More tips and tricks, Raiding edition.

god.of.bananas

Aug 5, 22

Honestly any blog i make at this point i might as well name a tips and tricks,
Well nonetheless im on the keyboard again with another blog slash guide for raiding.
Im gonna assume that you know what a raid is but in case you dont lemme give a quick summary:
A raid boss is a souped up team of cards with substantially higher level count and stats. The enemy team consists of cards avaivable from the dex [except events] and beating these raids provides a small chance to obtain those cards with varying levels of ranks. 
Why do we do raids? Because its a fast way to not only make money but to also obtain cards that we can build and eventually use in raids as well. 
Symbiosis mutualism and all that fancy stuff yknow
We already have a raid guide so im not going to explain how to, but rather what to raid because apparently thats a big problem new players are dealing with so, here we go:
 
4/28/2022 [Writing the date of this blog here just incase we get more cards or another big game changing update]
1. Raid what you can
I cant believe i need to write this down on a official blog but PLEASE, do raids that you can handle. As teasing as some of the better cards can be if you cant handle them youll just end up being stuck in a 3 hour raid, and before you hit me with the "i can just borrow cards from someone", in that case i can point a gun to my head cause im going to die one day anyways. Just cause you can, doesnt mean you should. 

Its a different story when someone offers to carry you however, but still i recommend doing something realistically doable with your current inventory as itll build a better foundation for you working in future raids. If you always rely on someone else to raid youll never graduate from being a rookie. Build your own cards, learn how to deal with specific abilities, L E A R N .
 
2. Certain abilities to aim for
Now with that out of the way, lets talk about what you should prioritize when raiding. The meta in izzi changes a lot especially with the constant addition of new cards from the higher ups. Your main target for raids should be cards that you can use to do more raids. 
REVITALIZE
GUARDIAN
BERSERK
HARBINGER OF DEATH
DOMINATOR
FIGHTING SPIRIT
SLEEP
PREDATOR
This is not a objective list but these are some abilities that are often in demand and realistically doable given the right cards and circumstance. Getting a divine or higher drop from these raids can be a great source of money via selling or a great source of usage when built.
"bUT naNA, tHeReS sO mANy cARdS wItH tHOsE aBiLItiES, hOw dO I KNoW wHiCH oNEs tO Do?2?" 
I, on god cannot give a "objective" list of what cards to raid since what you should raid changes based on what you need. If theres a Aqua raid and a Raphtalia raid that both arent empty, how would you decide which one to join? Obviously its based off what you need more, if youre building either one obviously you should go with the one that can help you speed up your building process. There is no correct answer to the question "what should i raid" because what you should raid changes all the time, but we as humans can try. Ive compiled a small list of cards that at the very least are worth building. No, this is not a objective list. No, this is not a 100% accurate list. No, this is not a absolute order to only raid these cards. Refer back to point one and keep in mind what you need / are building.
Harbinger of death: Literally anyone theyre all good money and good cards when they drop but also please remember that harbinger raids are not easy. 
Fighting Spirit: Toshirou Hijikata, Flandre Scarlet, Annie Leonhart 
Dominator: Giyuu Tomioka, Tobio Kageyama, Lamperouge whatever the hell the rest of his name is, Mocha Hoto, Guy Crimson, Nodoka Tohoyama, Chifuyu Matsuno, Yuuta Okkotsu

Berserk: Raphtalia, Inosuke Haibara, Natsu Dragneel, Tengen Uzui
Revitalize: Shuna, Yotsuba Nakano, Ichika Nakano, Dio Brando, Ririka Momobami, Kaho Hinata, Rei Wakana, Amano Yukiteru
Guardian: Aqua, Venti, Mitsuki Nase
Predator: Shu Ouma, Sayori, Himura Kenshin, Medusa Rider, Angelina Kudou Shields
Sleep: Nozomi Tojou, Accelerator, Mayumi Saegusa, Chloe d'Apchier, Ishigami Yuu, Rin Matsuoka
I am defintely missing a lot of cards but these are the ones that i feel are worth mentioning. Again and i mean this, AGAIN please dont think of this list as objective or true. You can raid whatever you want if its of any value to you, this is simply to guide you towards a direction so you can understand better what raids are more worth doing than others.

