How much money owners of RAID make (Aristocrat Plarium revenue)

I was curious to see if the companies running RAID are having financial difficulties which may explain why RAID is badly managed (lots of frustrated players, poorly coded game, lots of missing features) and how slow and late game updates arrive (features are promised for over a year and not implemented, the updates that arrive often have problems).

It turns out they are far from having financial difficulties - they are having record revenues / profits, almost doubling the revenues of the previous year! ("increase of 80% to $539 million driven by significant growth of RAID Shadow Legends" - see my picture report below)

Reminder: Plarium, who runs RAID, is an Israeli game developer, owned by an Australian casino company Aristocrat.

With such phenomenal revenues/growth I would expect them to introduce smaller game updates / optimizations / corrections every single month and large game updates on quarterly basis.

They are not only extremely far away from such performance but, on the contrary, often completely ignore their players' feedback and opinions, which is also confirmed by the content creators who are in direct communication with a Plarium representative. I have watched many RAID videos and have heard multiple times the content creators mention in their videos that they constantly give feedback to Plarium but it is by large completely ignored. 

I enjoy RAID for the time being (thus my blogging) but the more I play the more problems I discover. I can only hope that things improve, but I have seen this story multiple times with other games, so I am pessimistic about it, but happy to be pleasantly surprised if these companies get their act together otherwise these large revenues will rapidly disappear.

Versulf’s 6th star Ascension adds +20 RES and +10 ACC

Among the poorly documented things in RAID are the gains a champion gets for each Ascension star. Most of the time it is very small amounts of HP, Attack and Defense, but sometimes there are significant exceptions or deviations.

Here I am sharing with you an example of Versulf the Grim as I ascended him to the full Rank 6 or 6 stars. You can see from the picture that (and this happens only for the last star) he gains additionally:

• +20 to Resistance
• and +10 to Accuracy

This is significant as he already starts with 50 RES and 10 ACC.

So remember that this exists in the game, but it is not documented so you cannot lookup Ascension per star information for your champions.

However, if you look at the Champions Index you will be able to see there the final stats of a fully upgraded champion, so while you cannot know what you will get on which star you can find out the final result.

Plarium replaces 4 Sacred Shards and 5 star Chicken for a Guaranteed Champion in Daily Rewards

In their "Update Highlights 4.50" Plarium announced that they will remove the Daily Reward's (271+ days) 5 star chicken and Sacred shard and replace it with fragments which players can collect for 4 months to get 1 champion.

Their announcement text:

Daily Login Rewards Changes

We’ll be making changes to the 271+ Days section of the Daily Login Rewards and include guaranteed Champions to the mix. Namely, the Rank 5 Chicken and the Sacred Shard will be replaced with Champion Fragments. The first Champion you’ll see is Cleopterix - a Skinwalkers Legendary - who will make a great addition to your collection. It will take 4 months to gather enough Fragments for the Summon, and once you’ve done that, another Champion will take Cleopterix’s place in the Daily Login Rewards.

This is a net negative change = nerf: PROS AND CONS:

PROS:

• New Legendary champion for players after 4 months
• Guaranteed champion vs. RNG
  

CONS:

The cons are a lot more:

(Note: fragment collection for 4 months means 4 x the replaced rewards, so the loss is 4 x the chicken and 4 x the shards)

• Dupe Champion for those who already have the offered champion.
• 4 x 5* Chicken are a Total Loss - not replaced with anything
• 4 Sacred Shards would give at least 4 Epics (and you know some Epics are much better than some Legendary champions), maybe Legendary champions and move the Mercy counter by 4
• Complete loss of 2000 points in Summon Rush event (fragments cannot contribute to it) or loss of 500-1500 points in Champion Chase event (minimum points for 4 Sacred Shards are 1000 (4 Epics x 250) and maximum points are 2000 (4 Lego x 500) while the gain (only for Champion Chase) is 1 x 500 points after 4 months).
• 4 months is a very long time to wait for many people
• Offered champion not excluded from shard pulls, which means players can can end up with dupes
• Not having the 4 Shards for x2 or x10 or X pulls events (for example there could be an event to pull 10 or 15 shards to get a guaranteed champion and players will no longer be able to gather these shards if they removed)
  

RAID Jokes - KAEL Kayel K-ai-l vs Ka-EL

RAID Shadow Legends jokes Series by COSMOS: (about Kael) K-ai-l vs Ka-EL.

Short backstory: in their July update video Plarium called Kael (who all or most players for years pronounced "K-ai-l" or "Kayle") - Plarium pronounced it as Ka-EL with the emphasis on the E; kind of like Superman's Kal-el just without the "l".

New Clan Quests in RAID

On this large compiled picture you can see the new Clan Quests in RAID.

They are separated in 3 tabs:

• Basic Quests which are relatively easy and pay out 50 coins
  
• Expert Quests (some are difficult), which pay out 150 coins
• and Elite Quests, which seem to be extremely difficult, pay out 300 coins

This is a large image so zoom in to see bigger (or download it).

