General[]
Area Raid (hereafter referred to simply as raid) is a new game mode able to be accessed at mercenary group level 10. Similar to to the now closed Tower in which a large team, including the Main Character (MC), take on a larger boss. However, beating the boss is, at least in part, a group effort. According to the developers, there are no shortcuts or easy wins in this mode and this is designed to be extremely difficult. New players without diversity or powerful units will struggle tremendously.
On December 13th, 2019, Area raid opened for the first time. Despite the replacement to the, now closed, tower game mode, this version does not require stamina and is only available every 2 months. It is a new co-op game mode in which players bring teams of up to 10 units (including the MC) and take on a huge non-mobile and incredibly powerful elemental boss for 7 days starting at 7 pm JST after the update. Please note that all the information on this based on only the first few raid bosses and is subject to change in the future.
Basics[]
In raid, you bring a team of 10 attack units (including the mc) and 4 support/sub units in order to attack a raid boss and do as much damage as possible in 2 minutes. The amount of damage you do is converted into contribution points. The top 20 players worldwide with the most contribution points are displayed. It is unknown how exactly this conversion takes place. The damage you do also gets converted into raid medals which can be exchanged for luxury rewards in the special raid shop.
Team[]
You can bring up to 14 units, 10 for attacking and 4 for support. They are placed in a 3 x 7 wide tilebox and can be moved to anyone of the 21 attack tiles instantly as opposed to other modes in which they move one square at a time from the center of a + pattern. The 4 support units cannot be moved and do not appear in battle. Just like the tower, duplicates may not be used in the same formation. unlike the tower however, no matter where a unit is positioned, it can reach the boss with it's attack no matter the range. This includes AoE attacks that hit multiple targets.
The attack units are used to deal damage to the boss and must include the MC. When one of these units dies, a red "x" appears on them in the edit troops menu and they can no longer be used in a team until the day resets at 5 am JST. If the MC dies, the battle continues but the support units are no longer useable for the rest of the day. They must be replaced or removed to continue until the day resets at 5 am JST.
The support units, as their name implies, give support. The support given is only to the MC, though. The MC receives a stat boost which is based on a percentage of the stats of the support units. The stats do not include their awakening or equipment. however, it does include the bonus stats of enhance units.
Some units get stat bonuses depending on the boss. These are called enhance units. Usually, it will contain a dozen or so staff selected units as well as class of units: demihuman, human, and monster. The race cycles every raid in that order starting with demihuman receiving unanimously receiving bonus stats in the very first raid along with a few hand picked units from the staff. The units are usually helpful and are able to resist the boss and do not necessarily have to fall into that raid's particular class.
Even though official twitter and facebook obtained promotional material claimed unique skills would be functional in raid, they did not work in actual battle at the time raid was introduced. This was fixed with the release of the second raid. These are one of the major things to consider when selecting units to add to your raid team.
Advanced Team Mechanics[]
The boss doesn't move but AoE attacks are still effective no matter where you place your units. However, AoE attacks get weaker the further out from the center they are. For example, if an AoE attack has + pattern, the center tile will deal full damage but each subsequent tile outside of it will deal markedly less damage.
Note that if you restart your game too any times, your entire team will be rendered unable to battle for the rest of the day. Therefore it is advisable use the practice mode to ensure that your team wont is able to survive the 2 minute. Remember that you dont get any rewards during practice mode and any damage you inflict is not actually done to the boss. see practice mode below for more details.
Missions[]
There are missions that can be completed in raid much like the regular mission accessed through the home screen. There are both weekly missions which last the entire duration of the raid and daily missions which reset at 5am JST, the same time normal missions.
Missions can also be categorized by solo and cooperative. Solo missions encourage a certain number of contribution points and challenges while co-op missions ask for the boss to reach a certain level. These missions will usually give crystals or raid medals as a reward. Please note that the co-op and solo missions are not separated in the missions tab of the area raid. Instead they are all together. However, generally, the missions will be listed in order of solo daily, then solo weekly, then co-op (all of which are weekly). Also, you must claim the reward before the day or week resets so as not to lose your reward.
