I hope you find useful information here to help you score better in raids!

(TLDR: saiyan female + beast + I cast aside + bendy / bomber / boost + some kind of reinforcement skill + ultimate charge + high level of efficiency + good meta game = top 3 on leaderboard)

This guide is always WIP as I will keep adding new things over time.

Last update: 13 June 2024

RCBlazer here. While I have written my own guide on Raids before, my good friend has let me add a few more pointers of my own to the guide, which also includes my own video on the subject: be sure to check it out if you haven't!

Bulgeta: Indeed! I deliberately avoided overlapping what our great sensei RCBlazer has already covered in his video so make sure you check it out FIRST! :)

Bulgeta 空.明:
I started playing this game not so long ago, only since March 2024. However, I immediately fell in love with raids because I love fighting big boss games. Big Boss games to me is about good planning, solving the boss puzzle and perfect execution. I love games like that more than reaction based shooting or PVP fighting. I also like to work in a team with teammates together fighting a boss, just like raids in other games. Then one day, while having LOTS of fun playing the Golden Baby Ape raid, I found myself top of the leaderboard! I didnt expect it because I just kept playing and couldnt stop. I wanted to find the most optimized way to score max score for the raid and it was so fun. I tried so many different things and before I knew it, I was number one. Then I knew, not only could i have fun, I could be number one in a video game! I have never been number one in any video games! This encouraged me to do more and more for raids and here I am today, topping all but one raid leaderboard since that first raid. :) I hope to share you my love of raids. :)

There are generally 2 categories of raids:
RAIDS and Raid (Lite)

RAIDS are usually meant for CaCs that can fly (presumably higher level?) and are in time rifts high up in the sky. These raids usually allows fewer participants (so it becomes harder) and bosses usually hits much harder and have unique skills like mind control, dimension control and special ultimates.

Raid (Lite) are usually meant for lower level CaCs that cannot fly (presumably lower level?) and are in time rifts behind the stores that can be reached from the ground. These raids allow for more participants and the bosses don't hit as hard and most often have none of the unique skills of the actual raid bosses. More like regular characters with a lot of HP.

Within these 2 categories, there are generally 2 kinds of raids:
BIG BOSS and SMALL BOSS

Big boss raids is when you fight a huge monster like the Golden Baby Ape or Cell Max (so far, I have only seen these two). Big boss tend not to move around too much but they will often have all the unique boss skills so that it becomes more of a timing fight, where you need to know how to catch those openings in order to put in your damage.

One skill that is insanely OP for dealing damage to Big bosses is Dual Masenko. If you position yourself just right, you can use this 100 ki Ki Blast Super to deal 3 hits for huge damage on a big boss! Against Great Ape Baby, the best spots are near his shoulders, behind his back, and near his feet. Against Cell Max, the best spot is near hit feet, especially if he is stunned after his stamina gets broken. When he goes for Explosive Scream, get near him and use Dual Masenko. Not only will you inflict tremendous damage to him, you will interrupt Explosive Scream and stun him again!

Small boss raids are human sized bosses that are always all over the place. Broly, Saibamen, Paikuhan, Majinn buu, Hercules etc are all examples of such raids. These bosses bounce around all over the screen making it hard to hit but, unlike big boss raids, it becomes possible to aim for full DPS on them, constantly putting in damage without need for specific openings or timing.

All raids require an unique approach and loadout. There is usually no one size fits all loadouts for all raids even though most would be quite similar.

GOOD RESULT: 10K to 15K

AVERAGE RESULT: around 8K

BAD RESULT: around 1K

It is interesting to see that people generally do fall into one of these bands of results depending on what they do. Falling into these bands tells you how optimized your loadout and playing is. People who consistently get good results, their focus is on improving efficiency (see section on general principles of raids). People who consistently get average results, usually is the wrong awoken or SS or skill. People who consistently get bad results, usually is very low level, attributes in the wrong places (yes, you have to have the right build to score well in raids) on top of always using Ultra Instinct... (even COM AI get around 1K...)

Best Character for Raids


FEMALE SAIYAN. Period.
Just look at the leaderboard and you will always see female saiyan as the top 3. Why is that? Because female saiyan has the highest ki blast damage in the game. How about her weak melee? If you use ANY melee AT ALL, you are doing it wrong in a raid. Even though there is one boss, Hercules, who is resistant to ki blast but weak to strike skills, he is so weak to strike skills that even a female saiyan with 0 in strikes and using only strike skills can consistently get full damage scores (13107) on him.

How about attributes? 200 ki blast. Thats the only thing you need. I also like to have 11 ki bars as it takes no time at all to charge the 11th bar and it is so useful.

