Artifacts

Introduction

Artifacts are powerful weapons and armor that you can win in a variety of ways in Raid: Shadow Legends. When equipped, each one increases a Champion’s Stats. Every Champion has six Artifact slots, and each slot can only have one Artifact equipped at a time.

These are pretty straightforward: Weapons, Helmets, Shields, Gauntlets, Chestplates, and Boots.

See, if we try to equip two Shields at once, the game will prompt you to swap one with the other – and swapping costs Silver. So be careful and don’t just equip random Artifacts without checking what you need first.

Like Champions, Artifacts come in different Ranks and Rarities. The big difference here is that unlike Champions, you can’t change an Artifact’s Rank. Both Rank and Rarity greatly influence the power of an Artifact, but each does so in different ways.

We’ll break those down in a moment.

The properties of an Artifact

Let’s start by checking out the properties of an Artifact. First, each Artifact has a Primary Stat. This is pretty simple and improves the wearer’s Stats by a certain amount. You see this Artifact has an Attack primary stat. This one increases the wearer’s Stats by the percentage stated.

You can also get flat Stat boosts too – but they’re weaker than percentage boosts most of the time. If you wanna know which type of boost it is, just check the Artifact itself: flat stat boosts are marked with a plus sign, while percentage boosts are marked with a percentage sign.

Oh, and this is important: when you see a stat on an Artifact that increases something by X percent, keep in mind that this applies to the base value of the Stat – not the total stat you get with Arena bonuses, Auras, the Great Hall, and so on.

Now, while Weapons, Helmets, and Shields always have the same primary stats, other Artifacts – Gauntlets, Chestplates, and Boots – can come with a variety of primary Stats.
Picking out the right primary stats on those Artifacts – as well as which Sets those Artifacts belong to – is key. They should suit the Skils your Champion has, or what role you want them to perform.

You can check the in-game guide by tapping the Info button in the Artifact menu to see a quick-reference table with all the Stats listed for each Artifact type.
Next, Artifacts also have some Substats. These are smaller stats that are added in addition to the Artifact’s primary Stat. Some Artifacts will have no Substats at Level 1, while some might have multiple.

Rank and Rarity

And this is where Rank and Rarity come in. Rank influences the value of the Primary Stat and Substats. The higher the Rank of an Artifact, the greater the value of its Stats – meaning they reach bigger numbers and give bigger bonuses. Artifacts of a higher Rank have better Primary Stats by default. And to make things even better, the Primary Stat always increases when the Artifact is upgraded.

So that’s Rank, but what about Rarity? Rarity influences the number of Substats an Artifact starts with at its base level. This is super important. Let’s take a look at a few Artifacts to see how this works.

First, Common Artifacts. No matter its Rank, a Common Artifact only has a Primary Stat available at Level 1. Common Artifacts start with zero Substats. As you upgrade an Artifact, Substats are unlocked at key milestone levels. Those key levels are Level 4, 8, 12, and 16. That’s four possible Substats that a fully-upgraded Artifact will have. Remember those levels, because they’re important.

Now, Artifacts of other Rarities start with one or more innate Substats.

Here’s how it breaks down by Rarity: Uncommon Artifacts have one Substat available at Level 1. Rare Artifacts have two, and Epic Artifacts have have three. Legendary Artifacts have all four unlocked at Level 1.

But why is that important? And what makes an Epic Artifact better than a Common one? When you fully upgrade an Artifact, they’ll all have 4 Substats, right?
Let me break it down for you. Remember those milestone levels I mentioned earlier?

At Levels 4, 8, 12, and 16 we unlock new Substats for Artifacts.

We already explained how that works for Common Artifacts, but what about an Epic or Legendary? They already have multiple Substats. Do we unlock extra ones?
We’ll show you how this works with an Epic Artifact.

Remember, Epics start with 3 Substats built in, so you already have the Substats that would have been unlocked at Levels 4, 8, and 12.

So what happens? When you upgrade this Artifact and reach Level 4, one of the existing Substats gets upgraded – like so. And the same again at Level 8, then again at 12. The Substat that gets upgraded is always random, so at Level 12 you could have upgraded one Substat multiple times to get a huge bonus, or split those upgrades across multiple Substats. Depending on your luck, this can be huge.

And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll remeber that we still haven’t reached the final milestone level – Level 16.

