Hansel and Gretel – Champion Spotlights

Gretel Hagsbane is the new Halloween Fusion for 2024 in Raid: Shadow Legends and was available to earn starting on the 31^st of October. Check out our Gretel Fusion Guide which will walk you through every event you need to do each day to complete this fusion!

In this guide we’ll be breaking down whether Gretel is any good, whether she needs her partner champion, Hansel Witchhunter, how to build her, and more!

Let us know what you think about her in the comment section below and if you will be completing her fusion or not!

Gretel Hagbane is a straightforward Force Affinity damage dealer who gets a lot stronger when paired up with her partner champion, Hansel Witchhunter.

Her A1 is a single hit with a 75% chance (when booked) to place Decrease Defence. With Hansel, this becomes an AoE attack, though the chance to place Decrease Defence drops to 50%. This also places an extra hit against enemies under any buffs. This is a decent A1 without Hansel and a very strong A1 when paired up with him, particularly with Ally Attack champions. (She has short cooldowns on her other moves, so she won’t use her A1 much otherwise.)

Her A2 is a 4-hit attack which scales up in Ignore Defence with each hit… In short, this attack hits very hard! This will delete most enemies in the arena and is even useful in breaking Fire Knight shields. If Gretel kills an enemy with this attack, she will reset its cooldown and fill her Turn Meter by 50% which can be extremely powerful. This ability does not change with Hansel on the team.

Her A3 is an AoE attack which decreases enemy Turn Meter by 25% and boosts Gretel’s Turn Meter by 20% for each enemy alive after it. With Hansel, the Turn Meter decrease doubles to 50% and cannot be resisted. This attack does decent damage and has strong AoE turn meter control when paired with Hansel.

Her passive is useful against Mythical champions, since it fills Gretel’s Turn Meter by 50% whenever an enemy is granted an Extra Turn (and Mythicals get Extra Turns when they Metamorph.) When Hansel is on the same team, he also gains this Turn Meter, and Gretel will get a free instant use of her A3 attack when Hansel dies (with its own separate 3-turn cooldown.)

This is a decent passive and can be very punishing against enemy AI defences in arena who might kill Hansel and trigger Gretel’s attack at a good time for you.

Finally, her 30% Attack in All Battles aura is very useful, though you will likely prefer a Speed Aura for arena.

Unfortunately, Gretel is an average legendary damage dealer without Hansel alongside her. She’s not a bad champion, but she’s nothing special. An early game player might find her useful for Arena, Fire Knight, or Faction Wars, but a later game player is unlikely to have any use for her solo.

When paired up with Hansel, Gretel becomes a much better champion against wave-based content due to her Turn Meter control and AoE default attack. This also opens up a Blender Team composition, which is a team that uses Ally Attack champions with AoE default attacks to deal huge bursts of AoE damage to enemies.

In Nub’s testing he found them to be underwhelming against Hydra, but surprisingly strong as an arena duo in a Blender Team.

Although the Gretel fusion has begun, there is no information yet about any special events to earn Hansel. There is a lot of speculation that there could be a guaranteed champion event for Hansel after the Gretel fusion ends–but this is only speculation for now.

Regardless of any events which may or may not happen, Hansel will always be a potential pull from your ancient, sacred, or primal shards.

The key stats to look for on Gretel are:

1. Crit Rate to 100%
2. Attack
3. Crit Damage
4. Speed
5. Accuracy

Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and Attack are all needed to make Gretel deal damage and should be pushed as high as possible; Speed is useful to complement her turn meter boosting abilities so you should aim for around 170 for an early-game player, 200 for a mid-game player, and 230 for a late-game player; Accuracy is needed to land her Decrease Defence debuff and turn meter reduction which are nice bonuses, so you might aim for around 200 accuracy.

The recommended sets for Gretel are:

1. Merciless
2. Lethal
3. Savage
4. Cruel
5. Perception

These sets all provide the stats that Gretel wants—Ignore Defence in particular, which is the best stat for almost every damage dealer in the game. Due to the inherent Ignore Defence on her A2 attack, any extra Ignore Defence will provide even higher damage scaling for Gretel with that ability.

For arena, you might also consider a 4-piece Stoneskin set if the enemy team will go first.

Hansel wants the exact same stats and gear as Gretel, so follow the same guidelines as above.

Note that, generally, Gretel should be faster than Hansel and should be placed ahead of him in the team order, so that she will place her Decrease Defence debuff with her A1 before Hansel to enable him to double hit with his A1 against debuffed enemies.

For an arena team, Nub prefers to build Hansel in Stoneskin but not Gretel; that way, if the enemy goes first, they will kill Gretel and trigger Hansel’s passive which will lock out their champions and potentially let you make a comeback in the fight.

It is very likely that there will be events after the Gretel fusion that will give you a chance to earn a 5-star soul for her—possibly the same events could unlock Hansel and a 5-star soul for him as well. Stay tuned here on Hellhades.com for full details if/when these events are announced.

For Gretel, Nature’s Wrath is her best general damage blessing, though she requires landing Decrease Defence with her A1 to stack it. Phantom Touch is a viable alternative that is easier to use, and which is particularly good in shorter or single target fights. At 6 stars, Crushing Rend is a good option against high level Hydra, though it is weaker elsewhere.

Hansel should use the same blessings as Gretel.

With 5 or 6 star blessings on both champions, Cracking Roots is a potential niche option as well, since this will make their blender team more effective against enemies in Stoneskin.

This is a difficult question to answer, since a lot of Gretel’s power comes from her partnership with Hansel, and we don’t know if there will be events to earn Hansel or how hard they might be.

If you have a LOT of resources saved up, then a 5-star Hansel and Gretel duo could be useful in the arena for you, and potentially even force bans in Live Arena. The big question here is the cost of getting them both, and whether you have enough gear to do them both justice.

If you’re doubtful about ever getting Hansel, then Gretel is a decent damage dealer, but she doesn’t stand out from the crowd like Thor did just a couple of months ago. On the other hand, if you do ever pull Hansel in the future, then you might wish that you had done the Gretel fusion when you had the chance…