What about a Strike build with Saiyan male? The problem with striking is you have to be upfront with the boss, meaning, you are going to be very inefficient due to taking lots of attacks from the boss and having to become even more inefficient having to chase the boss around. (see section on Efficiency in General Principles of Raids) So far, I have never had a saiyan male score better than me even when they are level 140 and i am only level 120.

(female saiyans dominating top 3)


Best Awoken + SS

Beast + I have cast aside everything for this. PERIOD.
If you are using anything else, you are gimping yourself. Any of form super saiyan transformation is gimping your damage output. Any form of SSB/SSBE is gimping your damage output (due to having to use a SS other than this one) and gimping your DPS due to inefficiency caused by ki drain. I have seen people use my exact same skills in a raid but doing it in SSBE and come up with only about 8K score while I will do 12K to 15K.

I see sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many people, especially below level 100, use Ultra Instinct. I get it, its the coolest transformation in the anime. But it does NOTHING for you in a raid. It increases your damage 0 and when the boss wants to hit you, I guarantee you get hit and killed anyways. It is so sad i even see one person always using UI and scoring only about 5K to 8K per match and always within the top 10 of the leaderboard (yes, that person is in all my leaderboard screenshots here!). I can only imagine how religiously that person plays everyday in order to achieve that. If only that person just use beast + cast, he or she would have been top 3 easily.

(guess who in this list were using Ultra Instinct?)




Best Skills for Raids

PLEASE VIEW RCBLAZER RAID VIDEO at the top of the guide!

Single hit full damage skills are king of raids.

Yes, when it comes to raids, big fanciful hit numbers usually only mean that you are spending a lot of time to do very little damage (ie Low DPS). In fact, you are likely to do only a small fraction of the full damage as the boss is not stupid. Boss will evasive, boss will be bounced away by other players etc. Skills that deliver its full damage in a single hit guarantees that you will always be doing full damage and because its only one hit, it takes far less time and thus a higher DPS.

Examples of such skills are: Bending Kamehameha, Bomber DX, Kamehameha Boost

How about Ultimates?

SUPERS are king of raids. Ultimates waste a lot of ki, thus reducing DPK and DPS, they are usually multiple hits and they allow the boss to dragon dash and stam break you. The latter being why ultimates are so bad in raids.

But how about EMPEROR DEATH BEAM? Isnt it the best ultimate for raids? We will talk about that in a seperate section... (yes, its that "good" that it deserves its own section)



Have Two Sets of Skills Ready

I find that it is most productive to have two sets of skills ready. One set for max damage but requiring max focus and attentive playing like Bomber DX set. One set for when you are too tired to focus and just want to get an average score without much energy, like playing Sword of Hope or even EDB. Yes, we are not machines, especially middle few days after my first day grind (see section on meta game), I like to take it easy for a couple of days before stepping up for the final two days.

TIME

You have 5 minutes. Period.
I see people play raids like they have forever. No you only have 5 mins and therefore every SECOND counts. However, the VALUE of each second is very different as time goes by. Generally, the VALUE PER SECOND of time increases as 5 mins approaches. Which means at the start of the raid, the value per second is the lowest and thats when you can afford to "waste" a bit of time without significant consequences. However, value per second becomes extremely high towards the end, especially during the final min. (see section on Final 30 Seconds) Some skills allow you to bank in on low value per second time in order to save the effect for high value per second time. My favorite is the Godly Chronos Canon. What you do and how you spend each second becomes extremely crucial. This leads to what I call "efficiency".

EFFICIENCY

Efficiency is everything in a raid. Efficiency means how seamlessly and continuously are you able to keep dishing out damage without interruption. The more efficient you are, the more damage you will do over time and the better score you will get. Things that reduce efficiency includes:

1. Charging Ki. The more often you have to charge ki, the lower your efficiency. If you have to charge ki 15 times over a 300 seconds period (assuming you take 7 seconds to fully charge), you have wasted 105 seconds or 1.75 mins out of a 5 mins raid dishing out no damage. Thats 35% of the time doing no damage. However, if you only need to charge ki 10 times, that reduces to only 70 seconds or 1.16 min or 23% of the time doing no damage. The less time you need to charge ki, the better. (more about this in another section)

2. Getting Hit. The more you get hit by the boss and allow yourself to get hit, the more time you waste not hitting the boss. I see so many people BLOCKING when the boss hits them! This is the worst waste of time as the boss will just keep hitting and wasting more time. The worst part is, the boss could end with a grab and you still get damaged anyways. The best thing to do to reduce this inefficiency is to IMMEDIATELY use an evasive. Best if it is an evasive that hits the boss back so you are doing damage at the same time. My favorite is jumping spread shot which allows you to immediately and seamlessly lead into an attack. Depending on situation, punisher guard or drain field could also be better for dealing with bosses with peeler storm. (more about Evasives in the Evasives section)

