Raid: Shadow Legends — What I Wish I Knew When I Started

You've got a roster of random champions, no idea what to upgrade first, and the game keeps throwing new systems at you every five minutes. I've been there. Here's everything I'd tell myself on day one.

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Pick Kael. Don't Overthink It.

Right at the start, the game asks you to pick a starter champion. You get four options, and honestly, for a new player there's only one correct answer: Kael.

He's a Dark Elf mage and he carries the early game harder than any of the other starters. His kit poisons enemies — which stacks up and shreds health over time — and he's genuinely good at farming the campaign, which is exactly what you'll be doing for your first couple of weeks. Some players swear by Elhain for her burst damage, and Athel has her fans too. But Kael's poison is consistent, works well on Clan Boss later on, and you won't feel the urge to bench him after a week. Take Kael. Close the menu. Move on.

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Stop Levelling Everyone a Little Bit

This is the mistake almost every new player makes. You pull a shiny new champion, you get excited, you throw some XP at them. Then you do it again with the next one. Before long you've got fifteen champions at level 10–20 and none of them can clear anything.

Resources in this game — XP, silver, energy — are genuinely scarce early on. The right move is to pick one main champion and one or two supports, then pour everything into them. Get Kael to level 40, ascend him, do his masteries. A small focused team that can actually clear content is worth ten half-finished champions sitting on the bench doing nothing.

I know it feels wasteful to ignore the others. It isn't. The game will give you better champions later and you'll have a solid foundation to build on. Your job right now is to build something that works, not something that looks impressive in your roster tab.

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Affinity in 60 Seconds

The game explains this badly, so here's the short version. There are four affinities — Magic (blue), Spirit (green), Force (red), and Void (purple). The first three form a triangle: Magic beats Spirit, Spirit beats Force, Force beats Magic, and Void is neutral against everything.

If your champion has a weak affinity matchup against an enemy, their damage goes down and they're more likely to miss debuffs. Strong matchup means extra damage and more reliable hits. This matters most in Arena and in certain dungeon stages. You won't always be able to perfectly counter enemy affinities, but knowing the triangle stops you sending a full Magic team into a Spirit dungeon and wondering why everyone keeps whiffing.

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Energy Is Precious — Farm Smart

Energy is the fuel that lets you play the game. It refills slowly over time and there's a hard cap. Once you're capped, you're wasting it — so log in reasonably regularly, especially early on when you're building toward your first proper team.

For farming, the go-to spot for late early-game is campaign stage Brutal 12-3. It gives good XP, decent silver, and runs efficiently. You'll need a team that can actually clear it before you farm it — bouncing off a stage you're not ready for wastes energy. Once Kael is properly levelled and geared, you'll get there fast enough. Don't rush it.

If you haven't started yet and want to see what the systems are like, play Raid for free and give it a proper few sessions before you form an opinion.

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Shards — the Biggest Trap in the Game

You get your first few Ancient Shards and your first instinct is to pop them right away to see what you get. Don't.

Summoning events and 2x rate-up events run regularly. During those events, your pulls give extra rewards and the odds of pulling Epic or Legendary champions are higher. Pulling outside of those windows is just throwing value away. Ancient Shards can wait. Sacred Shards especially — those are rare and should only ever be opened during a special event. Put them in your vault and leave them alone. I know it's painful. Do it anyway. The version of you three weeks from now will be glad you did.

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Gear — What Actually Matters Early

A few principles that'll save you a lot of regret. Speed matters more than almost anything else. Speed determines turn order, and going first in Arena or getting more turns in a dungeon is massive. If a piece of gear has Speed as a main stat or a substat, it's probably worth keeping regardless of what set it's from.

Don't slap your best gear on a champion you just pulled and haven't decided you're keeping yet. Gear can be removed but it costs silver — silver you need for other things. And don't go mad trying to collect perfect sets from day one. Early on, Lifesteal is strong for keeping underpowered champions alive, Speed set is valuable almost always, and anything with flat HP or flat Defence as a main stat on the wrong slot is trash regardless of how many stars it has.

Learn what the right main stats are for each gear slot. It takes about fifteen minutes to look up and saves you weeks of farming the wrong pieces.

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What Week One Actually Looks Like

Keep it simple. Clear your dailies every day — the login rewards and daily missions give you materials you can't afford to miss, and the habit of logging in consistently is more valuable than any single drop. Farm Kael to 40 and ascend him because that's your main job for the first few days and everything else is secondary.

Save every Ancient and Sacred shard without exception. Don't pull until a 2x event and even then only if you actually have enough shards to justify it. Join a clan as soon as the game lets you — even a random active clan. Clan Boss gives consistent daily rewards that you can't get elsewhere and missing those early is giving up free resources for no reason.

The players who stick to this framework in week one are the ones who have working teams by week three instead of a mess of half-levelled junk and an empty shard stash.

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My Honest Take

Raid is a slow burn. The first week is genuinely the hardest part because everything is gated and nothing feels fast. But if you like turn-based games and the idea of building and optimising a team over time, it clicks. Properly clicks.

The players who quit in week one usually did it because they spread resources everywhere, pulled shards randomly, and had nothing to show for their time. Now you know what not to do.

Stick with Kael, be patient with your shards, and start farming properly once you can clear Brutal — the game opens up considerably from there. If you haven't downloaded it yet, play Raid for free and give it a proper week before you make up your mind.

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