A Raid Shadow Legends guide in this day and age? Yes — a Raid Shadow Legends guide. While most may know it due to being meme’d to hell and back from their YouTube sponsorships, it actually is a pretty good game. In fact, it is one of the best gacha games you can play right now. Created by Plarium Games, Raid: Shadow Legends was first released for Android and iOS in July 2018, alongside a large ad campaign on social media. Like other people, we also laughed at a few memes about the game, at least till we tried it.
We found that the game had a sizable player base, more than 300 unique playable champions, five different game modes, and continues to have constant updates adding even more! Not just that; it also has daily rewards, quests, missions, challenges, and scheduled events and tournaments – all as a free-to-play game. Those afraid of finding a play-to-win game should relax since Raid: Shadow Legends is balanced enough to let free players be competitive even in the long run. Sounds enticing, right? Hopefully, that piqued your interest, but how do you actually play Raid? This Raid Shadow Legends guide will tell you all about it and get you started in the world of Teleria!
Inside This Article
Raid Shadow Legends Beginners Guide
As for any beginner’s guide, everything we discuss here should apply to the game no matter what version you are playing. That said, Raid: Shadow Legends is constantly being updated, so new game modes, heroes, or artifacts might be added at any time.
Download Raid: Shadow Legends from the Google Play Store
Download Raid: Shadow Legends from the Apple App Store
Your First Log-In
The first thing we need to talk about in this Raid Shadow Legends guide is what happens during your first log-in. After linking your Facebook account, Google account, or creating your independent Plarium account, you can log in and start the game.
Raid Shadow Legends starts you off with a wonderful cutscene explaining some events in Teleria as your four champions — Galek, Elhain, Kael, and Athel — comb through a dungeon. The game then explains some of its turn-based combat mechanics as you go through three stages of combat. At the final enemy, a red dragon protecting its gold hoard, your party gets wiped out starting from Elhain. The Arbiter then speaks and explains how her power can only revive one hero from the shard. She then asks you to choose one of the four. Your choice would be your first hero in the game.
After picking your hero, the game, via The Arbiter, continues to guide you through the first few levels of the campaign. She tells you how to summon a champion through a shard (gacha), how to equip artifacts and upgrade them, and how to choose heroes to take on the campaign levels.
Picking Your First Champion
Each of the four champions you can pick from are decent three-star (rare) champions that can grow into powerhouses in the late game. All four of them also have the “Magic” affinity, which we will explain later, so their main differences are their stats and attack abilities. It is best to pick the champion whose playstyle will suit you best. If you make a mistake choosing a hero, though, there are lots of chances to summon a different one.
Similar to other RPGs, the four champions fit their visual archetypes. Kael is a magician with good damage-dealing AoE spells. Galek is your traditional orc berserker with high damage output and debuffs per attack. Elhain is the stereotypical elf archer with high critical hit chances. And finally, Athel is a paladin with balanced stats alongside debuffs and self-buffs. Overall, their use and growth all depend on the artifacts you use and how you use them.
Getting to Know Your Raid Shadow Legends Champions and Heroes
Since we talked a bit about champions, let us move on to champions and heroes. For this Raid Shadow Legends guide, we will only give a general explanation of what champions are about since we have a more in-depth tier-list Raid Shadow Legends champions guide.
Each champion has eight basic stats in-game. These are their HP (health points), ATK (attack), DEF (defense), SPD (speed), C. Rate (critical rate), C. DMG (critical damage), RESIST (resistance), and ACC (accuracy) stats. Each stat will slowly increase as the champion levels up and gets experience in-game. As with other games, these stats will determine your hero’s actual attack and defense during battles.
Aside from leveling your heroes, these stats can also be augmented by equipping artifacts and artifact sets. Generally, though, every hero has different stats that are focused depending on their roles as attackers, defenders, tanks, and support heroes.
1. Champion Affinities
Aside from pure statistics, another thing to look for in your heroes is their “affinities”. Similar to Fire Emblem’s weapon triangle, Raid Shadow Legends also has weaknesses for each affinity. The four affinities are Magic (blue), Spirit (green), Force (red), and Void (purple). The first three have weaknesses against each other as Magic beats Spirit, Spirit beats Force, and Force beats Magic. Void, on the other hand, is a special affinity that has no counters or weaknesses.
2. Champion Rarities
As we said earlier, champions have different rarities, and the rarer the champion, the higher the stats. Raid Shadow Legends uses a five-star rarity system going from common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary rarities. Aside from free campaign heroes, heroes with specific rarities can only be summoned by using an equivalent shard in the Portal building.