3. Moving. Yes, moving around takes time! The more you move around, the less damage you are dealing out. This means you need to know the BEST SPOT to be in on each map. Where should you stay on the map so you can spam bendy without moving much? This also means choosing skills that tracks well on a big map rather than chase down bosses with Bomber DX (which is GREAT for smaller maps). Generally, you want to prioritize bendy over bomber in a big map and bomber over bendy on a small map since you won't have to chase the boss that much. I personally aim for NOT MOVING AT ALL (this is why you will see me sitting in a far place, refusing to chase the boss with the rest of the group). If the boss moves too far away and i cant hit him, I do something else that saves my time later like charging ki or refreshing reinforcement skill because the boss wont leave you alone for very long, he will come. :)

4. No Skill Rotation. If you are making up action sequence on the fly, most certainly you are not the most efficient. There must be a strong rotation that you keep repeating in order to reduce time slippage in between deciding what to do. Rotation can be like Bendy x 9 > Refresh boost > ki Charge (and repeat). Having a strong rotation reduces the time you need to decide what to do. Everytime I see someone in a match throwing out all kinds of skills quite randomly, I know that person is going to score very badly.

5. MELEE! If you are meleeing, you are wasting time. Melee has such meaninglessly low damage that it could be regarded as you wasting time just having the satisfaction of putting out high hit numbers while doing no damage at all. I do absolutely NO meleeing in raids. I aim to not even put out a single punch. If you really need melee to set up for your super, make it SHORT. How about if I bring an optimized melee build using SSG? It will still fade in DPS compared to just spamming something like a bendy kame. (i really appreciate people who melee a lot tho, not only is he or she keeping the boss busy and away from me, he or she is holding the boss in place so I can land my strikes. So he or she is an angel, getting no scores but helping me get scores. Thank you.)

6. DYING. If you get KO, its the BIGGEST WASTE OF TIME if you do not immediately revive yourself with a senzu. You are just lying there as time goes by just hoping someone comes over and spends another 5 seconds or so reviving you. Make sure you carry a senzu, pop it the moment you get KO and keep dishing out damage. Dying also takes you out of your transformation, especially Beast, so you need to spend extra time / ki just to get it back. Depending on the value per second, most of the time its best not to get the transformation back if time is running out.

7. MISSING. Everytime you miss an attack, you are wasting time and ki. The worst offender are ultimates that use all your ki and the boss evades or blocks or simply steps out of the way... now you have to charge ki and restart. This is another reason why SUPERS are the king of raids, not ultimates. The cost for missing something you spend a lot of ki on is just too great.

8. Not Healing Your Teammates. Yes, not healing your teammates and saving your heals only for when YOU need it will ultimately reduce your efficiency and make you look like a jerk. I always use my heals for my teammates even if I am full health, because these teammates are keeping the boss AWAY FROM ME and helping me get hits in! Esp teammates that likes to EDB or melee, I make sure i keep them alive, they are angels that help me score well.

9. Reviving teammate the wrong way. Yes, everyone should carry their own senzu. However, if you really need to revive a teammate, do it while charging ki. You are going to be charging ki anyways, might as well make that time useful. If you are just standing there reviving the teammate, you are wasting your own efficiency.

Not many players seem to be aware of this, but you can also Flash Revive. Target the ally you want to revive (preferably while the Raid boss is not targeting you of course) hold down Guard and press Light Attack. You will instantly revive your fallen ally from any range at the cost of some of your own health. This shouldn't be a problem if you are packing Capsules that heal your teammates like you should in these situations, since they will heal you as well as your teammate. If you have All Regen Capsules, even better!


Timing and Positioning

Two players with the exact same build will have different results based on how well they manage timing and positioning. This really means efficiency. The more efficient player will always have the higher score. However, knowing about timing and positioning greatly improves your efficiency too.

TIMING
Timing everything you do. Timing when you shoot an attack. Timing when you charge ki etc. Most times, even half a heartbeat difference in timing makes huge difference and can make you hit or miss. Every boss has a different timing. Even size of map and terrain type affects timing.

POSITIONING
Positioning is the finer detail of achieving a high level of efficiency. Good positioning varies by map size and the skill that you use.

(very high DPS, highest in the game, average DPK but low REAL DPS)

DPS and DPK are two measures I use when considering the usefulness of a skill in a raid.

Damage Per Ki (DPK)
Refers to how much damage a skill is doing per bar of ki. For instance, if my special beam canon does 16K damage with 3 bars of ki, its DPK is 5,333. The higher the DPK the more efficient a skill is and the lower the DPK, the less efficient it is. Why is it to do with efficiency? Because the more Ki you spend, the sooner you need to perform the most inefficient thing in a raid: Ki Charging. This results in an overall very low DPS for that skill.

