Raids are unfair, but not for the reasons you think - Raids MASTER

It seems like every day, there is another thread complaining about how unfair the raiding system is. “How did I lose to someone 300 Team Power below me?” “Why do I have to reroll 100 times to find an opponent that isn’t 300 points above me?” “Why do I lose 50 cups when I get raided, but only gain 10 back when I revenge?” It’s a neverending chorus. I think it comes from people who really don’t grasp how the raiding system works., and think that it is biased against the attacker. Nothing could be further from the truth. The attacker has ALL the advantages in raiding. I’ll detail why below, but first an explanation of how raiding and trophies work.

Trophies are a measure of 2 things, how skilled you are at attacking AND how strong your defense team is. If you raid someone with an equal trophy count, you’ll either win or lose 30 trophies, regardless of team power. If you raid (or are raided by) someone with more trophies than you, you’ll gain more than 30 for a victory or lose less than 30 for a loss. If you raid (or are raided by) someone with fewer trophies than you, you’ll gain less than 30 trophies for a victory or lose more than 30 trophies for a loss. The bigger the difference in trophy count, the bigger the difference in prizes. This also applies to revenge raids. You don’t win back the same number of trophies you lost. You win more, if they have more than you, or less, if they have fewer than you.

The strength, composition and synergy of your defense team determines how many trophies you can hold on to when you’re offline. A well composed team, with specials that work well together, will generally be able to sustain a higher trophy count than a defense team that doesn’t work as well together. This holds true whether you’re in Silver or Diamond tier, or anywhere between. A defense team composed of maxed Brienne, Ulmer, Bane, Tyrum and Hawkmoon, in that order will probably be able to sustain more trophies than one composed of maxed Balthazar, Berden, Bane, Nashgar and Valen in that order, because of the way the special abilities interact.

Your skill as an attacker determines how many trophies you can win when you’re online. When you’re attacking, a skilled player can generally win more trophies than they can hold on defense, because the attacker has all the advantages. Again, this holds true whether you’re attacking in Silver or Diamond or anywhere between.

I keep saying that the attacker has all the advantages. Here’s what I mean:

  1. The attacker can choose whether to attack or reroll. If you don’t have heroes in your stable suited for a particular opponent, if the cup win/loss ratio isn’t one you like, if they don’t have enough iron to be worth it, the attacker can reroll for another opponent.
  2. The attacker can choose which heroes to bring to the attack. Do you want to double up on the strong color against the tank? Do you need a dispeller to get rid of their buffs? Maybe you’ll need a cleanser to neutralize damage over time. Do you want a mana controller to keep their annoying specials from firing? The choice of which heroes to bring is a huge advantage for the attacker.
  3. The attacker is generally smarter than the AI. As the attacker, you can choose how to play the board. Do you want to work one side to avoid charging mana on the other? Can you create a diamond or a shield? Do you want to match a vertical column of tiles to only charge one opponent, or go horizontally to charge 3 a little bit each? Do you want to explode a diamond or wait? Do you want to ghost tiles to charge your specials?
    You can also choose how to play your heroes. You can choose when to fire specials, in what order, and who to target with them. If the opponent has riposte up, you can choose to dispel it or wait for it to expire before firing off an AoE special. If an enemy buffer is charged and ready to fire, as an attacker, you can choose to wait to fire your dispeller until after they fire, and get rid of the buff, or hit them with a mana controller to delay it a turn or two. You can choose to fire your attack buff and defense debuff before your snipers. You can choose who to target with something like Merlin’s Mindless Attack or Chao’s mana reduction. The AI is stupid. It doesn’t do any of that. That’s a huge advantage for the attacker.
  4. You can choose which tiles to play. If you have a choice of two matches, one a vertical column in a strong color and the other a horizontal row in an absent color, you can decide which one you want to use. If your red hero is already dead, you can choose to pound their riposte protected heroes with red matches instead of other colors which will damage your living heroes. If you need to charge your healer, you can look for matches in that color. The AI is stupid. It won’t do that.

To summarize, IF the raids system is unfair at all, it is skewed in favor of the attacker. Take advantage of it.

132 Likes

I wish there was a practice mode where you could raid more frequently with no cost or rewards. Rewards and cups could come only from flags as they do now.

17 Likes

That would be cool. It would give folks a chance to try out new heroes and new combinations

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NEED. MORE. LIKES. :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:!!!

Thank you @NPNKY. I have saved this for quick linking for future education opportunities.

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Very good post! It is also worth mentioning that the defender gets a slight boost to their stats (I think 20%) to try to offset these advantages, but the attacker still clearly has the advantage.

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Excellent summary of how raiding works. I’m bookmarking it. (I wish you hadn’t jabbed at the whiners at the end, but I understand the temptation…) :wink:

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It has been mentioned several times in several threads that it is worth having a mode where you can attack your own defense team (raid or AW) in order to do its fine tuning.

Similar idea was to allow your alliance teammates attack your defense team to provide their review on it.

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Very good summary on raiding system. :+1:

Regarding the AI of a defense team: it doesn’t need to do tile matching since defense team attacks without tiles. But I agree that AI might be improved in the way of using heroes specials. It is too predictable there. On the other hand, improved AI might result in complaints about cheating and impossibly hard defense. :slight_smile:

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For you, @Rook, I’ll edit out the jab.

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Lol are you kidding me if any of what you said was correct all attackers would win all the time it’s a disadvantage for the attacker cause the whole system is horribly to have a 20% advantage on attacks and defense and a boost in mana is grossly lopsided in the defenders favor and the fact that the system will adjust your board and leave you with no tiles to attack when doubling up on colors is again favored for the defender the system is garbage and the fact that they use such a lousy system to effect war matches is nothing more than an excuse to keep raids as part of the game cause they got it so wrong they don’t know how to fix it

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Your post is not addressing the OP, but all over the map.

The OP is indeed correct. The “tiles change when I double colors” argument is still hotly debated, and not included here, ditto anything about AW, which is Offtopic. :slight_smile:

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And as soon as I edit out the jab about whining, here it comes. Sigh.

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Heh. YOU are good. Thank you. :smile:

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An excellent post. One quibble with this sentence:

Mindless Attack causes the target to do a slash attack on an ally (or self). The target doesn’t cast its special. Every hero has a slash attack, based on its Attack stat, and some do quite respectable damage. Hitting a healer is often exactly the right way to use Merlin, particularly against Alberich.

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I’ve noticed that Alberich is my Merlin’s favourite target :smiley:

The OP gave out points in which you can easily argue with but you did not do that.

  1. True - unless you are out of food
  2. True - you get to choose everything, even the troops to bring into battle
  3. True - he did say generally so i agree
  4. True - your board, your choice

No, I don’t win every raid but i do have a high percentage of wins in Diamond Tier even if I only have 2 maxed out 5’s.

1 Like

Excellent write up - kudos! I wish more people were interested in learning the finer skills of the game - it is not just a match3 and it is not only luck… easy to learn, but takes time to master.

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Exactly my experiance. When I was more a newcomer I also thought raids are unfair but now I know better!
Definitely bookmarked!

THX! NPNKY

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If it’s grossly lopsided to the defence, how come most of us win the majority of our raids?

Everything @NPNKY has stated is backed up by statistics collected by numerous players.

So far, no one has demonstrated board bias.

If you lose the majority of your raids have you considered that your team or formation could be adjusted.

Why not post a pic of your roster and defence team and ask for advice?

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For I’m binning play this game I’m loss alot because I’m fighting everyone game choose for me now reloll save me so much I can end missione8-9energy