Dragon Stage 24 Speed Teams 1-2 minutes WITHOUT SEER and WITHOUT EXPLOSIONS

Please see below my "WITHOUT SEER" and "WITHOUT EXPLOSIONS" compilation of Speed Teams for Dragon S24 completed in 1-2 minutes.

As mentioned on the picture already, but to say it again, thanks to HellHades and his team for their work and data and support of RAID community.

This is a large picture, if it looks small on your screen click on it to enlarge. 

44.74 mil damage 215+ Turns on Hydra Hard - my team & Tips:

Following the recent changes by Plarium to Hydra in RAID many players have been able to achieve some kind of an improvement versus their previous results.

What were the changes?

• HP, ATK and DEF decreased on all Hydra difficulties.
• The countdown of the Mark of the Hydra was increased from 16 to 20 turns.
• Up to and not including Nightmare it requires less damage to free Champions after Digestion.
• It is now possible to Provoke the Head of Decay.
• Chest rewards were boosted.
  

My 44.74 mil damage on Hydra Hard

After multiple attempts which took about 2 hours (yes, unfortunately the RNGesus is very much still alive in Hydra) I was able to achieve my record of 44.74 million damage in a battle that took 71 minutes and 37 seconds. So a massive waste of over 2 hours just for 1 key.

Let's start with the screenshots and I will add some explanatory text after that:

Picture 1) Time taken

This picture, taken at the end of the battle, is there to confirm the correct time taken because the game does not show time over 1 hour (see picture 2), it wrongly shows only 11 minutes. The real duration is 71 minutes and 37 seconds for 1 key.

Picture 2) Result screen: 44.74M Damage Dealt

Picture 3) Clan View which also shows equipped sets:

Picture 4) Team stats

Information / Tips:

I tried different combinations before this team.

One of the combinations which was interesting was having Visix as the lead position. The advantage of this was having a permanent Slow on all Hydra Heads 100% of the time and having a guaranteed Provoke on Head of Decay. Her 3 turn Provoke cooldown was ready right before the Head of Decay had a turn.

Against all those advantages the disadvantage was less damage output as the lead position is a critical position. And furthermore, the risk when Visix was eaten the team lost both the Provoke and the Slow benefits.

Depending on what champions you have I would still suggest you to try this combination - it might give a good result for you.

In another combination I used Seeker to constantly attack Head of Decay. The benefits are the Provoke is on the A1 (not guaranteed but many attacks = high chance, however Affinity also can go against depending on Rotation) + TM boost. Unfortunately, for me this did not work out well because my Seeker is build for my Clan Boss team and he has a lower speed and is more focused on damage rather than being able to survive and provoke. But it is certainly an option for others.

Another good option for Provoke is Husk, however my equipment is not good enough to allow him both high accuracy and high CDMG using one of the 3 sets to help him CD faster (Reflex, Relentless, Frenzy). I tried doing this by boosting Accuracy with Kimi but this did not work reliably.

I also tried changing other champions not related to Provoke such as using Lydia, Uugo, Doompriest, Dhukk, Umbral and even Skullcrusher, but I did not get a good result.    

Another tip is that I noticed that since the stats are a bit weaker now it was easier to quickly kill 1 Head and start gaining big damage hitting the Decapitated Hydra Head.

Another tip is to keep discipline and keep hitting the Head of Torment instead of the Decapitated Head with all supporting champions and only using the damage dealers for non-Torment attacks. This results in higher damage output then if everyone would focus on the Decapitated Head.

Another tip is not to use ATK down debuff if you are playing with Geomancer as your main damage dealer. This increases risks especially with Head of Wrath but this is what you need to dish out bigger damage. Head of Wrath should be controller carefully by blocking buffs preventing his ATK up or removing his buffs with Geomancer. Also should be fully controlled when he does his big attack by counting the hits and manually triggering his big attack only after you are ready to receive it (either with a DEF up or with a Shield or Strengthen and after healing). It is important that you have a way to counter his Provoke by cleansing so that you can control the hits.

And of course the important tip with my result, as you perhaps already saw, is to use 1 or 2 Provoke sets (Taunting set) to help Provoke the Head of Decay. In this case you can see I have used the Provoke set on my Geomancer which worked well most of the time, however there were several occasions where he failed to Provoke up to 5 times in a row, so do not expect 100% success this way, but it was certainly enough to help me achieve my record.

I have given multiple other tips in my previous Hydra posts, please also refer to those such as: https://raid-tips.blogspot.com/2022/05/hydra-hard-33-mil-damage-150-turns-team.html

I hope you found this post interesting and useful. If you want other RAID players to benefit from my posts feel free to Like/Share my RAID Shadow Legends blog.

Calculation showing it is best to wait for Guaranteed Events vs Void x2 pulling

I prepared this easy table to show that it would be best to keep shards and not pull during the current x2 Void weekend event.