An example of a raid thats worth doing, you have a chance to get good drops in Lamperouge and the other 2 cards are not as much of a threat to the point where this raid becomes impossible, these are the types of raids you want to do.
 
3. What not to raid
And now we talk on what to avoid. Realistically speaking any raid is doable given the correct cards, its just that these raids are harder than others due to many different factors.

ELECTROCUTE
RESTRICTION
EVASION
MISDIRECTION
TIME BOMB
TORNADO
Theyre doable raids, but in the context of a rookie or someone who hasnt had a absolutely stacked inventory, these raids can prove to be quite a challenge to finish, especially when combined with abilities that can expand the dangers of these abilities [i.e: Double electrocute or harbinger with evasion]. 
Also this isnt a "DONT DO THESE RAIDS AT ALL OR YOU WILL BE SENT TO THE SHADOW REALM" type list yknow, these are just some of the toughest to raid abilities in my humble opinion. 

An example of a hard raid, avoid stuff like this if you dont have the appropiate cards to deal with this six heroes level threat. 
 
4. What do i use to do raids
Generally speaking theres 2 types of compositions of teams for raids, both splitting into many sub-genres of teams. The first are Harbinger teams, swear on god this ability is so stupid you can run almost anything with it. The main 2 cards you need for this composition are  REVITALIZE AND HARBINGER. "But nana-" i hear you say, yes theres room for a third card on a team. So whats the third card? Well this is where the sub-genre term from earlier kicks into gear. Because of how dummy busted stupid broken op harbinger is there are 5 mainstream team branches for this composition, those being PREDATOR, DRAGON RAGE, BERSERK, SLEEP, PRECISION. Each one of these have their own pros and cons.

Example of a harbigner team:
 
Predator is generally one of the more safer options to use, it triggers every 2 turns and gives a significant boost to either attack or defense. The downside of this ability however is the randomized factor. Having 2 turns of cool down per trigger you ideally want this ability to always give attack, but given how lady luck flips the bird on us sometimes you can end up rolling defense 5 times back to back.
Dragon rage is the embodiment of glass canon. Hit hard, die harder. It gives a MASSIVE boost to attack at the cost of it cutting down some of your defense, and this cut down is nothing to laugh at. In izzi raid bosses past round 10 the boss enters a state known as rage mode, in this phase the boss increases its attack, defense and crit rate by quite a lot, normally with a good dominator or a harbinger these crits arent a real problem, but due to the dragon rage def cut these crits are going to hit pretty damn hard. Dragon rage is its name and risk-reward is the game.
Berserk is the equivalent of rolling a dice, difference being instead flipping a coin every 2 turns like predator does, youre throwing a dice every turn. The dice roll happens every turn that your hp is below the hp of the raid boss, and knowing how buff raid bossess can be youre almost guarteed to have it activate every turn. Obviously the downside to this is that if predator has a chance to miss-roll every 2 turns, here you can miss-roll EVERY TURN. If you like gambling this is the ability for you.
Sleep is basically you beating the raid boss with a stick and then shooting them with a stun gun. They wont move, but they wont be in as much pain. Its a surefire way to ensure the safety and survival of your team, at the cost of its damage output. People usually use this composition when fighting sleep raids or some absurdly hard hitting abi combo like tornado - balancing strike - elemental strike. 
Precision has the biggest damage potential out of all the abilities, at the cost of being one of the more inconsistent ones. Being one of the few abilities that not only increases critical hit rate but also critical hit damage, precision is a contender for one of the abilities with the biggest potential, the issue is the way critical hits work in izzi. No matter how high you stack your critical hit rate in izzi it will never reach 100%, hard translation of this is that theres no way to guarantee critical hits no matter how hard you try. This certainly punches a big hole in the consistency of this ability, and consistency is certainly something you want when dealing with 3 million hp bossess.
Whatever you choose between the 5, all have their own pro's and con's, theres no objectively best solution to a problem since there are so many variables we can use to tackle said problem, i do however recommend that after choosing one over the other that you start building the rest of the preivously mentioned abilities. The flexibility that having 5 different sub abilities offers is too good to pass out on.
Round 2 baby, its Fighting spirit time. If harbinger is the new meta then FS was the old meta, and to no ones surprise it still works just fine. If harbinger is built on the concept of overpowering the opponent then fighting spirit is built on the concept of your average shonen protagonist who goes through a heartbreaking defeat, narrowly lives, and then runs it back in the most amazing redemption arc known to mankind. If that was too confusing for you, FS is a big comeback mechanic that rewards you for being low on hp, keep this reward for long enough and youll hit hard enough to escape the low hp zone. 
The 2 main cards for this composition are DOMINATOR AND FIGHTING SPIRIT, same like harbinger comps, this team has flexibility, not as much as harbinger teams but enough to warrant using this composition for raids every now and then. The third ability for this team is usually between PRECISION, BERSERK, BONE PLATING AND REVITALIZE. I already explained how berserk and precision work in raid teams above, so ill only go indepth for Revitalize and Bone Plating.

