Today we present to you a Step-by-step Guide for choosing the right monsters for your first Raid Team in Summoners War.  This guide has all the information you need to raid successfully in the game. This guide is for the overall community and anyone who wants a better understanding of what it takes to raid and just want to know, how to setup his first raid team in Summoners War. If you have any suggestions or feeback, feel free to leave a comment below.

Check our other guides for Summoners War in the Guide-Section.

Summoners War Raid Team Guide

What this guide is not:

• A full guide to raids. Read our Summoners War Raid Guide to start.
• A guide to tell you how to rune your raid monsters or give advice on stats. Again, there are plenty of other resources and discussion on how to rune your monsters. We also really dislike giving baseline numbers or thresholds because raid teams are complex and involve a myriad of different non-quantifiable considerations. A simple HP and/or Def number are only 2 factors out of hundreds that contribute to your team’s raid success. No one gets their raid team perfect on their first try, and all teams will require extensive testing and adjustment.
• A comprehensive list of all raid-viable monsters. There are many successful R5 teams out there that use monsters not in this list, so don’t let us tell you what not to do. But these are just the most common ones and guaranteed to work.

What this guide is:

• A starting point for deciding what monsters to use in your first raid team. “Help me choose my raid team” is a common question asked on this sub and is becoming increasingly common as more and more players hit mid-late game. The goal is not for those questions to completely disappear, but only to graduate from “here’s my box make me a raid team” to “hey what do you guys think of the following raid team? Do you think X or Y would be better for my last slot?”

Step 1: Pick an Attack Debuffer

Attack debuff is the single most important debuff to have in raids. All teams should have this on a skill 1 at the very least.

• Colleen – just add her to your team and move on. Her entire kit is great for raids and there’s little reason not to use her.

Step 2: Pick a Second Healer

Some godly runed speed R5 teams can get by with only 1 healer, but if you’re reading this guide then you probably don’t fall into that category. You’ll need a second healer to go with Colleen.

• Mihyang – probably the most ideal secondary healer. Her heal scales off attack so you can get her to do some decent damage as well. Also comes with a pseduo-cleanse and glancing on skill 1.
• Bella – easiest farmable option, everyone has one already. Comes with defense break on skill 1.
• Chasun – a very popular option since a lot of players have her already. Has glancing on skill 1 and adds another attack buff.
• Anavel – just like Mihyang, an attack-scaling heal allows her to do damage and makes her an ideal raid monster. Her cleanse is also a full cleanse, and she comes with a 3 turn defense break.
• Ariel – strong healer that also has the stats to easily front line, but provides nothing else. Use him if you already have him built, but don’t build him just for raids since he’s not ideal.
• Praha – similar to Ariel but she has a rare and valuable 41 res lead. Still not ideal but a good option nonetheless.
• Amarna – an amazing monster if you have him. Heal, cleanse, and 2 of the rarer debuffs all in 1 monster.
• Delphoi, Kona, Xiong Fei, Perna – these 4 have primarily other functions but still carry a weak heal. If you have amazing runes you might be able to get away with just one of these, otherwise you might need two of them in addition to Colleen to meet your healing needs.

Step 3: Pick a Defense Breaker

Damage is a requirement in raids, since the raid boss gets permanently stronger every 16 turns you cannot infinitely sustain it. Keeping def break on the boss and team DPS up is crucial to raid success.

• Darion – easy to rune for frontline, and comes with a passive that essentially lowers the rune requirements of your other 5 raid monsters. Highly recommended raid monster.
• Xiong Fei – another easy frontline option, he also comes with a slew of debuffs and a 33 def lead.
• Bella – your monster of choice if you want a reliable def breaker that is also a potent healer.
• Stella – in addition to being a damage dealer herself, she adds a branding debuff to help your team’s damage output even more.
• Tesa/Theo, Silver, Fuco/Rigel, Fire/Wind Monkey King, Brandia, Homunculus – ideally you should have one of the earlier options mentioned, but these monsters have a skill 2 defense break or low percentage skill 1 and could suffice especially if you have multiple monsters from this category.

Step 4: Pick a Slow Debuffer

Slow is another crucial debuff for the survivability of your team.

