Farming Food: Best Campaign Stages and Farmers

Food is the fuel of progress in RAID: Shadow Legends. Without it no champion reaches 6★, and without 6★ there is no Clan Boss team and no high-level dungeon clears. The good news is that food farming is the most predictable part of the game: a couple of campaign stages and a handful of champions cover almost the whole job.

How much food you need, and why it all happens in the campaign

Work the chain from the bottom up: one 6★ champion needs five 5★ pieces of food. Each 5★ is a champion levelled to 50 plus four 4★ foods. Each 4★ needs three 3★ foods, and so on down to 1★. A single 6★ eats dozens of small champions, and there is nowhere to get them except shards and the campaign.

The campaign is unique because the same energy buys three things at once: XP for your food, silver from selling the drops, and a chance at usable early artifacts. Dungeons give almost no XP, and Arena and Clan Boss do not level food at all. That is why nine out of ten food runs happen in the campaign.

Best stages: Brutal 12-3 and its neighbours

The general rule is simple: the higher the difficulty and the later the chapter, the more XP you get per point of energy. So you always farm the last chapter your farmer clears reliably and fast.

The de facto standard is Brutal 12-3. It is the best mix of XP per energy and decent gear drops that later turn into silver. A Brutal run costs 8 energy, the waves are short, and a properly built farmer clears the stage in one or two AoE casts.

The second most popular pick is 12-6: that stage drops boots, which means a shot at Speed boots with a Speed main stat. If silver matters more than raw speed, alternate 12-3 and 12-6. Boss stages (the seventh stage of every chapter) are not used for food: fewer waves, longer fights, worse XP per run.

If your farmer holds Nightmare comfortably, move to Nightmare 12-3 for the maximum XP per energy. But until the champion one-shots waves, Brutal is simply faster.

Who should be your farmer

There are only two requirements: AoE damage that wipes a wave in one or two casts, and enough survivability to last three waves alone. Everything else is a bonus.

• Starters — Kael, Athel, Elhain, Galek. Any of them at 6★ in reasonable gear clears Brutal 12-3. Kael is the popular pick because he also pulls weight in other modes, though as a pure farmer he is no faster than the rest.
• Skullcrown — the classic epic campaign farmer: AoE damage plus the durability to stay alive on the third wave.
• Magnarr — hits off HP, so damage and health come in the same package; a very stable choice for long farming sessions.
• Genbo the Dishonored — an epic with real AoE damage that most players underestimate as a farmer.

Among legendaries, any built nuker clears 12-3 without drama — Marius the Gallant, Acrizia, Gnut and similar. But it is not worth building a legendary just for the campaign: they belong in Clan Boss and dungeons, and an epic already covers the stage.

Building your farmer: gear and masteries

Gear priority, in order:

1. 100% Crit Rate. Without it your AoE hits at half strength and the run falls apart.
2. Crit Damage — the next most valuable stat.
3. ATK% (or HP% for HP scalers like Magnarr).
4. Speed on boots, so the farmer moves before the wave does.

Sets: four pieces of one set plus two of another. If the farmer does not one-shot waves, swap raw attack for Lifesteal or Immortal — Lifesteal heals off damage dealt, and the champion survives the stage on its own. Masteries matter little in the campaign: put points into the Offense tree, but do not re-roll them specifically for food farming.

Practice: running food fast

1. Turn on an XP boost and only then burn energy. Farming without a boost is half speed.
2. Remember the thresholds: 1★ levels to 10, 2★ to 20, 3★ to 30, 4★ to 40, 5★ to 50. Going higher is wasted runs.
3. Run one farmer plus three food champions — all three gain XP from the same run.
4. Use multi-battle: clicking into 12-3 dozens of times by hand is pointless.
5. Time your farming with Champion Training events — the same XP converts into rewards, so your energy works twice.
6. Check the Market: it sells 1-2★ champions for silver, which is free food without spending energy.
7. Lock any champion you do not recognise before you feed it away. A mistake here costs more than any unfinished mastery.

Rounding it out: Sparring Pit and brews

The Sparring Pit levels champions passively while you are away — park 3-5★ food there, since that is the most time-expensive tier. XP Brews are best spent on 4-5★ food rather than on small fry, because low levels fly by in a couple of runs anyway. Dungeons are not an XP source: there you pay energy for gear, not for levels.

Summary

• The main farming spot is Brutal 12-3; take 12-6 when you want boots and silver.
• A farmer is anyone who wipes a wave with one or two AoE casts and survives: starters, Skullcrown, Magnarr, Genbo the Dishonored.
• 100% Crit Rate beats every other stat.
• Always farm under an XP boost, in multi-battle, and with an eye on Champion Training events.
• 1★ to 10, 2★ to 20, 3★ to 30 — do not push past that.