3rd Type of Doom Tower will be added (Rotation #3)

Soon they will add a 3rd Rotation or Type for the Doom Tower called the Dark Fae.

This rotation will include 2 new bosses:

• One of them summons exploding bombs which we will need to Freeze
  
• One of them takes a copy of one of your champions and removes yours until you kill the copy

 

Clan Shop Items - new RAID feature

Reference for new Clan Shop - new RAID update announced July 2021. 

Players will now be able to gather clan currency and buy items they need:

• Legendary champion is always welcome!
• Energy is good I think
• But not the silver, energy is more efficient
  
• Small pots (and bigger ones) are also a bad idea
  
• But other higher tier items (Epic Book, Void shard, etc) could be good if all Clans can actually unlock those Tiers

Clan Member Benefits - Get more rewards with higher Clan Level in RAID

Reference table for Clan Member Benefits - new RAID update announced July 2021. 

Players will now be able to level up their Clan and receive benefits:

• More silver from Campaign farming
• More Multi-Battles
• More slots in the Clan Shop
• More Clan Quests
  

Another example for: Don't lose 25% of Experience when Farming in RAID

For full details on "Don't lose 25% of Experience when Farming in RAID" see that blog post - here I am just giving yet another example of implementing that in practice.

I made another 6 star (Armiger) and I had also summoned Versulf from the fusion fragments who I am planning to use in an Ally Protect Clan Boss Team. Among various combinations I am planning, two of them also include using Aothar as poisoner, instead of the Frozen Banshee, because she does not always get the chance to put her Poison Sensitivity.

So I took my new level 1 Armiger (with +8 / +12 gears) and I put on Versulf +8 gear (items I will upgrade later during Artifact Upgrade event) and I kept Aothar without any equipment.

Added 1 food champion and sent them to farm Hard 12-3. Even at such low level and gear they won 100% of the time. Despite not having any healing, Armiger and Versulf survived to the end and usually ended with approximately half the health.

This allowed me to get 100% of the Experience and not lose 25% of Experience due to a maxed out Farmer!

With some more levels and few upgrades I am sure they can start doing Brutal 12-3, but I may also stay in Hard to get more rewards which I need currently.

Here are some supporting pictures:

The Team (position view)

The Team (battle view)

Versulf's equipment

Armiger's equipment

And as mentioned I did not give any equipment to Aothar and the Food Champion (naturally).

Update: around level 40-45 I tried Brutal 12-3 and although Versulf died on wave 3 with his +8 gear, Armiger managed to finish the fight. I still think Hard 12-3 is better and safer until Artifact event when I can upgrade their gear.

Chance to get Rare, Epic and Legendary Skill Tomes in RAID Shadow Legends

I have prepared this chart for the RAID players to see what are the chances of getting Rare Skill Tomes (books), Epic Skill Tomes (books) and Legendary Skill Tomes (books).

Currently there is no way to "farm" skill tomes in the game - they come only from shop purchases, tournament/event rewards and the Clan Boss chests. The chances below relate to the Clan Boss.

The "Holy Grail" for RAID players is to consistently / daily achieve the Transcendent Chest in the Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss, but it is already also excellent to achieve the Ultimate Chest in the Nightmare Clan Boss.

You will notice also that as you progress in RAID you unfortunately stop getting Rare Skill Tomes from the Clan Boss.

Thanks to Bobo for the data.

 

RAID Jokes - The Fastest Thing

RAID Shadow Legends jokes Series by COSMOS: The Fastest Thing.

Please note, sorry, a small spelling error, it's "-hea" instead of "-hia". Still, based on social media, people enjoyed my RAID joke despite the spelling mistake :)

 

Tip for RAID players doing Arbiter missions - don't 6 Ascend 4 champions

This RAID tip / warning is for those players who are working on their Arbiter missions.

A little before reaching the Arbiter there is a group of missions (see picture below) which require the players to Ascend champions of 4 affinities to Level 6 of Ascension.

These missions are not retroactive, so if you already have the 6 star fully ascended champions those will not count!

Therefore, as you make your way towards your Arbiter remember to prepare 1 champion of each affinity without the last ascension. Yes, this means you cannot use a banner temporarily, but if you don't prepare then you have to create 4 completely new 6 star champions which can take a long time (usually about 1 week to make 1).

Elite Sacred Pack = $320 Total of 6 chain offers in RAID

Posting this mostly for info / archive and thanks to working_title3 for the info: the Elite Sacred Pack = $320 Total of 6 chain offers.

I also noticed players sometimes ask how much the next steps in the chain cost, because, of course, they are hidden until you buy the previous offer, so there must have been research / data showing that hiding the information from players is more profitable.

