Extreme frustration with raids — some questions and feedback from a new Forum member

I am extraordinarily frustrated with the mechanics behind raids. Today I fought someone with the same hero and their hero was able to cast their special twice to my no casts. I don’t know if this is a bug or design but it feels broken.

Heroes on defense gain mana each turn, and gain when hit with tiles. 4* mana troops and some other heroes can also increase mana speed. So there are a lot of reasons a hero on defense could potentially fire faster than the same hero on offense…or vice versa.

If you have screenshots of your team and the other team, I can make a thread for you for people to give advice on how to do better in Raids, if you’d like. :slight_smile:

No, I don’t have a screenshot. That is not something I could have anticipated but it cemented my feelings that something is not right. I get that there are things that modify mana, but ultimately it just confirms that the defending player is given way too much in the way of advantage because nearly every time that I am less than 200 power points higher than my opponent, they don’t just defeat me, they utterly crush me.

I get that there are a variety of strategies and what not, but I would expect a relatively equal power score to equate to a bit of a knock-down drag out. We won’t even get into the insane bonus healing or attack that standard raids get. This doesn’t feel like a challenge (something I can strive to overcome), it just feels unfair which means it is not fun.

Similar, apparently, to the slog it apparently takes to be able to even post feedback.

You can take team screenshots from the Watchtower. That shows the teams you’ve attacked recently.

A lot of players have the sense that the Defense has unfair advantages, but really the Attacker has quite a lot of advantage. I can personally see that every time I get into the Top 100 Global leaderboard while using all 4* heroes against all 5* teams.

The thread that covers this best is here: Raids are unfair, but not for the reasons you think - Raids MASTER

Team power is actually pretty irrelevant. What actually matters is color stacking and team synergy.

A higher power team can easily be killed by a much lower power team that’s properly designed, and played with some skill. This is a game of strategy too, not just brute force.

It takes time and practice, but I assure you that it’s quite possible. I know so from my experience, and plenty of people in my alliance and on the Forum.

But literally every player goes through what you’re going through right now.

Sometimes that leads to things like this:

So on the whole, you seem to be managing your frustrations pretty well. :laughing:

Not much of a slog, really, if you read the requirements. You can already comment on existing posts, it’s only new topic creation that’s restricted to needing 10-20 minutes on the Forum first.

Nonetheless, I’ll move our conversation to a new thread for you, averting the slog completely. :slight_smile:

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@Infoteq All set, I created a new thread for you. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your help. :slight_smile:

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I had lost already 3 times in the past days, today on the first day I was right away with a 2900 team (mine is about 3100) and after three to four turns I knew that it was a lost game.
And sure enough three to four turns two heros from the AI decimated my team and I barely scrapped to get one hero to full mana.

And thats it, raid tournement is over for me. :frowning:

The tournament fights don’t appear to show up in the tower log.

So, I have read this thread and while there are some good points, I am not sure I can agree with the premise that the attacker has all of the advantages because it doesn’t feel like there is much the AI does other than fire off the spells when the mana is full (though I suspect the targeting logic is smarter on defense than it is on auto run).

Now, if the defender was working off their own hidden gem board, I could agree, but it feels more like the defender gets some fixed amount based on the attacker action.

In my case the hero I am talking about is Skittleskull, a slow cast green. I just struggle to accept that the defender was able to generate twice the mana and cast both twice (extremely close together as well) before I could cast even once. I could be a crap raider and probably am, but mechanically, something seems off about that.

Very often in raids in general, I am seeing the defending team using their specials from 3 and 4 heroes before I can get even one cast off from anyone and yes I am aware of mana thieves but I am not complaining about those fights.

Lastly, my major issue with the statements of the other poster is that s/he assumes total availability of all heroes. It takes a considerable amount of effort to level up 4* and 5* heroes and just changing to a different team isn’t something that one can just snap their fingers and do. By the time we start to have choices, we are already fairly invested in what we already have. Never mind the scarcity of the higher level ascension materials and how that factors into your choices.

Being told,’hey, the problem is that your team is crap’ when those are the heroes you have been lucky enough to get is not in any way encouraging.

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Ah!

No, they don’t.

But that also means things are totally different for mana speed because of Rush Attack.

EDIT: Adding instructions for viewing Tournament Defenses:

That’s roughly correct. They get a certain amount of mana each turn, plus mana from tile hits.

And for the Rush Attack Tournament, the amount of mana required to fire a special skill is quite low.

Slow normally…but Very Fast for this particular Tournament. GIGANTIC difference.

Depending on the board and how you play it, that’s not uncommon, particularly when up against faster heroes than yours. But even for the same hero as yours, the Defense has some advantages for mana generation meant to offset the attack advantages you have, like choosing your team specifically against that defense, color stacking, and even rerolling if you want to skip that team all together. (Not an option in Tournaments, at least in the current version. An early beta version had rerolls.)

Very true. It takes many months.

This is definitely a game that measures progress in months and years more often than days and weeks.

The good news on this front in my experience is that many run-of-the-mill heroes work quite well.

I routinely kill teams stacked with the rarest HOTM and Challenge Event heroes using standard season 1 4* and Proteus (4* Season 2). I only have 3 5* heroes so far that I ever use in Raids, and still regularly stay in Diamond, and have hit Top 100 multiple times.

I’m pretty sure if I had better heroes than the 4* ones I’m using I’d just be bored at this point.

But of course it wasn’t always like that — I went through the same thing you’re going through now.

Most heroes in this game, even the “crappy” ones, can be used to good effect once leveled and played skillfully.

It’s definitely frustrating along the way, but it does get better…very, very slowly.

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Is the title of this thread confusing i.e. regular raids or tournament raids? They are very different in terms of issues, strategies, etc.

I’m starting to hate that they are both called “raids” because it just adds to the confusion.

We really need a catchy new name for the raid tournaments to keep the discussion separate.

@zephyr1

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How about “New feature no one understands”?

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@princess1 Yes, it’s confusing. I exchanged multiple messages with @Infoteq before realizing they were talking about Tournaments and not Regular Raids.

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I don’t think that would sufficiently distinguish it either. :face_with_monocle:

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I know your are new to the forums but if you spend some time searching for forums entries related to raiding, you’ll find that there is a lot of players that win more than they lose. You’ll also find attacking strategies and best practices. The raid defense does get a hidden buff, but that is because the attacking team always has an advantage.

I’m sure the majority of suggestions won’t be flattering :joy:

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In my case I feel the issue is linked, but you do make a good point.

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The Tournament component exacerbates issues, both because Rush Attack makes team synergy benefits astronomically more important than raw power, and because the matchmaking for this first Tournament is profoundly broken: [KNOWN ISSUE] Raid Tournament Defense Grade Low Due to Not Being Attacked - Staff Response Post #7

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You are correct. I forgot about that part but again, if everyone is very fast, all things being equal I should have been able to cast at least once before the defender’s second cast with the same hero.

Here is my team (using the same group for attack and defense):

Here is the opponent:

So, no mana buff/debuff going on. My troops are also stronger across the board. He won because he got more mana than I did, straight up.

See my latest response, but I agree that team synergy is important but your synergy means nothing if your opponent is getting twice the mana since you are already dead before you can cast anything.

I can see why you think that would be true, but it really depends on the board and how you play it.

If you’re making off-color matches and dumping them into a defender, they’re going to fire repeatedly, and you’re not going to be charging up at all.

Probably very true. The team that can fire more specials tends to lead to a win.

This is where board management and tile play become a factor.

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