Ultimate RAID: Shadow Legends Guide for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know Before Starting

RAID: Shadow Legends is a pretty difficult game. I’ve been playing for about three years (including rest periods). During this time, I’ve accumulated lots of useful experience, so in this guide, I will share it with you.

Best starting champion

The best starting champion in RAID is Kael. The reasons why he’s the best are the following:

• The presence of poisons (you’ll see why it’s important further);
• The highest AOE damage among other starting champions,
• And the fast leveling of food in the campaign.

AOE damage is very important in the arenas and in dungeons; poisons will be very useful on a clan boss, which is the main source of shards and books; the leveling of food is an eternal activity, so you should be able to do this as fast as you can.

The first goal is to level up Kael to 6 stars

Remember the essential rule in RAID: one 6-star champion is much better than a dozen 5-star ones. When a champion reaches rank 6, his stats significantly improve. In addition, he gets access to the slot of a banner, which makes him even stronger.

In the beginning, you’ll receive a lot of good equipment as a gift. Use it to equip your Kael at once. Upgrade the best equipment you have to the highest possible level. Remember: your goal is 6-star Kael. He will be your main champion.

When you have beer, you should spend it on Kael. When you have rare skill tomes, you should spend them on Kael as well. Until Kael reaches 6 rank, you should boost him in all possible ways.

DO NOT spend Epic Skill Tomes on Kael! They are precious for newbies. Always improve your champion’s skills with tomes of the same rarity.

Campaign Walkthrough

Along with the leveling of Kael, one of your main goals is to fully complete the campaign of the “Brutal” mode. To do this, you should first complete the “Normal” and “Hard” mods. If you’re an active player, this will take a few days.

Furthermore, you should strive to complete the campaign with all three stars. It can be done, if you successfully complete a stage in less than 10 minutes using only two champions, each of whom must survive.

If you are stuck somewhere, boost your champions. First of all, Kael, then others. Improve equipment to the highest level. Farm the Keeps to get Affinity Potions. Farm dungeons and lower campaign stages to get better equipment.

Novice Tournament

As a beginner, you will take part in the Novice Tournament. To get rewards, you should beat campaign locations, win arena battles, and raid dungeons. There are several different dungeons in RAID. You can read about each of them in the article at the link.

Try to win this tournament to get additional rewards. To do this, you should be very, very active. So, don’t be lazy! Come on! 👊

Missions, Quests, and Challenges

There are a lot of missions in RAID. If you want to progress faster, you should strive to complete them as quickly as you can. First of all, try to complete as many challenges and daily quests as possible. But don’t forget about the missions as well.

Though, the mission chain is so long and so hard that some players can’t fully complete it even after 2-3 years of playing.

How to choose equipment for champions

Your champions will be useless if you equip them with the wrong items. As you may have seen, each champion in RAID has as many as 8 stats. Which of them is worth improving with equipment depends on a champion’s role in a team.

You’re advised to take this seriously because changing equipment in RAID costs silver. Furthermore, if you think RAID is similar to the IDLE RPG you’ve played before, you’re mistaken. You won’t be able to do anything unless you understand the mechanics of this game, believe me.

So let’s find out what each of the parameters means.

• HP is the health of a character.
• ATK is an attack power. If a champion’s skills do not depend on [ATK], this stat is useless; remember this.
• DEF (defense) is the ability to resist damage.
• SPD (speed) determines the order of the champions’ turns. The champion with the higher speed will also get a turn first.
• C.RATE is a critical rate. The higher this value, the higher the chance to deal a critical hit.
• C.DMG is the power of critical hits. This number means that the damage will be increased by a certain percentage. For example, if your champion has 50% C.DMG, his critical hits will be 1.5 times stronger than normal ones.
• RES is resistance. It’s a chance to avoid debuffs that enemies try to place on your team. Being a novice, you shouldn’t improve this stat. Your main goal is to maximize your heroes’ speed and damage.
• ACC is accuracy. Accuracy determines the chance to place a debuff on an enemy. If your champion’s accuracy is higher than the enemy’s resistance, debuffs will be placed with a 97% chance. Otherwise, the chances of placing debuffs will be much lower.

As a novice, you should improve the attack, speed, crit. rate, crit. damage, and accuracy of your Kael and other damage dealers (DD). As for supports, they should have a high speed, HP, and DEF. If a support can use its skills to apply a debuff to an enemy, you should also improve his accuracy. If you want to apply some useful buff to your team before attacking enemies using a support, he must get a turn first. This means he must have higher speed than other champions.

