Best Arena Nukers in Raid Shadow Legends (Top Champions for PvP)
Looking for the best Arena nukers in Raid Shadow Legends? Discover the champions that deal massive damage and help win PvP battles.
What Makes a Good Arena Nuker
High Burst Damage
No surprise: the most important trait of an arena damage dealer is to do lots of damage!
Burst damage is typically the most valuable form for PvP, since fights can be ended in a single decisive blow. Look for champions with huge AoE hits to knock down entire teams, or huge single-target hits to take out those pesky tanky revivers.
Ignoring Defenses
In 2026 defensive buffs and passives are extremely common, so nukers who can hit through effects such as Block Damage or Stoneskin or who have Ignore DEF built into their abilities are incredibly valuable.
Survivability
Finally, the thing that sets many top-tier legendary and mythical PvP nukers apart in 2026 is powerful in-built survivability; a nuker who is hard to kill is a much bigger threat than a glass cannon who never survives to actually attack.
How Arena Teams Use Nukers
Setup and Turn Order
Nukers are often the slowest champions on a PvP team. Support champions who can provide damage boosting buffs, such as Increase ATK, remove enemy defensive buffs, such as abilities which Remove Buffs, or debuff enemies, such as damage-boosting debuffs like Decrease DEF, are often used before your damage dealers to help them secure the kill.
Increase Turn Meter is a very common tactic, particularly early/mid-game, to ensure that your damage dealer (who usually lacks in SPD) gets to take a turn before the enemy does–once the enemy defenses are down and they are still vulnerable.
Once you start fighting enemies with Stoneskin or Mercurial gear, there’s little point in having a damage dealer attack without removing those defenses first, so things like Remove Buffs, Increase Skill Cooldowns, and Ally Attack become higher value.
Protect the President
It’s very rare that a bunch of support champions will win the fight; usually it’s damage dealers who represent the win-condition for a team. A big role of the support champions on a team therefore becomes keeping the damage dealers alive (or reviving them, should they die).
Champions with powerful defensive buffs, revives, or even the ability to control the enemy team are very useful to keep your own damage dealers in the fight. Shields, Block Damage, Perfect Veil, etc. are examples of strong defensive buffs, and Increase Skill Cooldowns, Stuns, etc. are examples of control effects which can prevent enemy champions from taking out your damage dealer.
Removing debuffs or preventing debuffs with Block Debuffs is another key strategy to ensure your own damage dealer is not debuffed or controlled.
Best Arena Nukers in Raid
Here we’ve listed 10 of the most best Arena nukers in RAID: Shadow Legends. This list is not exhaustive, but it should steer you in the right direction for knowing what makes these types of champions so powerful! Check out our Champion Tier List for more info.
Kael
Kael represents ALL the starter champions here; they all have great early/mid-game nuking potential. Each starter champion has a strong AoE nuke which only needs 85% C.RATE to crit, making them a fantastic budget pick! Your starter champion can be a viable option–even compared to epics–until you get some good quality legendary or maybe even mythical damage dealers.
Dirandil
Genbo the Dishonored
Skullcrown
Skullcrown brings consistent AoE damage with the advantage of Void affinity, plus she has a powerful cheat death effect with her Unkillable passive. Her AoE A1 attack is also highly valuable when paired with any Ally Attack champions, with her and her partner Sinesha forming a classic “blender team” when paired with champions like Aribter and Fahrakin the Fat.
Leonardo
Leonardo was a time-limited champion and shows what top-tier damage dealers look like coming into 2026. He has a powerful cheat death with his Stoneskin triggering passive and can self-buff with Unkillable on his A2. Where he really comes into his own is his pairing with other TMNT champions–particularly his full TMNT Unity A3, where he will constantly trigger overwhelming powerful attacks as his team drops below 50% HP.
Predator
Predator was also an exclusive collaboration champion near the start of 2026 and has been dominating PvP ever since. His biggest strength is his passive, which gives him a 50% chance to Evade everything before he takes his first turn–and can stack up to a permanent 60% chance to Evade through securing kills. As a HP nuker he has a very high HP pool, and these things combine to make him incredibly difficult to kill–while he also has massive AoE damage on his A2 and a Block Revive A3, so he is always a huge threat in return.