Another interesting observation is that the prices / packages rise but then fall on step 4 and then rise and fall again. This also must have been a consequence of testing different price level designs. Although this could be the test itself rather than the final rule.

RAID Fun / Humour - Armiger slows things down (Love-is Series)

RAID Shadow Legends fun stuff / humour:
Love-is Series by COSMOS

Love is... slowing things down to enjoy the time together (Armiger).

My Main Team achieved 1 key Nightmare Clan Boss without speed-tuning

I was happy today to see my main Clan Boss team hit 40 million on NM making it a 1 key run (picture below). And the cool thing about it is that this team:

(Update: see also my updated team that reached 46 mil here)

• is not speed tuned at all,
• it does not have any ally protect champions,
• there is also no increase defense champions,
• and also no counter-attack champions
• 2 rare champions (Apothecary and Frozen Banshee)
  
• no Leech and only 1 champion has lifesteal gear (Geomancer)
  

Despite it being a Spirit Affinity Clan Boss the Aox was able to keep the "ATK down" debuff on most of the time. He also helps with healing and increasing the debuff counters on the Clan Boss. His poisons mostly fail on this Affinity.

Geomancer was placed in the 2nd position to be the stun target allowing Aox the maximum chance to get that "ATK down" debuff on the boss. I had him in the 4th position before (I thought he could not handle being stunned) but moving to the 2nd also allowed his passive damage reduction to work better.

Raglin was my "new player first guaranteed legendary" after which I did not get any legendary champions for a very long time. For the majority of the battle he heals the team and provides a random Turn Meter boost and at the end of the battle he resurrects a few times the champion who dies from stun or AOE, but when someone dies it's usually already near the end. When unlucky (usually a stupid healing by Apothecary on the wrong champion) Raglin dies and in those cases the overall damage is less.

Apothecary has Speed Buff on Priority 1 over healing to help the team go fast, but he rarely has to choose - it only happens if he gets stunned.

And Frozen Banshee does the only thing she is good at - poisoning the Clan Boss.

P.S. I am not recommending RAID players to copy my team - there are many better options (I work with the champions and time that I have) and the main purpose of this post is to say that 1 key is possible even without all those special champions, speed-tuning and other benefits.

Update: side note: my team actually has very low power (137k) compared to others who achieve less damage. This mostly means that my equipment is not great and there is still room for improvement.

My New Record Turn 69 Nightmare Clan Boss (previous: Turn 62 Brutal)

Big improvement for my 2nd Clan Boss team (work-in-progress) - reached Turn 69 on Nightmare Clan Boss today before Jareg died and I stopped the battle.

My previous record was Turn 62 on Brutal Clan Boss where I was testing my team previously. I posted about that here. So please read this link for more details regarding the Team - I don't want to repeat the same things, just want to add what's new.

The main change - positioning

Following the recent revelations that there is more and more poorly written code and wrong explanations in RAID (bad job by Plarium) HellHades reported that the passive skills only benefit the allies who are behind the champion with the skill.

So I thought about this and switched my Frozen Banshee with Geomancer who has the 15% damage reduction passive and set him as a leader. (Geomancer is running with 215 speed, 34,440 HP, and 2,865 DEF which is 4,584 DEF with the increased defense buff - all similar to my Team as I reported previously).

Reminder: I was using my Frozen Banshee instead of Geomancer because she does significantly more damage on Void Clan Boss (while Geo does better on more hits from Affinity Clan Boss).

However, I thought that with the additional 15% damage reduction (which is not actually 15% because of the poorly written coding and wrong explanations in the game) the team might survive longer which could make the team do more damage compared to the Frozen Banshee setup.

The new Turn Order

The general logic is similar to the Brutal Turn Order I published, but for Nightmare a slightly different skill delay is needed to achieve the following (no change to speeds):

Lost 1 Guardian

Losing Frozen Banshee also meant that I lost one Guardian set benefit as she was helping with that. But again, because of the bad coding and wrong in-game explanations by Plarium it is actually a loss of about 4-5% rather than 10%.

Leader skill

Further to this, switching Vogoth's leadership position with Geomancer meant that we got an additional 25% HP from his leader skill. This is a significant boost to the team also because Lodric's shield is based on Max HP.

Team Plans

• I am still considering to drop Vogoth which means losing the Leech.
• Instead of him I thought I could use Ghrush but I calculated that his healing is still not going to be enough.
• I also considered Melga but both her shield and healing are not significantly better than 100% Leech from Vogoth. But they are better in the sense that I can get a shield for AOE1.
• Finally I am now considering switching Temila for Versulf. I originally picked Temila because she was cheaper to upgrade than Versulf (Epic books instead of Legendary) and also she provides 15% healing, but there is too much pressure on Jareg to take 2 AOEs from the Clan Boss so I may need to take Versulf for this. 
• Versulf can also cast Leech but it is not a guaranteed skill like Vogoth's but may be enough allowing me to switch Vogoth with another.

