RAID: Shadow Legends features many different adventures for players to take part in. With so many ways to enjoy your time within the game, getting a handle on where to find a specific gameplay experience can often feel overwhelming.
Fear not, however! In this article, we’ll walk you through RAID: Shadow Legends’ top-level gameplay mechanics and explain the numerous game formats and styles found within the game.
The Bastion
The Gem Mine
The Gem Mine can be found in the bottom-left corner of the Bastion, and is your best source of constant, reliable Gems. It isn’t cheap to open and fully upgrade, but once it’s done, it provides a steady flow for the remainder of the player’s time in RAID: Shadow Legends. Unlocking and upgrading the Mine is a valuable long-term investment that pays for itself once you’ve invested 100 days into playing the game. After that, you can just enjoy the Gems that keep coming in!
Great Hall
For adventurers looking to upgrade their Champions, the Great Hall offers the chance to do just that! Players can spend the hard-earned Medals and Crests earned from PvP battles to upgrade boosts for Champions of different Affinities and across different game modes.
Arena Medals can be spent to improve Champions of a certain Affinity, boosting key stats like Defense, Attack, HP, Critical Damage, Resistance, and Accuracy.
Arena Crests can be used to boost the same stats, as well as Speed and Ignore Defense, but specifically when fighting in specific locations within RAID: Shadow Legends. You can upgrade your Champions’ effectiveness in the Potion Keeps, Dungeons, and Clan Boss Battles!
Be sure to fight hard in each of the different modes in the Arena to make the most of the Great Hall!
Market
The Market gives you the chance to spend your Silver on a randomized selection of gear, Shards, and Champions. The selection of things that you can spend your Silver on refreshes every hour, and you can upgrade your Market with Gems or Silver to access a wider selection of available purchases.
Portal
The Portal is where you can Summon new Champions to your team. You can use the Shard Summon tab to spend Silver and open Shards to add Champions to your team. The Fusion tab allows you to Fuse selected Champions together to Summon a more powerful Champion for your team. Finally, there is the Fragment Summon tab. Once you have collected 100 Champion Fragments for a specific Champion, you can Summon them here.
Guardian Ring
The Guardian Ring is home to various different gameplay elements that will help you with everything from leveling up Champions passively over time, to boosting stats for specific Factions, and even empowering your Legendary Champions with duplicate copies.
Tavern
Settle in for a tankard or two as you help your Champions upgrade their Level, Rank, Skills, and become Ascended. The Tavern is your one-stop-shop for improving your Champions.
You can upgrade your Champion’s Level using unwanted Champions and XP Brews, and then upgrade their Rank using Chickens or Champions of the same Rank that they are currently at. You can also use Skill Tomes or duplicate Champions to upgrade your Champions’ Skills, making them hit harder and giving them a better chance at landing debuffs.
Finally, you can Ascend your Champions using Affinity Potions. You can only Ascend a Champion to the same Rank that they are currently at. Potions can be earned from raiding the Potion Keep Dungeons or by mixing lower Potions into higher rarity Potions in the Tavern’s Potion Mixer.
Forge
The Forge lets you craft specific Artifacts using Materials that you can gather while playing RAID: Shadow Legends. You’ll get Materials from a variety of sources, like the Arena, Faction Wars, the Doom Tower, the Forge Pass, Events, and Tournaments. The Forge Pass gives you access to a special series of Challenges where you can earn Forge Pass Points, climb the levels and earn unique rewards. Some of those rewards can be used to craft powerful Artifacts in the Forge that act as supercharged versions of existing Artifact sets that you already know and love.
Altar of Souls
The Altar of Souls is where you can help your Champions reach their true potential. Here, you can summon Souls to Awaken your Champions, unlocking powerful Blessings that increase their stats and enable new abilities. Awakening Champions will allow you to create new and unique strategies – breathing new life into your teams!
Battle Basics
As an epic collection RPG, RAID: Shadow Legends tasks you with taking part in a lot of battles. These constitute the bread-and-butter of the game. In this brief gameplay guide, we’ll walk you through some of the basics of the battle system.
Turn Meter
The Turn Meter is the core of combat in RAID: Shadow Legends. Appearing above every enemy and friendly Champion on the battlefield, you’ll see two bars.
The top green bar is a display of a Champion’s current Health Points (HP). The second bar is the Turn Meter. This yellow bar, which fills over time, is a visual representation of how close your Champion is to being able to take their turn in battle.
