If you consume a lot of YouTube content, you may notice that a lot of content creators are sponsors of RAID: Shadow Legends, a turn-based action RPG by Plarium. In fact, the game has been so heavily advertised on YouTube that it became a meme at one point. So now you’ve probably downloaded the iconic RAID: Shadow Legends because of those ads and now you’re wondering where to start. While the game has a tutorial, it does not cover all of the things the game has to offer. As you progress, you will unlock new features and mechanics which can become confusing.

In this beginner’s guide, we’ll cover all the basic mechanics of RAID: Shadow Legends, and more importantly give some beginner’s tips on how to progress through the game so that you can become stronger in a shorter amount of time. If you haven’t done so already, install and play RAID: Shadow Legends on your PC or Mac now with BlueStacks.

Choosing a Starter Champion

In the prologue of RAID: Shadow Legends, you’ll be made to choose one of four champions to start with. You cannot revert this decision so if you want to try out a different starter champion, you’ll have to reroll which you can do with BlueStacks multi-instance tool. 

Here are the four starter champions in RAID: Shadow Legends:

• Kael – a Dark Elf with mage abilities that have good area of effect (AoE) capabilities. This means that he is good in attacking groups of enemies rather than just one at a time.
• Elhain – a High Elf that also excels in AoE capabilities like Kael however she lacks debuffs that can be applied to enemies.
• Athel – a member of the Sacred Order that has an impressive set of buffs and debuffs. She has the weakest ATK (attack) capability of all the four heroes and is best used for patient long plays.
• Galek – an orc who excels in attacking enemies one at a time. He has superior damage output and speed which grants him additional turns in fights.

To decide which starter champion to pick, you have to figure out what your preferred playstyle is. If you are a player who prefers to be more on the offensive, then pick Galek for his superior ATK. If you want to play the long game and have the patience for it, pick Kael or Athel. If you want to attack more than one enemy, play Kael or Elhain.

Combat Mechanics

At its core, RAID: Shadow Legends is a turn-based RPG. You must assemble a team and then use that team to defeat several waves of enemies without losing all your champions in the team.

You can assign a leader in the team. This matters a lot if the champion you assign has a passive skill called an “Aura”, which increases a specific stat for every champion in the team. All four starter champions have an Aura so always assign them as the leader when you are just starting out. Eventually, you’ll get other champions with an Aura by playing more of the game. For example, High Khatun has a speed Aura and you can get it via daily login rewards.

Once you pick a leader and the rest of the members, it’s time for battle. The way combat goes is that each side will take turns attacking each other or applying buffs or debuffs. For each turn, a different champion of the team will be used. When it is your turn to make an attack, you can choose one of several of the champion’s skills and select which enemy to attack. You can let the game pick skills for you by enabling auto battle. Auto battle can be incredibly useful when you constantly use the same champions in the team however if you get a new champion, it is heavily recommended to manually control them and try out their skills.

The Campaign

The campaign is the story mode of RAID: Shadow Legends. When you start out, playing campaign is the best way to unlock new features and earn resources to upgrade your champions.

Beating campaign stages earns you stars. The better you play, the more stars you get. The more stars you get, the more rewards you get. You can get at most three stars per campaign stage.

• 1-star – clear the stage.
• 2-stars – clear the stage without losing a champion.
• 3-stars – clear the stage with two or fewer champions in less than 10 minutes without losing a champion.

The campaign also comes in four difficulties: Normal, Hard, Brutal, and Nightmare. If you want a more difficult challenge for greater rewards, then make sure to play in higher difficulties. But as a beginner, just complete the campaign in Normal difficulty.

Non-Campaign Modes

As a beginner, you should just focus more on the campaign however as you level up and unlock new features, you can try out these game modes for more rewards.

• Clan Boss – deal as much damage to the boss to earn rewards. As a beginner, focus on surviving until you get your first damage buff. This game mode is easier if you have picked Kael or Athel as a starter champion.
• Dungeons – a mode that is comprised of various stages with specific challenges. Form the best team that is best suited for the dungeon.
• Arena – the PVP game mode where you can fight the teams of other players. As a beginner, focus on champions that can buff your team’s attacks and debuff the enemy’s defenses. AoE champions are also heavily recommended in this game mode.

Upgrading to Six Stars

Eventually, you’ll reach a point where you have to upgrade a character from five stars to six stars to take them to new heights.

Upgrade your best champion to six stars, which is typically your starter champion. However, it could be other champions as well assuming you get lucky in summoning new champions. The next champion to upgrade to six stars depends on what you want. If you want to add more support capabilities to your team, then upgrade your support champion to six stars.

Conclusion

When beginning in RAID: Shadow Legends, you must first assess your playstyle and choose the starter champion that suits it. You should then learn to form the best team by taking into account things like Aura abilities and use that knowledge in the campaign. In general, you should focus on the campaign when you start the game to earn resources for upgrading your champions. Along the way, you can try out other game modes like dungeons.