So, why is Team Building important? Short answer: because winning is fun!

Putting together the right combination of Solari, gear, and Relics creates a team that’s more than the sum of its parts. Finding synergies between Solari skills and the item modifiers on Warden gear, or between Warden Relics and and the affinities of your team, can drastically increase your ability to crush your opponent.

So without further ado, here are three basic team build approaches. They aren’t super-advanced, but they demonstrate how to look for useful synergies.

Note: Some of the Solari used as examples might be unfamiliar to a novice Warden, but you’ll run into them before too long!

Do you like attacking? Do you prefer fast-paced games? You’d probably be happy with a very aggressive team build!! An aggressive team features Solari with a mix of fast and powerful skills that take down enemies quickly.

Sauromander and Thunderfly can dish out some pain.


For your aggressive team, start out with Fire or Electric Solari. These two affinities offer a slew of fast, aggressive skills that their Solari can learn. For example, Sauromander and Thunderfly are great examples for fast, yet powerful damage dealers. Aggressive Solari use skills such as ‘Fearless Lunge’ or ‘Reckless Flames’ to overwhelm opponents.

However, this does not mean that other affinities can’t be built to be aggressive - there are plenty of Solari of other affinities that have potential to fit this team, such as Sleeslugg or Shellback. It’s great to make sure you have a diverse pool of affinities so that you can make use of any opportunity to counter an opposing Solari’s affinity.

Sleeslugg and Shellback are ready for action!


To let your Solari deal as much damage as possible, choose either Strength or Spirit-based skills. Then upgrade your Solari with the matching type of essence to maximize those skills.

It’s important to have at least one skill with no boot time (which means it can fire right after entering combat) on each of your Solari for this team. Examples include Quick Fire and Spark Assault.

Also, any moment that your Solari aren’t attacking is a wasted opportunity. Make sure that your skills have short cooldowns, so that your Solari can continue firing off skills at all times.


Quick Briar has no boot time, and you can spam Toxic Slash thanks to its low cooldown


Now let’s talk about which Relics and gear would be best for this aggressive team. Choose Relics that fill gaps in your Solari team’s offensive array. For instance, do your Solari lean toward multi-target skills? Try using a single-target Relic, such as Magma Strike or Churning Blast.

Also, keep your affinity matchups in mind. Are your Solari mostly Fire and Electric? Consider a Nature or Water Relic, such as Hindering Tendril to help against the Stone enemies who’ll shrug off those Fire and Electric attacks.


Hindering Tendril is an excellent damage-dealing Relic!


Your Warden’s offensive gear should support your Relics’ damage type. If your Relics are Strength-based, wear gear with good Strength boosts. Also, it’s a great idea to look for gear modifiers that enhance your Warden’s ability to deal lots of damage fast, such as Fire Boost or Fast Cast.


Fire Boost increases the damage of your Fire Relics!

Sample Aggressive Build: Warden-Rush

Now that we’ve gone over the basic structure of building an aggressive team, I’ll show you a specific version of this approach. The Warden-Rush build relies on Solari with skills that can directly target the enemy Warden. This team ignores the enemy Solari, instead attacking the enemy Warden at all costs!

Although Warden-Rush is weak against tanky Solari who can protect their Warden, or healer Solari who can keep their Warden going despite your damage, it is super-effective against opponents who aren’t prepared for it.


Graveljaw’s Cannonball Run can directly target the enemy Warden.

If you prefer a slower, more methodical battle, building a defensive-minded team may be the right choice for you. You’re trading speed and damage-dealing for the endurance to last for the long haul.

Slow, tanky Solari such as Rockpile and Geonormous are the pillars of this build. Typically, Stone Solari have the best defense stats (Armor and Resist) as well as great defensive skills like Guard Team and Stone Shield to protect your team.

Another way to boost your defense is to include Nature or Water Solari like Leafroot or Squillex, who can provide your team with healing and protective buffs such as Regeneration or Resurgence.

Squillex and Geonormous are big, beefy bruisers.


Upgrade with Armor and Resist essences to make your tanky Solari even tougher.

Keep in mind that even with a defensive build, you still need to deal damage to the opponent! Since your Solari can stretch out a game via defense, you can afford to teach them slow but hard-hitting skills such as Clobbering Strike and Rock Drill.

Clobbering Strike and Rock Drill are slow but powerful Stone skills.


Also, supplement your tanky Solari with some teammates who are good at damage-dealing. Pick these additional Solari from affinities you haven’t already covered (likely Fire, Electric, or Basic). They won’t be as tough as your tanks, but that’s why your tanks chose those protective skills!

(L-R): Titanclaw, Crowbear, and Rockpile are great tanks to protect damage-dealers Phaelynx, Snapdragon, and Clawburst.