P.S. Reminder: There are better options in RAID but I am working with champions that I have.

My Record Turn 62 on Clan Boss

I was happy today to reach Turn 62 fighting the Clan Boss when I stopped the fight during testing on CB Brutal with my 2nd Clan Boss Team - this was a record for me and generally considered excellent in RAID as majority of players don't go past Turn 30 and the "Unkillable" teams die at Turn 50.

Update: got a new record Turn 69 on NM Clan Boss where I added extra explanations: here.

This Clan Boss team is still being built as equipment still has 4 star gear and is not fully upgraded to +16 (half of the items are +12) and Masteries are not done yet either for all champions. 

My 2 Teams

My active Clan Boss team which does 2 key NM (about 60-65 million damage with 2) is different than this one and is not based on speed tuning or ally protect, but it has reached its limit which is why I started building this 2nd Clan Boss team to try to go to the next level (1 key NM).

1 Damage 2 Protect 2 Health

This Team is not perfect or ideal - there are many better options out there but I work with the champions I have.

This team has only 1 damage dealer which is Frozen Banshee (can alternate with Geomancer but Frozen does more damage on Void). The other 4 champions are only there to assure extreme survival. 

There are 2 ally protect and increase defense champions (Jareg and Temila) which alternate to keep those buffs on 100% of the time.

And there are 2 health recovery champions - Lodric (shields) and Vogoth (health recovery and leech).

Also important Jareg and Lodric reduce Clan Boss's attack by 50% with their A1. However, during such a long battle it happens sometimes that all attempts fail and Clan Boss manages to do full damage. In this run this happened 2 times, but the Team managed to get through it.

Speeds

The speeds are very attainable with 2 protect champions going at 4:3 ratio while others at 1:1 ratio.

• Jareg 236
• Temila 220
• Frozen 208
• Vogoth 175
• Lodric 173

Here you can see the order in which they go - Jareg protects both AOEs (which is why he is the one who dies currently) while Temila protects the Stun turn. When the Team is ready I will adjust speeds for NM and UNM and will try to make it so that each one takes one AOE, because 2 AOEs on 1 champion is too much.

Health and Defense

As mentioned these can further improve as I work on getting better gear and upgrading to +16.

• Jareg 59,227 HP and 2,560 DEF which is 4,096 DEF with increased defense buff
• Temila 40,409 HP and 2,794 DEF which is 4,470 DEF with increased defense buff
• Frozen 39,349 HP and 2,915 DEF which is 4,664 DEF with increased defense buff
• Vogoth 39,000 HP and 2,787 DEF which is 4,459 DEF with increased defense buff
• Lodric 45,041 HP and 2,656 DEF which is 4,250 DEF with increased defense buff
  

I am also considering to change Vogoth to Melga to get shields for AOE1 also, but I am hesitant because Melga is not really a good champion for Clan Boss, however I do not have another good shield champion. So maybe I will keep using Vogoth until the team is fully ready and see if maybe he can get the job done and maybe I pull a new better champion. I also do not want to underestimate the benefit of Vogoth's guaranteed Leech and his occasional poison extension.

Tip to avoid paying millions for Extending Champion Collection by storing champions in the Inbox in RAID

Paying for more space get really expensive as you go and RAID players may not have enough silver or may not want to use up their silver at a specific moment because they are preparing for an Artifact Enhancement event or if they are focused on other objectives than silver income.

You can avoid (or postpone) paying millions of silver for Extending Champion Collection by storing champions in the Inbox, where they can stay up to 99 days. See below a picture I prepared to show you my "food" champions. I pick them up from the Inbox when I need thereby avoiding to pay the silver costs.

You plan for this by not ranking up champions while you farm campaigns. This way you don't free up space and all additional champions go to the Inbox. When you are finished farming or when you need to free up space for shard pulling then you rank up the champions you have prepared and free up the space you need while still having lots of champions ready in your Inbox. (Naturally plan ahead and rank up during a Champion Training event that is right before the Summon Rush or Champion Chase)

For the daily quest to summon 3 champions you only open up 3 spaces which get immediately filled up by doing the quest.

To give you an example currently the expansion would cost me half the silver I have and since I am focused on other goals I don't invest energy to run Spider for silver income and this method allows me to manage my champions without spending the silver.

 

100 million damage on Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss with Speeds of only 171-195

Here I am sharing the post made by IamIanK on Reddit where he was able to achieve 100 million damage on the UNM Clan Boss with very achievable champion speeds of 171 to 195 the highest.

He explains that this is a 1:1 Ratio team (which means champions move at the same speed as the Clan Boss - 1 per turn).

Double Ally Protection and Shields are what allows the team to survive a long time - he reached an amazing turn 113 with this team!

