not for players who have just started the game. If you haven’t gotten all three B10 teams up (GB10, DB10, and NB10), cleared Trial of Ascension Normal for at least three months in a row, have gotten to at least stage 70 of Trial of Ascension Hard before, and have at least one mildly fast team – GB10 is usually the one that’s going to go under 1:30 first – then you are not at all ready for raids! With that said, if you have managed to meet all those requirements, then this is the guide for you, and you’re ready to break into Raids! Usually, any of the Rift of Worlds that isn’t Level 4 is a waste of time. As such, we’re going to build you a team that will, at the very least, keep you alive in R4. In order to advance on, you need to get 30% contribution in the highest raids so far before you can move on – for example, 30% contribution in R1 for the first time will unlock R2. Now let’s build your R4 team!

The Template

This particular article is going to have diagrams! I’m not the best artist, so please don’t be too rough on me. Anyway, this is what your standard Raids team should look like: As you can see, there are six monsters instead of five. This is because Raids and the Rift Beasts are unique, in the fact that you have to take up to six monsters with you for your team. In the Rift of Worlds, everyone’s forced to auto it, so it’s not like you can manual it or anything – another unique mechanic. Anyway, each slot represents a role that a monster will play. In this article, we’re going to talk about a bunch of monsters that could fit each role, and the rune sets required on them in order to survive at least R4. Don’t expect to automatically have a great R4 team just because you have the monsters, though. Like all other areas in the game, a large factor in survivability is the quality of your runes. Generally, frontline monsters should have at least 25,000 HP and 1.5k Defense in total (base stats + runes). Monsters in the backline won’t take the majority of the hits, so they can get away with lower rune stats. Backline monsters should at least have 20,000 HP and around 0.8k-1,000 defense in total, though I’d stick with 1,000 just to be safe. Without further ado, let’s start with the first monster in the team!

The Damage Reducer

Usually, monsters with passives aren’t recommended for raids. This is because the three-headed dragon you’re fighting can inflict Oblivion on everyone; Oblivion a really rare debuff that blocks passives. Despite this, the Damage Reducer is still needed for Raids if you want a higher chance of surviving. There are really only two monsters who can properly fit the role of the Damage Reducer:

Dias: Dias was given away as a Hall of Heroes back in early 2015 (I believe); he was given away again as part of the Anniversary Hall of Heroes during 2017. I like him a lot, and use him in my own R5 team. His first skill brings Unrecoverable, which is always nice because the boss can heal himself according to the number of beneficial effects he removes during a certain attack. Unrecoverable does block that heal, though.

His second skill, Check and Destroy, will attack an enemy twice, decreasing their defense and attack power for 2 turns. It’ll deal more damage according to his Max HP, and has a surprisingly low cooldown of 3 turns. It’s his passive that makes him great, though. Control, his passive, will decrease his chances of getting hit by a critical hit by 50%, and will decrease the damage all other allies take by 15%. I like Dias, especially because of his 30% Resistance leader skill.

Darion – Darion was once the MVP in starter GB10, and now he’s going to be the MVP in Raids! Darion is a farmable monster, a light 3-star whom you can get from Secret Dungeons. His first skill brings defense break to the table; this already makes him useful because skill1 defense breakers are really nice. Darion’s second skill attacks an enemy twice, each attack having a chance to decrease the target’s attack power for 2 turns. Both of these skills scale off of his Max HP.

It’s his passive Knighthood that earned him a spot in the Damage Reducer section. Knighthood decreases the damage all allies take by 20%. Though he doesn’t the Crit Rate reduction on himself that Dias has, that’s still an extra 5% of damage reduction. That’s still higher than what most other damage reduction monsters give the team. There are a few other damage reduction monsters, but they’re Priz and Lexy, the light Elemental and fire Assassin, respectively. Priz only reduces the damage dealt by water, fire and wind element monsters. As for Lexy, well… …We don’t talk about Lexy. Anyway, I’d recommend putting Darion as your Damage Reducer, unless you have Dias. Our example Raids team now looks like this:

The Tank

So what’s the purpose of the tank? To put it simply, a tank monster is someone that’s built with high amounts of HP and defense in order to soak up hits that other monsters generally wouldn’t be able to take by themselves. A few notable examples are: Mei Hou Wang – Mei Hou Wang is another choice for the Tank slot that wouldn’t be my first choice. He’s another monster with a passive skill, which means he can be Oblivion’d. His first skill provides nothing against the raids boss, though his second skill does provide defense break. His passive skill, “Gold Headband,” gives him immunity against harmful effects and will increase his Attack Power by 20% each time he’s attacked, and it stacks up 10 times. Mei Hou Wang is only on this list because of his 33% DEF leader skill, and because his HP and Defense are particularly high. The Raid party needs three leader skills in total: DEF%, Crit Rate%, and Resistance. The leader skill can’t be conditional either (e.g. Crit Rate of fire monsters increased); they have to apply to everyone. The Defense is needed because the Raid beast deals extra damage to monsters with low defense, Resistance is needed to have a better chance at resisting the debuffs the boss provides, and…I actually don’t know why you need Crit Rate, but you just do. Let’s move on to my next choices for the tank. Xiong Fei – Xiong Fei is my most recommended monster to use as your tank position. Although he’s a nat5 ilke the other two monsters who could fill this slot in, he can be fused in the Fusion Hexagram (I’m actually writing a series on how to fuse him right now!) He’s great because he has an extremely high HP pool and the second highest Defense in the game; beaten only by Fermion, the dark Archangel. On top of that, he brings a few necessary buffs and debuffs to the table. His first skill Sequential Attack inflicts defense break for 2 turns. A Skill 1 attack breaker and defense breaker are probably one of the most important things to bring to your team. If you don’t have attack break on the boss, he’ll kill you faster. If you don’t have defense break on the boss, it’ll take you longer to kill the boss…which gives the boss more time to kill you. His second skill Calm Mind will remove all harmful effects off of himself, grant the Recovery effect on allies for 2 turns (which heals 15% of their HP per turn), and also a Counterattack buff on himself for 2 turns. The Recovery is really nice to have, despite the fact that the boss has an irresistible beneficial effect strip. That’s why monsters who only bring buffs like Shield and Immunity to the table (coughcough Woosa coughcough) tend not to be helpful half the time. While the Shield is nice, it will get stripped off. No ifs, ands or buts. Anyway, Xiong Fei’s third skill Panda Supremacy will have him attack enemy 4 times. Each attack has a chance to grant one of four harmful effects: Glancing Hit Increase, Attack Break and the Slowdown debuff. The inflicted damage is proportionate to both Xiong Fei’s defense and the Max HP of the target he’s attacking. I like using Xiong Fei as my tank because he’s so easy to rune with tank stats. He’s got around 10,500 HP and 823 Defense; which means the required stats for frontlining in Raids can be granted easier. I’d also recommend using Xiong Fei because he has a 33% DEF increase leader skill. Bastet – So Bastet isn’t really a great choice of a Raids monster, but she can fit the role. Her HP and Defense is decent, and her kit seems pretty nice. Her first skill brings attack break to the mix, her second skill attacks all enemies three times (in this case, just one enemy) and can break their defense, block their healing, or increase their chances of landing a glancing hit, all for two turns. She can also cast a shield on everyone for 3 turns proportionate to her level, increase their attack power for 3 turns, and then increase their attack bar by 25%. I am not saying in any way that Bastet is overall a bad monster; quite the opposite. She has a really nice set of skills, and I’d love to have one myself for some Lushen and Charlotte comps. The only problem is that she’s just not the best for Raids. Nevertheless, if you’re out of tanks and don’t have a skill 1 attack breaker, I’d bring Bastet in solely because of her nice stats. Let’s add Xiong Fei to our example R4 team that we’re building. Your team should look like this now:

The Cleanser/Healer

The cleanser is an absolutely essential unit in your raids team. If nothing else, you should have a cleanser. I am not talking about a passive cleanser like Veromos, either. Thanks to a certain attack from the raid boss – Khi’zar Kha’jul the three-headed dragon – he can grant Oblivion on everyone. Oblivion blocks passives. Ergo, Veromos would be a horrible cleanser. Why do you need a cleanser, you may ask? Khi’zar Kha’jul frequently applies multiple debuffs on your monsters: including attack break, slowdown debuff, and stun. You absolutely need a cleanser to get rid of those debuffs, otherwise you’re going to have a really bad time. The cleanser should have at least +100 speed so this way they can cycle through debuffs easier, which means lower cooldowns, which means they can use their cleanse skills more, which also means that monsters like the Damage Reducer and the Damage Dealer don’t have to deal with Oblivion or attack break. Generally, people also recommend at least 70% Resistance on your cleansers so that they have a higher chance to resist being stunned. Here are a bunch of cleansers that most people recommend for Raids: Konamiya – If you don’t have anyone else, build a Konamiya. Konamiya is literally a two-star monster, and he’s really good for Raids, too! At first, he doesn’t seem like he could be a good monster, but you haven’t looked at his awakening bonus if that’s the case! When awakened, he’ll acquire the third skill Peace, which will remove all harmful effects off of his allies and then recover their HP by 15% each. He’s really good if you don’t have any other options, but one of the downsides of him is that he’s kind of hard to rune, even if you stick him in the backline. His maximum defense (after awakening, six-starring, and maxing him out) is a measly 483; his speed 91. His HP isn’t that bad, though, clocking in at 11,700. Mihyang – Mihyang is probably the most obtainable of the recommended four-star cleansers. Mihyang was a Hall of Heroes in May 2018, and was most likely one of the best Hall of Heroes monsters to date. I talked about her in a few articles before, but to paraphrase: Mihyang’s third skill Dance of Mirage will extend all her allies’ beneficial effects by 1 turn and shorten their harmful effects by 1 turn (If the harmful effect only has 1 turn, it will be completely cleansed off). Then Mihyang heals all allies based on her attack power. Mihyang is my current cleanser right now for my R4 team. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do a complete cleanser, so she’s not quite as good as most other monsters. However, she still brings a massive heal to the table, and the extension of beneficial effects. Overall, if you don’t have any other cleansers, Mihyang is a great monster to use! Lisa – Lisa is one of the most popular cleansers that people use, and it’s not hard to see why. Her third skill, Attack Command will remove all harmful effects off of all allies; then she and three other monsters will perform a group attack on a chosen monster. In other words, she’s like Tarq the water Hellhound, but far better for raids than Tarq is. She has higher base stats than Mihyang in everywhere except her defense, so she has more survivability than Mihyang, but there hasn’t been a Hall of Heroes for her yet, meaning she’s slightly more difficult to get. The other downside to Lisa is that the AI sees Attack Command as an attack skill, rather than a support skill like Mihyang’s. This means that sometimes she can completely derp out and use Attack Command when no one has any debuffs on them whatsoever. Anavel – So as it turns out, Anavel is like really really good for Raids. She and Nicki share the same second skill; Girl’s Prayer, which removes all harmful effects off of her allies and heals them. Like Mihyang, recovery is proportionate to her Attack Power. At this point you may be thinking “Well why are we even mentioning Anavel if she’s exactly the same as Mihyang?” Here’s the thing, though – Girl’s Prayer is her second skill, and not her third. Second skills oftentimes have lower cooldowns than third skills. Her third skill, Water Guardian Angel, is also useful in Raids; attacking all enemies three times (sadly she only attacks one enemy in Raids) and breaking their defense for 3 turns. Defense Break is essential in Raids, as it allows you to kill the boss quicker. Amarna – Armana may be one of the best monsters to use for Raids. The only drawback is that he’s a light nat4; making it really difficult for you to pull him unless you get really lucky or something. Anyway, his entire kit just screams “make me an essential part of your Raids Team” His first skill brings both Defense Break and Unrecoverable; his second skill attacks the enemy three times and leaves a Brand effect with each attack, the damage increasing as the enemy’s HP gets lower. That’s not all, either! I haven’t even gotten to his third skill yet! The main reason why Amarna is on this list is because of his third skill, Secret of Eternal Life. He’ll cleanse all the harmful effects off of his allies and heals them by 30% of his Max HP. If there are any dead allies, he’ll revive them all with 30% of their HP left – there are strings attached to reviving, though (in which each revived ally will add 2 turns of cooldown to Secret of Eternal Life). Despite that, he’s one of the best monsters you could choose as your cleanser! Let’s put the first cleanser, Mihyang, into your sample team. While she isn’t the most obtainable (Konamiya is), she’s got quite a bit of survivability, and has a really nice heal. This is what your Raids team should look like now: Since this article got way too long, I’ll be splitting it into two parts. Make sure to stay tuned for part 2 of building your Rift of Worlds Team! In the meantime, I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!  ]]>