To be honest, equipping champions in RAID is an art. When you want to get certain results, it becomes a long and difficult process with a lot of costs and mistakes. So don’t dwell on this now.

Just remember that for beginners, the best main stat in gloves is crit. rate, in a chestplate – ATK%, in boots – speed. Strive to get a 100% crit. rate on your Kael. This will significantly increase his effectiveness in all the game modes.

Farm rare champions in the campaign

As you may have noticed, there is a small chance (about 1%) to gain rare champions in campaign battles. Some of those champions are very useful for beginners.

So it’s recommended that you make sure that you have at least three champions: Spirithost, Warmaiden, and Diabolist. They will give you enough power to progress further and faster. It would be preferable if you also obtained Rocktooth. Very soon, I’ll explain what all these champions are for.

DO NOT waste gems

In the beginning, you will receive many gems for missions, quests, and more. It’s VERY important not to waste them. Remember: your first goal is 800 gems to unlock masteries for Kael, and your second goal is 1500 gems to unlock the Gem Mine.

The mine has a 100-day payback. It may seem long, but believe me, guys, this will bear fruit in the future. Especially if you’re playing for free with no donations.

Level food properly

To upgrade champions in RAID, you have to use food or other champions of the same rank, which is also called “food”. To obtain 6* Kael, you must level a large amount of food. That’s how it can be done.

Your Kael must be able to complete some level of the campaign solo. Then you should add 3 food-champions to his team. Repeat the walkthrough of the stage until the food reaches its maximum level.

Since in the beginning you have a lot of challenges connected to the campaign, you can do them along with leveling food.

You will also receive beer from the different challenges and quests. Use it to quickly level food in the tavern. Common and uncommon champions can be used as XP potions as well.

Use the autoclicker to level food and raid dungeons

Auto-clikers are allowed in RAID. The developers are aware of their existence. If a program isn’t a cheat and doesn’t intervene in the operation of the RAID client, it can be used. The best auto-clicker for RAID is called RSL Helper and is available to download on GitHub. You will be able to farm dungeons completely AFK with this program. 

If you want something more simple, you can always use the BlueStacks emulator. The instructions on how to install BlueStacks and configure autoclicker for RAID have already been published on the website.

Farm the highest stage of the Dragon’s Lair as possible

Dragon’s Lair is the main dungeon to farm. Being a beginner, you crucially need artifacts from the Lifesteal and Speed sets. Especially, Lifesteal. That is why you should farm the Dragon’s Lair to the highest level possible.

Equip your Kael with the full Lifesteal set as soon as you have it. This will significantly improve his survivability. Further, I will show you how to build a good starting team to farm the Dragon.

Your goal now is to reach at least 7-8 levels in the Dragon’s Lair to be able to farm 5* artifacts. Such artifacts will make your champions much stronger. Particularly if they (artifacts) are of epic or legendary quality.

You should also strive to reach the 25th level of the account. As soon as it’s done, you will be able to upgrade artifacts to level 16. This will make you progress much faster since it will be much easier to complete any campaign level or dungeon.

Looking for Warmaiden

When you reach the 9th campaign chapter, which is called “The Deadlands“, you should farm it until you obtain Warmaiden. This hot girl is a very important champion for beginners, since she can place a 60% [Decrease DEF] debuff on all enemies.

On the lower floors of dungeons, a [Decrease DEF] debuff is largely irrelevant, but further, you will simply not be able to beat any boss without it. [Decrease DEF] is an essential debuff that will be used in the arenas, in dungeons, on clan bosses, and so on. That’s why you need Warmaiden.

DO NOT use skill tomes to upgrade Warmaiden’s skills. You can use copies of this champion instead of them. The copies can be obtained as a reward for the campaign battles.

A few words about the affinities in RAID

There are 4 affinities in RAID: Shadow Legends: Magic, Force, Spirit, and Void.

• Void affinity is completely neutral towards others.
• Magic is weak against Force, but strong against Spirit.
• Spirit is weak against Magic, but strong against Force.
• Force is weak against Spirit, but strong against Magic.

If the attacker has a stronger affinity (for example, a Magic champion is attacking a Spirit champion):

• There is a 30% chance of a Strong hit (deals more damage);
• The chance to deal a critical hit is 15% higher.