Damage Per Second (DPS)
Refers to how much damage every second a skill is making or how quickly a skill damages the boss. For instance, if my special beam canon does 16K dmage over 3 seconds, it has a DPS of 5,333. The higher the DPS the better because ultimately, raids are all about DPS. However, the game doesn't tell you the DPS of each skill, so it is up to you to go into training mode and time each of these skills.

Relationship Between DPS and DPK
Supers tend to have very high DPK (making them very efficient) but low DPS. Ultimates tend to have very high DPS (making them very damaging) but low DPK. This is why a lot of people get fooled into spamming ultimates in a raid. However, when they do that, they are always surprised why their score is much lower (maybe about 8K average) than someone spamming a Bendy Kamehameha (10K to 15K). Why is that? Because they failed to consider that they have to charge ki more often! As such, the REAL DPS of a skill needs to take into consideration the COST OF KI.

Cost of Ki and REAL DPS
Ki comes at a cost that is measured by TIME. Everytime you use Ki, you are spending future time needed to recharge that ki. If you use burst charge, your cost of ki is 1 sec per bar. If you use ultimate charge, your cost of ki is 0.5 sec per bar. Now, you need to apply this to your DPS calculation in order to know the real DPS of a skill. If my special beam canon does 16K damage over 3 seconds and cost 3 ki bar and I use ultimate charge, my REAL DPS is 16,000 divided by (3 + [3 x 0.5]) = 3,555 REAL DPS. However, if I use burst charge, my REAL DPS drops to 16K divided by (3 + 3) = 2,666. This is why burst charge is so bad. If my Bendy Kame does 10K damage (yes, thats why you should use saiyan female) over 2 seconds and cost 1 ki bar and I use ultimate charge, my REAL DPS is 10,000 / (1 + [2 x 0.5]) = 5,000 REAL DPS! Much much higher than the Special beam canon even though you think you do more damage with special beam canon!

The result is typically that ultimates have very low REAL DPS compared with SUPERS and why people who spam supers always outperform people who spam ultimates. In fact, typically ultimates only produce its best result at the FINAL attack during that FINAL few seconds where supers will not be able to realize its full REAL DPS. Or, in situations where you only have a specific 3 to 5 seconds window to attack the enemy and then its over just like in between the angry roar of golden baby ape. That is when I will typically dump a special beam canon or final kamehameha to maximize damage during that limited time window. I also dump final kamehameha on Broly during that 3 second start up of his gigantic meteor ultimate.

So, ultimates are really only good for specific limited time windows rather than spamming.

Lots of people in my experience try to open a match by poisoning the Raid boss with a skill like Innocence Bullet or Secret Poison, and you should not do this for a number of reasons:

First, poisoning the boss can be a giant waste of time and ki should it take several attempts.

Second, that damage the boss takes from being poisoned doesn't count as yours; the DPK of damage dealt by the poison status effect is 0 for you and everybody else! This means a good chunk of the Raid boss' health just disappeared into the void to the benefit of no one.

Third, a lot of older Raid bosses tend to go berserk when poisoned, spamming skills like Marbling Drop, Peeler Storm, Brainwash Attack, and Gigantic Ki Blast. These skills waste more time, as you cannot damage the Raid Bosses while they are using them. Meanwhile the boss' health continues to tick down from poison, resulting in them using another boss skill in a vicious cycle where no one can hurt the boss! Yes, they will use these skills quite often even if you don't poison the boss (because you are dealing so much damage to them with the tactics in this guide), but after some practice you can get good at predicting when they will use these skills and counter accordingly. Not so if the boss is poisoned, as they will start throwing out those skills at random and at a moment where you may not have anticipated it, preventing you from taking the proper counter measures.

Fourth, because so much of the Raid boss' health goes to waste due to poison, it makes the bosses level up faster, resulting in high level Raid bosses with higher DEF and less damage dealt for everyone come a lot sooner than scheduled.

The one defense I hear for this is that people want to KO the bosses faster, which is already pointless in itself as there is no reward for defeating a Raid boss other than the boss leveling up (up to 99) and gaining more DEF to make damaging that boss harder the next time. KOing a Raid boss is actually bad since you lose all that extra time you could have used to deal more damage! It's not like you can KO the Raid bosses anyway if they have 3 million or more health even with poison.

