Best Weaken Champions in Raid Shadow Legends
In this guide, we explore the power of Weaken champions in Raid Shadow Legends. We break down how the debuff works, why it plays such a crucial role in boosting your damage, which champions bring it most effectively, and where you’ll get the most value from using it.
What Weaken does in raid
How the Weaken Debuff Works
At its core, any target under a Weaken debuff will take 25% or 15% increased damage from your attacks. Over the course of a run, this quickly adds up to a significant damage boost, especially when paired with other debuffs like Decrease Defence, allowing you to push through waves and bosses much more efficiently. Weaken does not increase the damage from Poison or HP Burn, but it will amplify the damage dealt by Bombs.
Why Weaken Is Important
It’s a crucial effect for boosting both burst damage and sustained damage over time, helping you cut through waves and deal more damage to bosses. It becomes especially valuable in longer fights like Chimera, Demon Lord, and Hydra, while also proving highly effective against Doom Tower, Grim Forest and Cursed City bosses, as well as wave-based content such as Faction Wars and even PvP.
Why Weaken champions are valuable
Increasing Team Damage
Keeping Weaken active at all times is key to maximising your damage output. Champions with reliable cooldowns and consistent uptime will ensure the debuff remains active throughout the fight, increasing your overall damage by 25% or 15% depending on the version applied. If you’re using a champion with the weaker variant, this can be improved through the Nature’s Bounty Blessing.
Improving Boss Fight Performance
Depending on the encounter, you’ll need to consider whether your champion applies Weaken as an AoE or single-target effect. For wave content and multi-target bosses like Hydra, AoE placement is far more valuable – champions like Lydia excel here by applying Weaken alongside Decrease Defence across all enemies. In contrast, single-target fights give you more flexibility, allowing dedicated single target champions to perform just as effectively.
Keeping this debuff active in longer fights, such as Clan Boss encounters, is essential for reaching your maximum damage potential. The same applies to other bosses across areas of the game, where maintaining consistent uptime will help you bring them down faster and clear content more efficiently.
Best Areas to use weaken champions
Clan Bosses
Due to the nature of these fights, success is measured by how much damage you can deal before reaching the turn limit or your team is defeated, rather than how quickly you can finish the fight. With key reward thresholds to hit for the best chests, maximising your damage output is essential – and this is where Weaken plays a vital role. Maintaining the debuff throughout these longer battles provides a consistent damage boost that quickly adds up, especially when paired with strong damage dealers.
Boss Fights
Many boss mechanics become increasingly difficult the longer a fight goes on, such as encounters like Amius or the Griffin in Doom Tower. By keeping offensive debuffs like Weaken active, you can bring these bosses down much more efficiently and reduce the impact of their mechanics. This also carries over into Dungeons, where faster kills lead to quicker, more efficient farming runs for gear.
Enemy Waves
Wave clearing now plays a role across far more areas of Raid than in the early game, including Dungeons, Cursed City, Faction Wars, Doom Tower, and the addition of Hard Mode content. Pairing Weaken with Decrease DEF sets up your primary damage dealers to cut through waves much more efficiently, speeding up your runs and improving overall consistency.
Best Weaken champions in raid
Here we’ve highlighted some of the top Weaken champions in Raid: Shadow Legends, showcasing the different strengths they bring. While this list isn’t exhaustive, it should give you an understanding of what makes these champions so effective. For more options, be sure to check out our Champion Tier List.
Mad Hatter
Mad Hatter brings strong utility by placing both Weaken and Hex on all enemies, while also enabling your highest C.DMG ally to join the attack. This makes him especially powerful in Hydra, but also highly effective in general content. Combined with his buff manipulation, Turn Meter boosts, heals and crowd control passive, he offers a well-rounded kit that can enhance your team’s overall damage and consistency.
Kro’khad
This Orc is a powerhouse damage dealer who also brings AoE Weaken and Leech in his kit, becoming even more effective when paired with Packmaster Shy’ek. He excels at cutting through tough waves and delivering heavy damage to bosses, with his value increasing further when using blessings like Nature’s Wrath and relics such as Irethi Coronet to maximise his damage output.
Lydia
This champion is acquired by earning 3 stars on every stage of Normal Faction Wars, and offers incredible universal value through a single ability that applies AOE Decrease DEF, Weaken, Strengthen, and Increase SPD. This combination makes Lydia exceptional across all areas of the game, supported further by strong single-target utility with Block Buffs and Active Skills, alongside a revive countering passive.
