Defence of RAID Bosses CHART by COSMOS

Here sharing a chart I made showing the defence of various important bosses in RAID Shadow Legends going from the lowest (Clan Boss) to the top insane defence values in the latest content introduced by Plarium.

The general tendency by Plarium is to significantly increase the defenses of newly introduced content blocking players from progressing thereby reducing their rewards (or significantly increasing the battle duration) and pressuring players to spend money to get stronger to overcome the level or shorten the battle duration.

CHART: RAID Bosses Defence values

• Observe the massive difference between Clan Boss and the newest content - up to 10 times more defence than UNM
• The Stage 20-25 dungeons were always considered as having very high defence. They now fall to average or below.
• The Hydra defence values as well as those of the 3rd Doom Tower Rotation are insane.
  

SPECIAL THANKS

As I posted previously, but happy to repeat again, thanks to Bobo for gathering RAID Shadow Legends statistics and publishing them for people to use.

Also taking this opportunity to thank HellHades and his Team for doing the same as well as other resources and tools on their RAID website.

75% of voting players would not recommend RAID to their friends or family

Here sharing an interesting poll I ran on Reddit where I asked players "Would you recommend to your friends/family to start playing RAID?" and it turns out that the vast majority (75%) would not recommend RAID.

Poll result:

So, as shown, 357 players voted YES and 1.1k voted NO.

On one side players seem to be both hating themselves for playing the game (i.e. addiction) and ashamed of other people finding out they are playing RAID. Both of these are a solid indication that RAID is a negative influence on people.

On another side players see and do not appreciate the various disgusting actions by Plarium, how they manage the game and how they treat their players, but it seems their anger did not reach yet the tipping point making them quit.

The minority who is positive suggests not taking the game seriously in order to be able to enjoy.

A few selected player comments:

• "Letting people know you play this game is equivalent to informing them you smoke in the car with kids"
• "I wouldn't want to inflict that onto anyone whose well-being I cared about"
• "There are so many days I think about not logging in"
• "I would only recommend this game to people I hate"
• "My cousin's exact words to me "you have put me in a financial trap""

Conclusion

These results and comments are pretty damning of Plarium as a game developer and the horrible job they have done and are doing managing RAID.

Plarium is clearly negatively affecting the majority of their RAID players.

Players can only hope for things to improve, but, realistically that is not going to happen, because Plarium is only interested in profits and analytics and not about being positive, creative or anything remotely resembling joy or happiness.

Ninja + Shamael = 16M-36M damage @ Hydra HARD + NORMAL

If you are struggling to 1 key Normal or Hard Hydra in RAID and you have Ninja and Shamael then this post is for you. Below you will find examples of 15m (Hard Hydra) and 35m (Normal Hydra).

Ninja is an awesome damage dealer anywhere in RAID and he also does very well in Hydra battles. His main damage comes from the Hailburn skill while his A1 can also hit hard around 100k or more. Furthermore, as the booster leader, he accumulates his Passive bonus much faster increasing his damage further.

What you have to do is put him as the Team Leader despite the fact that he has no Leader bonuses. Doing this, with Shamael in the team, will constantly boost Ninja's turn meter allowing him to do his attacks much faster.

Naturally the rest of the team can support by attacking the Head of Torment and supplying the supportive  buffs and debuffs for maximum effectiveness.

The rest of the team is a FREE CHOICE depending on what champions you have. The only required or strongly recommended champions here are Ninja and Shamael.

Try to bring a champion who can cast AOE Slow, AOE ATK down + DEF down and Weaken if possible. You will also need one Reviver in case the weaker attackers die and need to be picked up. Your Arena Arbiter can do that job as well as supply ATK up and buff removal.

Important note: due to the Hydra battle RNG we have to restart if the Head of Torment does not respawn.

Example with my team (lots to improve) on HARD Hydra 15.76M damage:

Picture 1 - battle result:

Picture 2 - in-battle last turns:

Update: this week I managed to get similar result with Demytha

This week was unlucky, I had to play multiple times to get the Head of Torment to spawn again. I always got Blight or Wrath making me re-start constantly.

I also tried different combinations and finally finished with this one with Demytha, basically swapping Aox with her. I lost the benefits of Aox but got healing, cleanse and block damage. Still not ideal, I will keep searching / experimenting.