• Hwa (and to a lesser extent Ran) – her attack bar reduction adds another layer of survivability and protection for your team. She’s also a capable damage dealer, so this combined with her utility makes her an ideal raid monster that you should almost always include in your team if you have her.
• Fuco/Rigel – these 2 are similar and when skilled up can potentially do even more damage than Hwa. However they don’t have her atb decreasing utility.
• Copper/Silver – defense-scaling skills allow them to build damage and still survive on the frontline. Copper has the extra damage, Silver has the bonus utility in the form of heal block on skill 3. If you do use these guys as your primary slow debuffer, try to get a few revenge sets on them since they are typically built without speed and revenge will help them apply their debuff better.
• Delphoi, Dona, Raviti, Argen, Xiao Lin – ideally you should have one of the earlier options mentioned, but these monsters all have a slow on skill 2 and are worth mentioning.

Step 5: Pick a Cleanser

It should be self-explanatory why you need cleanser.

• Lisa – Probably the best cleanser for raids, since the cleanse skill allows 3 of your other monsters to do damage, apply debuffs, and reduce cooldowns at the same time.
• Kona – Best farmable option. 3 turn CD cleanse comes with a bonus small heal.
• Raviti – Tanky stats allows her to be runed for the front line relatively easily. Her skill 2 is also useful since it slows and reduces attack bar.
• Delphoi – Another tankier cleanser, also comes with a small heal and slow if you rune her with some crit.
• Dona – Skill 2 has a slow and defense break, and the cleanse CD, at 3 turns, is shorter than Lisa/Raviti/Delphoi.
• Jamie – while he would be very hard to rune, he is an option if you want to try to get some damage onto a cleanser.
• Anavel/Amarna – see their sections under Healer options.
• Velajuel – decent easy front line option, but doesn’t do too much else.
• Fedora/Mihyang – We would consider these as secondary cleansers – Fedora because his cleanse CD is long (5 turns), and – Mihyang because she only reduces debuffs by 1 turn rather than completely removes them. These 2 are not enough to cleanse by themselves but make great secondary cleansers.

Step 6: Add Damage

As noted earlier, damage is a requirement for raids, even for beginner teams. As you improve your raid team you should be adding more and more sources of damage to your team.

• Xiao Lin (and to a lesser extent the light/dark variants) – her damage is absolutely insane and she is the undisputed best raid damage dealer.
• Hwa (and all the other monsters in the primary slow debuffer section) – just make sure that if your only source of damage is your slow debuffer, that they are runed for maximum damage (Spd/CD/Atk or Atk/CD/Atk) while still being able to survive.
• Tesarion (and to a lesser extent Theomars) – highly underrated raid damage dealer. Nat 5 base stats, speed scaling skill 1, and passive all contribute to high damage output. Provides no debuffs other than defense break on skill 2, but his rare and valuable 41 res leader skill makes up for this. Theo has a bit less damage and a slightly less rare and valuable leader skill but is still a viable option.
• Ardella (and the light/dark variants) – good damage that comes with a reliable attack break. As a nat 3 though she has low base stats and is difficult to rune.
• Argen – he’s not often seen in raids but he’s probably the best completely farmable option out there. Great damage, built-in sustain on skill 1, valuable debuffs on skill 2, and much easier to rune than Ardella.
• Homunculus (Fire or Wind) – still a kinda new option but if you put in the investment to build him, has the potential to be one of the best raid monsters. Has great damage output in addition to providing heal block, defense break, and brand debuffs depending on which skill path you choose.
• Stella (and to a lesser extent Hellea) – good damage option that brings another source of def break, and a branding debuff to the team. Hellea as a nat 3 is a lot harder to rune.
• Avaris – valid raid option now with his recent buff. As a member of the Anubis family, he comes with the 2 rarer debuffs, heal block on skill 1 and brand on skill 2. His skills also increases his damage output when it matters most (towards the end).
• Other Nat 5’s (Chimeras, Fire/Wink Monkey King, Seara, Perna, Brandia) – all viable options and with nat 5 base stats many are capable of doing damage while on the front line, especially on vamp runes.
• Mihyang/Anavel – see their sections from earlier.