3. Summoning and Shards
Let us talk about summoning heroes and shards. You have to use shards in the Portal building to summon heroes. There are four types of shards that you can use: Mystery, Ancient, Void, and Sacred. Out of these shards, Mystery, Ancient, and Sacred shards can summon any type of hero except those with Void affinities.
Mystery shards can only summon common, uncommon, and rare heroes. Ancient shards can summon rare, epic, and legendary heroes. Sacred shards can summon epic and legendary heroes. Void shards, on the other hand, can only summon rare, epic, and legendary void affinity heroes.
You can get shards from several places. Some will be part of the loot from campaigns, dungeons, PVP, clan boss fights, missions, quests, and challenges. You can also get different shards from daily or log-in rewards, as well as buy some from the in-game shop using in-game currencies or real cash.
Team Building and Hero Matching
Perhaps the most important and challenging aspect of Shadow Legends, let us also talk about building your team and matching heroes. While there is no one way to create a perfect hero team, we do have some tips to get you started. These tips are best used when a decent roster of summoned heroes to mix and match with.
1. Balance your team
Since you can have just four heroes on a team at any time, it is important to have a balance between damage dealers, debuffers, and other support heroes. Generally, you would want to have a damage dealer, a debuffer, a buffer/healer, and a support hero. While quite rare, if you can manage to get a hero with reviving or healing skills, it is best to add them to your team as soon as you get them.
2. Equip your heroes
Each hero has six basic artifact slots. These slots are for a weapon, helmet, shield, gauntlets, armor, and boots. Make sure your heroes are adequately outfitted with equipment suitable for them. Do not just give heroes random equipment. Instead, try to give them equipment sets with similar boosts instead.
3. Upgrade your artifacts
It is not enough to just equip your heroes, so make sure the items you give them are properly upgraded, as well. Each item has different special bonuses when fully upgraded, from adding extra critical damage to increasing HP. This will cost you a lot of silver to do, so focus on upgrading rarer items first.
4. Level and rank up your heroes
Since each rarity of a hero has a maximum level, you have to rank up your low-rarity heroes once in a while to keep up with your own levels. You can upgrade your hero’s rarity by using the Tavern (unlocked at player level 6) and sacrificing a similarly rare hero. This not only makes them stronger but also removes your stock of duplicate and unneeded champions. It also increases their maximum levels and adds a bit of the sacrificed hero’s XP as well.
5. Finish the campaigns
Campaigns are a great way to get some free artifacts, heroes, and shards. Not only will finishing campaigns level up your hero by XP, but it also lets you see how well they work with each other in a fight. Aside from that, since campaigns are replayable, they let you level up your weaker heroes without getting wiped out.
Game Modes
Raid: Shadow Legends has several game modes aside from the campaign, which you can access through the “Battle” tab from your Bastion. These modes include Dungeons, Faction Wars, Arena, Clan Bosses, and Doom Towers. Except for the Campaign and Doom Tower modes, the other modes will only be unlocked at player level 6.
1. Campaigns
The main meat of the game, campaigns have 12 scenarios with dozens of stages. As part of the game’s story and plot, you and your champions have to go through all twelve to “finish” the game. Each of the 12 campaign stories has its own special drops and loot with each play-through. Each individual stage can be replayed indefinitely and is a great way to level up weaker heroes.
2. Dungeons
A mainstay of RPG games, dungeons in Raid Shadow Legends are the perfect places to “grind” your hero’s levels and collect silver. There are 10 different dungeons and keeps to challenge with unique bosses for each. While a great place to level up your heroes, make sure you are fully prepared as each dungeon has its own specialty and challenges.
3. Faction Wars
Faction wars is one of the newer modes added to the game. It was created to give players a chance to farm and collect glyphs and forge materials. There are 21 different stages for this mode, with three different boss stages at levels 7, 14, and 21. Alongside normally going through each stage with your heroes, there are also challenges that you can complete that add more glyphs and forge materials as loot.
4. Arena
The main part of the “MMO” side of the game, the Arena mode is basically Raid’s version of PvP (player versus player). Keep in mind that your and other players’ heroes have different global stats in Arena compared to other modes. Aside from letting you fight other players and their champions, the Arena lets you earn Arena Medals to upgrade your champions for this mode.
5. Clan Bosses
Clans are another “MMO” factor in the game. Compared to the Arena, however, the Clan Boss mode lets you fight with your clanmates against enemy bosses. As a group, you and your allies will constantly chip away at the monstrous bosses. The faster your group can defeat the boss, the better the prizes you can get.
6. Doom Towers
The last of the newer game modes, Doom Tower mode can only be accessed after reaching player level 40 and with special gold and silver keys. Similar to Faction Wars, Doom Tower mode also gives forge materials when defeating a tower floor. Aside from that, it also gives champion fragments with each floor beaten.
