Source
r/DragaliaLost•
Ooidal

Expert Raid Guide for noobs

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Disclaimer: I mean expert difficulty, not that I'm an expert writing the guide -- I'm an Ezelith main, and I run a non mono-water team. Also, I'm probably going to edit this if it ends up becoming useful, so please feel free to share tips/tricks/insight.

Okay. We're all going through growing pains at the moment in terms of mastering the fresh new raid content. I'm writing this in hopes to subdue unwarranted biases, but also to help you scrubs get that expert run down pat so we can all go home with our gold medals.

The non-negotiable:

  1. You shall not run wind units. Don't care how cute Maribelle is. No wind units

  2. You need to bring damage. You're going to be relying on i-frames primarily for defense, so as long as your damage unit can survive more than 1 hit, bring them. (Edit: This point primarily pertains to your backline; your leader should ideally be a water dps, like Lily or Celery) A 2.5k off-color damage dealer > a 1.8k water tank. Fight me.

  3. For the love of god, farm and use the raid event wyrmprint. It contends with 5* print for top damage bolstering in this event (and only in this event). The only exception to this is if your lead needs additional skill gauge fill speed to reliably rotate their skills.

Here are the basic points of the strategy.

  1. Hold your skills and use them to mitigate orange AOE damage on your team. Why is this important? Because losing units means an overall decrease in dps, and as the raid goes on, your windows for outputing dps will get smaller. This is actually the whole crux of the strategy. Everyone losing 2+ units across the board is how you run out of time. What not to do: Blow your skills right off cooldown.

  2. Kill the tail, kill it first and kill it fast. I don't remember the exact sequence, but the boss will go through a single rotation and then start spamming his tail spin if you haven't chopped it off. Why is this bad, you ask? Because with his tail attached, the purple area he hits is huge and, because it's purple, extremely difficult to mitigate using skills. You can use jumps/air skills to mitigate the damage, but that's much too difficult for 95% of the population, assuming they even have an air skill. Once he starts spinning, it's likely already/about to be too late to save the run if you haven't chopped the tail. What not to do: "Oh, 3 people are on the tail, so I'll just get started on this other limb/do body damage."

  3. Destroy more than one volcano, two is usually enough. Don't be that Lily that thinks killing one volcano is enough because that tiny triangle you've created is safe to stand in so your allies are so dumb for getting hit. This is super important because this time you can't just skill i-frame the aoe, and it literally covers the whole map. You're aiming to save your AI, of course, but more importantly, your allies' AI. Generally speaking, if you can get past the first set of volcanoes with minimal casualties, you've secured the win. Bonus tip: You can freeze the volcano to stall it from blowing -- this is useful if you need that extra second or two to destroy it.

If you abide by these guidelines, you will beat expert raids. I've run successful, public, 0 coordination raids multiple times, with all sub-8k might mixed teams. When I first started succeeding, I was running a 6.9k team (3 water lead + Eze). I would generally suggest 7k. I'd believe you if you told me a set of four 6.5k might teams could reliably beat the raid. We're seriously nowhere near a point of difficult where the margins are so thin that you absolutely must run mono-colored optimized teams. Just don't play like an idiot.

Posted Oct 5, 2018, 12:27 AM UTC · edited

16181
TheUndeadFish•

Full 6k teams can beat the raid since they give tons of extra time. The biggest problem is the event is new, and its easy to just get into the habit of mindlessly dpsing the big guy who can't really damage you while the rest of your team handles the mechanics so you aren't punished for ignoring them.

Just a side note on killing the tail, click the health bar to make your AI target it and post to your teammates to target the tail. On volcanoes just pick the volcano nearest to you and kill it, burn everything you have to kill it asap. Once you get to special you will only be killing one anyways to conserve the dps train so if you plan on tackling that get used to only having one dead sooner rather than later.

68
Candy_Warlock•

Clicking the health bar makes the AI target it??? I just did it to send the little prompt to make sure everyone else knew. I would be such a distasterous teammate without reddit

32
CornBreadtm•

Yeah, most people don't know this... At max I see 2 ppl use this function in the raids.

15
Xr0s21•

Thank you for this info!

3
OpalBluewing•

This is great to know, thank you!

1
Kinnakoa•

Upvoted for the health bar tip, kept losing the target mid fight.

15
wagawatommi•

My first time clearing Expert with 3* was with a team of 6k-6.5k teammates with me being the only one at 7.5k.

