I felt similar frustrations when starting raiding.
Some learning points I found:
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There’s a lot of benefit to doubling up on the strong colour against the tank (or at least one of the 3 centre spots).
Creating a gap through which you can ghost is important. -
Sometimes it’s not a problem to charge up an opponent’s special.
If you have a Cleanser that is ready to fire, then you don’t have a problem firing a lot of tiles at their big hard hitting defence-lowering monster, because you can cleanse and heal after. So you choose that time to launch the combo you’ve been saving to help charge your heroes and be able to recover from the hit.
Also: It’s GREAT when they field a fat, juicy healer in one of the centre spots. Early in the encounter you can continue to launch tiles of all colours against him having him charge and heal his already-healed team while you charge your specials. Once you have enough offensive specials available, you take him out and you’ve cleared your ghosting gap. -
Keep your specials for appropriate times and look at what your opponents are doing.
Look at the state of your opponents’ mana. If you have your debuffer charged, but you see 1 or 2 of theirs is near charge that will boost them (e.g. reflect, or defence boost) then hold on your debuffer’s special for 1 or 2 turns. In fact I even go so far as launching tiles against those opponents to force them to trigger their special, which I can immediately debuff. -
You sometimes need to take a hit or 2.
You generally get an opening board that isn’t a wonder to behold… you have to develop it a bit. If it’s proving incalcitrant, you need to commit to charging your opponent with mana and taking a hit or 2 before your guys are charged. In such a case focus on the opponents with less dangerous skills and see if you can target them more. Take the hit on the chin and when you are finally charged up sufficiently, then yaaay Gaps! -
Judge your dragon shields and power shards
Sometimes firing a dragon shield or power shard is really just going to grant your opponents a bunch of mana for little effect. If it looks like it will not be enough to take out 1 or 2 heroes, consider parking that combo until you can open a gap, or until you have one of yours close enough to a special. -
Defence is not necessarily the best defence.
Again, opening gaps early wins you games. You can often benefit from a more offensive mix to your heroes… and look to open gaps before your opponents get in to the game. But really depends on the opponents’ team.
Just a few off the top of my head. Others may have different play styles, but these kinda work for me.