In-Game Currency
As part of this Raid Shadow Legends guide, let us also talk about the in-game currencies you can use. Most of these currencies can be bought with real money but are mostly gained through in-game play.
1. Energy
A constant for any gacha MMO game, energy is what you need to use when going to battle. Whichever game mode you are on, if you want to go into a battle, you will use a set amount of energy. Aside from buying more energy from the in-game store, your energy reserve will recover every day to its daily maximum.
2. Arena Tokens
A special currency to use in the Great Hall to go to the classic PvP arena. These tokens can only be obtained through in-game daily rewards or daily refills.
3. Arena Medals
Related to Arena Tokens, these arena medals are rewards for each successful PvP battle. These can be used to strengthen your heroes for the Arena mode. They come in three types — gold, silver, and bronze medals — and are used in the Great Hall facility.
4. Silver
The game’s main currency, silver, is used for most actions, including summoning new champions and upgrading artifacts. Silver is basically earned through battle and as rewards in missions, quests, challenges, and log-in rewards.
5. Gems
Gems are Raid Shadow Legend’s premium currency. This is what you will need to use to buy XP boosts, energy refills, arena token refills, shards, demon lord keys, and other premium items from the in-game shop.
Bastion and Buildings
Your main screen in Raid Shadow Legends will be the Bastion — your main base and rest stop between battles and stages. There are several functional buildings for you to use in the Bastion, including the portal, tavern, great hall, forge, guardian ring, market, mine, and the altar of souls.
1. Portal
Your main “summoning” building, the portal, is where you use your shards and fragments to summon heroes. Aside from shards and fragments, you can also use the portal to fuse summon a new hero. This building is unlocked at the start of the game.
2. Tavern
The tavern has four primary functions: upgrading your heroes’ levels, ranks, and skills, or letting them ascend. Upgrading your heroes’ levels, ranks, and skills will require you to sacrifice similarly ranked heroes. Ascending a hero, meanwhile, will need potions to boost their stats and give new skills. It is unlocked at player level 6.
3. Great Hall
As we said earlier, the Great Hall is where you can use arena medals to upgrade your heroes for the Arena mode. It is also unlocked at player level 6.
4. Forge
Unlocked at player level 30, the Forge lets you create artifact sets and charms to items. You can get materials for the forge from the different game modes.
5. Guardian Ring
Also called The Sparring Pit, this building also lets you improve your champions. This facility lets you pay gems to passively let a hero gain experience points per hour. Aside from that, it also lets you convert spare heroes into Life Tokens and strengthen duplicate legendary champions. It is unlocked at player level 30.
6. Market
Similar to a trader post, the Market lets you trade silver for a myriad of items including shards, champions, and artifacts. It is unlocked at player level 18.
7. Mine
Unlocked by paying 500 gems, the mine automatically produces gems. It has three levels to upgrade to that eventually increase the gems it produces after a set time.
8. Altar of Souls
Added in patch 6.0, the Altar of Souls adds another way to summon heroes. Using Soulstones, you can summon one-star to six-star heroes. Soulstones can only be purchased from the Altar’s Mystic Market using coins from the Iron Twin’s Fortress stage.
Daily Rewards and Missions
Before we finish this Raid Shadow Legends guide, we should talk to you about the daily rewards, playtime rewards, challenges, quests, and missions.
1. Daily Rewards and Playtime Rewards
Aside from the daily log-in rewards you can get by logging in daily, there are also playtime rewards. These are rewards given when you play for a specific time and refresh every 00:00 UTC. You can see playtime rewards by clicking the hourglass icon above the Battle tab. Accept the rewards by clicking the highlighted items.
There are also special rewards given to players through your in-game inbox. You can check these rewards by clicking the treasure box icon on the upper right side of the screen. Click “collect” for each item to receive them.
2. Challenges
There are four different types of challenges to complete, champions, artifacts, dungeons, and arena. You can get artifacts and items after reaching a certain point with the four categories. Check your progress by clicking the star icon on the lower left side.
3. Quests
Similar to Challenges, Quests give rewards after you reach or do certain actions in-game. There are several types of challenges, including daily, weekly, monthly, advanced, and achievements. The advanced quests only open after the player reached level 35. You can see and collect your quests using the icon on the lower left.
4. Missions
There are also several missions you can finish in-game. Each mission is unique and may require you to complete battles, equip a hero, or summon several champions. The missions reward you with everything from silver and XP to shards and energy.
What’s Next?
And there you have it, our Raid Shadow Legends guide! Hopefully, we covered the basics enough to let you play and understand the game. Do note that the game is a lot more complicated than this and there is a lot left to learn. If you want to play something simpler, though, you might want to look into casual games or tile-matching games instead.
