Best Sleep Champions in RAID: Shadow Legends
Discover the best Sleep champions in RAID: Shadow Legends. Learn how Sleep works, how it compares to other crowd control effects, and which champions excel in Arena, Doom Tower, and PvE progression.
What Sleep Does in Raid
How Sleep Works
Sleep prevents enemies from taking actions until they receive damage or their turn begins.
Sleeping enemies are effectively removed from combat temporarily, missing their turn entirely, including their cooldown reduction on turn start.
Sleep differs from other crowd control effects because it can be broken by damage, making it very unreliable if you don’t plan your actions around it or play on manual.
Sleep vs Other Crowd Control Effects
Sleep is essentially a weaker form of the Stun debuff, since it has all the same benefits but with the downside that it can be broken by damage.
Sleep has some advantages compared to other control debuffs:
- Compared to Freeze or Petrification, it doesn’t reduce enemy damage taken.
- Compared to Fear, it is guaranteed to work.
- Compared to Provoke, you will not be attacked by enemy default skills.
That being said, it is unquestionably the worst control debuff in the game due to how often it is accidently broken early.
The Fatigue Debuff
Fatigue is a new and very rare debuff which places Sleep on enemies after they use an active skill. This is an interesting debuff because it can be Debuff Spread, effectively creating Sleep debuffs on multiple members of the enemy team (whereas Sleep itself cannot be spread directly).
Fatigue does nothing by itself, except create Sleep debuffs.
Why Sleep Champions Are Valuable
Improving Wave Clear Consistency
Sleep can neutralize priority threats and helps teams survive difficult waves.
Preventing a dangerous enemy damage dealer or control champion from using their abilities can completely swing a fight.
Sleep often works best when you are playing a wave on manual, so you can ensure that sleeping targets aren’t woken up before their turn.
Sand Devil
This boss is unique in being vulnerable to Sleep. Sleep will make him vulnerable to other debuffs (he is otherwise immune) and will delay his ultimate attack.
Unless you are using a cheese strategy, Sleep is essential to taking on this essential boss.
Best Sleep Champions in Raid
Here we’ve highlighted 10 of the best Sleep champions in RAID: Shadow Legends. While this isn’t a complete list of every strong option available, it showcases some of the most effective champions and helps demonstrate what makes this debuff so valuable across the game.
If you’re looking for more champion recommendations, rankings, and detailed breakdowns, be sure to check out our Champion Tier List.
Muckstalker
Muckstalker is a campaign-farmable rare champion who has an insanely good Sleep debuff. He’s one of the only champions in the entire game who can place Sleep for 2 turns, and he does it on a 2-turn cooldown. He’s an absolute MVP for early progression in Sand Devil, only really falling off their when you finally unlock a champion who can place an unresistable Sleep debuff! He’s definitely… Sleeper OP!?
Alure
Zelotah
Conellia
Kerin the Harvester
Kerin is a great Sleep champion for waves or even PvP, placing Sleep that bypasses the Block Debuffs buff. This can save you if an enemy Remove Debuff champion breaks your control and establishes a Block Debuffs buff. He can also automatically Increase Skill Cooldowns on an enemy who breaks free from Sleep, for some backup control.
Prince Kymar
Kymar is a classic Sleep champion: Remove All Buffs, then Sleep the enemy. He can be viable early-game in Supersonic set against speed teams looking to buff up, since he can cut it, remove their buffs, then sleep them. He’s best used for his reset capabilities, but don’t sleep on his Sleep capabilities for tough Faction Wars or Doom Tower stages!
Edward Kenway
Edward brings a very powerful A2 AoE attack, dealing strong damage, Stealing all buffs, Decreasing Turn Meter, and placing Sleep. If he crits, this will bypass Block Debuffs; if he is under Veil, this cannot be resisted. It’s a very powerful attack which can turn the tide in any wave-based fight or Arena battle.
Chronicler Adelyn
Siphi the Lost Bride
Siphi is infamous for her A1 Sleep which ignores RES. This gives it a 100% success rate against any vulnerable target, making her ideal for Sand Devil farm teams. This can totally control a damage-dealer in PvP as well, though this is harder to do in the modern game with Taunt buffs, Total Guard buffs, Intercept, Wand of Submision, etc.
Harvest Jack
Harvest Jack is a fantastic Sleep champion since his rework, coupling up Extra Turns with AoE hits and tons of debuffs. His Sleep debuff will only land if he fails to place his True Fear, but this is a reliable counter to enemies in 9-piece Mercurial if you gear him with 6-piece Deflection: he will remove 3 stacks of Total Guard with his A2 into A3 combo, then land his Sleep and Turn Meter Reduction.
How to Build Sleep Champions
Accuracy Requirements
ACC is essential to land the Sleep debuff for most champions.
USe our Raid Stages Tool to check the ACC you will require to beat any enemy’s RES.
Sand Devil Stage 25, for example, will require 495 ACC but earlier game teams can aim for 200 ACC for content like Doom Tower and Faction Wars.
Speed Requirements
It’s essential to land Sleep before enemies take their turns.
To do this, Sleep champions need to build high SPD.
Recommended Artifact Sets
Some good sets for Sleep champions are:
- Perception
- Speed
- Relentless
- Feral
- Supersonic
You will want to find sets that give SPD or ACC, or which let you take Extra Turns or boost Turn Meter.
Any relics which provide similar effects are all viable. Check out our dedicated champion pages for tailored recommendations.
Best Areas to Use Sleep
Arena
Sleep can be a powerful control effect in Arena, especially Live Arena since this you will likely be playing on manual.
Waves in Doom Tower, Cursed City, Grim Forest and Faction Wars
All of the wave-based encounters in these areas are good places to use the Sleep debuff, particularly on difficult stages where you’re struggling.
Sleep can enable you to prevent nasty enemies taking over the fight–but watch out for champions on your own team with AoE attacks who can break Sleep early.
Sand Devil
This boss is unique in being vulnerable to Sleep.
Sleep will make him vulnerable to other debuffs (he is otherwise immune) and will delay his ultimate attack.
Unless you are using a cheese strategy, Sleep is essential to taking on this essential boss.