I consistently lose Raids but my heros are good. I need help building the right Rainbow defense team. I was also hoping for advice in the best Raid offense team (I know it depends on the opponent but would like thoughts in general). Thank you so much. The following shots show my heroes grouped by color as well as my current Rainbow team and my future plan for rainbow and a 3/2. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I’d do Morel - Elizabeth - Sif - Ursena - Lianna reverse V.
Good Luck!
I would actually have Elizabeth - Morel - Sif - Ursena - Lianna or Lianna - Morel - Elizabeth - Sif - Ursena in reverse V, but aside from what I or others say, you should just test them. It also depends a lot on your troops. Even if you have great heroes, unless you have matching troops, an adversary with less performant heroes but better troops and good team synergy, can win easily.
And also remember that no defense is invulnerable and the higher you climb in the diamond arena (I imagine that with these heroes you are in diamond), the harder you’ll fall 
My defense is Black Knight - Frigg - Rigard - Cobalt - Sir Roostley and I hang around 2500.
Personally I would use a double formation with Elizabeth and Ursena as your two front tanks
Centre back would be Sif
Two back wings would be Morel and Lianna
All that would change again when you max Black Knight, Garnet, Costume Sartana etc Whichever heroes you choose good luck
@The_Seeker My current defense team is as you recommend already and I lose almost every offline Raid. My trophies are usually around 2200. @JGE I totally agree but my Stronghold isn’t high enough to change formations but will soon. I was thinking swapping out Liana for Telluria or swapping out Ursena for Costume Santana once they are fully levelled up. Another option could be Kingston-C Sartana-Marjana-Aouda-Magni for an all fast sniper team. If all heroes were fully ascending I could just try various combinations but they are not and I need to decide who to ascend next. Is there anyone in my current lineup who could be replaced and if so what would make sense. Ursena for example seems pretty bad but if there are Holy enemies she is ridiculous. I was thinking use her on attack teams against Holy but maybe swap her with costume Sartana on defense once she is maxed. What do you think? Thank you!!!
For reference…The first team pictured is my future 3/2 and the second team pictured is a potential future rainbow. Both need heroes levelled up still. The third team pictured is my current defense rainbow team. Wondering what to rethink? Thanks everyone for the help!
My suggestion was for a reverse V formation. So if you cannot do a double formation, I imagine you cannot do a reverse V either.
For a standard formation, unless you have fast 5* Holy and Dark heroes, my suggestion would change to Morel - Elizabeth - Sif - Ursena - Lianna (or also experiment with Morel - Sif - Elizabeth - Ursena - Lianna). The idea for standard formations is to never put average speed heroes on the wing, always fast heroes.
And in my opinion Elizabeth and Sif are the best tanks you have at the moment, while Morel and Lianna are the only fast heroes you have, so there are not many combinations possible.
@The_Seeker Thank you for the clarification and advice. It is super appreciative. Do you think I could improve my main defense team by swapping anyone out? Of my alternate heroes were all maxed hypothetically…would you make a change to the heroes being used or keep the same heroes and adjust the configuration only? I haven’t been getting great results from Ursena or Morel for whatever reason. Thank you!
I don’t have Morel, but I’ve seen him used a lot by top alliances. But I have Frigg that has very good results and Morel’s special is similar to Frigg’s, but more consistent. So I don’t think it’s a problem with Morel.
Ursena though might be not as effective though in the current defense meta. About future heroes to level for defense, I think you need more fast heroes, especially Dark and Holy. So I’d max costume Sartana and Aouda. For Nature, Kingston and Cristobal are to be considered.
But remember about troops and emblems. Your heroes on the wings should be fast and emblemed for attack and your tank should have a very solid defense and health.
There comes a point when the heroes themselves aren’t the whole issue.
As pointed out you aren’t running an alternative formation and the standard formation is weaker than others
Then the next big changer is the troops from what I can see. It’s hard to concentrate on them as they are pretty boring compared to shiny heroes but they are a pretty big deal.
Then emblems on the main defence. You want to get them to the optimum levels.
I’d be hitting your defence with the same heroes but with more emblems and much better troops. So from a defence position you need me to get a bad board. Because even an average board will be good enough for me.
Raid defence formations can help to sooth the troop deficit wounds but in war defences they don’t hide as well.
But right now I imagine you are hero rich but resource poor as they are eating all the food. But definitely you need to switch to levelling them troops.
@DanF from what I see here, your troops may even not be the main problem.
What I see is basically someone falling into the trap of leveling only 5* and starting with that way too early on.
Most of your 5* heroes would be excellent if they were maxed and if they were highly emblemed. As I see it now, all of your 5* right now are weak on defense because they are light- to mid-emblemed only.