I was also the only one with 4 water units while the others had one fire and one light or dark on their team.

I was extremely impressed at that run. Too bad there's no commend feature in this game, it might offset the people who only look at might.

9
jacobs0n•

Just a side note on killing the tail, click the health bar to make your AI target it and post to your teammates to target the tail.

that makes my raids 10x easier

7
AnimaLepton•

Especially in this event, might is misleading with Wyrmprints. Still, I sometimes feel like I have to pad my roster with Julietta so that I have enough might for people to go for the raid, even with a full water team that just barely hits 8k with the event Wyrmprints.

2
ZombiePandy•

With all the psa posts, I feel like just the idea of having my AI target something I chose is incredible. Is there a graphical element that tells me it's been targeted?

4
TheUndeadFish•

Yes there is a little tiny marker on it below for what color you are so you can see who is targetting it. If all 4 people are doing it there with be 4 notches on it.

5
bf_paeter•

Please PSA the fact that you can target the tail by clicking on the health bar and sending your AI to attack it. This is very important information and I will immediately put it to use.

4
LadyTerentia•

I had no idea you could make your AIs target something by tapping the enemy's health bar! Thank you for that tip!!

2
Teemberland•

I didn't know clicking the health bar makes your AI teammate target it. Thank you, Sir!!!

2
OoidalOP•

I don't think you need to burn everything on volcanoes asap, that's actually how you end up getting wiped. If you're operating on AI up time. I usually have time for about 1.5 volcanoes, or can solo one in the full time.

edit: I get the one volcanoe approach, but most people don't understand the concept of kiting the boss into a safe zone on a pub which just makes it overall safer to hit 2 volcanoes.

1
chronoreverse•

2 for expert is good. Honestly can do three and have plenty of time to take down the boss. It's Special Extra where you have little time to waste and probably 1 is best and 2 if you're lucky with positioning

6
eXcaliBurst93•

when you keep tapping the tail hp bar to be informant and everyone just keep hitting the body till it dies...lots of ignorant fool in this game sometimes

1
Kirgio•

WHAAAAAT!!! Is that spelled out anywhere in game? Cause that is honestly the best advice I've heard so far about this raid.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
Mechadecimal•

A few other things I have noticed:

  • Just because a unit has high might doesn’t mean it will do damage, for instance your 2.5k might ezelith isn’t going to be doing as much as a 2k water unit so don’t use her as your main character.

  • If your team is 4.5k or less, you shouldn’t be playing on expert. (5k absolute minimum with 3-4 water units and a healer is a general rule of thumb)

  • The boss aggros on the lobby creator first, so they should immediately run clockwise around the boss in order to bring the tail to the rest of the team quickly. (other party members should not do this)

39
Kishin2•

This is where actually looking at stats helps. Elemental bonus is 1.5x. My Celliera has 600 strength whereas my Julietta has 1100 plus an extra skill. I'm using my Julietta to hit things.

9
chronoreverse•

It's not even just strength because different weapons attack very differently. It's dps and skills with sufficient iframes.

5
Kishin2•

True. There's no info out on the attack rate of every weapon or whatever. But even if the damage was similar, the extra skill makes up for it both in damage and versatility.

1
enjeyarr•

Honest question, does elemental bonus decrease damage taken as well? Hopefully with iframes it wouldn't matter too much.

1
drackaer•

Yes, elemental advantage gives +50% damage dealt and -50% damage taken.

10
Kishin2•

Yeah it basically doubles your hp if you have elemental advantage.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
AshRavenEyes•

Boss aggros whoever runs to its face first.

4
Linarc•

If your team is 4.5k or less, you shouldn’t be playing on expert.

This, jesus christ. I've finished expert with someone who had 2 water and 2 wind, but at least his two water hit around 4-5k might total. Then next rooms people at 3k TOTAL Might join in with just 1 water unit. I don't mind 4-5k might if you have mostly water, but be realistic, people can't carry that hard, at least not yet. The most annoying part was as soon as he joined he spammed Thanks.

2
OoidalOP•

so don’t use her as your main character.

I agree. I think the point I was generally making was with reference to back line units.

I think 5k is a bit extreme, or more accruately, requires a 9k+ teammate to offset your lack of damage.

1
vedasisme•

I have to admit, two of the BIGGEST pieces of advice for me were:
-using skills to mitigate damage to my AI team. I don't know if there was a tooltip sharing that information, but I also don't think there are any bosses that really forced you to learn it.