As noted, in the past Plarium never offered Void Legendary champions during Guaranteed Champion events. But this changed in April when they offered Riho Bonespear for 90 Void Shards. This means it might happen again.

Then it would be better to gather shards for that because that event would yield expected value of 1.4 legendary voids versus only 0.9 of the Void x2 event.

Saw this bizarre/amusing comment under a RAID video

I was watching different RAID videos and I saw this bizarre / amusing comment under a RAID video of Darth.

The player posted his story of being addicted and not able to quit so he was very happy when he got banned and sent a thank you to Plarium support. Following this he was unbanned... 

The 2nd commenter explains his opinion that this is because they want to squeeze the last penny out of the player.

Some thoughts to add: I believe most people don't want to waste time with 3rd party programs and don't want to cheat - it is Plarium who has created all the frustrations and has not presented solutions to their created problems. If they would solve the problems I believe people would not be interested at all to go to any 3rd party solution.

My Assessment of RAID: (by Feature) Ranking after completing features 100+ times

I decided to prepare a score card ranking different RAID features by Enjoyment, Time Spent and Rewards - I share this with you here.

Naturally, this is my own subjective experience and time estimations and other players may have other experiences.

Please see the ranking below; if the picture is small on your screen click on it to enlarge. And feel free to share your own experience.

 

Bivald of the Thorn Fragment Event Schedule

Here below the schedule for Bivald of the Thorn Fragment fusion event as shared by Plarium:

• Bivald of the Thorn
• Rarity: Legendary
• Type: HP
• Affinity: Spirit
• Faction: Sacred Order

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Hydra Hard 33 mil damage 150+ turns - Team Composition + Stats/Masteries Pictures + Explanations/Tips

In this RAID blog post I share with you my record to date on Hydra Hard reaching 33 million damage with over 150 turns battle.

Below you will find all the related screenshots and info from me. Content:

1. Team composition
2. Team & Damage pictures
3. Champion stats & Equipment picture
4. Applicable Hydra rotation / starting Heads 
5. Role of Geomancer & Tips
6. Role of Arbiter & Tips
7. Role of Godseeker Aniri & Tips
8. Role of Lady Kimi & Tips
9. Role of Inquisitor Shamael & Tips
10. Role of Mithrala Lifebane & Tips
11. Masteries of all Champions
    

Team Composition:

The team I used was (below the pictures are full explanations):

• Geomancer (team leader) - tanky lifesteal build
  
• Arbiter - not dedicated to Hydra; Arena build, i.e. main focus to be fast to go first in Arena
  
• Godseeker Aniri - not dedicated to Hydra; backup reviver / support built for beating Bommal
  
• Lady Kimi - powerful speed control / sometimes (not often) blocks buffs
  
• Inquisitor Shamael - not dedicated to Hydra; offensive build I use to snipe tough enemies in the Doom Tower
• Mithrala - new champion for my account with zero books (waiting for CvC), unfinished masteries and not fully upgraded equipment.

Team & Damage Picture 1 of 2

Team & Damage Picture 2 of 2

Team Stats

Here you can see the summary of stats and equipment of each champion:

Hydra Rotation

The current rotation is (starting Hydra Heads):

• Head of Decay (cleanses all debuffs on Hydra Heads)
  
• Head of Torment (puts fear on you)
  
• Head of Mischief (steals buffs)
  
• Head of Wrath (massive damage dealer)

Role of Geomancer & Tips

He has several functions:

• Main damage dealer. In this role he has to never die and keep putting HP Burn on all enemies except Torment. For this you need to build him as a tank and I found Lifesteal gear to be very effective in keeping him alive.
• Team Protector: He protects the entire team every turn with his passive damage reduction. For this to be effective you need to put him in the correct position. I see sometimes players putting Geomancer in the middle of the team or at the end - this is wrong. He can only protect allies who come after him in the team position, therefore try to place him as the leader or at least in the 2nd position slot. This protection is significant, it is like having a 15% Strengthen buff at all times which cannot be removed.
• Other:
• Warmaster mastery is very important. It adds to his active damage as well as being critical in allowing Lifesteal gear to heal him fully.
• Him important stats are SPD, HP, ACC. Players who have better equipment than mine can either boost his HP/DEF or boost RES - both of those will help him survive better.
• I don't think SPD needs to be boosted too much as he is already supported by Shamael in this rotation.
  

Role of Arbiter & Tips

While the main role of the Arbiter is revive/boost she also has to do a couple of important things:

(my Arbiter is not built for Hydra; she would perform a lot better if she was. She is simply in my fastest SPD gear for Arena, which unfortunately is not fast enough)

• Always attacking Torment no matter what is happening to keep boosting Team damage.
• Cleanse buffs from enemies (my Arbiter is built for Arena with my best speed gear which is not that great so she does not have the required accuracy which is why mine fails to cleanse often, but it is still her role).
• If the battle allows it exceptionally change from attacking Torment to try to place Weaken on decapitated Hydra Head(s).
  

