What is Live Arena in RAID Shadow Legends?

The Live Arena has officially launched in RAID: Shadow Legends across all accounts, after an extended Testing period last week where select accounts were able to compete and enjoy early access to the player vs player game mode.

With the official launch now behind us, we can take the time to truly dive into this game mode and help explain to everybody how best to approach it, but before approaching it and diving in deep, it’s quite important to understand what it actually is, and especially… how it works!

First of all, to be able to compete in the Live Arena player’s accounts must be at least level 50, which will unlock the ability to get involved, you can find the Live Arena through the Arena Button in-game.

Live Arena is not active at all times, in-fact you can only play it through 2-hour long windows which occur four times per day, at specific times, listed below in UTC

• 00:00 – 02:00
• 06:00 – 08:00
• 14:00 – 16:00
• 20:00 – 22:00

So now we’ve covered HOW to get involved in Live Arena, it’s time to begin tackling the question of what is actually is, and how it works

The short of it is, it’s another Player vs Player mode where we can fight against our fellow players, but instead of fighting against their Pre-set Defenses controlled by the AI, we’re fighting against them in real-time as they make their own decisions for how their team will react to yours.

This new game mode offers a new level of competition, where it comes down to your skills and decision-making against your opponent, whilst alongside earning bragging rights, you can earn many rewards including a brand new, exclusive Legendary Champion – Quintus the Triumphant.

To ensure a fair and balanced gameplay experience, the Live Arena uses a matchmaking system that pairs players with opponents of similar skill levels, so once things settle down you shouldn’t find yourself being matched with massively superior opponents, instead fighting what the game considers equal competition.

Throughout your progress in Live Arena, you’ll be picking up Arena chests that contain 2 brand new artifact sets, and Live Arena Crests which can be used to upgrade your Area Bonuses, which work similarly to what we used to know as the Great Hall (now goes by Affinity Bonuses) where you can inflate specific Stats of your whole roster by upgrading it, however, this new Area Bonuses will target Specific Areas of the game rather than each individual Affinity.

You can upgrade the following stats:

• HP
• ATK
• DEF
• Ignore DEF
• SPD
• C.DMG
• RES
• ACC

These can each be upgraded in the following areas:

• Potion Keeps
• Ice Golem’s Peak
• Fire Knight’s Castle
• Dragon’s Lair
• Spider’s Den
• Hydra Battles
• Demon Lord Battles

There are several steps to each Live Arena Battle, and many matches of Live Arena will come down to your decision-making in these steps.

• Initiating a Battle: To initiate a Live Arena battle, players need to use a Live Arena token. Players can have a maximum of five tokens at any given time, and they can purchase a refill with gems if they run out. Each new refill will cost more than the last one, though both the refill price and the default Live Arena tokens reset each day at midnight UTC.
• Picking Champions: Once a player initiates a battle, the game will find a worthy combatant of a similar skill level within the player’s current Live Arena tier. During the first phase of the battle, players pick their champions. A coin flip decides who picks first, and then each player takes a turn picking champions from their roster. Both players go back and forth until they both have a team of five.
• Ban Phase: After both players have selected 5 Champions each, both players get to ban a single champion from the opposing team, you may choose to ban the opponent’s speed lead, or potential win condition by taking out their core source of damage, the choice is all yours!
• Team Leader Selection: After the teams are locked in, each player selects their team leader. The team leader’s Aura skill will empower the rest of the player’s champions, so players need to choose carefully.
• Battle Time: Once the teams are set, it’s time to battle. There is no mechanical difference between Live Arena and Classic Arena battles. The turn order of champions is determined by their speed stat, and each champion takes a turn and uses skills like they always do. However, since players are now fighting a real human instead of an AI, they need to be prepared for anything.
• Time Limits: There are time limits for each phase of the battle. Players have 15 seconds to make their skill choices, and if they don’t decide in time, the game will fail to take their turn three times in a row, and they’ll go into auto-battle mode until they assume direct control. There’s also an overall time limit for every battle, and if players fail to finish within 30 minutes, both players will be credited with a loss.

Overall, Live Arena provides a new level of excitement and challenge for Raid: Shadow Legends players who enjoy PVP battles.
By choosing their champions carefully, making strategic decisions during the battle, and managing their time effectively.

Good Luck in live arena we are rooting for you all!