Or should it be Invincible Skills? Either way, it's a term I coined myself wherein some Raid bosses (often the later ones; this trait first appeared with Super Baby 2, Android 16, and Android 21) are completely immune to attack while using any skill. The easiest way to tell if a boss has Skill Invincibility is if they go for an Ultimate, and an attack from you or your allies that would normally have interrupted the Ultimate and broken their stamina instead made the sound as if the attack was blocked and has no effect.

This is vastly different from Ultimate Armor, where bosses do not flinch when hit, but still take damage from your attacks. Skill Invincibility is actually a worse trait, because some bosses with this trait will spam Super Skills that cannot be countered or interrupted, and you cannot damage them while they are using these. Having allies with Emperor's Death Beam or Super Spirit Bomb to try and keep the boss from using skills, or a stamina breaking skill like Dodoria Headbutt or God of Destruction's Anger can help mitigate the boss' use of skills to hopefully mitigate the frustration of having a Raid boss that can freely spam certain attacks with no way of hitting them back.

(more evasives, less dying... maybe dying can be romantic too)

Evasives is a big topic and different raid boss calls for different evasives. There is no one size fits all.

Generally, I will categorize evasives as: Attack Evasive, Break Lock, Defense Evasive.

Attack Evasive
These are evasives that allows you to damage the boss and are great for keeping DPS momentum. Examples include jumping spread shot and super explosive wave. Attack evasives are useful also during the final few seconds when you find yourself out of Ki but a couple of seconds left and you still have stam, that's when you can spam the evasive for some additional damage! This is mainly for bosses without peeler storm ultimate or bosses that cannot kill you in one punch. Bosses like Broly that can kill you in one punch will usually just follow up and still kill you. In that case you need a Break Lock Evasive...

Break Lock Evasive
These are evasives that allows you to break the boss's lock on you, turning the boss away from you. This is useful when fighting bosses that can one or two punch kill you and you simply cannot risk having him or her in your face. Best example is Psycho Escape and I use it in Broly raid rather than jumping spread shot. Elegant Blaster is an ultimate that can also break lock and I use it in Broly raid too.

Defensive Evasive
These are evasives that gives you super armor. My favorite is Punisher Guard (I dunno any other than this haha). I use this against bosses that spams peeler storm. I also like to use drain field against peeler storm but sometimes you are caught off guard and this one works better. Peeler storm is VERY disruptive to your momentum and punisher guard helps to tank the whole damage and still immediately reply with an attack after. Punisher guard also allows you to stay close to and within the danger zone of big boss like golden baby ape in order to spam dual masenko as much as possible.

Countering Peeler Storm with Ultimates
Peeler storm is a momentum disruptor ultimate which some bosses use. It's damage phase lasts about 2 seconds and It is not hard to defend against, in fact, even just blocking it will do. It is also very easy to predict since the boss would briefly disappear and a black cyclone starts appearing in its place for about a second. Even after the peeler storm appears, it chases down each player and you could even briefly run away from it for about another second before it catches up.

Since its primary function is simply to disrupt momentum, one way to keep hurting the boss despite the peeler storm is to counter it with an ultimate if you have the ki AND the stam (because while you are going to be iframe during the ultimate startup animation, the hits still reduces stam). Using one of your Ultimates this way to basically guarantee a point-blank unresisted hit immediately after Peeler Storm (and with it ts Super Armor) ends, while at the same time preventing you from taking any HP damage.

Final Kamehameha, Perfect Kamehameha, almost all Sphere-type Ultimates and stuff like Gigantic Meteor all work perfectly fine. They just need different timing in order to maximize damage. One-hit Ults like Giant Storm work, too.

Since you usually have an open Ultimate Slot anyway, make sure to bring one of the answers to Peeler Storm thst suits your reaction time best for sustained DPS.
(Credit: Thank you Majin Mew for the contribution!)

Countering Peeler Storm with Evasives
Another way I use to keep hurting the boss right after the peeler storm super armor ends is using the evasive move "Hyper Movement". I would block the first one second of the peeler storm and while it is still happening, hyper movement to the top of the boss and then punch down, this usually catches the boss right after its super armor ends and since it launches the boss downwards, i can follow up immediately with a Super. I used this with A LOT of success with Mr. Satan raid as it keeps my attack flowing almost seamlessly.

(lots and lots of love! My fav reinforcement skill!)

It is NOT compulsory to use reinforcement skills in order to achieve max scores per round. Mathematically, the benefits of a reinforcement skill is offset by the time it takes to activate the skill hence DPS remains roughly the same. However, if you are spamming low REAL DPS (see sectionon DPS, DPK and REAL DPS) ultimates, you want each shot to REALLY count, then reinforcement skills may be useful.