Role of Godseeker Aniri & Tips

• She is the backup reviver especially for when Arbiter gets eaten.
• Tip: her revive should not be used most of the time. Let Arbiter do the job and keep it ready for emergencies.
• Tip: Her revive also resets skills and this may be needed for Shamael to do his big attack, die and then revive and do big attack again.
• Her heal supports but is not critical to the Team. 
• Tip: she should also attack Torment in most cases to support Team Damage.
  

I think of her as a more "background" champion I don't pay much attention to but who supports the Team to do the job.

Role of Lady Kimi & Tips

Her role is to boost the Team while slowing down the enemy and sometimes put block buffs. She should be used smartly:

• Tip: Don't just use all her skills as they become available. 
• The AOE Slow is used most often but even this you should only use if the Hydra Heads debuff has expired or will expire in 1 turn. So sometimes you don't need to use this skill even if it becomes available and use it 1 or 2 turns later as needed.
• The AOE Boost, on the other hand is much more tactical:
• I almost never use it.
• I observed that Mischief waits for you to use it before he steals buffs. It's like he knows about it (maybe they programmed AI like that).
• When I don't use it Mischief steals buffs a lot less.
• If Mischief steals only 1 buff then I will use it to boost the team and block buff on Mischief.
• If Mischief steals more than 1 buff I will not use it. I will wait for him to spread it to his friends and then I will block buff on all. But this happens very rarely as I explained above.
  

Role of Inquisitor Shamael & Tips

Shamel has 1 or 2 roles depending on your choice.

Many Shamaels I know are built more tanky and with Toxic gear and therefore they have only 1 role. I did not like that so my Shamael is built as a damage dealer (sniper) with Giant Slayer instead of Warmaster.

My Shamael is not dedicated to Hydra; I built him actually for Doom Tower and I just use him in that build for Hydra as well.

• His main role is to remove the Fear cast by Head of Torment and boosting the Team Leader. Although his skill says he should boost the whole Team there is a mistake in the game so he only boosts the Leader.
• This boost supports the main damage dealer (Geomancer) to place more HP Burns.
• His second role is being the secondary damage dealer and rescuing allies eaten by the Hydra.
• His A1 can either go for damage or boosting. I usually use it for boosting (i.e. Torment).
• His primary A2 target is Head of Decay. That is the worst Hydra Head in the game and is the one you want to kill first. However, if a champion is eaten then Shamael has to redirect to rescue operation.
• When there is a decapitated Head then there is a difficult decision to be made. With 4 buffs my Shamael can do 200k x 3 = 600k damage to Hydra, but this takes damage away from killing other Hydra Heads. So depending on how the battle is going a different decision needs to be made. For example if Head of Wrath is in his "angry mode" it is probably best to attack him as during that time his counter will not rise. Or if Decay is near to death it is best to take it out and not let it cleanse all the debuffs, etc.
  

Role of Mithrala Lifebane & Tips

Many people have been getting Mithrala lately since everyone started doing Hydra at the same time and after collecting her fragments everyone is summoning her at similar time too.

Mine has no books at all. I will wait for the next CvC to use books (Wait Shadow Legends), so I think I could have performed even better than I did.

Mithralas roles, how I used her / tips:

• Her main role is supporting the Team but this is then broken into 3 roles:
• Role 1: With her A1 she copies Arbiter in only attacking Torment no matter if this is needed or not. We are trying to support Team Damage as much as possible.
• Role 2: Cleanse and protect (her A3). Since she is unbooked I tried to keep this skill for emergencies only as I know it would take a long time until it is ready again. What I define as emergency in this case is (A) if the team is under full stacks of poison + either lower health or other debuffs too (B) when the team is low on health and Arbiter's heal has already been used and/or Wrath is about to hit hard.
• Role 3: Hex and ATK/DEF buffs (her A2). This is broken down into 2 sub-roles:
• (A) if there is no danger or if Mischief has eaten someone: then if I want to target / kill Head of Mischief I will use the Hex allowing everyone in the team to attack Mischief without the random redirection.
• (B) if there is danger: by this I mostly mean Head of Wrath counter is coming to 15 for his big attack. In this case I will use this skill to get the DEF buff allowing me to take much less damage (remember I don't have any ATK down on this team).

So despite her having 5 turn cooldowns without books I did not always use her skills as soon as they were available.

Tip: You can also time Godseeker's buff extension with Mithrala's skills to get more use out of them.

Masteries

Also to share the masteries:

I hope you found this post interesting and useful. If you want other RAID players to benefit from my posts feel free to Like/Share my RAID Shadow Legends blog.