Also an interesting point about positions: I moved Arbiter to the 2nd position so when Ninja died she would be boosted letting me RES much easier.

Example of Soda's stronger team on NORMAL Hydra 35.96M damage:

Soda's video:

Conellia can SOLO Bommal on HARD Doom Tower by YST

Here sharing a video by YST who came up with the strategy to solo Bommal on Doom Tower HARD with Conellia. He demonstrates Hard 50 but with more testing and better gear he believes it is possible to do it on Hard 90 also.

Additionally this is on FULL AUTO which is significantly more convenient to RAID players than some of the other strategies.

MASTERIES:

Warmaster is the most critical mastery as she does no damage by herself. Everything else is supportive:

STATS and EQUIPMENT SET:

While a regen set was used in the video, player discussions conclude that it may not be necessary allowing for more freedom.

Stats YST used:

• 66k HP
• 3.1k DEF
• 246 speed - here he was targeting 250 + additional speed from killing mobs, but both of those became not necessary to get the job done.
• 246 Accuracy (I believe this was there only because of other game content where she casts SLEEP on enemies and this is not applicable for Bommal)
  
• the rest does not matter.
  

THE VIDEO

Prediction: Highest damage on Hydra will be 4-5m damage per hit on 1 Hydra Head

Here I am making a RAID prediction that the highest damage on Hydra Clan Boss will be 4-5 million damage PER HIT done by the Corpulent Cadaver on a decapitated/exposed Hydra Head.

I predict that players will find a way to grow shields exactly the same way as it was done for the regular Clan Boss where Victor reached a world record of over 500 million damage.

In Hydra battle the shields can be grown in several ways:

• (possibly critical) Putting Brogni as lead with Shamael support allowing Brogni many more turns to build shields.
• (optional) Using champions that reduce skill cooldown allowing for even more shield building.
• (required) Naturally using buff extenders to keep the shields on.
• (possibly critical) Possibly re-casting / re-grouping the shield at the beginning of the battle while wearing the new Protection set making sure the shield is PROTECTED and therefore cannot be stolen.
• (possibly critical) Using a bait champion (opposite affinity / lower health) with high RES to bait Head of Mischief into attacking him so no buffs are stolen from the team.

The Team composition:

• Brogni
  
• (extend buffs + other) Krisk
• (extend buffs) 2x Lanakis or 1 and Hellborn Sprite
  
• (the damage dealer) Corpulent Cadaver 
• and for the 6th slot: Shamael or if he is not used then a champion who can reduce skill cooldowns such as Kymar or Renegade/Painkeeper.

Note: only the shield on Corpulent Cadaver matters so if due to lack of speed tuning the shield will drop off other champions then the 6th slot will be a REVIVER champion instead to keep the team going.

Why 4-5 mil damage:

• The Corpulent Cadaver did 1.75 million damage per hit on the Clan Boss. On a decapitated Hydra Head I am guessing it will be about 2.5 times higher = 1.75 x 2.5 = 4.375 million damage per hit.
• Note also that on one side the 1.75 should be less on Hydra due to higher defense, but this will be offset by a larger shield and a different equipment set (Savage).
  

Why I cannot show/test this:

I am a small blogger, I don't have the resources or access to test things in the game and, as I am FTP, I do not have the required legendary champions.

What do you think about my RAID prediction for the Hydra Clan boss battle?

RAIDZILLA music video by RAID content creators

Sharing the amazing rap video "RAIDZILLA" from 2021 RAID content creator awards organized by TheSaffronMan:

2 things I found to be the most amazing is how talented the content creators are and how they came together to create this music video. I was busy in Real Life so I don't know all the details behind these awards but as I understood this was all possible thanks to TheSaffronMan for organizing the whole thing.

