Raids: fair or unfair?

Matching is made according to cups. You can be matched with anyone that has up to 280 more (or less) cups than you.
Sounds like you’re just starting (anyway you can face opponents double your trophy count). hard opponents is a problem at the beginning, and some of your harder match ups are because of cup dropping (player losing on purpose).

2 Likes

I’ll admit, I was a bit disenfranchised when I first began the raids, but then I took a strategic approach to it and now have between a 75-85% success rate over 30 attacks.
I threw my formula out there to my alliance and others have enjoyed the same success. But Nothing is guaranteed…I suggest that you try a different approach

I’m right around 3400 power and always look for 40 - 50 trophies when raiding. Usually the teams I face are 3500 power to 3700. I hit these opponents so I don’t lose as many trophies if I lose the match and if they Revenge I don’t lose 50+ Trophies. However I’m constantly getting hit by players with 4000+ power for 50+ trophies. I think they should implement raiding by team power you can’t hit a player x amount lower or higher +/- 300 points would be fair in my opinion.

1 Like

True, in part. Leveling a hero increases all stats, and while healers like Sabina don’t increase their special attack as they level up (once they’ve hit 8/8 on the special), the tile attacks and (on raid defense) slash attack certainly benefit from the higher attack stat of the hero. And Wu’s special does affect both of these attack forms as well.

2 Likes

Two thoughts about this statement:

  1. Be careful what you wish for! 5* heroes take a huge amount of resources to develop. You have a nice first team of 4* heroes, but it’s very thin. I think you will have more success in raiding, against titans, and in alliance wars by building up more 4* heroes rather than sinking resources into 5* development. That said, we all do what we can with the cards we have.
  2. There really is no requirement to have a “rainbow” team. My most successful teams in almost any situtation are unbalanced. My titan teams are always unbalanced, missing at least the color weak against the titan. My raid offense team is usually unbalanced to double or triple against the center, or simply because I want to bring certain skills to the battle (e.g. Merlin, Caedmon). My primary defense team is unbalanced because I don’t have a purple 5* at full power yet, but I have two red 5* at 4/80. That said, you should play around with different configurations in raids to see what combinations work well together. You may surprise yourself.

Footnote to unbalanced raid teams: one of my teammates is currently running a raid team featuring Panther and double Sartana. They’re all fast mana so charge up together. Panther hits, two Sartanas fire, two dead foes. It’s really sick to watch the videos.

5 Likes

@Eldegor since you have done so well leveling Wu Kong, I would concentrate on 4* your heroes that have multiple attack specials. With as high as Wu Kong raises the attack, even if you only hit one out of 5 heroes with some one like John you have a seriously damaged opponent. And without Wu Kong, Little John will keep their special at bay. Honestly you’re heading in the right direction and seem to be getting ascension mats better than I am! Lol good work!

All the others are 5* heroes. Natalya on red, Joon for yellow, Horghall or Caedmon for green and Perseus for blue. Rigard is purple, of course.

Disagree 100%
I have to have at least 150 above an apponent to have a chance, witch is very frustrating.

It is very lopsided in the fact that no matter what the opponents mana fills faster then you can attack. So they have multiple attacks for one tile movement, as well as there special move. If you spread out your attack over multiple appointments, then they have multiple special… once again come back at you. Witch if you don’t fill your special attack after focusing on one opponent, you still have very little chance of taking out the one I was trying to take out… so even if you are able to use your straight to weakness and special attack before there’s you can’t counter there next attack. I’m just over 3600 and I can not attack a similar straight appointment with maybe 1x10 chance of a V… and I’m not looking for an easy kill, just a far battle!

1 Like

The game rewards making larger combos; every single combo in a single turn the mana generated gets less for the tile strikes against the defenders… so look at making 2-3 combos a turn rather than single 3 matches and you will have better performance.

Further tactics include knowing the tile counts: 8 for fast, 10 for average, 12 for slow (6.5 for very fast and 13.5 for very slow for completeness) and if you count tiles at the beginning of the board and see if you can connect enough to get a useful special up before the defense wipes you, you will likely do better.

Chasing the tank vs. spreading out your tiles really depends what you’re facing on the defense though against the vast majority of tanks (not Guin) I will typically tank chase and bring something to deal with whatever special they have when I’m designing my attack teams.

Ultimately spray and pray tactics don’t work especially well in this game, and what you’re describing suggests you’re making fairly indiscriminate matches rather than looking at the board in more detail.

The human advantage over the computer is large in this case, leverage that FTW.

4 Likes

I do see the the multiple drops, but this is not every raid. Like I said 1 out of 10 when facing a similar appointment… I have tried focusing my attacks, the spray and pray, and only trying to go for weaknesses… many’s time my hole line is gone before I get one special out, all the while I have even taken one opponent down…
IDK maybe I really suck at the game, witch I hope not because I kinda like playing and thought I had the general grasp of what’s going on.

