Esme the Dancer

Last Updated: February 11, 2025

Esme the Dancer Overview

If you enjoyed Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame when you were a child, then you are in luck–Esme the Dancer is the new fusion for February 2025 in Raid: Shadow Legends and she and her partner champion, Modo of the Peal, aren’t keeping any secrets about where their inspiration is drawn from!

Esme brings a large amount of buffs and debuffs in her kit, which will work particularly well against the Hydra and Chimera bosses [and help complete multiple Chimera trials in particular]. Think of her as the Weaken version of Uugo–with a bunch of extras on top. Her ability to boost your highest ATK champion’s turn meter by 50% every turn is very strong if you build around it: consider using a Provoke set for waves to direct more attacks towards her, or use her against enemies with frequent AOE attacks. One weakness is that her buffs don’t have the best uptime, so consider running a Buff Extension champion alongside her for better coverage.

New Faction Wars content has been teased by the devs, and Esme is likely to excel there thanks to having two ways to deal with buffs on the enemy team [either by blocking them with her A2 or removing them with her A3] and decent Turn Meter control.

Pairing her up with her partner champion, Modo of the Peal, might be a challenge in faction restricted content since he is from the Ogryn Tribes. Luckily, [or unluckily, depending on your perspective] Esme does not gain any massive benefits from this pairing; they’re all nice improvements to her abilities but none of them feel essential. Modo benefits more from her than she does from him.

Esme the Dancer Ratings

Key Areas

Dungeons

Hard Mode

Doom Tower

Faction Wars

Arena Roles

Understanding Arena Roles

Champions normally form specific roles within an arena team. Our ratings define the roles that the champion fits and rates them on their ability to perform the roles. Below you can see a breakdown of all of our roles.

Cleanser

Champions with the Cleanser role will use their skills to remove debuffs and keep them from being re-applied.

Crowd Control

Champions with the Crowd Control role will use their skills to place soft (i.e. Provoke or Taunt) and hard (i.e Freeze or Stun) debuffs to disable enemy champions.

Damage

Champions with the Damage role will have skills that deal significant damage and are designed to defeat enemy champions.

Damage Absorption

Champions with the Damage Absorption role will have skills or effects that reduce the incoming damage your team takes. This can be through passive damage reduction or by applying skills such as Strengthen or Shields.

Healer

Champions with the Healer role will have skills that restore your champion's Health including Continuous Heals.

Debuffer

Champions with the Debuffer role will have skills that place debuffs that don't fall into Crowd Control or Skill Manipulator roles i.e. Decrease Defence. These champions may also have skills that remove Buffs.

Revive

Champions with the Revive role will have skills that bring your ally champions back from the dead including Revive on Death buffs.

Skill Manipulator

Champions with the Skill Manipulator role will have skills that increase enemy skill cooldowns or reduce your ally skill cooldowns.

Speed Manipulator

Champions with the Speed Manipulator role will have skills that affect the turn meter of your allies or enemies. This includes speed buffs and debuffs aswell as direct turn meter effects.