Cast: (Order of Appearance)

• YST
• SmileyTK
• Darth MicroTransaction
• HWZ
• Jgigs
• TheSaffronMan
• GrimmJ0w 

Watch here below or go to the YouTube page: https://youtu.be/xsOl7zGFVWI

LYRICS:

YST:

magic keep you know im bringing force like im anakin

'tormin' got you froze now you pose like a mannequin

solo with that 'crimson' & bommal be my witness

no heart like im 'harvest'

from january to christmas



you dont wanna miss this , more fusions

welcome you to telaria

'miscreated' when i stepped in

plat reset is risky , like clan boss sending u back to the bastion

the systems finally landing

Dupe leggos getting unvaulted now



100k that 'hades'

100k thats 'ash'

100 mill on CB

shouts to 'deadwood' thats that

1 artifact thats 5 mil

1 amulet thats 10

ccs killing off this beat, 'murder ink'ing with that pen



ive got my mask on like 'genzin'

'victor' holding  records like weights at a bench press

sumurai ching in arena with my shadowkin

Got my 'genbo' now your panicking

'skullcrowns' are getting taken out



'deathknight' like 'leila fox'

shard pulls for that summon rush

3k subs in 8 months wanna shout u for all the love

community we keep it strong

plarium back and fouth just like ping pong

maybe in 5 years well get that hydra boss



forget a monster you can call us raidzillas

sacreds i dont wanna see ice like 'frost bringers'

some say YST you got a 'cold-heart'

yo smiley come & bring that heat like 'ignatious'



SmileyTK:

Monster

If things don’t go my way then I’m gonna have to crunch you

Feed you to my champs, to the Tavern where we go soon

I can’t wait to see where this is going, What you gon’ do?

I don’t give a damn how you feel oh Boo Hoo

Raidzilla, fire spitter, monster

Shards on the dance floor, and on the Louis v carpet

Fire, Raidzilla, fire, Monster

Shards on the dance floor, and on the Louis v carpet



Darth MicroTansaction:

Heard he quit raid

quit it with the clickbait

Got paid i made

Irate vids

Explode like nitrate

My fate is

Let me show

Where my knife blades ends

Better hope didn’t bring my friends

Dopamine , where dopa men

Crack your skull like an openin

Shard 2x here we go again



I’m a universe of depth beyond your comphresion

Decapitate the fools that enter my dimension

I’m alone in my life now , don’t need her permission

I booted  all my cheaters out; call that cc suspension



Hair like hashinshin , without all the excuses

I’m looking for a top , I’ve been filling all your nooses

Don’t know when to stop , violated the truces

Someone needs to do this , show you where the truth is



Clickbait like Medusa , your views are what I use

Like the words on  my hoodie  , youre gonna need a mirror to get through

You should fear all my tubes , deadly with the blues

I’ve been known to kill. A synth , I’m a Shepard of the news



SmileyTK:

Monster

If things don’t go my way then I’m gonna have to crunch you

Feed you to my champs, to the Tavern where we go soon

I can’t wait to see where this is going, What you gon’ do?

I don’t give a damn how you feel oh Boo Hoo

Raidzilla, fire spitter, monster

Shards on the dance floor, and on the Louis v carpet

Fire, Raidzilla, fire, Monster

Shards on the dance floor, and on the Louis v carpet



HWZ:

2021 what a year

Bittersweet it’s come to and end

We gon highlight

A few things

For the free to play

And those that spend



Geomancer broke for one day

Got us all hittin like victor tez

He did it first though

Without a bug

Man he hit over 700mil



Shard party

Where Leila at

Who got partner this year

Jgigs, uncle patches, smiley

And mr tham

Big shout to saffron man

He the one that got us all here

Can’t forget hell hades

Helped us all

To optimize gear

Doom tower

Tryna do it fast

So we all got a comp with a seer

Or just use krisk

Like kenpachi says



I’ve been imagining

The day I can beat the raid

Zilla monster

Gonna need A savage set

Crit rate

On attack chest



Gear cleanse

You’ll be lucky if you get a gear cleanse

From want2mess

Been stressed

tryna roll sub stats

Will it be speed

Will it be flat



Cvc got me

click clack

Click clack click

Like a lab rat

It’s h dub

You can ask chat

Yo gigs tell ‘em what’s next



JGigs:

get a pack free, sadly, never happening

keep em mad with the packs we

bringin, cant be takin that heat

take it back to Brakus the Halloween ringer

look at my stat sheet what attracts these people

is my greatness, bitch, like a 10x with a Valkyrie

like fat chicks, you never gonna grab me neither



rng the menace here to dominate em

greatest ever nominate him

get inside the beat like im a surgeron time to operate

i'm cuttin em again my lyrics gonna blade em

with the skill up above every fucking body in the game

debilitating every rapper thinkin they can denigrate him

and i make anybody who playin raid afraid to pay

But don't nobody wanna but they're gonna spend it anyway

cause yall beginning to see that i'm amityville

i'm a killer, you need a Scyl, i'm a thriller, me I'm Ali in Manilla

you bringin the villain within outta me

you dont wanna be here when i free the behemoth

who lives in me, i keep em grieving call me cena cause there aint no seein me im the

diety of rapidity increasin the speed and

killin any affinity, mother fucker, you better run

or you finna be dead like free 2 play in silver 3

a hundred percent of you players couldn't beat a 10th of me

i'm out here to diminish you bitch, i'm despicable

you wanna battle, i'm unkillable, im rollin with duchess invisible

im inexplicable, im unequivocal, im unforgivable,

im fuckin biblical

an orange criminal you'll never catch im digital

the god of Raid i rule the

Man stop

11.52M damage on Hydra Hard without Shamael (Mid-Game stats / no Cheese real battle)

Here sharing a nice achievement: my team did 11.52M damage (without Shamael) did against Hard Hydra. PICTURES BELOW.

The MVP was Ninja - an amazing champion who has become instrumental for my account in both PvE and PvP content. His main weapon was his Hailburn. He was not very productive with his other skills as Hydra makes up 4 enemies and he cannot build up his offensive capabilities via his Passive.

I did this fight fully on MANUAL as often is the case with Hydra at present. So far nobody has come up with Auto-teams for Hydra and perhaps that's the way Plarium planned it.

Also Geomancer was very valuable despite you seeing low damage on him. When I tried different champions in that spot no team from those I tested did as well as Geomancer in the lead. I suspect his passive damage reduction and occasional reflect (he is my Clan Boss champion so he only has 157 speed) are very valuable.

Seeker was also interesting because, again, when I tried other champions the team did not do so well. It proves that higher speed / boosting turn meter is very important as that was his main function.

Dhukk is not fully built and does not have half the masteries, but he did his job of providing us with ATK and DEF down on the enemy. He is easily replaceable by any champion who can do the same such as Stagknight who would be better since he can also cast SLOW sometimes.

Seer was there as a buff stripper. I think her AOE WEAKEN helped the team do more damage. She would be much better on higher difficulties where her MAX HP damage is significantly higher, but on Hard she could be replaced.
(My Clan is on Hard Hydra, we have not been able to pass it yet).

Raglin (revive/heal) was struggling to keep up with revives. All other champions were dying too much and she was barely keeping up as she can only revive 1 champion at a time. Perhaps a reviver who can bring up multiple team mates would be better. But Raglin can also heal and I built mine with ATTACK (the heal is based on attack) so her heal was helpful in 2 specific occasions where the whole team was very low on HP.

(Reminder: if you are visiting from social media and found my blog useful please consider giving it a Like/Upvote)

Battle Result Screenshot

TEAM / Champion stats:

As you can see the stats are not impressive. I am considered "Mid-game" and I still have a long road towards "End-game".

Champion Masteries

Book requirements increasing over time - RAID analysis by HGCenty

Here I share the nice analysis done by HGCenty showing that Plarium has been increasing champion book requirements steadily over time.

He used data mined information to get as accurate picture as possible and, on top of that, he separated Legendary and Epic champions.

He plotted the data on a chart showing the # of books required to max a champion versus the champion ID which is a proxy for when the champion was released and this resulted in the chart showing that champions released later on require more books.

Chart of Legendary champions

Chart of Epic champions

 

Snorting Thug - The Black Hole of BUFFS - A great option against the HYDRA

Another interesting option for fighting the new Hydra Clan Boss in RAID is a low ranked champion: Snorting Thug.

This champion has very interesting and effective mechanics. Everything on him steals buffs away from the enemies, which makes him a perfect candidate for the 1-man high-RES buff strategy against Hydra.