In this case, because it’s an Epic Artifact – and all Artifacts should have four Substats at the max level – the 4th and final Substat is unlocked at Level 16. And this whole process is why Rarity is so important when hunting for Artifacts.

Being able to roll multiple upgrades into Substats can hugely amplify the strength of an Artifact and, in turn, the Champion using it. Combine this with high Rank and high Rarity, and you’re already way ahead of the competition.

If you look at these numbers, you’ll see that high-rank Artifacts can get really sweet secondary bonuses from their Substats.

Like, this one has more than 6% HP on top of its Primary Stat!

Maxing your Artifact Sets for a specific Champion is going to increase their efficiency way more than just slapping on some random boots and gauntlets you found in your garage ever will…

Unless your garage is an ancient mystical dungeon. In which case, good on you!

So, even just that stuff is enough to see why Artifacts are important to the overall power of your Champions.

Sets

Each Artifact also belongs to one of the Sets that are available in the game. Some Artifact Sets need 2 Artifacts of the same kind to complete a Set, while some require 4 Artifacts.

And here’s the special part: when a Champion equips enough of the same type of Artifact to complete a full Set, they’ll get another special bonus – a “Set Bonus”.

Some of these bonuses may give basic stat boosts, while some might modify the properties of your Champions’ Skills and let them apply special debuffs.

Take the Stun Artifact Set. It grants an 18% chance to Stun from every attack.

Let’s say you also have a skill that has a 50% chance to apply a Stun debuff too. These chances aren’t added together – both chances are processed separately.
But here’s the kicker, and here’s why it’s different.

You remember from our article about Accuracy and Resistance that all debuffs from Skills have to go through the attacker’s Accuracy versus the defender’s Resistance, right?

Well, Artifacts don’t. If the debuff is triggered based on the percentage chance given by the Set itself, the debuff can’t be resisted.

It doesn’t matter which Affinity the other Champion is, it doesn’t matter how much Accuracy you have.

As long as the dice roll goes your way – and the enemy doesn’t have a Block Debuffs buff – they’re going to eat that debuff regardless of their stats.
Better yet, it even ignores the Weak Hit limitations that we mentioned in the “Champion Affinities” article.

This can be really useful in both PvE and PvP Battles, so be sure to keep that in mind.

That’s a lot to take in, I know, but you still don’t know the best part: Bonuses from Artifact Sets stack.

This means you can equip a Champion with Artifacts from two or even three of the same Set – if you have enough slots – and benefit from all the advantages they give.
Take that Life Set we mentioned earlier. Equip 3 of those Sets, and you’ll get a huge 45% HP boost – 15% from each Set.

And actually, that’s not the best part.

This is: All Artifact Sets can be mixed and matched – so you can equip a 4-Set and a 2-Set together, or a mix of 2-Sets to benefit from the effects of all those sets at the same time.

Figuring out the best combination is a lot of fun, and when it comes to the Arena, figuring out combos to trick or outsmart your opponents will give you the best shot at winning.

Just remember, no Champion stands alone. When you choose which Sets to equip, keep your Team composition in mind.

It’s always best to build your Champions to support and complement each other.

But hey, we talked a lot about Artifacts and what they are. Now let’s talk about where you can get them.

The first Artifact you’ll ever get in the game will be a reward for completing the first Campaign Stage, and later on Campaign stages will continue giving Artifacts as a Reward.

Each specific location has a specific Artifact Set that drops from it.

While the chances of getting higher Rarities are really small, it might still be worth it to farm Artifacts for a specific Set for a specific slot but there’s a limit to how far Campaign Artifacts can take you.

If you want the truly powerful stuff, you’ll wanna head to the Artifact Dungeons.

Each one has a bunch of Sets that you can get as loot for defeating the Dungeon Boss, while more difficult Stages provide Artifacts of both higher Rank and Rarity.

For example, you won’t ever see Common or even Uncommon Artifacts, or Artifacts below Rank 4 dropping from Stage 15 of the Dragon’s Lair.

Oh, and one last tip. Never equip your Artifacts before upgrading them!

Sure, the Primary Stat might look good, but you have no way of controlling which Substats get increased as you upgrade it.

Sometimes that Artifact you had lined up for your damage dealer might turn out to be a really good one for your tank.

And sometimes bad luck is just unavoidable and you might want to trash that Artifact at Level 9, and if you’ve already equipped it, now you’ve gotta pay Silver to get rid of it.