I was just throwing out general strategy comments, why not record a few raids and analyze them later for alternative moves?

Also there are a lot of raid videos online which are worth a watch if you’re struggling to win raids… 150 team power difference is really inconsequential in my experience, it’s when the gap gets more around 500 above me where there’s not much chance short of godlike boards to take them out.

I don’t remember everything in this thread but if you haven’t already gotten team advice that’s worth something too.

1 Like

I will look and see what’s going on in the raids, but I generally feel that if I lose 5 of 6 raids when attacking equally matched opponent… I don’t see how I could have an advantage over the ai and… lol no chance if I try at a 3800. Witch I would think should be in my range. c: but yes I’ll look up some raids
Thanks!

It’s worth being aware that you were replying to a post that was nine months old, there. If I had written it on conception day I would be out of the womb by now.

Many game updates have happened since then. We have troops now. We have rare quests and elemental wanted chests, we have trainer heroes, we have monthly events, we have alliance wars. In raids, we can see the trophies that we will win or lose before we battle. The team power metric has been redesigned so it more accurately measures actual strength.

One thing that has not changed, however, is the massive advantage raid attackers have. New-ish players often don’t appreciate this. I think that’s because they lack the knowledge necessary to capitalise.

Read @Revelate’s advice: it’s very good, and he’s a nicer person than me. Learn your heroes - their strengths and weaknesses, and how best to use their specials. Learn the heroes you will be facing - in particular, learn what their specials are, so you are prepared in advance of them going off and know how to respond. Learn to recognise a good team structure and a stupid team structure, so you begin to salivate when you see patterns that you know your heroes can smash up.

You’ll get good quickly, or you’ll decide you hate the game and find something different to make you happy.

2 Likes

I do appreciate you replying to me, specially with it being a 9 month old post. Now I’ve went to YT and looked up several battles and I understand what you’re saying. But I’m still having issues because more often the not I don’t start off with a decent tile line up for attacking.

Most of my troops are between lvl 7-9 and I’m trying to upgrade the camp to accommodate them… witch I can’t upgrade the troops at the same time. As well all but one hero is maxed out (quintus, still looking for 2 royal tabard) and I’ve already started on a second wave for the wars.

I still don’t see the advantage, when I have to attack the same appointment 2-3x before the holy stars a-line for the V. I’ve been trying but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve tried different approaches and have been frustrated by so many time by losing when the numbers are on my side.

No you’re fine and most helpful in this situation, giving links, replying with post and advice.

No plans on quitting!

Actually I just started a guild (don’t be sad) our old guild was doing good, but our GUI leader went mia and we talked it over, then decided that we’d would make the move and start our own… and that actually why I’m on small giant now. With us starting the new guild we lost our titan rating… going from lvl7 to lvl1 has interesting and was looking for ways to increases faster. But we’ll make it though this… slow patch.

Again that for your help c:

1 Like

I felt similar frustrations when starting raiding.

Some learning points I found:

  • 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.

6 Likes

Excellent pointers. I’d add to the dragon/gem use this note: if a hero (of color X) is close to being charged up, it may be better to make a simple match-3 to charge it, then fire the (color X) gem, hopefully recharging the hero again. This can be particularly devastating with heroes that debuff defense (Jackal, Falcon, etc.).

4 Likes



So this guy made platinum yet he shows up in gold. Yeah that’s right I’m just a gold competitor and not a cup dropper! Anyway I’m just a little outranked but I say " hmmm let’s do this!" The first time I’m board stupid so I instead of ranting about the devs cheating me out of a perfectly good raid opportunity by rigging the board I simply try again and voila! Little better than hit for hit I win. Thing is guys, we have gotta try things, win or lose it is just a game and a damn fine one too! Life isn’t always fair but then ask this guy who just got beat by a dumb old gold competitor! Well… after losing 51 cup he ain’t!

2 Likes

Not sure whether the shown team is your raid defense or offense, but if that’s your offense, you really should try some more offense-oriented heroes.

Lol tell me about it! I’m currently struggling to gain strong offensive players. However, where I’m at in this game, this works for both. It’s really not uncommon for me to handle teams well above my team power with this setup. I never reroll unless I find a ridiculous cup dropper who has already changed his team and I rarely pull a team less than 150 plus my TP. I’ll rematch a lot when I lose if I board out too far below hit for hit.Thing is I’m trying everything and I’m learning and I wish others could see it like I do! It’s not so unfair that it can’t work and if it were fair down the middle it would be boring and mostly pointless.
So yes I have things to work on but I can’t make 4* and 5* heroes materialize in my pool so until I can compete with great players like you I’m happy taking my lumps here! Anyway, I like sharing what I learn and love learning from others too! Thanks for your input! Some day I be coming for you! Lol

1 Like

Please don’t waste Tabards on Quintus until you have given the game a chance to give you something soooo much better! :wink:

2 Likes