This is the first raid where you will find weapons and breastplates for your heroes and the guide I have seen for it are not that helpful for several reasons – one is that for earlier players you only see heroes recommended there that you probably don’t have and also a lot of heroes are recommended that are not that easily obtainable altogether.
But here is the good news… even epic heroes can work here so you don’t need the latest or event heroes to actually beat these stages if you use the heroes that excel here!
Important tip here: if you see your team being quite alive well but simply not being able to take down the enemies before they cluster up too much, you very likely don’t need different heroes you rather need to build your heroes up higher for that stage. Sounds lame but the reality is that the power levels make or break you in Gear Raid I.
If you’re looking for the other raid teams and other team setups, please check out the full overview of them here and here you will find the guide for the map of Stage 1-18.
Best Heroes for Gear Raid 1
Here are the heroes that work so go through your roaster and pick the ones that are available to you.
Healer/Support Heroes for Gear Raid 1
Not just your melee heroes will suffer damage here and you also need to keep your mages and ranged heroes alive by constant healing and also buff their damage output. Your heroes dying or not dealing enough damage to the waves is the make-or-break point here. Also, boosting your heroes is mandatory so you need support heroes to really pack the punch and enable the heroes hitting their ultimates as hard as possible and often enough you have to time your ultimates well –let them charge up and then use the support ultimates and then activate ALL DPS heroes ultimates right after to get the most out of it.
Melee Heroes for Gear Raid 1
You can hit through the wall but unlike on the map of Stage 1-18, you don’t have two walls so as soon as your wall is down, your battle is pretty much a lsot cause! Fighters that can hit through the wall are useful but with the way their range works and the mobs line up here (compared to the map of Stage 1-18 where they lined up in 2 tiles you now have to cover 3 tiles), fighters and melee heroes lose effectiveness a lot! The only REAL powerful heroes here are the ones that you can place in front of the wall where they deal damage while dying.
AoE DPS Heroes for Gear Raid 1
And now the heart of it, filling your team with the strong AoE DPS heroes that will do most of the work here. Make also sure to place them in range of your healer/support heroes to keep them up and make sure that they deal as much damage as possible. Ideally you place themon the side of your healer as they have a range that is also behind them so you can place your heroes comfortably in their area.
Team Setup in Gear Raid 1 – Stage 19-21 Map
So, this guide gives you different heroes for different positions and roles and I also ranked them by how well they work. Still, if you pack 3 healers in there you will very likely will lack DPS and if you only put AoE damage dealers in there you will lack support and stopping heroes and range will become an issue.
As a general rule you want to have2-3x support/healers + 1x melee + rest AoE damage dealing heroes and here are the ones with my recommended positions:
Search:
Elowyn
S+
Absolutely mandatory healer to keep your team alive.
Best Build
Dolores
S+
Scales any team since she is based on percentage. Is not in for the heal here so make sure to use a real healer but to buff ally attack by a lot. Works early and later in all stages really well.
Best Build
Khamet
S+
His ultimate is probably the msot efficient damage dealing option you have here of all heroes.
Best Build
Vierna
S+
Amazing AoE damage and one of the best damage-dealing options you have.
Best Build
Ajax
S+
MRES and AoE damage make him one of the best options in this mode.
Best Build
Venoma
S+
Her kit is literally designed for Gear Raid 1.
Best Build
Demi
S+
Slow is useful bit even more important she has a Heal Block which makes her perfect for Gear Raid 1.
Best Build
Laseer
S+
Anti-healing is so mandatory here that you have to use him..
Best Build
Marri
S+
Amazing epic hero for GR1 with her AoE damage and whole kit that excels in this raid mode and is a must for almost all players that can't build a full legendary team here..
Best Build
Silas
S
Although only single-target damage, he delivers his damage with piercing damage reliably in GR1 as well.
Best Build
Morrigan
S
Her damage by herself doesn't outshine other mages but she can boost other mages so espcially if you use mages here, she is a great booster.
Best Build
Laya
S
Amazing as support who provides a lot of rage for the team and some healing as well. A great fir for GR1.
Best Build
Cerberus
S
He delivers a ton of area damage when he dies so you can use him as soon as the wall .
Best Build
Magda
S
Works great and even better when used with heroes that provide death bonus (Cerberus and Attrox) where she massively increses her damage output passively when they die.
Best Build
Ghan
A+
Can tank in frontrow and espcially when used with Cerberus will do such a great job. Without Cerberus not too well!.
Best Build
Hollow
A+
Good healing, range and upmost her rage booster is working really well here..
Best Build
Maul
A+
Great epic hero here with amazing range so can be placed way back and still reach the whole middle area and with his ultimate that freezes you will see him deal a ton of damage here.
Best Build
Eona
A+
also a great epic area damage dealer that is for sure a hero you can run here successfully.
Best Build
Ai
A+
Amazing crowd control that you will use even in later stages of GR1 very frequently.
Best Build
Laurel
A+
If you got her 5th talent she can actually do quite some work here in this mode.
Best Build
Boreas
A+
.
Best Build
Hatssut
A+
Although GR1 is probably her weakest game mode, she still does quite some work here and works well enough to make it in my list.
Best Build
Ardea
A+
Her range make her one of the few fighters that can work comfortably behind the first wall.
Best Build
Solcadens
A+
His focus fire works very well to deliver the damage you need to take the boss down so don't underestimate what he can do here..
Best Build
Captain Reve
A+
Great damage and crow control make him one of the few defenders that work in this mode and actually does quite some work here..
Best Build
Razaak
A+
Basically the legendary version of Maul here althoughhh needs a team that can help scale his ultimate burst up to really shine..
Best Build
Carnelian
A+
Primarily in for her protection of fatal damage for allies to cheat death here and there. YOur heroes will go down here and there so she helps a lot keeping the DPS output stable.
Best Build
Ferssi
A+
His aoe damage mitigation makes him work in this Gear Raid quite well..
Best Build
Constance
A+
A defender that can heal makes her quite unique but also can make her work here. Not the greatest option but surprisingly solid.
Best Build
Aeon
A+
Works well in waht she does and her kit works in this stage pretty well.
Best Build
Arrogance
A
His range absolutely qualify him for this stage although overall he wouldn't be my first pick here.
Best Build
Valkyra
A
Her range, espcially in ultimate, works really well here but she just lacks overall damage output to be a great pick. Still works, don't get me wrong.
Best Build
Kria
A
She works well when consistently killing enemies so GR1 provides that flow to make her kit roll.
Best Build
Sadie
A
She can prevent one-shot but keep in mind that her healing is very likely not high enough to keep your team up..
Best Build
Durza
A
Not for the damage but her buffs and debuffs help here for sure..
Best Build
Greed
A
One of the few modes where he actually works well with his AoE damage.
Best Build
Dalyn
A
Not for damage but she provides costs for all allies so if you run a team with heroes that depend on dying, she can battery costs here.
Best Build
Atrox
A
Basically works by dying consntaly so use with Cerberus and most importantly Magda and he can do some work here..
Best Build
Conclusion
I know there is no one-fits-all setup here so you have to adapt the heroes with your roaster and see how they work together – bottom line I feel this is still a much bigger help than the guides you see inside the game which I have a couple of throughts on that I rather keep to myself why certain creators are constantly listed there and why certain heroes are pushed in the recommendations. Feel free to interpret that however you want but even more important, just let me know in the comments if you have questions or think I should list other heroes as well.