-tapping an HP bar to announce it to your raid and assign your AI to attack it

Ever since i learned these 2 things, I've salvaged Expert raids over and over while teams with off-element might-inflation lie on the floor.

18
robesticles•

+1 for the tapping the hp bar to assign AI to attack it

3
Inariele•

uhh point 2 i did not know, thanks!

2
nihonica•

This comment changed my life. Blessed be ye!

1
Neofalcon2•

Another important tip - While you can't run through the boss, you can actually dodge-roll straight through him. This makes getting to the tail/legs as he's spinning around WAY faster, and will actually add tons to your overall dps due to less lost dps time.

9
Pontiflakes•

This right here! I was getting so frustrated, trying to chase the tail in circles, because I don't understand yet how boss aggro works (seems random tbh). Once I started rolling underneath the boss and positioning under the body and targeting the relevant limb, it became a lot easier to DPS him down.

4
Torden5410•

If you only have Mercury as your best water element dragon, do you think her damage output is actually significant enough to use over a more utility oriented dragon for emergencies?

Despite having a 7K+ full water team every Expert I join ends with the host leaving, so I've been doing a few Standard difficulty raids with Mercury. Her damage output doesn't seem significantly higher than what my lead is actually doing himself. I have Jeanne d'Arc (def buff) and Phoenix available instead that would be useful in case the need arises instead of Mercury.

Mercury seems fine (or even great) for AI water allies to boost their HP, but for the lead it feels kind of pointless to me.

8
Howltilizer•

Actually, you should just use Mercury for the buff for your damage dealer, and not necessarily transform it.

Personally, I find Jeannes not very useful in this raid. You want water dragons to be able to deal with dps checks like the magma cores and breaking. Otherwise, one will never go wrong with Phoenix.

I am using Leviathan, and his damage animation is too slow, so I don't really transform into it as well but just attach it to my damage dealer. I'll switch to another character with Phoenix when I fully charge a bar and heal the raiders.

4
Torden5410•

I did six 10 summons hoping for Leviathan and haven't gotten a single 5 star yet. :(

Mercury's equip bonus is just an HP buff, so in that regard she doesn't really add much to damage as a stat stick.

The one I was using on my lead was level 10 and I have her bond at 10 as well. She just wasn't doing much damage in general. I haven't used her in the raid so far but I'm fairly certain Jeanne would outpace her (especially at 20/20 where mine is). I already switched to Phoenix (at 30/10) to compare, and her attack combo is also faster and harder hitting despite not having elemental advantage and being a support dragon.

If we were talking about a dragon that gave a +20% str bonus or something I would stick with it even if the transform was just as underwhelming, but I'm actually kind of surprised that Mercury is as bad as she seems to be. Even with my higher investment in the other two dragons I would have expected her to be hitting for more than ~100 or so on her combo attacks.

In fact, now that I go and look it up, Mercury actually has the worst attack stat of all 4 star dragons, and is even worse than quite a few of the 3 star dragons.

3
Howltilizer•

Hmm...did you level your Mercury? Her damage seems really low, and I have seen better results. In any case, HP buffs are good to survive a little longer. A dead dps yields 0 dps.

Do you have 4star water dragons besides Mercury? Maybe Leviathan wasn't a good comparison for my case, and I got lucky.

For me, even Phoenix's DPS doesn't cut it, since Luther does way more in a shorter amount of time. As Luther is my main DPS, I will attach the water dragon to him and Phoenix on another character. So when I need to heal, I will swap characters, transform to Phoenix, heal straight away, then go back to Luther before the transformation ends. Point is, you still want the elemental boost to your main character, and you can use the transform bar for other stuffs, such as Phoenix or Jeanne for their buffs. The only time where I can see an emergency for damage is only Volcanic Ruins so that's not too bad considering your might is at 7k.

2
Torden5410•

Leviathan is a 5 star gacha pull, of course you got lucky. ;p

And yes, unfortunately Mercury is my only 4 star water dragon. I said before that she was 10/10, but looking now she's actually 10/13. I haven't invested significantly in her because I have gacha 4 stars more worthy of the resources, but she's not at rock bottom or anything.

I think maybe you're under the impression that Mercury gives an increased strength bonus for being on a water character or something like elemental weapons? Dragons don't seem to do that except for their ability bonus. Dragons do have their own small HP/Str value contributions as equipment (my Mercury gives 55 HP and 16 Strength), but it's not anywhere near the magnitude of the % bonus from their abilities, and doesn't seem to grant any bonus for element.