Here is my idea:

• We put high Resistance on the Snorting Thug (for Nightmare and UNM aiming for 500 RES) with the aim that Head of Mischief will always attack him to steal his buffs, but the RES will not allow that.
• And to make sure he is always the champion with the highest number of buffs we can not only reduce his speed compared to the rest of the team but use his abilities to constantly steals any available buffs on the Hydra Heads. I actually think because of his PASSIVE we could run him at base speed! (Frenzy set allows him to go faster despite low speed) That would also allow stacking more RES and HP on him (not having to use Speed boots). While his attacks are nice I think his Passive skill is enough for this.

Also when he does attack his attacks are based on HP and while he does not have the best multipliers he will still contribute to the damage score.

However, as mentioned, that is not his purpose - his main contribution to the team is making sure that we have all the buffs and the Hydra has none. 

But I believe that with up to 10 buffs (will help if there is a buff extender in the team) all his stats would be greatly increased making him very effective.

And he will further add damage via his natural Counter-Attack anytime a Hydra Head has no buffs.

On the negative side of things, he really must be booked to ensure higher chances of Buff Stealing - I tested the Snorting Thug without books and it is significantly less effective. He will need 11 books to max all skills, which is not few but also not as high as 17 or so which some other champions have.

Champions immune to FEAR debuff and SPECIAL PASSIVES against Fear in RAID Shadow Legends

Here I am sharing with you my Hydra research regarding which RAID champions are immune to the Fear debuff and which champions have special passives helping to protect against Fear.

IMMUNE TO FEAR

• Pharsalas Gravedirt - see my separate article on his 5 advantages
• He is completely immune + can AOE 100% heal reduction + AOE shield + AOE small strengthen
  
• Gerhard the Stone - damage dealer who can ignore defense from 25%-50%
• Also immune BUT with a CD, A2 is the hard hitter with 5.5 damage multiplier
  
• Leorius the Proud - very strong damage dealer
• He is immune as long as his A2 is not on cooldown, which we can ensure by locking the A2 with skill orders.
  
• Teumesia - damage dealer with HP burn mechanics
• As long as anyone has HP burn on she is immune to fear.
  
• Hotatsu - not immune but removes fear at start of turn - he can reduce enemy attack, increase team defense and heal - a nice champion
  
• Shieldguard - also not immune but will "Removes one debuff from this Champion each turn." - he has always been an interesting champion with his weakness being that he is Uncommon so low base stats.
  

SPECIAL PASSIVES

Inquisitor Shamael

Dauntless [Passive]
Each critical hit fills this Champion’s Turn Meter by 7.5%. Whenever an ally receives a [Fear] or [True Fear] debuff, this skill will instantly remove the debuff and fill the ally’s Turn Meter by 15%.

Gory

Dignity [Passive]
Counterattacks with the Cold Comfort skill whenever an enemy places a [Stun], [Sleep], [Freeze], [Provoke], [Fear] or [True Fear] debuff on an ally.

Ramantu Drakesblood 

Arrogance [Passive]
Whenever an enemy places a [Stun], [Sleep], [Freeze], [Fear], [True Fear] or [Provoke] debuff on this champion, will instantly fill this Champion’s Turn Meter by 30% and place a 30% [Increase SPD] buff and a [Shield] buff on them for 2 turns. The Shield buff is equal to 30% of this Champion’s MAX HP.

Siphi the Lost Bride 

Eternal Bond [Passive]
Heals each ally by 10% of their MAX HP at the start of their turn. Has a 40% chance of removing [Freeze] and [Fear] debuffs from each ally at the start of their turn. Removes all debuffs from Rotos the Lost Groom at the start of their turn if they are on the same team.
Level 2: Buff/Debuff Chance +5%
Level 3: Buff/Debuff Chance +5%

===

Doompriest

Bolster [Passive]
Heals all allies by 7.5% of their HP and removes 1 random debuff from them at the start of this Champion’s turn.

A general cleanser champion who can remove 1 debuff every turn, which works most of the time against fear, but it will only work with certainty if Fear is the only debuff and only at the start of her turn.

Low ranked champion who might be good for Hydra - Pharsalas Gravedirt

Pharsalas Gravedirt is a low ranked champion (1-2 stars from 5) who might actually be good for the new Hydra Clan Boss in RAID.

He has 5 good points:

1) He is completely immune to any kind of fear. This alone is very valuable for the Hydra battle.