In terms of equipment:

• 3 champions are equipped with the Stalwart set
• Brogni is equipped in Savage set
• and Toragi is equipped in Guardian set

Regarding shields:

• Brogni places a shield for Clan Boss's 1st AOE
• while Toragi places a shield for Clan Boss's 2nd AOE

Regarding HP and Defense:

• Riho has 51k HP with 2.9k defense
• Tyrant has 80k HP with 4.4k defense
• Brogni has 57k HP with 3.3k defense
• Geomancer has 42k HP with 4.5k defense
• Toragi has 100k HP with 2.7k defense

Here is a link to that Reddit post: Link

A specific situation when Brutal Clan Boss rewards are better than Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss rewards in RAID

In most cases the Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss rewards are better than Brutal Clan Boss rewards in RAID Shadow Legends, but there is 1 situation where this flips around, which is the purpose of this blog post.

I immediately write the answer and explain below that:

When this specific situation happens:

This situation occurs when you have attacked the Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss and gained more than the minimum requirement of 17,569,000 damage allowing you to get the Mythical Chest reward but you don't have enough damage to achieve the Transcendent Chest.

Specific Example

So for example:

You spent 2 keys to finish the NM Clan Boss and you spent your 3rd key and got 20 million damage on the UNM and now you have 1 key left (there are 4 keys possible in 1 day).

Next, most players would spend the 4th key again on the UNM to reach the next reward - Divine Chest or possibly Celestial Chest --> This is exactly when Brutal Clan Boss rewards are better than Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss rewards.

Why is this the case?

This is because there is very little improvement from the Mythical Chest to the Divine Chest and even to the Celestial Chest. The big improvement of rewards occurs only on the Transcendent Chest.

Specific examples:

The chance that RAID players will get an Ancient Shard in all the 3 cases, from left to right respectively, is: 17.62%, 18.15% and 18.15% - basically exactly the same meaning that there is no reason to try to improve.

The chance that RAID players will get an Skill Book in all the 3 cases, from left to right respectively, is: 3.65%, 3.76%, 3.76% - again, pretty much the same meaning that there is no reason to try to improve.

Between the Mythical Chest and the Divine Chest there is no significant improvement, just slight increases which can easily be ignored.

Between those and the Celestial Chest the main improvement is that Celestial Chest no longer gives Magic Artifacts, which is indeed an improvement but it is nothing compared to a completely new chest, because from a new chest from Brutal you would get new chances for shards, books, and other items.

Conclusion

Therefore, if you find yourself in this specific situation you are much better of spending your 4th key on the Brutal Clan Boss and get a completely new chest than get tiny improvements in the UNM Clan Boss.

2x Legendary at 6% is same as 1x Legendary at 12% - or is it?

I see people excited about Plarium's trick RAID event where they offer an extra Legendary champion if players pull a Legendary with Sacred Shards themselves saying things like:

• "Wow can you imagine you get double Legendary champions"
• "Wow we are getting extra Legendary champions"
• "Fantastic opportunity to get an extra Legendary champion"
• and other similar statements.
  

This is, of course, complete nonsense, because pulling a Legendary champion, outside a 2x Event, with a 6% chance and getting a 2nd one if you are successful (big IF) is mathematically the same as pulling Sacred Shards during a 2x event where you have 12% chance of a Legendary champion.

Chance	# of Sacred Shards used	# Legendary expected	Theoretical "double" Legendaries
6%	1000	60	120
12%	1000	120	/

No Additional Benefits

On top of that this "extra Legendary" event is happening at a time when you will not benefit in any other way in the game such as getting extra points for a Summon Rush event or a Champion Chase event.

Therefore pulling shards for only "one benefit" is significantly less efficient / beneficial than pulling shards during multiple events (e.g. x2 Event plus a Fusion SR or CC).

One Exception

So while technically there is absolutely nothing special about this "event" there is one consideration or opportunity for RAID players who are manually (and accurately) tracking their own Mercy system.

For example, if you have already pulled 9-13 Sacred Shards and all of them were Epic then you know that after the 12th Sacred Shard the chance starts rising by 2% per each shard. It is still not a guarantee that you will get a Legendary champion, but the chances are in your favor. So in this case you can strongly consider this event type and try to get "double" Legendary champions.

Although you should also consider that you will not have your shards when you may need them for Summon Rush or a Champion Chase events.

For most other RAID players who have no idea about their own Mercy counter and who have less than 10 Sacred Shards it is an unfavorable gamble to pull Sacred Shards during this event. Sure, some players will get the double and they will be very visible in chat and forums, but a great majority will lose and will remain silent (invisible).

Conclusion

• For majority of RAID players: do not participate in this event - x2 is safer.
  
• For those who accurately track their own Mercy AND who are close to 12 AND who have at least 5 Sacred Shards then only consider to participate.

RAID Jokes - Dwarves vs Undead Hordes 1

RAID Shadow Legends jokes Series by COSMOS: Dwarves vs Undead Hordes 1.

