RAID: Shadow Legends Beginner's Guide: Pick Kael and Don't Pull Your Shards
The starter champion that actually carries, why Brutal 12-3 is your home, and the shard discipline that separates a strong free account from a wasted one.
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TL;DR
Three decisions decide your first month. One: pick Kael — his max-HP-scaling poison works on every boss in the game and he farms the campaign faster than the alternatives. Two: every point of energy goes into the campaign until Kael is level 60 and fully geared; dungeons and Arena can wait. Three: never open a Sacred or Void shard outside a double-summon event, because that is the only time the rates move.
What the game doesn’t tell you
RAID throws roughly forty systems at you in the first hour and gives you no sense of which three matter. Here is what the tutorial leaves out.
Energy is your real currency. Not silver, not gems. Energy regenerates slowly, caps based on your account level, and every point you spend somewhere is a point not spent on the campaign. A new player who spends their first week doing a little of everything — some dungeons, some Arena, some Faction Wars — ends the week with a level 42 starter and no gear. A player who dumps every point into the campaign ends it with a level 60 champion who can then actually farm the other content. Order matters enormously here.
Speed and accuracy beat attack. RAID resolves combat in turn order based on a speed stat, and debuffs are rolled against enemy resistance using an accuracy stat. This means a champion with mediocre damage and high speed will out-perform a high-attack champion who acts half as often and whose debuffs land half the time. New players gear for attack because the number is big. Gear for speed, then accuracy, then damage.
Champions are food. The ascension and rank-up systems consume other champions. The dozens of Commons and Uncommons you pull are not a roster — they are the resource that makes three good champions great. Levelling food champions to 2 stars in the campaign and feeding them is the correct use of them, and it is not wasteful.
Shard rates only move during events. The published rarity rates on Sacred and Void shards are what they are, and the only time they improve is during a double-summon event in the live event rotation. Shards do not expire. There is no version of “I should open this now” that makes sense for a Sacred shard. Hold them.
Your clan is a progression system. Clan Boss chests are the biggest free source of shards, silver and skill tomes available to a new account, and the chest tier depends on how much damage your clan collectively does. A clan that cannot kill the boss on a meaningful difficulty is giving you almost nothing. Shop around.
The steps, explained
Why Kael
The four starters are Kael, Athel, Elhain and Galek, and the community has converged on Kael for one structural reason: his poison debuff scales on the enemy’s maximum health. Bosses in RAID have enormous health pools, which means percentage-based damage keeps working at every stage of the game while flat-damage champions fall behind. On top of that, his area attack refills his turn meter when it kills — which in a campaign full of multi-enemy waves means extra turns, which means faster farming.
Athel is a legitimate second choice with a strong long-term kit. Elhain clears the early campaign fastest but tapers. Galek is the one to avoid.
Why the campaign owns your energy
Campaign stages give the best experience per energy point in the game and they drop both gear and food champions. Until Kael is level 60 and geared, every other mode is a worse use of the same energy. The specific target: push through difficulties until Kael can auto-clear Brutal 12-3, then make that stage your home. It is the standard free experience and food farm, and you will run it hundreds of times.
Why one clan decision matters more than ten upgrades
Apply to a clan, check their Clan Boss performance, and leave if they are not killing it. Being in an active clan that kills Clan Boss on a real difficulty is worth more shards per week than anything you can grind solo. You also get free gear and champion loans through clan features, and Clan vs Clan rewards.
Why only three champions get ascended
Ascension consumes potions farmed from dedicated dungeons that are gated by difficulty, which means a new account has very few. Three champions: your damage dealer (Kael), a healer or buffer (Apothecary is the classic early pick — speed buff and heal in one kit), and a debuffer (Warmaiden’s area defence-down is the standard choice). That trio plus two food slots clears everything week one asks for.
Why gear comes before new champions
This is the mistake that stalls most accounts. A level 60 Kael in level 1 gear is weaker than a level 50 Kael in a complete set. Before you chase a new champion, finish the one you have: full six-piece gear, levelled, with speed and accuracy covered. Campaign gear is the stopgap; Dragon’s Lair is where the sets that carry a free account come from.
Why the Great Hall is quietly the best thing you own
Arena wins raise your Great Hall, and Great Hall bonuses are permanent, account-wide stat increases applied to every champion of the matching affinity you will ever own. It is slow and boring and it compounds for the entire life of the account. Do your Arena battles every day even when you lose.