If the attacker has a weaker affinity (for example, a Magic champion is attacking a Force champion):

• The damage is reduced by 20%;
• There is a 35% chance of a Weak hit (deals less damage; can’t be critical; can’t place debuffs);
• The chance of a critical hit is reduced by 15% (even if a champion has a critical rate of 115%, he has a 15% chance of not getting a critical hit against a stronger affinity). 

This information is based on the official Plarium’s guide. So when you’re raiding dungeons or fighting in the arenas, you should understand what’s happening. You should understand how the affinities work and why one hit can be weak while the other is strong.

Visit the Market

If you want to progress faster, you can buy items, champions, and shards in the Market using silver. Sometimes you can find very useful things there, like the boots from the Speed set in the picture below.

So go to the market on occasion and always buy green and blue shards. You have a chance to get new rare champions from them.

Join a clan

At some point, you will be given the mission to join a clan. Open the clan interface and press the big “Join” button. A suitable clan will be chosen automatically.

You can take three clan quests per week if you are a member of a clan. The reward for completing these quests is Clan Gold that can be spent in the Clan Shop.

As you can see, there are many useful items there.

In addition, after joining a clan, you will be able to beat the clan bosses: Demon Lord and Hydra. We will return to this shortly.

Looking for Diabolist

When you reach Chapter 13 of the campaign, your next goal is to obtain Diabolist. This champion is very important for beginners’ progress. Diabolist is able to fill the turn meter of your team while decreasing the turn meter of the enemies at the same time. Besides, she can place a 30% [Increase SPD] buff on your team.

The faster your team is, the more damage it can deal before being attacked by enemies. This is especially important in the arenas. In the lower leagues, speed is everything. So, once you have Diabolist, Warmaiden, and Spirithost, your beginner team is complete. With this team, you will be able to farm dungeons and the Classic Arena.

Of course, if you have summoned better champions from shards, you should use them; it’s obvious. But, before you do so, make certain that the champion you obtained is truly useful. Believe me, there are dozens of epic and legendary trash heroes in RAID. So don’t look at the rarity, but look at the skills and think about how you can use a certain champion in your team. And, yes, watch guides on YouTube and read ones on the web. For example, a guide to the legendary Ronda has already been published on the website. At the point of writing this article, Ronda can be obtained for free after 7 days of logging into the game.

Your first arena team and the order of its turns

As I said above, speed is everything in the arenas. In most cases, the team that gets a turn earlier wins. But, as you understand, we can’t make all our champions equally fast. That’s why we need champions like Diabolist, whose primary role in battle is to fill the team’s turn meter.

So Diabolist should be the fastest champion on our team. Pay attention to her basic speed of 110 units. Arbiter, the legendary hero, has the same speed, but has also a 30% speed increase aura in the arenas.

And that’s why we need Spirithost. Of course, her aura is much weaker, but it’s still the best option for newbies.

In addition, Spirithost can places 50% [Increase ATK] buff on your team. So obviously she must get a turn BEFORE your damage dealers (Kael, Warmaiden, and so on).

The next turn should get Warmaiden. Her task is to place a 60% [Decrease DEF] debuff on the enemy’s team. This debuff will significantly increase incoming damage. To do this, your Warmaiden must have enough accuracy to overcome the enemy champions’ resistance. It’s also logical to make her faster than Kael, but slower than Spirithost so she has the [Increase ATK] buff before attacking.

Finally, the last turn goes to Kael, whose only task is to kill everything. At this point, Kael has a 50% [Increase ATK] buff, and his enemies have a 60% [Decrease DEF] debuff. That’s how arena speed teams work.

Let’s see how this looks in practice.

1. Diabolist fills the turn meter of our team and decreases the turn meter of the enemies.
   
2. Spirithost applies 50% [Increase ATK] buff to our team.
   
3. Warmaiden weakens the enemies’ defenses.
   
4. Kael kills them all.
   
5. Victory.
   

As a beginner, you should build your arena teams in this way. When you reach higher leagues, you will see that such speed teams make up 90% of the arena.

Use databases to calculate champion damage potential

Different champions have different damage ratios for each attack skill. They cannot be discovered directly from the game (only through tests). But there are several sites where the damage ratios of almost all champions are published. I use two such sites: raid.guide and hellhades.com.

You should also know how to calculate clear damage properly. This can be done in the following way (Kael’s AOE skill as an example):

4.65 (skill damage ratio) * 1.2 (20% bonus from books) * 1200 (basic attack) * 1.57 (57% basic crit. damage) = 10`513.