RAID Fun / Humour - Skytouched gives a bit of herself (Love-is Series)

RAID Shadow Legends fun stuff / humour:
Love-is Series by COSMOS

Love is... giving a little bit of yourself each day (Skytouched Shaman).

Don't lose 25% of Experience when Farming in RAID

Most of the time players in RAID use a campaign farmer to level up champions, which means that 25% of the experience is always lost as the farmer champion takes 1 slot out of the 4.

It is possible to plan ahead and stop losing this experience in some cases.

That means when you are leveling up a few champions, who you plan to keep, to level 30, then to level 40, 50, 60 - it is possible already from around 4 stars and around level 20-30 to make them independent using +8 to +12 equipment.

And only 2-3 out of the 4 champions are required.

I give you an example from my own account: here I removed my campaign farmer and am able to run 12-3 Hard with just +8 and +12 equipment and 1 additional food champion.

Here, the food champion and Renegade die quicker and sometimes Ghrush the Mangler dies too, but ultimately it is a successful run and that's all that counts. See gears below.

And here are the gears on them; as I said it's all just +8 and +12 which is enough to get the job done.

Broadmaw:

Ghrush:

Renegade:

Conclusion

Using this method is significantly more efficient and results in more rewards of all types than doing it with the campaign farmer.

If you are leveling up someone strong like a Fusion champion you can even do it with only 1 champion and 3 food champions. I was able to do this with Hurndig and will do it again with Versulf.

If you have lots of silver and can boost the equipment to +16 then also you can carry 2-3 food instead of 1.

And otherwise, as mentioned just 2-4 champions are needed with +8 and +12 equipment, ideally one of them more bulky. When you are planning which group to level up you can also plan that one of them will have a shield or resurrect or heal which would be your bulky / tank champion.

Finally the "most difficult" is when they are 3-4 star and it gets a whole lot easier as they level up and rank up because they are constantly getting more stats and therefore getting stronger and stronger.

Mathematically the BEST way to upgrade your Great Hall in RAID Shadow Legends

I immediately tell you the answer of what is the absolute best way to upgrade your Great Hall in RAID and below that I explain the methodology.

The Answer

In the table below I have calculated Efficiency Points. The most effective way to upgrade your Great Hall is to follow the order in this table.

So it would be: 

• Rank 1 HP, ATK, DEF, then ACC, then Crit Damage, 
• then Rank 2 ACC, then HP, ATK, DEF, Crit Damage, 
• then Rank 3 ACC, then Crit Damage, then HP, ATK, DEF and only now Rank 1 Resist
• etc
  

The best way to upgrade Great Hall: Methodology

As a reminder the bonuses we get from the Great Hall and how many Medals it costs to upgrade:

Rank	# of Medals needed	# of Gold Medals	HP	ATK	DEF	C. DMG	RESIST	ACC
1	50 Bronze Medals	12.5	2%	2%	2%	2%	5	5
2	150 Bronze Medals	37.5	3%	3%	3%	4%	10	10
3	300 Bronze Medals	75	4%	4%	4%	6%	15	15
4	400 Silver Medals	200	6%	6%	6%	8%	20	20
5	500 Silver Medals	250	8%	8%	8%	10%	30	30
6	600 Silver Medals	300	10%	10%	10%	12%	40	40
7	700 Gold Medals	700	12%	12%	12%	15%	50	50
8	800 Gold Medals	800	14%	14%	14%	18%	60	60
9	900 Gold Medals	900	17%	17%	17%	21%	70	70
10	1,000 Gold Medals	1000	20%	20%	20%	25%	80	80

To calculate efficiency we also need to remember the bonus we would get from the respective equipment sets:

• For HP the respective set would give +15% HP (Life, Immortal)
  
• For ATK the respective set would give +15% ATK (Offense, Cruel)
• For DEF the respective set would give +15% DEF
• For Crit Damage the respective set would give +20% Crit Damage
• For RESIST the respective set would give +40 Resistance
• For ACC the respective set would give +40 Accuracy (Perception, Accuracy)
  

Calculating the Efficiency Points

So we must take into account multiple factors:

• The bonus we get from the Great Hall
• Relate it to the bonus from the equipment sets
• Relate it to the cost of the upgrade. Here it is important to point out that some people, I believe wrongly, recommend to upgrade one element fully and then move on to the other - this completely ignores the greatly increasing cost where one higher rank upgrade costs multiple lower rank upgrades.
  

Therefore the formula I have used is:

= [ Great Hall Bonus ] / [ Set Bonus ] divided by [ Medals Required ] x 10,000 points

 + Reducing the points of RESIST by 70% to represent it being completely unnecessary until end-game.

This formula determines the benefit we get from upgrading a specific Rank in the Great Hall taking into account the rising costs per rank. (The last part of [ x 10,000 points ] is only there to make the numbers easily digestible otherwise we would be looking into decimal places which many people don't feel comfortable with.)

