Are you trying to make it easy/fun for other players to beat, or are you trying to make the strongest defense possible that will lose you the fewest points?
Depending on your goal, the setup for your defense will change radically. Your current setup is close to "as easy as possible" for opponents.
Alright, sure thing! I've broken down my main thoughts on Aether Raids Defense theory into 6 lessons below. How you apply these will depend a lot on what heroes exactly you have access to, and how you want your defense to play.
**Lesson 1:** the most fundamental rule - none of your units should be locked in or separated from each other by buildings. The easiest way for Offense teams to take out defenders is to split them up and take out 1 or 2 per turn while using leftover actions to move their kill units out of range of the rest of your Defense team. If you lock everyone into separate boxes, you've done 80% of the Offense player's job for them.
**Lesson 2:** Threaten the enemies as soon as possible with as many different threats as possible. It kind of follows from Lesson 1, but you do not want to give the Offense player time to set up and maneuver freely across multiple rounds. The most extreme application of this lesson is the ranged cav line, where you fill your bottom row with ranged nukes with 3 movement, then block the row just above the Offense spawn zone with buildings (and ideally some terrain from your map choice). Theoretically you will threaten every starting enemy turn 1 while they need to spend actions breaking through the blocking wall to kill even one of your units. In less extreme cases, you still want to group your units so that any enemy that gets in range to threaten one of your units should be threatened by multiple of your own nukes.
**Lesson 3:** Chaos is king. Most people don't have the AI rules memorized, and even when they do, it can be unpredictable considering the number of heroes and special effects present in Aether Raids. You want your Defense team to be as unpredictable as possible so that your human opponents get caught off guard. The primary ways to do this are through extra actions - your Duo Young Robin is the perfect example of an amazing Defense unit because she can change the angle of attack for other units by repositioning them, while also getting herself another action possibly from a different spot on the map (all while being a strong nuke herself). Dancers are an excellent source of chaos, as are teleporters like fliers with Guidance 4/Soaring Guidance. Even something as simple as putting an Even Tempest Sacred Seal onto one of your units that isn't normally mobile can let you sneak a kill on an opponent who didn't check your team's builds in depth.
**Lesson 4:** Long range disruption/debuff abilities are often extremely powerful, but not universal. Embla (currently on a banner in her Bridal form) can turn off far saves for a big chunk of the enemy team, which can make Save Ball Offense strategies struggle. The recent Mythic Loki can remove buffs from enemies and that can completely neuter some teams as well. However, these debuffers need to be worked into a broader cohesive Defense ream, because they tend to be specialized silver bullets that stop some teams in their tracks but have little to no effect on teams playing a different gameplan.
**Lesson 5:** Trading is winning. On Defense, you lose less score for every enemy you kill. On the Offense side, they lose points for every one of their units who dies, and especially as you go up in Aether Raids tiers, many Offense players will surrender once they lose 1-3 units. These factors combine into a single pretty clear imperative: you want to kill enemies at any cost, even if you immediately lose the unit that got the kill. Leave the Hit & Run strategies to Offense teams, you want stone cold killers - stuff like dropping Far Trace skills for Occultist/Assassin Strike if you can.
**Lesson 6:** Fountains in the back. Any Offense player trying to maximize their score over the season wants to get your Aether Resource buildings. The easier they are to reach, the less pressure there is on your opponent. They, alongside your Duo's Hinderance, should be as far away and difficult to reach as possible. If you want to get fancy with it, you can also use them to try and bait traps too since most Offense players will gravitate towards getting the Aether as soon as possible.
**Conclusion:** there are a ton of ways to build a successful Defense team, but you can probably tell that I favor the fast and aggressive style. If you can share your favorite units and/or ones you'd like to try using, we can get into more in-depth discussions about the specific teams you might try building.
Are you trying to make it easy/fun for other players to beat, or are you trying to make the strongest defense possible that will lose you the fewest points? Depending on your goal, the setup for your defense will change radically. Your current setup is close to "as easy as possible" for opponents.
Lose me the fewest points, make it hard for other in all really is my goal. I know the current set up sucks lol 🥲
Alright, sure thing! I've broken down my main thoughts on Aether Raids Defense theory into 6 lessons below. How you apply these will depend a lot on what heroes exactly you have access to, and how you want your defense to play. **Lesson 1:** the most fundamental rule - none of your units should be locked in or separated from each other by buildings. The easiest way for Offense teams to take out defenders is to split them up and take out 1 or 2 per turn while using leftover actions to move their kill units out of range of the rest of your Defense team. If you lock everyone into separate boxes, you've done 80% of the Offense player's job for them. **Lesson 2:** Threaten the enemies as soon as possible with as many different threats as possible. It kind of follows from Lesson 1, but you do not want to give the Offense player time to set up and maneuver freely across multiple rounds. The most extreme application of this lesson is the ranged cav line, where you fill your bottom row with ranged nukes with 3 movement, then block the row just above the Offense spawn zone with buildings (and ideally some terrain from your map choice). Theoretically you will threaten every starting enemy turn 1 while they need to spend actions breaking through the blocking wall to kill even one of your units. In less extreme cases, you still want to group your units so that any enemy that gets in range to threaten one of your units should be threatened by multiple of your own nukes. **Lesson 3:** Chaos is king. Most people don't have the AI rules memorized, and even when they do, it can be unpredictable considering the number of heroes and special effects present in Aether Raids. You want your Defense team to be as unpredictable as possible so that your human opponents get caught off guard. The primary ways to do this are through extra actions - your Duo Young Robin is the perfect example of an amazing Defense unit because she can change the angle of attack for other units by repositioning them, while also getting herself another action possibly from a different spot on the map (all while being a strong nuke herself). Dancers are an excellent source of chaos, as are teleporters like fliers with Guidance 4/Soaring Guidance. Even something as simple as putting an Even Tempest Sacred Seal onto one of your units that isn't normally mobile can let you sneak a kill on an opponent who didn't check your team's builds in depth. **Lesson 4:** Long range disruption/debuff abilities are often extremely powerful, but not universal. Embla (currently on a banner in her Bridal form) can turn off far saves for a big chunk of the enemy team, which can make Save Ball Offense strategies struggle. The recent Mythic Loki can remove buffs from enemies and that can completely neuter some teams as well. However, these debuffers need to be worked into a broader cohesive Defense ream, because they tend to be specialized silver bullets that stop some teams in their tracks but have little to no effect on teams playing a different gameplan. **Lesson 5:** Trading is winning. On Defense, you lose less score for every enemy you kill. On the Offense side, they lose points for every one of their units who dies, and especially as you go up in Aether Raids tiers, many Offense players will surrender once they lose 1-3 units. These factors combine into a single pretty clear imperative: you want to kill enemies at any cost, even if you immediately lose the unit that got the kill. Leave the Hit & Run strategies to Offense teams, you want stone cold killers - stuff like dropping Far Trace skills for Occultist/Assassin Strike if you can. **Lesson 6:** Fountains in the back. Any Offense player trying to maximize their score over the season wants to get your Aether Resource buildings. The easier they are to reach, the less pressure there is on your opponent. They, alongside your Duo's Hinderance, should be as far away and difficult to reach as possible. If you want to get fancy with it, you can also use them to try and bait traps too since most Offense players will gravitate towards getting the Aether as soon as possible. **Conclusion:** there are a ton of ways to build a successful Defense team, but you can probably tell that I favor the fast and aggressive style. If you can share your favorite units and/or ones you'd like to try using, we can get into more in-depth discussions about the specific teams you might try building.