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At the beginning of RAID: Shadow Legends, you get to choose a starter champion between four, Elhain, Kael, Galek, and Athel.
If you haven’t played the game before or just aren’t familiar with the champions, you might wonder what champion you should pick.
The best starter champion in RAID: Shadow Legends is Kael, as he deals incredible AoE damage, which is very useful when progressing through the game. Additionally, he is also strong against bosses – more information below.
Table of contents
Best starter champion in RAID: Shadow Legends
Your starter champion choice in RAID: Shadow Legends is important, but it’s not a disaster if you don’t pick the best one.
All of them are strong and useful for quite a while.
Recommended Read: Best Teams to Use in RAID: Shadow Legends
Two of the champions, however, are both strong in the beginning but also later on in the game.
We believe that the best starter champion in RAID: Shadow Legends is Kael.
He is the strongest champion of the starters for a very long time, as he both boasts incredible AoE damage, powerful debuffs, high stats, and a great ability against bosses.
In the end game of RAID: Shadow Legends, Athel can be stronger than Kael in some situations, including against some bosses, which is why we believe Athel is the second-best starter champion.
We recommend checking out our RAID: Shadow Legends Tier List to get a better idea of how these two champions and all others in the game perform relative to each other.
Common for all the starter champions is that they all have a powerful AoE ability that damages all enemies at once, which will help you a lot when progressing through the game.
This means that no matter what you choose, you’re certain that you’ll have a powerful champion that can carry your team through stages for a while.
Therefore, we recommend that you put your starter champion on your team and upgrade him/her throughout the beginning of the game.
If you’ve picked either Kael or Athel, then you can easily use them on your team late-game.
Elhain and Galek will probably be replaced quicker than the other two champions.
Even if you end up or already have picked either Elhain or Galek, it most likely won’t be worth it to start over just to pick another starter champion, as you can pull all starter champions from shards.
Overview of starter champions
In the following, we go over what each of the starter champions is good at, as well as what their skills, affinity, and faction are.
Kael
Kael is an attacker who belongs to the Dark Elves faction and carries the magic affinity, which means he deals extra damage to those with the spirit affinity.
Kael possesses the following four skills:
- Dark Bolt – Deals damage to a single enemy and has a chance of placing a 2.5% poison debuff for 2 turns.
- Acid Rain – Kael calls down a rain of acid that damages all enemies while having a higher chance of dealing critical damage. This skill has a 3 turn cooldown.
- Disintegrate – Attacks 4 times at random and has a chance of placing a 5% poison debuff for 2 turns. This skill has a 5 turn cooldown.
- Aura – A buff that increases ally HP in all battles by 15%
Given his skillset, Kael thrives at AoE damage output while dishing out powerful debuffs at enemies.
His buff, Aura, gives a significant boost to the health of his allies.
All other starter champions do, however, also possess this skill.
Kael is strong against certain bosses that could prove troublesome later on in the game.
All in all, Kael is a powerful, well-rounded attacker who excels at AoE and bossing.
Athel
Athel is an attacker who belongs to the faction, The Sacred Order, and carries the magic affinity, which means she deals extra damage to those with the spirit affinity.
Athel possesses the following four skills:
- Strike Down – Attacks an enemy 3 times and has a 75% chance to place a 25% weaken debuff for two turns on the last hit.
- Divine Blades – Athel calls down divine blades damaging all enemies while having a higher chance of dealing critical damage. This skill has a 3 turn cooldown.
- Higher Blessing – Athel places a buff on herself that increases her damage by 25% for two turns. If Athel has less than 50% health remaining, this skill places a 30% defense increase buff on her. Furthermore, Athel gains an extra turn. This skill has a 4 turn cooldown.
- Aura – A buff that increases ally HP in all battles by 15%
Athel deals a lot of damage and can place powerful debuffs on her enemies and buff herself.
Elhain
Elhain is of the High Elves faction, is an attacker, and carries the magic affinity, which makes her deal more damage to champions carrying the spirit affinity.
Elhain possesses the following four skills:
- Keen Shot – Elhain fires her bow dealing damage to an enemy, placing an extra hit if the attack is critical.
- Lightning Arrow – Attacks a single enemy, then damages all enemies. This attack has an extra 15% chance of doing critical damage. Using this skill gives Elhain a 30% crit buff for 3 turns if the target is slain. This skill has a 5 turn cooldown.
- Valley of Death – Elhain fires a valley at enemies, damaging all of them 2 times. This skill has a 3 turn cooldown.
- Aura – A buff that increases ally HP in all battles by 15%
Like Kael, Elhain focuses on AoE damage output but does fall short of the amount of damage Kael can dish out.
Elhain doesn’t possess any abilities that help the rest of the team except Aura, which all other starters also possess.
Galek
Galek is an attacker who belongs to the Orcs faction and carries the magic affinity, which means he deals extra damage to champions carrying the spirit affinity.
Galek possesses the following four skills:
- Cross Slash – Galek swings his axe dealing damage to a single enemy twice.
- Hellraiser – Attacks all enemies with a 15% increased critical strike chance. Hellraiser also places a 30% SPD boost on Galek for 2 turns when used. This skill has a 3 turn cooldown.
- Cursed Blade – Galek deals damage 4 times at random. Cursed Blade has a 30% chance of placing a 30% def debuff on enemies for 2 turns. If the enemy has more than 2 debuffs, Cursed Blade has a 30% chance of placing a 60% defense debuff on the enemy.
- Aura – A buff that increases ally HP in all battles by 15%
Galek is a fighter with both great AoE and single target damage.
Galek can’t, however, keep up with the other starter champions in terms of usability and will most likely be replaced on your team quicker than Kael and Athel.
He does possess some great debuffs, but one is contingent on having many debuffs on your team already.
That’s everything you need to know about what the best starter champion in RAID: Shadow Legends is!
If you have any input for this guide, let us know in the comment section below.