This methodology results in the table I have shared with you in the beginning of my blog post which guides RAID players to make the most effective choice PER RANK when upgrading their Great Hall.

2 Important Consideration

There are 2 points to consider which has nothing to do with mathematics, but, is still, very important for the game.

Arbiter missions

Firstly, there are missions in the game where RAID players are able to obtain the Arbiter champion and these will force the player to upgrade any ONE element of the Great Hall to Rank 10. We have to do this if we want to get the Arbiter even though this is highly ineffective. 

The most recommended element is Accuracy, usually for Magic champions because most players have many more of those types of champions. 

Just take a look at your Clan Boss team and pick the Accuracy type which will support your account the most. After this revert back to the most effective way of upgrading as explained in this blog post.

Focusing on specific affinities according to your champions

Something that I have never seen discussed by any content creator or forums: the less champion types you focus on the more effective you can be. Upgrading all 4 Affinities takes a very long time and is very expensive. 

If you have, for example, excellent Magic and Force champions then there is no reason you should waste your resources upgrading Spirit and Void. This would literally cut your upgrade cost in half.

You would have significant bonuses for the best champions you have which would bring you many more rewards in RAID. And later on you can expand to the other Affinities.

Conclusion

• When upgrading your Great Hall in RAID Shadow Legends we have to take into account also the cost per Rank. It's not "upgrade one thing then another".
• We have to make 1 exception and fully upgrade Accuracy of 1 Affinity for the Arbiter missions.
• If you have a concentration of powerful champions in 1-2 Affinities consider ignoring the other Affinities.
• Other than these considerations the best way to upgrade your Great Hall in RAID is to follow my "Efficiency Points" table.

Did you know about Arbiter's Tattoo?

Just some RAID Shadow Legends fun - have you have noticed Arbiter's tattoo? Arbiter has a big tattoo on her back, which is often not noticed because her big beautiful hair covers it.

But if you wait a little bit she will start to move around swinging her hair which reveals the entire tattoo in ~3 different angles.

Now as to the meaning of the tattoo - I am not a High Elf expert, so if someone knows if it means anything feel free to drop a comment below :)

Special thanks to my clan mate Starlord1610 for noticing it!

Chances to get Ancient Shard, Void Shard and Sacred Shard in RAID Shadow Legends

I have prepared this chart for the RAID players to see what are the chances of getting Ancient Shards, Void Shards and Sacred Shards.

On the most left is the chance to find Ancient Shards from any Dungeons or Potion Keeps and all the rest are the various Clan Boss chests.

The "Holy Grail" for RAID players is to consistently / daily achieve the Transcendent Chest in the Ultra-Nightmare Clan Boss, but it is already also excellent to achieve the Ultimate Chest in the Nightmare Clan Boss.

Thanks to Bobo for the data.

RAID Fantasy Art - 3D River Battle - Skinwalkers vs. Barbarians by COSMOS

Hope you will like my RAID Fantasy Art :)

This one is called 3D River Battle - Skinwalkers vs. Barbarians

Cheers,
COSMOS

5 Steps How Clan Boss chooses his Stun Target

Understanding which Champion the Clan Boss will attack with his Stun attack is critical in building a high performance Team in RAID Shadow Legends.

Here is how the Clan Boss makes his choice:

The checks are made in the order I have shown below:

Check #1) Near Death

If Clan Boss can kill a champion with 100% certainty then that champion is chosen.
(if there are more than 1 near death then the weakest is chosen)

Check #2) Affinity

Note: this step does not apply for Void Clan Boss.

If there is nobody he can kill then he chooses the champion with negative affinity towards him. I.e.

• Spirit Clan Boss will choose the weakest Force Champion
• Force Clan Boss will choose the weakest Magic Champion
• Magic Clan Boss will choose the weakest Spirit Champion
• as mentioned Void Clan Boss does not do this check.

Check #3) Buffs

The Clan Boss will avoid champions who have certain buffs. For example:

• If some champions have Counter-Attack but others do not then he will choose those that do not.
• Similarly, Clan Boss prefers those who do not have Block Damage.
• And those who do not have Increased Defense (or anything that reduces damage)
• And those who do not have Increased Max HP (see below explanation)
  

EXCEPTION: Steadfast Mastery (Support Tree 1st Tier) seems to be treated as an Increased Max HP buff and follows the same check as this category. Clan Boss prefers to target stun on those champions who do not have this mastery, i.e. who do not have their HP increased above Max.

Note: this works exactly the same way for Rotos the Lost Groom even without having this mastery, because he naturally has the ability to increase his Max HP in his kit. So any champion increasing the Max HP in any way is considered as a "eeky" buff by the Clan Boss.

Note 2: in terms of importance Max HP "buff" is less important than Counter-Attack, i.e. the Clan Boss will prefer to attack someone with Max HP "buff" rather than someone with Counter-Attack buff.