Below is a list of all the missions during raid week:
Daily Missions 
Weekly Missions Co-op Missions
Rewards[]
The main reward in raid is the raid medal. These can be used to purchase rewards in the raid shop. 150 raid medals are given for every boss defeated as a group after level 40 (300 before) and 1 for every 1,000 damage dealt to the boss on your own at level 40. The ratio worsens the lower the level. These rewards will not be collected unless you press the shaking purple chest on the main raid screen to accept the rewards. Of note, the raid chest does not appear until after the boss has been defeated. After that, all medals earned up to the point it was defeated may be gained but medal earned between this defeat and the next are not earned until the boss's health gores back to 0. Anything earned after that cannot be gained until the boss is defeated again. Raid medals can also be gained from raid missions detail above. Remember that raid medals disappear when the next raid begins.
1 crystal is rewarded for every time the boss levels up, however, when the boss stays the same level, 3 hunter proof are rewarded for every time boss was defeated. Remember that 40 is the highest level the boss can go. After that, it simply stays at 40 until the week is over.
Another important reward is the title gained for earning a certain number of contribution points. This replaces the, since removed, tower titles.
Raid Titles[]
Raid titles give the MC bonuses just like the tower titles used to and the great war titles currently do. The raid title is reset at the beginning of every raid and lasts until the next raid. That means that during raid, the titles don't apply. The raid titles are detailed below.
Scoring and Score Board[]
Contribution points are given for the amount of damage done to the raid boss. The higher the boss's level, the more contribution points you get per damage dealt. The 20 players with the most contribution points are displayed on the leaderboard until the next raid begins. There is no other use for getting more contribution points than necessary for titles besides flexing on everyone else if you manage to make it to the top 20. What is really important is the damage you do to the boss in order to gain more raid medals.
Raid Medal Shop[]
The raid medal shop is where you can spend your hard earned medals. There are 4 sections from which materials can be purchased:
- Materials - In this section, you will find materials you can find normally in the Royal Capital Shop like elemental stones and books as well as limited items like awakening elixirs. Click here for a full list:
- Equipment - Here is where you will find exclusive raid equipment. Instead of being targeted to a specific unit, they are at one of the 6 specific types of units: warrior, soldier, long ranger, mage, enhancer, and healer. For more information on specific equipment, see the Raid Equipment section under the Raid Exclusive Rewards section below. For Pricing schemes, click here:
- Others - This is where you will find super luxury items like tickets and potions. Click here for a full list:
- Octagram - This is a material released with each raid boss element. Unlike the equipment, all the previous versions of these are available each raid. Click here for pricing schemes:
- Please note that the raid shop resets every time a raid is released so you have until then to spend your medals.
Raid Exclusive Rewards[]
There are rewards that can only be obtain from raid and nowhere else. These rewards are quite expensive but are certainly worth the investment most of the time. The raid exclusive octagram materials and raid equipment are very versatile and powerful items that can greatly strengthen your hunt team but also your raid and great war teams.
Raid Equipment[]
There are 2 equipment released every raid and each are based on the element of the boss they appear besides. They also, unlike most equipment, are not for 1 or a few different units but are instead made for a specific combat class of unit: warrior, soldier, long ranger, mage, enhancer, and healer. 2 of these classes are chosen to be given equipment each raid. See below for a list of raid equipment organized by element and by class:
Octagram[]
Octagram is a material that currently comes in 5 (but eventually 8) different flavors; one for each elemental boss including no element. They can be used to earn special exclusive units, their equipment, and a passive skill.
Each of these cost 5 octagram and only 10 of them are available for purchase each raid, the first 5 for 70,000 medals each and the second 5 for 350,000 medals each. These items reset after and reappear in every raid shop after they are introduced so the only choice you need to make is is which 1 or 2 to use them on first.
Below are the lists of each category of reward the octagrams can grant:
Units Equipment Skills
Bosses and Strategies[]
The boss starts at level 1 and goes all the way to 40 (formerly 41) . The boss has a certain amount of health at each level. Once this bar gets down to 0, the boss levels up getting more strength and more health each time it is reborn. At level 40, it is simply reborn at level 40 over and over with the same health and strength until the raid period is over.