2) He has an AOE 100% Heal Reduction on a 3 turn cooldown when booked. So if the Hydra heads steal / get any Healing buffs on themselves their health will not fill up.

3) He is a defensive champion which makes him naturally harder to kill.

4) He can place a shield together with small Strengthen for the whole team on a 3 turn cooldown when booked. Strengthen also prevents Hydra from putting Weaken debuff on your team.

• As his is immune to fear this Shield support is much more significant than a non-immune "better" Shield champion, because Pharsalas will always place it every 3 turns while a non-immune champion might fumble in fear.
• And furthermore, the reason Shielding is significant in Hydra battles is because of Head of Decay reducing Max HP. Shields help keep champions alive until the team is able to kill the Hydra head.
  

5) He has good damage multipliers. 4.4 x DEF for A1 and 4.65 x DEF for the AOE, both marked as "Strong" by HH.

What's bad? He is very slow - 90 base speed, which is bad because we have increased speed requirements for Hydra compared to any other RAID content.

Skills:

Analysis of Hydra Clan Boss Accuracy and Resistance Stats/Requirements

Here I share with you my analysis on the Hydra Clan Boss relating to how much Accuracy we need on our champions for the various Hydra difficulties and how much Resistance we will need if we want to try to stop the Head of Mischief stealing our champion buffs.

• For Normal difficulty we would need around 400 RES to stop the Hydra Head of Mischief, but this is already not enough for the higher difficulties where we would need close to 500 RES - see the first table below.
  
• We usually use around 220 ACC for the "regular" Clan Boss and this ACC is enough for the first 2 difficulties of the Hydra.
• However, for Brutal we need to bump this up to 250-300 ACC, which is not a huge problem, BUT:
• For Nightmare we would need to go up to 400 ACC which is significantly more - see the 2nd table below.
  

 

Special thanks:

• As mentioned, thanks to Bobo for sharing his data mining from RAID. I like doing analysis on his data.
  
• Also want to thank Farbstoff for his RAID tool and all his work.

Additional note:

RAID players can try to use Decrease Accuracy debuff, but the issue with this is that the Head of Decay keeps cleansing making it very difficult or unpredictable (especially on Auto) and over many turns they will probably get a few openings which will be enough to become a huge problem for the team resulting in a poor Hydra battle performance.

Is Plarium still investing in RAID? They shifted a lot of resources to another game.

RAID bring a lot of money to Plarium (est. $8 million last month) and their parent company Aristocrat Leasure - a top gambling machine manufacturer. However, since a few years have passed, and since there are many problems in RAID not addressed for a long time, one can wonder if Plarium still invests in the game.

The answer is yes, but there is a big "BUT". As you can see on the picture below, despite RAID generating 10 times more revenue for them in the last month they have shifted the bulk of their resources into Mech Arena which received 400k downloads (4 times more than RAID) out of their total of 500k.

That does not mean they are not spending on RAID. They still continue RAID ads and they developed a new patch 5.0 which is going to be installed in the game soon. 

They will continue to support RAID as it is still their biggest cashcow, but, as they have done in 2021, they will only do the minimum to keep players satisfied and continue spending. 

They keep releasing new variations of champions to generate revenue, completely ignoring balancing issues and other consequences on the game such as diminishing returns in events (e.g. x10) and diminishing chances to get some of the better champions as you pull from a larger and larger pool.

They keep on making copies of existing dungeons (e.g. multiple copies of the existing Doom Tower), creating new variations to add to the many existing equipment sets, etc. Their most famous copy was probably taking the 1v1 arena, copying it 3 times and calling it a 3v3 arena, which is exactly the same as 1v1 but simply done 3 times (for those unfamiliar, it is still 1 player fighting against AI controlled 2nd player, so it is not 3 players vs. 3 players).

These are (unfortunately for players) smart actions which, with minimal cost (compared to actually creating something new), keeps sufficient number of players satisfied and spending.

And with the recent changes the inflation in the game has shot up, power ratings are going through the roof and will keep rising making the gap between cashers and free players larger and larger. I have seen this many times in games and while RAID is far from dead all these signs point to it starting it's decline which is usually a 2-3 year process.

source: sensortower