Best Nuker Champions in Raid Shadow Legends (Arena & Boss Damage Guide)
Discover the best nuker champions in Raid Shadow Legends. Learn which champions deal the highest burst damage in Arena, dungeons, and boss fights.
What a Nuker Champion Is in Raid
The Role of Nukers
Nukers are crit-based damage dealers, whose job is to deal direct damage to enemies. These champions are some of the most gear-intensive, but the payoff is that they output the highest boss damage, rip through waves, and can wipe out enemy teams in PvP.
Why Nukers Are Important
How do you win in Arena and Siege? By killing the enemy team. The nuker is key.
How do you clear Dungeons, Faction Wars, etc. quickly? By killing all the enemies; the nuker is key!
Clan Bosses require damage thresholds to unlock the best chest rewards; your damage dealer is the most important member of the team… The nuker is key!!
(An extra benefit of a good nuker is that you can quickly remove dangerous enemies in wave or PvP content to prevent them from killing or controlling your team, or from removing debuffs or healing/reviving their allies.)
Single-target vs AoE Nukers
Some champions specialise in single-target damage, i.e. damage against one enemy. These are usually best for Boss fights, where you’re often fighting a single powerful boss enemy. They can be decent for waves as well, though you will typically be looking for single-target champion who have some way to gain Extra Turns or Turn Meter to compensate for their lack of AoE.
AoE nukers specialise in attacks which damage all enemies. These are usually best for wave-based content, where you are fighting 4 or 5 enemies at a time, but they’re also good for some boss fights, such as Hydra Clan Boss where there are 4 bosses present at all times.
Using Nukers in Different Areas of the Game
Arena Battles
Both single-target and AoE nukers are strong in arena, with AoE being more common. The goal of the nuker is to kill the enemy team, and they are usually the win condition for the team; for Live Arena, players will nearly always draft two nukers, since only drafting one will typically result in a loss or an exceedingly long fight if they get banned.
For this content, a few unique traits are especially valuable: survivability, so they are difficult for the enemy to kill; ignoring key defenses, such as ignoring the Block Damage buff; good affinity matchups against the enemes support champions, to ensure you can reliably kill them.
Dungeon Waves
AoE nukers are highly recommended for wave-based content, such as Dungeon, Cursed City, Grim Forest, Faction Wars, Campaign or Minotaur waves. The goal here is to quickly clear through the waves with AoE damage to reach the boss in a timely manner, since this is content you generally need to run multiple times–saving time matters.
Other types of wave clear exist, such as Poison Explosion teams, but these will not be available for all types of content, or for all players.
Boss Battles
Single-target damage dealers are recommended for boss battles, putting out high sustained damage against these very high health enemies. You don’t need a champion to be pure single-target damage, but high AoE damage and low single-target damage will be weaker against most bosses.
Best Nuker Champions in Raid
Here we’ve listed 10 of the most best 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! Kael has the unique benefit of bringing Poisons as well, which are a great source of extra damage against bosses.
Skraank
Skraank is a big upgrade over Kael, representing a “good everywhere” epic nuker. His void affinity means he has no affinity disadvantage in any content, and he brings both high single-target and AoE damage, alongside an AoE HP Burn debuff. His passive ramps up his damage, making him stronger in longer fights.
Seer
Seer is a very unique nuker, specialising in wave clear and being weak against most bosses. Her A3 deals damage scaling off Enemy MAX HP and the number of buffs on your team; when setup correctly this is one of the hardest hitting attacks in RAID, making her ideal for clearing through tough PvE waves. Due to her long cooldown, you will need a good reset champion like Prince Kymar to enable her to hit max potential.
Fenax
Fenax brings OK AoE damage, but where he truly shines is with his incredible A1 attack. This default attack hits twice against targets with any debuffs, enabling him to output phenomenal sustained single-target damage. Fenax is fantastic for any single-target boss fights, and is particularly strong when paired with Ally Attack champions such as Mad Hatter.