Solanar the Gleaming
Solanar is the new golden boy of 2026, bringing huge damage alongside broken utility. His A2 is incredible thanks to its pasive effect, turning all debuffs against him into buffs instead. His passive ability will cause him to trigger a ludicrous number of free counterattacks against many teams, and he even has a powerful once-per-battle self-revive as well. He can be paired with partner champion Noldua the Gloaming to land crits with every attack, bypassing powerful defenses like Bayek’s passive or the Xibia’s Servitude relic.
Embrys the Anomaly
Embrys is a free champion and will be a huge addition to every player’s PvP kit–eventually. He is able to remove Stoneskin in his Base Form (though watch out for Lightning Cage blessings which can prevent this), setting up other damage dealers or debuffs. In his Alternate Form he can do huge AoE hits, and can easily secure Block Revive if he can land a double-hit with his A1. He has a powerful cheat death effect on his passive as well, which can kill enemy damage dealer in return.
Sabrael the Distant
Sabrael has just released at the writing of this article, and she’s likely to dominate in PvP moving forward. She brings incredible utility in her Base Form, landing multi-hits, Increasing Skill Cooldowns, and Stealing and Spreading buffs. In her Alternate Form she brings even more multi-hits, alongside two AoE attacks, and an A1 that counters Block Damage, Unkillable, and even cheat death effects. She looks to be a powerful counter to almost every defense right now, knocking down Total Guard stacks with ease and delivering massive damage past all meta defenses.
Nais the Shadowthief
Nais has been the pinnacle of PvP nukers since his release not because he has the highest possible damage, but rather due to his insane utility. In his Base Form he can ignore Unkillable and Block Damage with his A1, and always has the threat of Block Revive on his A3. It’s his Alternate Form that makes him so insane, however, getting to freely swap to it and gain an Extra Turn whenever he would be killed in his Base Form. This Alternate Form gains massive stat boosts per dead champion in the fight, making him tougher, stronger, and faster than most champions in the game. He can give himself protected Block Damage and Counterattack, and revives an ally whenever he kills an enemy, making him the ultimate example of a champion who can solo entire enemy teams even when everyone else on his team is dead.
How to Build Arena Nukers
Damage Stats
100% C.RATE is the first step in building an arena nuker.
After that, good damage comes from a balance of key stats: C.DMG%, Ignore DEF%, and your main damage stat (this varies from champion to champion, typically falling into ATK, DEF, or HP). The easiest way to find the best possible build for your account is to use our free Raid Optimiser Tool to filter through your gear. As a general guideline:
- early game = 4k ATK, 200% C.DMG%
- mid game = 6k ATK, 260% C.DMG%
- late game = 8k ATK, 320% C.DMG%
How Fast Should an Arena Nuker Be?
As discussed earlier in this guide, your nuker is typically the lowest SPD champion on your team. The level of SPD you should aim for depends on how advanced in the game you are (and it can also shift based off of how dominant speed teams are in the PvP meta at a given time). As a general guideline:
- early game = 200 SPD
- mid game = 250 SPD
- late game = 300 SPD
Recommended Artifact Sets
The most common build for PvP nukers is 4-piece Lethal with 4-piece Stoneskin. The goal of this build is to gain the huge defensive benefit of a Stoneskin buff with the most Ignore DEF that is possible with your main slots.
Other 4-piece defensive sets can be used as well, such as Feral to get Block Debuffs, Mercurial for a stack of Total Guard, or Chronophage to protect from lockout.
Some debuff-heavy champions, or extremely SPD heavy damage dealers can abandon defensive sets in favour of gear like Pinpoint. This is a risky strategy and should generally only be used if you can almost guarantee going first in a fight.
Recommended Relics and Blessings
Good Relics and Blessings are essential for PvP nukers.
The most common Blessing currently is Lightning Cage (another reason why we see a big leap in quality when looking at legendary/mythical rarity nukers) since it is extremely effective at protecting your important buffs, like Stoneskin.
Nukers who place debuffs can run Wand of Submission to protect themselves from Polymorph and other Crowd Control effects. More usually, you will simply run your nuker in the best damage Relic you have: look for Relics with C.DMG%, Ignore DEF%, or other offensive effects. See our Relic Tier List for more info!