So, the time came to me, and the wheel started spinning praying for Kael to appear but no Athel, the mighty swordswomen showed up and my destiny was sealed. Lockers and my new best friend Athel were about to start the 2023 F2P series together and fight side by side to complete Raid Shadow Legends.

Here’s my adventure, thoughts, and feelings about our triumphs and downfalls!

Strike Down [ATK] Attacks 1 enemy 3 times. Has a 75% chance of placing a 25% Weaken debuff for 2 turns on the last hit.
Level 2: Damage +5%
Level 3: Buff/Debuff Chance +5%
Level 4: Damage +5%
Level 5: Buff/Debuff Chance +10%
Level 6: Damage +5%
Level 7: Damage +5%
Level 8: Buff/Debuff Chance +10%

Divine Blades [ATK] – 3 Turn Cooldown
Attacks all enemies. Has an extra 15% chance of inflicting a critical hit.
Level 2: Damage +5%
Level 3: Damage +5%
Level 4: Damage +5%
Level 5: Damage +10%

Higher Blessing – 5 Turn Cooldown
Places a 25% Increase ATK buff on this champion for 2 turns. Places a 30% Increase DEF buff on this champion for 2 turns if this champion’s current HP is less than 50%. Gains an extra Turn.
Level 2: Cooldown -1

Now Athel has a nice AOE ability as does the rest of the starters however with her a3 she can put a self Increase ATK buff on herself and then gain an extra turn so she nukes the enemies in her path but there is a slight flaw to this plan. You have to wait again before you can do this nuke again, so in the early stages it’s a 3-turn cooldown which is a long rotation if you are trying to speed farm in the campaign. This felt like an eternity when you are trying to speed run campaign to get to 12-6 or push onto the next difficulty of campaign.

This is where she struggled because, for the longest time, I couldn’t get past stage 11-7 because the dragon boss would just kill her and I couldn’t find a way to counter this without getting some levels so I had to go down a few stages to find an easy farming place to get some levels so I could level Athel up and she could compete again to keep on progressing.

Campaign is her downfall because not only this her animation speeds feel 8000x slower than any other champion. After she gets masteries that allowed an ability cooldown it did pick up and she is currently my 12-3/6 campaign farmer. But it takes some levelling and time to get her to this state. RNG determines how fast my time will be as it could be 15 secs or i could be 39secs it really all depends on 0n if the stars lined up on this run.

Dungeons are similar to campaign in most instances because I didn’t bother with them unless they were apart of the missions so lower levels will have been done but I haven’t pushed on to see the full potential of Athel but I think I know how the outcome will go. She’ll do fine till stage 10 in most of them then fall off drastically and be of no use in them other than a supporting carry. Because she brings a weaken but that is the only debuff she has and it doesn’t really help the dungeon runs.

She does perform well in Fire Knight with her triple hit a1 and you do notice this is the easier dungeon for me to run however I do have champs that will help alongside her.

Athel does ok in the arena probably better than Kael but only because she has the increase ATK then extra turn. If she just had a normal skill with no self buff she wouldn’t one-shot as much. However, I do run Ronda with Athel as a secondary damage dealer because I’m never confident that she’ll do the job by herself and it is noticeable that she’ll often not one-shot the enemy carries.

I have pushed into Gold Arena with Athel as my primary carry but I do notice that I’m not winning many fights whilst up there so gold may be the place that she starts to fall off.

Now this is where we start to fall off from the other starters, Athel brings a weaken however it is overshadowed by everything else that Kael can bring, and as soon as I have 5x level 60s with masteries that actually have a purpose in Clan Boss, she will be finding himself quickly benched, whereas Kael has the longevity of providing invaluable poisons. The Giant slayer mastery is some saving grace but it just doesn’t bring that power of the poisons.

Building any of the starting Champions at the start of Raid is fairly identical, as you will always want to use the Lifesteal gear that you are provided in the first 7 days, paired with typically the Divine Life weapon and Shield that you acquire from Campaign.

This will greatly enhance your survival potential and allow you to blast your way through the campaign and be able to farm your food more efficiently, and faster.

Once you are level 60, with masteries, there is a much smaller need for the divine life, so you can begin changing up your build whilst maintaining the Life Steal gear. And this is the part where I need to change up my Athel to bring some more raw power but luckily for me, there is a silver reducing event on this weekend of this article so I shall be changing it then.

You can build Athel with some Accuracy to land the weaken however it is so pointless so just try to max out Crit and land as much damage as she can muster.

There is a noticeable difference when picking Athel and personally, I wouldn’t choose her again unless the wheel decided to hate me that day! But it was good for me to see how the other champions progress differently in the game and she does have some good qualities but is definitely outshone by the other starter champions (other than Galek)

Now of course, I will have to make this work, but my advice for any new players beginning the game is to not follow suit, and pick the BEST starting Champion, which I stand by the opinion of Kael, with Elhain as a second choice option.