Formerly, the raid boss would go uninterrupted from level 1 to level 40. However, starting from the second raid, the raid boss level is capped for a limited time. Please refer to the table below for more detail on level cap break times. This was likely implemented to give less experience players or players without the right units a chance to earn some rewards.
| Level Cap | Cap Starting time | Cap Ending time |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | Raid opening | Saturday 2 pm JST |
| 30 | Saturday 2 pm JST | Monday 2 pm JST |
| 40 | Monday 2 pm JST | Raid closing |
The boss has a lot of health and as such, the damage done is cumulative and cooperative. Every player in the entire game contributes to the damage done to the boss overall and, as such, the boss levels up for everyone at the same time. If the boss dies while you are in the middle of a battle, you will recieve a "COMBAT VICTORY" notification instead of the usual "TIME'S UP" notification. (Although it doesn't mean much, it is still quite satisfying to see in my personal opinion.)
Boss Mechanics[]
The boss attacks like many other enemies randomly hitting one tile at a time with an elemental attack. However, the boss has 3 different timers that each do different special actions.
- Summoning Feature - A unit will be summoned that appears directly between the boss and the player's units. The player's units will target this until it dies before they target the boss.
- Quick AoE attack - A basic AoE attack like that on any unit or enemy has. It hits multiple tiles around the target tile and usually does a little more damage than the boss's basic attack action.
- Mass AoE attack - This attack is similar to the tower boss attack. When the timer goes off, 9-10 random tiles are selected and have orange timers that start at 10 (based on real time). When they hit 0, an extremely powerful attack targeting the tile is released. (It is recommended to move your units before the timer goes off.)
When the timer goes off for one of these attacks, it will not perform it's basic attack but instead perform the special action that particular timer is associated with. (Fact check) If two timers go to zero at the same time, both actions will be performed simultaneously. Details on what exactly these attacks do are usually in a special announcement on the Area Raid screen.
The attacks and timers are based on the boss's action speed so actspd debuffs will work. It is even possible to freeze the boss's timer altogether. Other stat debuffs will also work. It is high in defense so that is a very good debuff to have on a unit. CC (crowd control) like poison, barrage, and curse do not work. However, "hard CC" like lacerate and burn work just fine.
Practice mode[]
Practice mode is a battle option that you are able to practice fighting the boss without any consequences. Here, the boss is just as strong as it normally is except that the damage you do doesn't count towards your contribution points or raid medals. The bright side is that if one of your units dies, you do not lose it for the day. this is a good place to test your team out before going into an actual battle to see if your team can survive and get a feel for how the boss operates. Its also a great place to try out new teams and formations just incase you are worried that they might not be up to the challenge so that you dont have to worry about losing your units if it doesn't work out.
General Strategies[]
In general, all bosses starting from lv 30 hit so hard that units with low resistance to boss element element will receive max damage (9999), so you either need to bring only fat units (10k+ hp) or units with high resistance or unique skills that give high resistance to raid boss's element.
There are also some general strategies that help with most, if not all, bosses.
| Strategy | Required Units | Optional Units | Specifics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full power onion |  |
    |
Rou is unarguably the best unit in the game and the best unit for raid. He has a huge hit box that has high attack and attacks again on when he crits. All the optional units increase critical rates and attack with their US. This is critical, pun intended.
However, it is important that Rou has a charge attack. Once the charge attack is ready, he will not attack again after crit until the attack is done. Therefore, the most efficient method for large amounts of damage is to have a high enough crit rate that he gets to the charge attack with only one attack. The first 3 optional units are enough but the 4th has an attack that also gives a solid amount of killer damage if the boss is a warrior unit and increases the speed of his attack. |
| Freeze | |
  |
This strategy is all about keeping the boss from attacking thus protecting your units and increases your damage because none of the damage gets redirected towards spawned units. Shooting stars Ramura in green with her equip decreases act spd by 100%. The hit box is 5 squares so that increases the odds of the debuff landing.
Neet Mustaria has the same debuff on green with a 3 square hitbox so adding her keeps up the debuff almost 100% of the stime. Fimbul is a little different. His ability is from his US and takes some time to work so he is best uses in conjuction with one or both of the others or if he can survive for his ability to take effect. It's important to note that his ability only reaches the boss when he is in red. |
Boss Specific Strategies[]
Ziz
White Deer
Leviathan
Kasha
Tempest Dragon 
Epiphany of the Cavern Angel 
Thunderwyrm King 
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