The bonus dragons give for being equipped on the right element is listed as an ability right under the attack skill they have. So for example, Leviathan has a huge 40% Str bonus he gives to water adventurers, which goes to 60% when he's fully unbound. However, Mercury only gives a 15% HP buff.

Anyway, if you sort them by max Atk here you can see that Mercury has an abysmal maximum Atk stat. It's really bad, and she's the only 4 star dragon that falls below any 3 stars. Phoenix is actually fairly decent.

2
TheRealDimz•

I haven’t tried expert yet but I’m at 7600 might now. I have 4 water heroes: Celery, Xainfried, Lily, Orsem. 3 out of 4 are holding the raid wyrmprint. Do you think I am ready? (My skill in play is pretty good I’d say)

3†
OoidalOP•

yeah. I would run lily as your lead if you're comfortable with her. By the second mana circle you get a 75% skill prep and the raid print gives +10% skill prep. It makes your run super safe.

5
Howltilizer•

You're more than ready. I tried expert on 6.5k, and with weaker characters to boot.

I know OP suggest running Lily as your lead, but I find melee characters easier to manage since you have to move around the map quite a bit.

1
OoidalOP•

You can actually sit under the belly and roll straight towards whatever you need to target. The only things that will block your path are the feet and the face. The body/tail don't seem to block you. It's also just 10x easier to position to dodge things under the body until later on when he starts using his lunge.

5
jacobs0n•

oh the tail can definitely block you. i've died to his normal yellow aoe because my skills were on cd and i can't run away since the tail is blocking me

1
TheRealDimz•

Thanks. I'm now at 8000 might and clear every time if I'm picky about teammates.

1
MyrrhDarkwing•

I beat Expert twice thanks to this guide, despite having to go ask my sister what the fuck an iframe was and how I would use it. I’m pretty sure I still can’t reliably dodge or iframe, but now I’m trying at least? 7.5k might Julietta/Xainfried/Elly/Hilde seems to be pulling their weight. At least I sincerely hope they are. All the advice in this thread has been amazing and so useful!!!

3
zaire90•

Yeah Ive never seen anyone call an invulnerability frame an i-frame before so I was confused and then as I googled what it was and saw the bloodborne reddit pop up I instantly thought damn Im dumb its an invulnerability frame.

1
Lucavious•

I just had an expert raid bug out and it didn't end when the timer stopped. He just sat there and let us hit him for another minute until he died.

No idea what caused it, but this tells me you should never give up even when it seems impossible because he might just bug and give you a free win instead of blowing everyone up.

2
L_V_N•

Apologems incoming! :D

2
astory11•

I had the opposite.

We killed him. and he just sat there dead on the floor, and nothing happened

2
Antavari•

So.. if you have a healer on the team, does it even really heal Ai-wise? i mean I could pop in Chloe, but is she good? What are other non 5* healer that can do the job?

Beside that I'm set with Xander and lily + the new training gurl. I just need a OK-ish healer. Does it make esense to swap to the healer and use the skills yourself?

1
xHayate•

When I have hilde on my team, she only pops her first skill but not the second or third.

5
RufusLoacker•

Yes, the healers will do their job (albeit not too reliably, but you can swap to them if needed). A very good healer for this event is Thaniel, 4* water hero.

3
skyinyourcoffee•

Keep seeing it thrown around on here, but what the hell does iframe mean and where did the term come from? All i know is the web design term, and that makes very little sense in context lol

1
Udongein1•

Invincibility frames, moments during attacks or abilities where you’re invulnerable to enemy attacks

2
OoidalOP•

I don't actually know the origin, but it's essentially used in most fighting games all the way back to street fighter. People would often abuse i-frames to bypass attacks; it's the idea of going on offense and defense simultaneously, but requires godlike timing. The concept has obviously carried over to other games like this because... it's healthy for the gameplay. Otherwise the devs would have to design bosses with dodge-able skills, and the gameplay turns into something very different.

2
grantelbot•

If the tail isnt dead in 30-50 seconds, I'm worried

(thats my observation from standard)

is the time limit for the whole thing on expert the same and does this still apply?

1
OoidalOP•

It's 5 minutes for the run, and you can usually take the first 60s to clear the tail. I've never seen him go for a spin before the 4 minute mark, but after that you're in the... DANGER ZONE.

