Your first week in Raid: what to build and what to ignore
The first week decides more than the next month does. Nothing here is permanent, but the resources you spend now are the ones you have least of, and the two common mistakes are both irreversible in practice.
Here's the plan, in the order it matters.
The mistake that costs the most
Spreading thin.
A new account gets a stream of champions and every one of them looks like it might be useful. So people level fifteen of them halfway and end up with fifteen champions that can't clear anything. Food is finite, silver is finite, and both went into a roster that does nothing.
Four or five champions, built properly, beat fifteen built halfway. That isn't a preference, it's arithmetic. Content checks whether a team clears, not how many champions you own.
If you take one thing away, take that. It's also why so many new players conclude the game is pay-to-win in week two. A diluted roster fails content that a focused free roster clears, and from the inside that difference looks like money.
Day-by-day
Day 1 — setup. Create the account, redeem the starter code first, then do everything else. There's a 24-hour cooldown on promo codes of any kind, and it eats the starter code if you spend the window on something generic. The full trap is in starter champion codes.
Days 2–3 — pick your five. Your starter legendary, a healer, something with area damage, and whatever your campaign clear needs. Level those and nothing else. Ignore the sunk-cost pull of champions you already fed into.
Days 4–5 — farm campaign. Unglamorous, and it's what funds the rest of the account. Find the highest stage your team clears on auto reliably and run it. Reliability beats stage number: a stage you clear 100% of the time out-earns one you clear 70% of the time.
Days 6–7 — gear and speed. Stop chasing rarity. A four-star piece with the right substats beats a five-star with the wrong ones, and speed is the stat that decides whether your team acts before the enemy does. This is where the game stops being about what you own.
What to ignore in week one
Gem pulls
SkipGems buy mastery scrolls and inventory space, which you'll need before you need another legendary
Arena
SkipRewards are real, but the roster requirement isn't week-one territory
Rank-up food hoarding
SkipFeed it. Champions sitting in your vault do nothing for you
Every event at once
SkipEvents are designed to overlap and pull you in every direction. Pick one
Upgrading gear past +8 early
SkipThe silver cost compounds and you'll replace the piece anyway
The resource rules that stay true
Silver is your real bottleneck
RuleNot energy and not gems. Every gear swap has a fee, so experimentation is a running tax. Decide before you upgrade, not after.
Energy refills are worth more during 2x campaign events
Rule...than on a normal Tuesday. Wait.
Never feed a champion you haven't checked twice.
RuleAscension food and rank-up food aren't the same pool of regret.
Masteries before more champions.
RuleA mastered champion outperforms a second unmastered one at the same investment.
Where PC actually changes the plan
Every step above is limited by one thing: how many runs you get through in a day. That's the resource a free account trades for money, and it's the one the mobile build caps twice. Once with the daily multi-battle limit, and again when the phone heats up and throttles.
The Windows client removes both. Same account, same roster, same drop rates, but the farming days in the middle of this plan compress, and windowed play means the campaign grind runs on a second monitor while you do something else. What Plarium Play is and what it needs.
Get the Windows client
Goes to Plarium's own site. We don't host the file and we don't ask for your email.
Play on PCAfter week one
The account stops being fragile around the time you have one properly geared team that clears campaign on auto. From there it's a question of whether the underlying game is your kind of puzzle, and whether the parts money does win matter to you. That argument, with the numbers, is here: is Raid pay-to-win?
For the map of everything else, start from the Raid on PC guide.
Frequently asked questions
How many champions should I level in week one?
Four or five, properly. Not fifteen badly. A half-built roster is the single most common reason new players conclude the game is unfair.
What should I farm first?
Campaign, on the highest stage you can clear reliably with auto-battle. It funds everything else, and it's where the daily run cap on mobile hurts most.
Should I use my gems on anything in week one?
Keep them. The pull is tempting, but mastery scrolls and inventory slots are worth more to an account that can't yet use a legendary properly.
When do I start caring about speed tuning?
Earlier than you think. It's free, it decides most content, and it's the skill most spenders never learn.
Is it too late to start in 2026?
No. The game isn't competitive against veterans outside ranked PvP, and everything else scales to your own account.