Example of a Fighting spirit team: 
 
Bone Plating is you basically wearing a another layer of defense onto your cards. Every 3 turns you activate a 2 turn defense barrier that cuts 32% of all damage taken. Its a super bulky ability and when put together with the fast activation cycle of dominator you have yourself a very long lasting team, the issue is that Fighting Spirit rewards bold play and playing your life till the red zone. The longer you can stay low the better, and with the tankiness of bone plating sometimes that can be quite hard to achieve. Bone plating is usually used in raids that hit too hard to survive with berserk or precision.
Revitalize is everything and then some. It heals you AND increases your atk stat by a hefty amount. If bone plating is used for raids that hit too hard then revitalize is used for raids that are designed to kill you. While it goes against the idea of "playing your life" that fighting spirit is built on, it offers much survivability in just straight up healing you while also increasing attack meaning that this ability still has usage in late game rounds [10-15] unlike bone plating does. 
There are more options than the ones i mentioned, but i chose not to include them since they arent as wide spread as the ones above, however dont be afraid to experiment and most importantly have fun, the meta is a guide not a obligation after all.
 
5. To solo, or not to solo?
That is indeed the question. Izzi is a bot where you can literally say screw and and solo some of these raid bosses [granted all your cards are at ultimate rank]. So whats more preffered? Unleashing the incarnation of that elden rings meme and scream "LET ME SOLO HER", or banding together with other players in a naruto style shinobi war to beat up 3 cards? Well it depends. Its been confirmed by the developer of the bot that SOLOING HAS LOWER CHANCES FOR DROPS THAN DOING MULTIMAN RAIDS. This splits your choices into 2 camps, if you prioritze drops above all then joining with others is the logical choice, if you prioritize the gold drop before the cards then soloing is for you. Do what must be done accordingly to your needs and conditions.
 
 
Thats a general oversight of what i believe you need to know about raiding. Theres another raid blog made by my good friend pareo that explains how the elemental system works in higher detail, i recommend you read that blog as well so you know almost everything there is to know about this challenging type of battle. 
If you have anymore questions feel free to come by izzi-game-1 and asking, if thats too intimidating you can also drop your questions in... well the questions channel, youre surefire going to get a answer there. Lastly if you wanna ask questions to me or get answers more directly i suggest you swing by the new loaning-service-guild-advertisements channel, and look for the "Hetroix" server. I help out personally in that server so if you want to ask me questions in a more private place you know where to find me. 
Thats all for todays blog, sorry its a bit long but theres just so much information to include with this one. Please look forward to more future blogs [or maybe even video content], thats all from your local banana god
good luck, have fun, and stay epic everyone