For example, Trunda’s A3 AOE skill has a clear damage of over 20K. That’s why this legendary champion is so popular in the arenas.

What bonuses are worth upgrading in the Great Hall

As a beginner, you’re recommended to start with ACCURACY. It may seem tempting to improve attack power, critical damage, or something else. But believe me, guys, improving accuracy is the only right way for newbies. Without accuracy all your debuffers will be completely useless. For example, for successful completion of 20–25 stages of dungeons, champions require at least 220-230 accuracy.

Your first team for beating the Demon Lord clan boss

Since your champions are still weak, you won’t be able to deal enough damage through direct attacks. That’s why you need poisoners on your team, and that’s why Kael is the best starting champion.

Poisons deal percentage damage based on the target’s maximum HP. But if the target is a clan boss, they deal fixed damage (2.5% = 10k, 5% = 20k, if we’re talking about the “Easy” difficulty). The clan boss can have a maximum of 10 debuffs simultaneously, so we need an extra poisoner to deal even more damage.

Outlaw Monc can become such a poisoner. You can buy him on the Market. He places two 5% poisons on the target with his A2 skill.

To get the most possible advantage from the monk, you should equip him with the Lifesteal and Accuracy sets. Thus, he will have enough accuracy to place poisons on the clan boss. Healing from attacks will help the monk stay alive longer. As you understand, you should give him as much speed and HP as you can, since the quicker he is, the more poisons he will place and the more damage he will deal.

Here’s what your first clan boss team might look like. These are the same champions: Kael, Warmaiden, Spirithost, Diabolist, and Outlaw Monk.

And here’s the result of using this team: 1.28 million damage. Since we need to deal 1.142 million damage to get the best chest, I think we’re on the right track. 

If you want to know more about the Demon Lord’s mechanics, there is a separate Demon Lord clan boss guide on the website. There, I’m explaining how I dealt 80 million damage to the Ultra-Nightmare clan boss without unkillable teams, infinity shields, or other imbalanced mechanics.

Your first team for beating the Dragon

You can use the same champions to beat the Dragon. Poisons are the best way to quickly kill this boss. Such a team will be enough to farm Stage 9 of the Dragon’s Lair, where 5* artifacts can be obtained.

Thus, you will make your champions stronger and be able to progress even faster. But don’t forget that your first 6* champion should be Kael. Otherwise, believe me, you will have a lot of problems in the game.

Equip your champions using Artifact Optimizer

There is an amazing program by Hell Hades that can be legally used to choose equipment for champions automatically. The program is called Artifact Optimizer. It is only available for PC. 

I’ve already written about this program in the article Tips for Beginners in RAID. On the website, you can specify the required stats for any of your champions, and the program will try to choose the corresponding gear to ensure these stats.

Take advantage of the forge

When you reach level 30 of your account, you will unlock the forge. The best artifact sets in the game can be crafted there. But, more importantly, you will have a small amount of resources to immediately craft 5-6* items!

Take this advantage to get better equipment for your champions. But don’t forget to keep the order of their turns to ensure your team works properly both in the arenas and in dungeons.

Proper masteries for Kael

When you finally accumulate 800 gems, you should immediately purchase masteries for your Kael. If you try to farm scrolls in the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, you will be disappointed because it isn’t profitable until you reach stage 15.

Here are the masteries you are recommended to use. I balanced them to make your Kael as universal as possible, since he must be useful both on the clan boss and in dungeons. And in the arenas, of course.

When you reach the 6th rank of your Kael, his final mastery should be “Warmaster“. This is the powerful PVE mastery that allow to deal significantly more damage to bosses. Don’t worry, you can always reset masteries for free, but only once. All subsequent times you will have to pay gems for this.

My watch has ended, but yours is just beginning…

On this happy note, I have to end this little guide. Of course, I didn’t explain you even a tenth of all those challenges that you will face soon. But I tried to give the most important tips and tricks to ensure a quick start in RAID: Shadow Legends. Just look at this!

I think you won’t mind that this is not bad for the second day of playing RAID 😉. You have also already learned how to beat the Demon Lord clan boss and the Dragon, how to configure the turn order of your champions, and how to equip them properly and automatically.

So, despite my excellent grammar (😁), I hope this guide is really worth as much as 2 days of my life. I hope it will really help you. And yes, I will try to update it later if something changes in the game mechanics.

For now, that’s all. Please write a comment to help the website and me. Thanks for reading, and happy raiding 😎.