For me, if you even consider using reinforcement skills, Formation + Lovely cyclone is the one and only I will recommend. I used to use Fighting Pose G but it truly fails to compare with Formation + lovely cyclone. Formation on its own is ♥♥♥♥. Takes too long to activate fully and benefit is completely offset by a lower DPS due to time spent. HOWEVER, when you refresh Formation using Lovely Cyclone, now you only spend 2 seconds to refresh the skill! You are spending the same time as fighting pose G and getting twice the boost! Lovely cyclone is also an attack skill so you are making damage while refreshing formation, its amazing.

(catching Broly in my lovely cyclone)

For me, I love the hearts and how well it fits the theme of Bulgeta thats why I use Formation. Like I said, I do not see a huge difference in score between using reinforcement skills or not. (sorry, I cannot stand seeing male CaC use formation... its so cringy... :( )

UPDATE:
I used to love reinforcement skills and my favorite was definitely meditation and formation. However, after working out the math over a stretch of 5mins, as well as my own results, I conclude that there is no appreciable advantage in using any reinforcement skill or boosts in a raid. The time/ki used for activating the skill offsets any DPS advantage ending in roughly the same DPS or overall damage regardless if I used no reinforcement skills vs meditation or formation (refreshed by lovely cyclone). In the end, I always end up with roughly the same result regardless if I used no reinforcement skills or used meditation or formation.

I know a lot of people think burst charge is best. But it is not. It really depends on how many bars of ki you are charging.

Burst charge is very inefficient due to its start and end animation. As such, taking that into consideration, burst charge actually requires 1 second per ki bar, which is very very inefficient. It is good for specific situation like when you need 2 ki bar quickly but those situations are rare in a raid.

Ultimate charge is the best charge skill for raids IF you commit to always charging to full. If you do not charge to full, you will become inefficient over time, having to charge more often for less.

Comparing the two, I often get into a raid and I hear a teammate use burst charge while i use ultimate charge waiting for the boss to arrive (usually about 7 seconds). In that 7 seconds, I fully charge 11 bars of ki while that teammate using burst charge, I only hear about 2 and a half charge, which is about 7 ki bars only. Again, only 1 bar per second, very inefficient.

If you have the slots for it, having BOTH ultimate and burst charge is best. I used to run that setup a lot. Ultimately, i went for only ultimate charge because the situations which i need burst charge is just too rare.

In fact, the more you use burst charge, the higher your time cost per ki rises and the more your efficiency drops. (see section on general principles of raids)

For Ultimate charge, I encourage you to have at least 11 bars of ki because ultimate charge has its highest efficiency above 10 bars of ki. Its almost instant anything above 10 bars, so 11 bars is like getting 1 bar for free always. This builds into extremely low time cost per ki over time and extremely high efficiency.

However, if you have a build with only 8 to 9 ki bars, Burst Charge could make a lot of sense since Ultimate charge's real benefit only starts kicking in after 8 or 9 bars.

A lot of people condemns EDB (Extreme Dumb Blast?) in a raid but I am going to be very practical and go into the pros and cons (yes, there are actually pros!).

Lets start with the Cons, why everyone tells you not to EDB:

1. Bad Score. I have tested EDB in raids over and over using all kinds of builds and my average score comes up to only about 2K to 4K even on games where my EDB pretty much hits most of the time. EDB just has such low DPK and DPS.

2. You will use up all your Ki, you cannot stop halfway. So if you miss or the boss evades, you would have wasted your whole ki and time and have to do it all over again. Even if it all hits, it ends so quickly that you are spending most of your time charging ki, as such it has very low efficiency.

3. Boss can dragon dash and stam break you because its an ultimate.

4. Boss 100% will use multiple evasives if they have the stam for it. Even if boss dun have enough stam, about half the time boss will just block and this is the worst because now nobody can hurt the boss. (this is why i always have special beam canon to open up the block).

5. Iframes. The initial hit is the worst about causing i-frames, but the additional hits each do the same in shorter windows, which can cost chunks of actual attacks or some attacks their entire value. I like the idea of pinning the boss with only one death beam user, but it still cuts down on everyone else's damage to prioritize one's own lower damage value.


How about the Pros?

1. Holds boss so teammates can hit more efficiently. This to me is the greatest redeeming feature of EDB. In fact, I hate to see the day nobody use EDB because I love at least one EDB guy in my team per match.

2. Easy track and hit. Some people just cannot track the boss well, EDB solves that problem 90% of the time. Sometimes, boss can be bounced away at the last min causing the EDB to miss fully. Also, it is very brainless and easy to use so if you are already in commanding lead (see meta game section) and you just want to score 2K to 4K to maintain the lead leisurely, go EDB!

HOWEVER

Not everyone can EDB!