What not to spend
Energy on dungeons before your starter is 60. The dungeon stages you can clear at low level drop materials you cannot use yet. It feels like progress and it is not.
Sacred and Void shards outside a double-summon event. The only time the rates improve. Shards never expire.
Gems on energy refills in week one. You do not yet have a champion worth levelling. Gems spent to grind faster toward a wrong decision make the wrong decision arrive sooner.
Gems on random shards from the market. The worst value purchase available to a new account by a wide margin.
Silver on gear for Commons and Uncommons. They are food. Gear is for the three champions you ascend.
Skill tomes on anything but your main damage dealer. Rare skill tomes are scarce and Epic and Legendary tomes are scarcer. Kael’s poison skill is where they go, and nowhere else, until you have a surplus — which will take months.
Mastery scrolls before you have a champion to put them on. Masteries are a large, permanent damage increase, and they are also wasted if you dump them into a champion you later replace. Kael first.
Potions on a fourth champion. Three ascended champions that are finished beat five that are half-done, every single time.
Starter tier list
Champion rankings in RAID shift constantly — new releases, rebalances and fusion events move the mid tiers every month. What has stayed stable for years is the top of this specific list, because the starter pool does not change.
S — Kael. The structural reasons above. Still the right answer for almost every new player, and still endorsed across the major community resources.
A — Athel and Elhain. Both real champions. Athel has the better kit at higher levels and survives better; Elhain pushes the early campaign the fastest. Either is a fine pick if you have already played a Kael account.
B — Galek, Warmaiden, Apothecary. Galek is the weakest of the four starters and will be benched. Warmaiden and Apothecary are early Rares that genuinely earn a slot: area defence-down and a speed buff with a heal are exactly the two effects a beginner team is missing.
C — Spirithost and the Common and Uncommon pool. Food. This is not an insult, it is their function.
Your first week, day by day
Day 1. Pick Kael. Push the campaign on Normal as far as energy allows. Apply to a clan and check their Clan Boss damage. Claim everything the progress mission list hands you.
Day 2. Campaign on Hard. Level food champions to 2 stars as you go and rank up Kael. Start your daily Arena battles even if you lose all of them.
Day 3. Campaign on Brutal. Target 12-3. This is where your account’s economy starts working. Begin feeding food into Kael’s ranks.
Day 4. Kael toward 60, with gear. Run the gear dungeons only as far as you can auto-clear. Apothecary and Warmaiden to level 50.
Day 5. Dragon’s Lair. Find the highest stage your team auto-clears reliably and park there. Speed and accuracy gear first — attack is the stat you fix last.
Day 6. Masteries on Kael. Clan Boss attempts every day whether or not you do much damage; the chests still come. Keep Arena going for the Great Hall.
Day 7. Audit: Kael at or near 60 with a full gear set, two support champions at 50, a clan that kills Clan Boss, Brutal 12-3 on auto, and every Sacred and Void shard still sitting unopened in your inventory. That last item is the test, and it is the one most new accounts fail in their first forty-eight hours.
Frequently asked questions
Is RAID: Shadow Legends free to play?
Yes. Every campaign, dungeon and competitive mode is open to a free account, and free players reach high Clan Boss difficulties and the upper Arena tiers. Spending buys speed, not access. The real currency for your first month is energy, not gems.
Which starter champion should I pick?
Kael. His poison scales on the enemy's maximum health, which is exactly what you need against the Clan Boss and dungeon bosses, and his area attack refills his turn meter when it kills, which makes him the best campaign farmer. Athel is the next best choice.
When should I open my shards?
Mystery and Ancient shards can be opened freely — they are plentiful and their contents are mostly food. Sacred and Void shards should be held until a double-summon event, because that is the only time the Legendary and Epic rates improve. Nothing expires, so holding costs you nothing.
What should I do with my gems?
Nothing, for the first week. Do not buy random shards from the market, do not buy energy refills before you own a champion worth levelling, and do not buy cosmetic conveniences. Gems are best held until you understand which bottleneck is actually slowing your account.
Why does my team keep losing to a weaker-looking team?
Speed and accuracy. RAID is a turn-order game: the faster team acts more often, and debuffs that miss because your accuracy is too low do nothing. A champion with lower attack and higher speed beats a slow glass cannon almost every time.
