hard requirement — read it as “don’t show up with a Tier 1 Transcendent and hope.” A build you can play reliably beats a theoretically stronger loadout you fumble. If you have the new Monster Hunter assault rifle from the same update, its Hunter’s Sense bonus against Colossi is tailor-made for the finale.

Which stage should you run?

• Chasing Transcendent Weapons and 400-quality rolls? Stage 5. It’s the only Onslaught stage that guarantees a Transcendent-tier module option weekly.
• Still filling out Ultimate gear? Stage 4 — two guaranteed Ultimate options beats one Transcendent you can’t fully use yet.
• Both, honestly. They reward different tiers, and the weekly lockout is per stage.

For the wider farm picture, read the Transcendent weapon farm guide, and if you want the eight-player Colossus fight instead of a four-player one, that’s Wall Crasher in Axion Plains.