You have to build for it. Typically, you should not be using EDB if you can make only less than 40 hits. This means your ki is too low and less than 40 hits just helps nobody. Sometimes I see people play EDB with only 25 hits or so, it really doesnt help anyone. This means that you really need to build for EDB. You want to use meditation + any quick reinforcement skill to maintain the mediation and have 15 bars of ki. This is the only kind of setup i would encourage for EDB and I am thankful to this player for it. Also, if you build for EDB please just do EDB. It makes your timing predictable for the rest of the team. I see people play EDB and then do all kinds of nonsense in between that does nothing for his or her score and then all of us miss the timing on when he or she decide to EDB.

All the cons of Emperor's Death Beam with none of the pros. Never bring this Ultimate to Raid events to deal damage, and this is why:

Atrocious DPK. 500 ki for a Ultimate that deals less damage than even some 300 ki Ultimates I have tested in Training. You could have gotten way more damage spending that 500 ki hitting the boss with Bending Kamehameha instead. It can be made to deal more damage if you are at dangerously low levels of health, but the DPK will still be awful, and there's another issue with this skill that should make people not want you on their team if they know you are using this...

The invincible knockback on hit. A hit from Gigantic Roar (even if it dealt no damage) adds a couple of seconds of invincibility to the target that was hit. During that knockback when hit by it (or not if they used a skill that prevented it from damaging them) the boss is a ghost AKA all other attacks will pass right through the boss dealing no damage! This will interrupt EVERYONE ELSE's DPS, resulting in a worse result for the whole team if you spam this skill.

Some players have brought this skill as a counter to Gigantic Ki Blast, but for 500 ki, I find that Soul Punisher or even x100 Big Bang Kamehameha are more reliable for this. Photon Swipe can also do this for 100 ki, but it takes up a Super Skill slot you might actually want for a more practical skill, and you can charge that 500 ki back up with Ultimate Charge while the blast is going back up into the boss' face.

Why Final 30 Seconds is So Special
The final 30 seconds of a raid is a very special period of time. This is the period where the VALUE OF TIME (see section on general principles) is the HIGHEST and every little mistake will GREATLY diminish the result of that final 30 seconds.

This final 30 seconds requires merticulous planning and practise as well as thinking of backup reactions when things don't work that way.

Good news is, if you have been EXTREMELY EFFICIENT, you would have hit the max damage cap before the final 30 seconds so it wont matter anymore. However, its very hard to know that unless you have played that raid for MANY hours and developed the feel for it.

For me, maximizing damage on the final 30 seconds always involves 3 things:

1. A full Ki recharge
2. Determining which super and how many to spam
3. Ending with an extremely high DPS ultimate.

Full Ki Recharge
When I see the clock tick to or nears 30 seconds, I make sure I do a full ki recharge in order to start my final 30 seconds plan. For me, using ultimate charge, means I will spend 7 seconds recharging ki, leaving me with about 23 seconds to perform the other 2 things.

Determining which super and how many to spam
Remember, supers have high REAL DPS but low nominal DPS? Nominal DPS shines when time is limited. This is why you don't want to spam supers all the way. You want to take advantage of an extremely high DPS ultimate to close the final 30 seconds. This means you need to plan exactly how many supers to use and how much ki to remain. For me, it means i will spam 6 bendy kames for 6 x 2 = 12 seconds. This leaves me with about 11 seconds and 5 ki to do the final step.

Ending with an extremely high DPS ultimate.
I will typically end with a Final Kamehameha for about 29K damage because it takes 5 ki and 4 seconds to complete. That leaves me with a few seconds of wriggle room in case of inefficiencies. If I used those 4 seconds to fire 2 bendy kames, I would only do about 20K damage.

This plan allows me to output 29,000 + 6 x 10,000 = 89K during that final 30 seconds.

I have A LOT of fun playing around with planning for the final 30 seconds with all kinds of ultimates.

A lot of things can happen and a lot of inefficencies can occur so you don't want a plan with no wriggle room as it will most often fail. It will most often fail in the way that you will typically fail to fire off that final ultimate or only deal a fraction of the damage.

(the final ultimate that failed to get fired)

On top of scoring well per match, here are some meta considerations that will help you dramatically improve your leaderboard placement:

1. WHEN TO COMMIT TIME
Raid is not the same at the start and towards the end. Why? Because the raid boss GAIN LEVELS! As the raid boss gets closer to level 99, the boss resistance increases and it becomes HARDER to score well doing the exact same thing. As such, I like to commit the most time on the FIRST AND SECOND DAY of a raid. This is when it is easiest to get max score per round and also when it is easiest to get games quickly as most people will be playing only the first two days. I typically commit about 10 hours all night with no sleep on the first day and try to hit 4 million to 5 million on the first day. This leads to the next point...