3
grantelbot•

Right

I also meant in the group having the dps and knowing what they are doing, not just the tail attack that hits everything

1
Chaosblast•

I have a feeling OP implied there is some difference between yellow boss skills and pink ones. Can you explain this further? Can some not be dodged?

1
FuHiwou•

Yellow can be dodged with skills, pink can only be dodged by leaving the area.

1
RareTonight•

Does the i-frame include buffs? I know attack skills work but just wanting to confirm about buffs

1
r3sp1t3•

literally any skill

1
ukjaybrat•

what's the most important target after the tail? body or legs then body?

1
dinwitt•

I don't think killing the legs disables any attacks like killing the tail does, but they do give additional loot so legs then body.

3
ukjaybrat•

That's what I thought. My point was if the battle went wrong somewhere and it's going to be close, ignore the legs and focus on body. Right?

1
dinwitt•

I'm pretty sure that damage to the parts is also taken from the health bar. If things are going wrong then you should target whatever is safest, but I don't think specifically avoiding the legs will increase damage done.

3
ukjaybrat•

ah. that's good to know. thanks

1
astory11•

Does the event wyrmprint need to be equipped on your main? Or just on someone in the party?

1
klashikari•

Wyrmprint only affects the character who equipped it (in fact, everything only affects the user of the skill, the only exception is the Co-skill designed specifically for team purpose). Considering the very small stats gain from unbinding it, it is better to equip 1 copy for every single party member before starting unbinding the one on your main.

That 20% dmg gain is huge. Equip it.

1
anonditer•

Should you kill both legs or just hit the main body once a leg and tail is down?

1
thsmalice•

Spammers hit thr body once the tail is down and farmers kill off the limbs.

1
lilpokemon•

Something I haven't seen talked about, when he hits overdrive he does an aoe attack, I usually hit a skill to avoid it but I always see the rest of the raid fly in the air.

1
OoidalOP•

It's a simple knock up/know back that you can literally tap while mid-air to cancel the delay after you land. I mean, if you're squeezing for DPS you may as well use a skill for it, but I'd use something short like a stat buff, otherwise you're throwing away safety and not actually gaining much since you're essentially stun-locking yourself anyways.

1
Andarctica•

I don't understand how people are clearing expert. I have a 7k might all water, optimized team with all the boss wyrmprint and I constantly struggle to clear normal. I know all the strategies here on Reddit and I just don't get how people are getting good teams.

How do you compare a 2k fire attacker with a 1.5k water attacker? Do people ignore the legs?

1
jaru0694•

If your problem is other players, you can check the "+" icon on their banner to examine their team. If they have greens, dodge. If they lack a strong water unit, dodge. If they have less than 6k might, probably dodge. If they aren't using the raid wyrmprints on at least their primary DPS, probably dodge.

Might take a few minutes, but you should be able to find a decent lobby. It seems like most other players don't dodge 7k+.

How do you compare a 2k fire attacker with a 1.5k water attacker? Do people ignore the legs?

The 1.5k water attacker is better. You get a 50% damage bonus when hitting with the correct elements. There is no reason to ignore the legs as you gain additional loot and its damage applies to the HP pool of the boss. Only time you would ignore the leg is if you can hit the boss + volcano, or blocked off from the leg. If the boss is spinning around a lot, wasting time chasing the leg may not be worth if your team lacks the DPS.

2
Andarctica•

How do you calculate that? How about a 1.2k water attacker?

I've definitely started being more choosy about my teams, but the range of skill is either very large, or the might requirements are nonsense.

1
jaru0694•

When a unit is a favorable element, they do 50% bonus damage and take 50% less damage. Assuming the 2 units you are comparing both have the same amount of skills and dragons of similar strength, multiply the water unit by 150% then compare it to the non-water unit.

So the 1.2k turns into a 1.8k, lower than the 2k fire in damage output. However, the 2k fire will take full damage. If you are confident in dodging/i-framing the boss, the 2k fire will be slightly better.

3
OoidalOP•

Might =/= offensive power. The general trend I've noticed is that defense oriented AI attack slowly and since their first skill is almost always not DPS, that's about the full breath of the offensive capacity. Eze, on the other hand, will not get the +50% offense, but starts at a higher base damage output anyways and has an offensive skill that she'll spam (the ai should, anyhow). At 2.5k she's in the zone where she can take big hits (aside from maybe volcanoes), and her defense doesn't matter much outside of that because you're i-framing everything for her.

1