And there are buffs that the Clan Boss does not care about - these have NO IMPACT on his decision making; buffs like:

• Ally Protection
• Block Debuffs
• Continuous Heal

Check #4) % HP

The Clan Boss will check which champion has the lowest percentage of Health left (defense is not considered at all).

He will choose a champion with 20,000 health with 40,000 Max Health over a champion with 15,000 health with 25,000 Max Health, because he is looking for the lowest Health percentage.

Check #5) Position

CB prefers attacking the highest position in the Team: Position 1 (leader) --> 2 --> 3 --> 4 --> 5

The positions are as below:

..... 4 .... 2 .....
...................... 1 (leader)
..... 5 .... 3 .....

So make sure your preferred stun target is in Position 1 or 2. 

Usually Position 1 is recommended, but then you will lose any Leader Skill bonus and some of them are very significant such as increasing Defense by 30%+ or Health. However, if it is needed to control the stun target it is better to lose the bonus.

That said, depending on what Team you are making you may get away with putting your preferred stun target in Position 2 or even 3, which then allows you to have a Leader Skill bonus. I have this currently on my Void team where my position 2 is taking the stun allowing me to have +35% Defense from the Leader Skill, because the Leader is significantly stronger (and is Void affinity) compared to the Position 2 champion.

Quick tip: Never Confirm the Energy refill popup

When you are farming the campaign in RAID Shadow Legends you will often get the below "Energy refill" popup to use one of your energy potions to restore full energy.

Never click the "Confirm" button!

This is because the game will use your top-most potion which may have 99 days left to expire, instead of your bottom-most potion which has for example 10 days left to expire.

Close this popup, go yourself into your mail and pick the potion that is nearest to its expiry. It's a little extra work / clicks, but it is a much better discipline for your account.

 

RAID Fun / Humour - Valerie extends by 1 day (Love-is Series)

RAID Shadow Legends fun stuff / humour:
Love-is Series by COSMOS

Love is... extending the time together by 1 more day (Valerie).

RAID Jokes - Ogryn Tribes vs Demonspawn 1

RAID Shadow Legends jokes Series by COSMOS: Ogryn Tribes vs Demonspawn 1.

Clan Boss Speeds and Minimum Stats Needed

Clan Boss Easy:

• has 130 Speed
• you need ideally around 70 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 1,500 Defense
• you need around 20,000 Health

Clan Boss Normal:

• has 140 Speed
• you need ideally around 100 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 2,000 Defense
• you need around 25,000 Health

Clan Boss Hard:

• has 150 Speed
• you need ideally around 150 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 2,250 Defense
• you need around 27,000 Health or more

Clan Boss Brutal:

• has 160 Speed
• you need ideally around 170 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 2,500 Defense
• you need around 29,000 Health or more

Clan Boss Nightmare:

• has 170 Speed
• you need ideally around 200 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 2,750 Defense and greatly helps if you can have Increased Defense at least for the AOE attacks
  
• you need around 32,000 Health or more

Clan Boss Ultra-Nightmare:

• has 190 Speed
• you need ideally around 240 or more Accuracy
• you need more than 3,000 Defense and greatly helps if you can have Increased Defense at all times
  
• you need around 32,000 Health or more

Other Clarifications

Defense

The target for Defense, including any buffs, should be 4,200 Defense. This is the level at which champions get the vast majority of damage mitigation purely from Defense. Investing more than this in Defense is not efficient.

Health

Health is significantly less important for Clan Boss battles, but as the difficulty increases you still need to have a certain minimum. A rule of thumb that is used by RAID players is that Health should be 10 times the Defense value. 

Speed

Speed is a very complex subject. Having more or less speed than the Clan Boss is neither good nor bad - this is because of the way speed works in RAID. What is important is to learn / understand how to speed-tune your Team to go at a specific ratio towards the Clan Boss. 1:1 ratio means taking 1 turn for every Clan Boss turn. 4:3 ratio means your champion(s) go 4 times while Clan Boss goes only 3 times. And 2:1 ratio means your Team goes 2 times faster than the Clan Boss. Achieving a 1:1 ratio is relatively easy, but the faster you want to go the more you need to understand relationships between speeds of all champions and the Clan Boss. For example, it is very much possible to have some champions to go slower than the Clan Boss allowing the others to go faster and still achieve a minimum 1:1 even with the slowest ones. To learn Speed-tuning the best source is Deadwoodjedi's website and his Clan Boss speed planning tool.

Accuracy

Some people overshoot with Accuracy to feel certain, however, the more one invests in one stat the less of other stats you will have. This means that the correct number is better than a much bigger number. What you need is enough to get the job done and not more. Also accepting the fact that there is never a 100%, there is always a small chance to be Resisted.

The way you can get certainty is with multi-functional champions, which is especially useful for reducing the Attack value of the Clan Boss as having only 1 champion, while possible, may result in the debuff being Resisted resulting in a defeat.