Thor Faehammer
Thor is the legendary example of a “good everywhere” AoE nuker, bringing two hard-hitting AoE attacks on short cooldowns. Thor is an expert at ripping through enemy waves, and can even put out respectable damage against most bosses. His main weakness is that he’s a glass cannon; he brings good damage, but nothing to keep himself alive.
Solanar the Gleaming
Solanar is currently at the top of the PvP meta, being one of the absolute best arena nukers in the entire game. He brings a huge single-target nuke on his A3, and constant high-damage AoE spam attacks with his A1 counters. His A2 is his big cheat code, turning all debuffs into buffs when it is off cooldown (for this reason, it is almost never actually used). This, along with his cheat death passive, makes Solanar highly survivable, while bringing extreme levels of damage even without ever taking a turn.
Marius the Gallant
Marius is perhaps the best overall nuker in RAID, bringing incredible damage alongside incredible utility. His 3-hit AoE Enemy MAX HP A2 is not only one of the best wave-clear attacks in the game, but also one of the best anti-boss attacks in the game, making him god-tier for PvE. His A1 counterattack spam and his ability to strip buffs with his A2 makes him top tier for PvP as well. It takes a long time to earn Marius, but he is well worth the wait!
Karnage the Anarch
Karnage is a free mythical champion who is unlocked by progressing through Hard difficulty Cursed City. In his Base Form he is a single-target monster who specialises in spreading debilitating protected debuffs through enemies, which makes him top tier for PvP. In his Alternate Form he becomes an AoE damage machine, with the highest ATK stat in the game and tons of free C.DMG% and Ignore DEF% through his passive, making him a great damage dealer in all content. He’s very squishy in both forms though, so make sure to bring protection to keep him alive.
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. She’s more at home in PvP than in PvE, however!
Siegfrund the Nephilim
Siegfrund is our final nuker on this list, bringing huge damage potential alongside tons of survivability and an Alternate reviver form. His A3 is his standout skill, delivering a huge single-target hit that then splashes the surplus damage to all other enemies if he lands a killing blow. Note that this surplus damage double-dibs in most damage multipliers, so it actually tends to do far more damage that the original (yes, it makes no sense, but that’s how it’s coded). You’ll see Siegfrund at the top of most Dungeon speed runs because of this insane AoE damage potential. He’s no slouch in PvP either, where he brings fantastic damage and makes great use of his passive cheat death mechanics. His Alternate Form can only be used when all other allies are dead, so it mostly only sees use in PvP too, but it’s a great chance to comeback in those fights.
How to Build Nuker Champions
Damage Stats
100% C.RATE is the first step in building a 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 a Nuker Be?
Due to damage stats taking up a lot of your budget, your nuker will typically be 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 PvP champions will need higher SPD than PvE champions. As a general guideline:
- early game = 200 SPD
- mid game = 250 SPD
- late game = 300 SPD
For turn-limited content such as Clan Bosses, your SPD stats can be lower than these recommendations; for non-limited content like Arena or Faction Wars, your SPD should be as indicated.
Recommended Artifact Sets
The best artifact sets for nukers are ones which give Ignore DEF: savage; lethal; merciless; etc.
Merciless is the go-to set for PvE, giving the most Ignore DEF alongside great offensive stats and cooldown reduction. This requires a 6-piece build. Earlier game, Savage or Lethal are much easier to get and only need a 4-piece build.
For any hybrid nuker (a nuker who also needs to place debuffs), any sets which give SPD or ACC are also very valuable.
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 remaining slots.
Recommended Relics and Blessings
Good Relics and Blessings are essential for nukers since they are extremely stat hungry.
For PvE, Nature’s Wrath and Heavencast are the most common picks, for nukers with and without debuffs respectively. At 6-star Crushing Rend becomes the best choice, due to the huge amount of Ignore DEF it gives on every hit against high level bosses.
The most common Blessing for PvP is Lightning Cage since it is extremely effective at protecting your important buffs, like Stoneskin.
For Relics, any relic which provides damaging stats such as C.DMG% and has an offensive benefit is ideal. Survivability relics such as Golden Elixir for PvE or Wand of Submission for PvP can also be used.
See our Relic Tier List and Blessing Tier List for more info!