As someone who is playing with 4* only and nonetheless sticking into Diamond arena constantly, I’d say you also fell into the trap of the great 5 * defense that would hold me in diamond forever. Because I’d say that it should be primarily your offense that holds you into a high level arena. If you for example devote all of your efforts and resources and finally create a great 5* defense that would hold you in Diamond, you still don’t have the offensive teams to beat the opponents you are raiding in Diamond - so what is the point in building that defense team then if you won’t be able to fill your raid chest!
Also amongst your great 5* heroes, you certainly lack key ones which for example dispel enemy buffs. Dispeling heroes are essential to win in many cases. I see no attack up, no elemental defense down, not even great heroes amongst yours to form a Summoning team currently. So to me it seems that your offense is struggling way way more than your defense and that should become high priority if you want to win raids.
How can you do that? Fill in the gaps with good, highly emblemed 4* heroes. Examples of such good heroes are:
Sonya, Caedmon, Sabina, Melendor (dispel)
Guardian Falcon, Guardian Jackal, Almur, Sergei (elemental defense down)
Kiril, Boldtusk, costume Rigard (Heal + attack buff)
Wilbur, Gormek, Tiburtus, Grimm (regular defense down)
The good thing about any 4* hero is that you can very quickly max him (3* ascension mats are far easier to get than 4*), give him emblems of at least 18 nodes and also easily limit break him. For example, if you do that with a hero like Wilbur or Scarlett, that hero (with LB) will be more powerful than your current best hero, 12-emblem Elizabeth. This strategy will allow you to form at least several good attacking raid/war teams fast. After you do that, you should start winning most of your raids in Platinum and probably ascend into Diamond. Once you start winning more than 50% of your raids, IMO you can concentrate heavier on your defense team. First attack, then defend. And in my opinion, this tactic will also make you more useful to your teammates in war. I mean, getting a great defense is nice, however most of the time big alliance defences are wiped out only twice, and losing twice on defense is IMO better than losing six times on offense in war…
What Saros said ^^^ One of my best raid teams has three 4* on it (all 18 emblems or more). Plus I have highly leveled troops.
Personally I raid for one reason - to finish a daily raid chest. I lose a lot of raids. Only need to win 8 in a day to fill a chest (or less with dead enemies from losses counting toward chest). Losses are good it means my trophies will drop a little and get me less difficult opponents. As long as I don’t drop so far that I can’t crawl back to diamond to open the chest, I’m happy.
If your defense is too strong, you will start out with more trophies, getting more difficult opponents, making it harder to win.
If every 5* in my screenshots were maxed out…which 5 would you pick to be the defense team? Would you chose Morel, Sif, Elizabeth, Ursena and Liana like I did or would you pick a different grouping? I have a lot of maxed out 4* as well but wondering what the best 5* would be so I know who to Max out next. I play raids and go to bed over 2400 and wake up at 2200 suffering brutal losses when I am offline. Thank you!
Maybe double formation with Lianna, Morel, Sif, Ursena, Lizzie?
IMO it all depends on your other heroes (especially 4*) which of your 5* to prioritize next. Moreover you may have a ton of 5* heroes and even the mats to ascend many, however you still lack emblems to make them good enough.
I personally don’t see what is the problem with players beating you to a lower cup range. Then you could just wake up and revenge them for some quick wins. Here is an example. I went to bed with above 2600 cups, got beaten to around 2400, woke up and filled my raid chest beating easier 5* defenses:
Going up and down is inevitable unless you can devote a ton of money not only towards summoning/maxing the best A+ heroes , but also purchasing enough emblems (or ways to gain emblems like Alchemy lab 10A and 10B) for them to be maxed. As you can see by the example above, some of the defenses I beat so fast with my 4* teams consisted of better than average maxed 20-emblemed 5* heroes. Meaning, you cannot rely on such a defense to hold you safely in Diamond.
Looking at your defense team above, the only things I can think of are emblems (you need them not to be 6 most, but maxed 18-20 most, prioritize ways to gain more emblems fast), formations (reverse should be better, you need Hero Academy hence 25 lvl Stronghold for that) and troops (either summon a ton of troops with gems and eat them with your mana troops or start farming/training feeder troops as top priority - latter will take a long time mind you, first will cost you at least $2500 to max a rainbow set of troops ASAP, pick your poison here).
Edit: Now I don’t say you should do all that. If you cannot stick in Diamond solidly, then it’s obviously not the place for you yet and you should hold to mid-high Platinum, with an attempt to open at least part of your raid chest in Diamond. For example I often go offline for a longer period of time 6 hours before next raid chest pops up so that various players can beat me to a lower cup range where I can find easier opponents than top tier defenses to fill my raid chest. For that strategy you actually need a lower grade defense, and not a higher one. Not too low though otherwise you may find yourself in Gold…
Same and especially because I have a hard time against similar teams
Thank you for the feedback everyone! Last question…should my ascension materials go to Telluria or Cristobal next?