Once it’s full, that Champion has an opportunity to take a turn. The order that Champions take turns is determined by each individual Champion’s Turn Meter, and the rate at which each combatant’s Turn Meter fills is determined by their Speed stat. However, it’s important to note that if multiple Champions have their bar full, the turn will be taken by the Champion with the greatest overflow.
Some Champion abilities can also modify their Speed stat through buffs and debuffs, add or subtract from the Turn Meter, or even grant extra turns!
Champion Affinities
Each Champion belongs to a specific Affinity. Three of the four Affinities determine attack and defense advantages or disadvantages based on a simple rock-paper-scissors relationship, while the fourth Affinity —Void — has no strengths or weaknesses – which is, in itself, a strength!
- Magic (Blue): Beats Spirit (Green), weak to Force (Red)
- Spirit (Green): Beats Force (Red), weak to Magic (Blue)
- Force (Red): Beats Magic (Blue), weak to Spirit (Green)
- Void (Purple): No counter, no weakness
The most critical strategy to mastering all the battle scenarios outlined within this RAID: Shadow Legends Game Overview is to become as familiar as possible with these Affinities and their counters.
Balance your team of Champions to guarantee that the right Affinities are always in play and in your favor. This can make the difference between winning a battle or losing it.
Buffs & Debuffs
One of the other core principles in RAID: Shadow Legends is the use of buffs and debuffs. These are effects that can passively deal damage, alter the performance of a Champion, or have other effects!
Beneficial buffs can briefly improve a target’s stats or abilities. Debilitating debuffs add a degenerative or damaging effect that can reduce a target’s effectiveness in combat. Unlike buffs, a debuff will only stick if the target does not have the power to resist it — something determined by Champion’s Accuracy and Resistance stats.
Buffs and debuffs are displayed near a Champion’s HP bar and are displayed in blue (for buffs) and red (for debuffs). At any point during a battle, you can tap on the Info button at the bottom left and see all buffs and debuffs currently in effect on your squad.
Rounds
In many scenarios like the Campaign and some of the Dungeons, players will be tasked with fighting through three rounds of enemies in order to complete a battle. In other scenarios, like the Arena and Clan Boss fights, you’ll only have the single round of fighting to contend with.
After each round, buffs and debuffs are cleared, ability cooldowns decrease by a turn, and your Champions heal for a small amount.
Auto & Manual
For some, the tactics of battle are everything in RAID: Shadow Legends. Other players may be more enthusiastic about the progression and collection aspects of the game. For this reason, every battle can be played in either Manual or Auto Battle mode.
Auto Battle mode allows the AI to handle all basic battle actions for you, though you can tap on a target during Auto Battles to direct your entire team to focus on it. This is especially useful when grinding repeatedly through a single mission or battles for loot.
There are customizable options for your team when running in Auto Battle mode, helping you ensure that battles go the way you want them to. Having that customization is super helpful for Multi-Battles, which allow you to run the same fight multiple times in a row without having to manually select Replay at the end of every battle.
Manual mode, on the other hand, is the ideal mode to use for difficult battles. It allows you to take full control of your Champions, making sure that every move does exactly what you want it to. Battles can also be played at normal (1x) or fast (2x) speed, allowing you to either enjoy the carnage as it happens, or speed your way through the battles to progress faster.
Game Modes
Campaign
In the Campaign, you’ll travel and battle through 12 striking locations, each with 7 Stages to conquer, 3 stars of difficulty to earn on each Stage, and plenty of loot to get along the way. Battle your way through a compelling narrative that explores multiple Factions, a brutal war between light and dark, and loads of Champions who all bring different things to the table.
Dungeons
Dive into the deep, dark dungeons of RAID: Shadow Legends in order to defeat challenging Bosses and earn powerful resources, including Artifacts, Mastery Scrolls, Potions, and more. Grinding these Dungeons is imperative to finding the best gear, and making sure your Champions are as powerful as they can possibly be.
Faction Wars
RAID: Shadow Legends boasts an impressive roster of more than 700 Champions spread across 15 Factions, and Faction Wars is the place to test your Collection. Each Faction has its own Crypt, complete with 21 Stages where you can earn 3 stars per stage. You’ll need to build teams of Champions from each Faction to succeed here, earn stars and gain powerful rewards.
Arena
Testing your team’s strength against other players is one of the best ways to see how you measure up, and the Arena is the best place for that. Pit your strongest Champions against an opponent’s team in a single-round, 4v4 showdown where only the strongest will come out on top. Alternatively, bring 12 Champions in three teams of 4 for the Tag Team Arena, or take on opponents in real-time with Live Arena.