(first day of caulifla/kale raid)

2. ESTABLISH COMMANDING LEAD
Placement on the leaderboard is not only how well you do per match (it is granted if you wish to be top 3, you should be getting 10K to 15K per match) but how you manage the moods of your competitors. Nothing crash the spirit and discourages your competitors than a commanding lead. When your competitor sees that your score is already so much higher than his or hers and its only the first day, it discourages him or her from trying too hard. This makes it so much easier to maintain your leaderboard placement over the rest of the days. I typically aim to maintain my score at twice the score of the second place person. If that person plays 500K the next day, I play 1 million and i keep maintaining that ratio. But I definitely do not work as hard anymore over the next few days. If your scores is just slightly higher than your competitor, it ENCOURAGES your competitor to work harder and now both of you have a hard time.


3.HOW TO GRIND
Yes, doing well in raids is the pinnacle of GRINDING. But not only silly grinding with poor result but it demands your top result every single time over an extended period of time. This means keeping your performance and focus for hours non stop. This is not an easy thing to do. I would say, people fail to become number one not because they played badly but they didn't have the willpower to push for it. I was number two for the Broly raid because I didnt have the willpower to make that final push too. But in terms of grinding, I find that it helps TREMENDOUSLY by having hourly goals. I usually aim to have a 8 match and 400K to 500K goal per hour. As the days go on, it becomes harder and harder to have 8 matches per hour due to lesser and lesser people playing. I also make sure i take a 10 mins break at the top of each hour in order to keep my morale high. Over my 10 hours first day grind, I don't waste time eating. I go to the bathroom at the top of each hour. I don't waste time checking the leaderboard. Going back and forth the leaderboard reduces your matches per hour. I only check once at the top of each hour to make sure i am meeting my goals.

(second in Broly raid cos I totally burned out and cannot push the final 3 to 4 hours. Razor Guardian is amazing of cos!)

4. TEAMWORK IS OP
The most OP way to do well in raids is to have a friend play EDB and you both drop matches continuously non stop by invitation. This is the most OP way to play raids because you are not waiting for matches so you are getting more matches and having a friend with a specialized EDB build just holding the boss so you can get max damage in ensure you always hit 15K per match. I rarely do this because i rather play with many different players and i hate to trouble people too much.

5. FINAL TWO DAYS
Most people work hardest during the final two days and that is a very inefficient way of grinding raids because final few days the boss is at max 99 level and hardest to score max score against. If you have been maintaining commanding lead, final two days is just playing from time to time to maintain that gap. It will not take all day grinding to do. On the final day, I always calculate the time vs gap between me and the competitor just below me. I give him or her the benefit of the doubt that he or she will do max 500K per hour and I see how much time is left. I like to make sure that even if he or she grinds that full time, he or she will still be at least 800K to 1 million short of overtaking me. For example: if only 5 hours left, I assume that person will do 5 x 500 = 2.5 million and I make sure I keep a 3.5 million gap. Once I make that gap, I am done. I dun grind all the way on final day usually. Usually, the competitor is not stupid too. He or she will also calculate and know it is impossible to overtake and also give up. So its good for me and him or her.

Raid Ethics are what I think are best practises that makes the raid better for everone:

1. Always use ALL HEAL
I do see people on the top 3 who never use all heals. People like that not only appear like jerks (yes, they play long enough to have zeni for all heals) but they also make the match less efficient for themselves as I explained in the general principles section.

2. Hit the Ready Button
The moment you go into a room, hit the ready button. There is nothing more painful than watching the 15 second countdown because one guy didnt hit the button. Please respect everyone's time.

3. If you don't have a solid build, just EDB
At least you will be helping the rest of the team.

As a true raider, the time in between one raid event and another is not to be wasted in random activities. This is what I do in raid downtimes in order to ensure my next raid is going to be better:

1. Grind and test new skills. I grind for new skills and extensively test these skills in training mode. I test for DPS (i time and calculate its overall time, startup time, damage time and put in excel sheet), any useful techs (is it a grab? how wide is the effect? does it give me teleportation? lock break? etc etc) and then I think about how it might work against BIG BOSS and SMALL BOSS and whether it is good enough to be tested in the next raid for real. Most skills arent.

2. Practise my timings. I will go into training mode and really get my muscle memory down around my primary loadout rythm and timings. My escape sequence timing (when hit by enemy, immediate spread shot escape + immediate follow up with a super or chrono canon and then refresh boosts all has to be smooth and muscle memory), my transformation sequence timing (going beast and into formation the quickest possible way) etc. Everything has to be down to muscle memory.

3. REST A LOT!!!! Stay away from playing the game as much as possible because you need the energy for the next raid! This is perhaps the most important thing to do! Rest to give your all again during the next raid!