Geomancer
This Epic brings strong single-target utility, placing both Weaken and HP Burn for 3 turns while also depleting the enemy’s Turn Meter. His passive adds further value by enabling damage deflection and reducing incoming damage from enemies under his HP Burn. This makes him a powerful option for single target boss fights, where he can consistently maintain Weaken uptime & damage deflection.
Fayne
While she can be quite squishy and benefits from the right support around her, Fayne offers an excellent kit for single target encounters. Her A3 places both Weaken and Decrease DEF, while her A2 adds Poisons and Decrease ATK, bringing together several crucial debuffs in one champion. Although her A3 comes with a longer cooldown, the 3-turn duration on these debuffs helps balance this and maintain uptime.
Ruella
Ruella has a chance to place Decrease DEF, Weaken, and Decrease SPD with her triple-hit A2, helping to boost your damage while also controlling enemy speed. Combined with her ability to fill ally Turn Meters and steal a portion from enemies, she stands out as a strong single target debuffer and Turn Meter manipulator.
Riho Bonespear
Riho stands as one of the best single-target debuffers in the game, placing Stun, HP Burn, Decrease DEF, Weaken, Decrease ATK, and Decrease C.Rate all within a single ability. This combination of offensive support, control, and damage amplification allows you to take down bosses far more efficiently, especially when paired with her ability to cleanse, apply Block Debuffs, heal, and support allies.
Rhazin Scarhide
Rhazin Scarhide is a fusion available from early in your journey, and while he could benefit from a buff, he still offers a straightforward way to apply key debuffs. He brings both Weaken and Decrease DEF to a single target, alongside the ability to deplete Turn Meter across all enemies. If you’re looking for a durable and accessible option for single-target debuffing, Rhazin remains a solid choice.
Athel
Athel is one of the starter Rare champions and brings strong early-game value through her A1. Each hit of her triple-hit attack has a 100% chance to place Weaken when fully booked, giving multiple chances to land the debuff following potential resisted or weak hits. She’s a solid option for early wave clearing, Faction Wars, and consistently applying Weaken to single-target bosses like the Demon Lord.
Rian
Rian is an Epic champion obtained through fragments from Doom Tower Secret Rooms. She provides strong utility by removing buffs from enemies while also placing Weaken, making her a great option for boosting damage and countering buff-heavy teams. Alongside this, she offers a single-target revive and access to Block Buffs, adding further value to her overall kit.
How to build weaken champions
Accuracy & Speed Requirements
Accuracy is the most important stat for champions placing Weaken, as you’ll need enough to consistently land your debuffs. As a general guideline, aim for around 25 Accuracy higher than the enemy’s Resistance, and use tools like the Raid Stages Tool to check specific requirements for each area.
You’ll want to ensure your primary Weaken champion is faster than your main damage dealer, so they can fully benefit from the increased damage the debuff provides. Buffs like Increase ACC and debuffs like Decrease Resistance can further support your consistency, especially when progressing through content where reaching higher stat thresholds is more challenging.
It’s also important to consider the type of champion you’re using. Many damage dealers, such as hybrid champions like Kro’khad, combine strong damage with debuff placement. Unless a skill specifically states it cannot be resisted, balancing Accuracy with your damage stats and Speed for the encounter is essential.
Recommended Artifact Sets
Gear sets that provide Accuracy, such as Perception or Feral, are great for helping you consistently land debuffs while also boosting useful stats like Speed. Depending on your champion’s cooldowns, sets like Relentless or Reflex can work well to cycle back to your Weaken skill faster, or you can pair them with a debuff extender to help maintain consistent uptime.
Tips for using weaken champions
Apply Weaken Before Damage Dealers Attack
Ensuring Weaken is applied before your damage dealers take their turn, or before Bombs detonate, is crucial. This allows your team to fully benefit from the increased damage the debuff enables, so make sure your Weaken placer is faster than the key allies responsible for dealing your main damage.
Combine Decrease Defence
Pairing your Weaken champions with an ally who brings Decrease DEF is ideal for maximising your damage output. These debuffs work hand in hand to significantly boost your overall damage against any enemy, and using champions who can apply both, such as Lydia, can free up additional team slots for other roles in your lineup.