Classic Arena battles are the only place to earn Classic Arena Medals, which can be used in the Great Hall to get global boosts for each of the four Affinities. Climbing the rankings of the Arena also has stat boosts for your Champions, as well as weekly Arena Chests that offer unique rewards.
Live Arena rewards victorious players with Live Arena Crests, which can also be used at the Great Hall to upgrade Area Bonuses. These make your Champions stronger in specific areas of the game, like Potion Keeps, Dungeons, and Clan Boss Battles.
Clan Bosses
Being part of a Clan in RAID: Shadow Legends means being able to take on the Clan Bosses: the Demon Lord and the Hydra. These epic battles against gigantic foes are time-based, cumulative efforts where you must do your best to survive and deal as much damage as possible to the boss.
Demon Lord
Defeating the Demon Lord is no easy feat — you’ll need multiple members of your Clan to fight this monstrous foe several times a day. Resetting every 24 hours, the Demon Lord can be fought every day on multiple different difficulties using Demon Lord Keys. You get one of these for free every six hours, or you can purchase more in the Shop using Gems.
Each effort by a Clan member will chip away at the Demon Lord’s HP. Once the Demon Lord’s HP drops below 50%, they’ll change from the neutral Void Affinity to a random non-Void Affinity, introducing new attacks. Don’t worry though — the Affinity won’t change mid-fight. After the 24 hour period has finished, you may receive a Demon Lord Chest based on your personal and collective Clan performance.
If you deal enough damage, you’ll receive a Chest. If your Clan managed to defeat the Clan Boss, then you’ll receive two of the same Chest. You’ll get a maximum of two Chests per difficulty, but you can fight the Demon Lord on multiple difficulties, given that you’ve beaten the Demon Lord on the previous difficulty first. Fight hard, spend your Keys wisely, and earn powerful rewards such as Shards and Skill Tomes!
Hydra
The Hydra Clan Boss battles work similar to the Demon Lord, but with a few important adjustments. You’ll still need to work alongside your Clan to deal enough damage over a set amount of time to defeat it. However, you’ll only have three attempts to take on the Hydra each week, using Hydra Keys. After the weekly reset, you’ll get another three Hydra Keys to try again.
For this Clan Boss fight, you’ll be taking on four Hydra Heads at a time, from a pool of six existing Heads, with more coming in the future. Each Head brings something devious and different, whether it’s buffs, debuffs, or just massive damage. Adapting to fight the Hydra is what makes this a super tough Clan Boss fight. You won’t be able to have one team to rely on like you might for the Demon Lord. You’ll need to adapt and react to the different Hydra Head rotations to achieve victory here.
Defeating one Hydra Head will decapitate it, and allow you to deal increased damage to an Exposed Neck. However, it won’t stay this way. A random Head will soon replace it, and the fight goes on.
Balancing your Champions and Affinities is more important than ever here, especially with only three Hydra Keys at your disposal each week. However, if a fight isn’t going your way or you think you can do better, you can use the Free Regroup button on the Pause menu to adjust your team and try again without costing another Hydra Key.
Similar to the Demon Lord, if you deal enough damage to the Hydra before the week is out, then you’ll receive a Hydra Chest. If your Clan manages to defeat the Hydra, you’ll receive two of the Chests that you’ve earned. You’ll want to get your hands on these Chests each week – you can get Clan Gold, Mortal Soulstones, Clan XP, Champion Fragments for the powerful Legendary Champion Mithrala Lifebane, and unique Stone Skin and Protection Artifacts!
Doom Tower
Finally, we have the Doom Tower – a massive structure built to house some of Teleria’s most fearsome creatures. Here, you can climb 120 Floors on both Normal and Hard mode, fighting Bosses on every tenth Floor.
Taking on a Floor for the first time will require Gold Keys, which you get 10 of each day. You can’t get more, and they reset every day, so make sure to use them! Silver Keys can be used to access Secret Rooms and revisit Boss Floors to farm Materials. You’ll earn Champion Fragments from Secret Rooms, and unique Materials from defeating Bosses. These Materials can be used to craft powerful Artifacts in the Forge that you can’t get anywhere else.
The Doom Tower has three rotations, and each rotation has four Bosses to overcome on your climb to the top. Make sure to use your Gold Keys every day to climb the Doom Tower, and use your Silver Keys to farm Materials to craft powerful Artifacts in the Forge!
And, that’s the basics of RAID: Shadow Legends! Now that this Gameplay Overview has given you the lowdown on everything you need to know, get out there and fight hard for Teleria. Collect Champions, hunt for powerful Artifacts, and take on terrifying enemies! Happy raiding!