At this point you might have 6 monsters already on your team. If you have monsters that can cover multiple roles, you may have less. But there are still a few items to check off.

Step 7: Do you have at least 2 monsters for your front line?

The reason why this is not a “pick a monster step” is because any monster can be on the front line, given enough stats. The question is just who you can rune for the front line.

• Darion, Xiong Fei, Briand/Dias – these are the easiest front liners. This is because they don’t really need speed or damage to do their job, and you can just focus on tank stats to help them survive. Dias hasn’t been mentioned until this point but due to his passive which is the same as Darion’s, res lead, and many debuffs, he is a top tier raid monster. Briand is much less ideal but he does also have the valuable skill 1 heal block, and a res lead that otherwise may be difficult to get.
• Healers – Bella/Chasun are commonly seen on the front line as well, although it may require some tweaking (i.e. more def) in their stats from their other PvE usages. Praha/Ariel are even easier to get on the front line.
• Nat 5 damage dealers, Xiao Lin – due to their high base stats (or in Xiao Lin’s case, high damage with vamp runes), they have a much easier time on the front line than other damage dealers. To help them survive you can build them as a hybrid bruiser and use a slot 6 HP or Def rune instead of Atk, or give them vamp runes.
• Cleansers – some cleansers are naturally a bit tanky and are good candidates for the front line, such as Raviti/Delphoi. If you only have 5 monsters so far and are looking for a 6th that can fit on the front, adding a second cleanser to your team is not a bad idea.
• Copper/Silver – easiest way to add a damage dealing front liner.
• 4 man front line – it can be difficult finding 2 monsters that can be tanky enough to go on the front line while still having the speed or damage to fulfill their other roles. To alleviate some of their rune requirements, it may be easier to put 4 monsters on the front line. A lot of speed R5 teams have Lisa and Colleen on the front. Lisa/Colleen wouldn’t be able to do their other jobs if they were a 2 man front line, but with the help of 2 other front liners they can succeed.

Step 8: Do you have a valid raid leader skill?

Ideally you will have 2 options so you have an easier time finding raid partners. The ideal 3 leads to have are Def, Res, and Crit rate, although replacing Crit rate with Spd, HP, or Atk leads is acceptable.

• Def – Xiong Fei, Mei Hou Wang, Bastet, Fedora (only 25, so not ideal and should be avoided)
• Res – Tesa, Praha, Dias, Briand
• Crit rate – Hwa, Theo
• Others (Spd, HP, Atk) – Jamire, Seara, Xing Zhe, Sekhmet, Ran

Step 9: Do you have 6 monsters?

If not, add damage dealers until you have 6 monsters 🙂

Congratulations, you have formed your raid team!

FAQ:

• What about Glancing? Glancing is a relatively rare debuff, but fortunately it’s on monsters that are already extremely commonly used in other raid roles (Chasun/Mihyang, Lisa, Xiong Fei). It’s a necessary debuff to have but not really something you have much of a choice over.
• What about Heal Block? Heal block is extremely important but it is part of Colleen’s kit and everyone runs Colleen. Additional heal block is always nice though – it’s just really rare and pretty much limited to Wind Homu, Death Knights, and Anubis, so most people don’t really have a choice in trying to get a more reliable heal block. You should strongly consider adding Dias or Amarna to your team for this reason, if you have them.
• What about Brand? The branding debuff, in addition to being rare, is the least impactful debuff. Nice to have, but not a priority especially for starter teams.
• Sample farmable team? Sure – try Darion + Xiong Fei front, Colleen + Kona + Bella + Argen back. Or try Darion + Bella + Colleen + Copper front, Kona + Tesa/Theo back.
• Does X monster need to be skilled-up to work? General rule of thumb is that healers and cleansers should have their relevant skills maxed to be ready for raids. Damage dealers do not.
• Is <insert L/D nat 5> good for raids? Sorry they are too rare for us to discuss in this guide. A lot of them are good though, but you’ll have to research for yourself for more info on them.

Check our other guides for Summoners War in the Guide-Section.

Thanks to user jx9 for help creating this summoners war guide. We hope you enjoyed this Summoners War Guide for first time raiding. If you have any question, feedback or ideas, for this guide or Summoners War in general, please feel free to leave a comment below.