On the Warden side, focus on utility Relics that can further protect your team. If you have weak spots in your defenses — for example, if you’re vulnerable to Spirit attacks due to low Resist scores — Crystal Wall or Team Deflect can solve that problem. Healing Relics such as Refreshing Surge are also very nice to keep your tanks topped off so that they can continue to be that pillar for your team!

Crystal Wall mitigates Spirit damage taken by your Solari.


Your offensive gear should prioritize Spirit and Speed, because Spirit helps boost your healing and Speed will lower cooldowns for your Relics. Your defensive and unique gear should have gear modifiers that speed up your Relic use (such as Fast Cast or Fast Cooldown).

Fast Cast 2 allows me to activate my Relics very quickly.


A popular build that exemplifies a defensive team is the Guard Team build. This build focuses on having one tank Solari and one damage-dealing Solari out on the field at a time. By having your tanky Solari use the Guard buff on your team (which means it redirects all damage to itself), your damage-dealing Solari is now safe to blast away without worrying about being shot down.

Although this build is quite vulnerable to Dispel and Toxin, it does a great job of shutting down a lot of aggressive builds.

Guard Team in action! Leechwing is safe to dish out damage while Rockpile protects it.

Do you like messing with your opponent’s head? Do you like using multiple ways to hinder your opponent’s strategy? Debuff builds are great for throwing your opponents out of their comfort zone and using that chaos to give yourself an advantage.

The best and worst thing about Debuff builds is making choices. There are so many different debuffs to choose from! You can use a hodgepodge of many different debuffs to reasonable effect, but it’s probably better to focus on a few that synergize well.

Every Solari in the game has access to at least one or two debuffs. Stone Solari often have a Stun attack, Electric Solari frequently use Chain Lightning, and Fire Solari dish out Burning (no surprise). The affinities with the most debuffs, however, are Nature and Water, so that’s a good place to start when building a debuff team.

The most potent debuff combos are often found on Solari “unique” skills, such as Hedgelock’s Toxic Needle (which can apply Toxin, Fear, Dizzy, or Burning to a single enemy). Including a couple of those skills is a good start, and you can supplement with simpler skills such as Churning Blast or Sapping Strand.

Hedgelock’s unique skill has a chance to apply four different debuffs!


Most debuff teams should prioritize Speed essences when upgrading. By improving their Speed, your Solari can cast their debuffing skills more quickly and more frequently.

Your choice of Relics depends on your debuff preference. Some Relics can apply a variety of debuffs. Chaos Curse has a chance to apply Burning, Toxin, Infect, or Stun—that’s a lot of ways to frustrate your enemy! If you’re looking to stack up Infect, choose Plague Infusion, which applies Infect to all enemy Solari.

Offensive gear should focus on Strength or Spirit, depending on which synergizes with the Relics you chose. Look for gear modifiers that enhance your Relics. For example, if you use the Plague Infusion Relic, bump up its effect by using gear with the Poison Boost modifier!

Poison Boost gives your Poison attacks a pinch of extra power!


Debuff teams have a common weakness: Cleanse. This powerful buff not only erases current debuffs on its target, it also protects the target from additional debuffs for a short duration afterward.

One way you can deal with a Cleanse-heavy enemy team is the timely use of Dispel. Dispel is a debuff that prevents the enemy from applying any buff—including Cleanse—-for a short duration! Just make sure you cast your Dispel first, because Dispel won’t eliminate an already-active Cleanse buff!

Shut down a Cleanse-happy enemy with a proactive Dispel.


Toxin and Infect are both very strong debuffs that synergize extremely well with each other. Toxin deals damage over time, and it can stack up to three times, which increases the damage taken per tick. Infect gives you a chance to gain a stack of Toxin every 5 seconds. It’s not hard to see how these two debuffs work well together!

Look for Nature or Water Solari, such as Snaptrap and Nemonox, to gain access to these debuffs. Also, search the dungeons for Poison skills such as Toxic Slash or Virulent Blast!


Snaptrap and Nemonox are a great start to your Toxinfect Team.

So that concludes this guide on basic Moonrise Team Building!

Remember, Team Building is active, not static. As you learn from your fights, you can and should constantly modify your team to improve it! You should always be thinking after a game to see which aspects of your team build could be working more effectively. Maybe your Aggressive team needs a big finishing move, or your Defensive build needs more healing to outlast your enemy. You don’t have to lose to learn something from a match. Even if you win you could make changes to win even faster!

Also, don’t focus entirely on just one build. It’s best to master a few different builds, so that you can handle a variety of challenges and make it difficult for your opponents to predict which team you’ll use next.

Hopefully these three build examples will give you some ideas about coming up with your own unique team builds! There are so many different combinations of unique Solari, skills, Relics, and gear that can be put together to produce great results. I’ll be expecting to see your new team builds in Moonrise in the near future!

Peter "Heartbeat" Lim, Moonrise Designer