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Build and Defend Your Raft — Defense Tier List
Tier List Updated 2026-09-03

Defense Tier List

A defense tier list built from what actually happens in raids, not from how intimidating pieces look on a finished raft. Ranked for the September 2026 build — the dev ships updates every Saturday, so tiers can shift (we re-check after every patch).

S tier — wins raids by itself

  • Chest placement. Not a buyable item — a decision. A chest deep inside, behind reinforced doors, converts most raids into a wasted trip. Raiders can carry the whole chest away; placement is the only thing that stops them.
  • Reinforced Wall. Low-level cannons struggle against even wood, and reinforced walls are the reason “I cannot crack their walls” appears in raid stories. The best materials-per-HP in the game.

A tier — core of every good raft

  • Automatic Cannon. Real firepower: auto-firing, tracking, and the only piece that sinks rafts at range. Held back from S by its appetite for metal, its four-piece starting cap, and the upgrade it needs before walls start melting. See the cannons guide.
  • Reinforced Floor / Stairs. The two-deck fortress lives on these — the stairs are where boarders die and the reinforced floor is what your vault stands on.
  • Lock Raft / Shield. S-tier moments, A-tier pieces — both are cooldown-limited emergency buttons, not a defense plan. Full mechanics in the lock & shield guide.

B tier — strong with support

  • Turret. Shreds unarmored boarders, but its short detection radius and modest structure damage make it a specialist: interior defense behind a cannon perimeter. Place it wrong and it’s decoration. See the turrets guide.
  • Wall / Wall 2 (wood). Necessary, cheap, and eventually bait — every wood wall is scheduled for replacement by reinforced. Fine for the first ring, don’t sink your whole wood pile in it.
  • Net. Technically economy, included because a netted raft re-earns raid losses faster than any repair. See the nets guide.

C tier — situational

  • Spike Trap / Fence. Slows and annoys boarders; doesn’t stop a determined one, and the materials often beat spent on a reinforced wall segment.
  • Tower / Reinforced Tower. A climbable height advantage and a fine sniper perch, but it’s a vantage point, not a defense — the chest room below it does the actual protecting.
  • Extra Doors. A defense piece the way an unlocked window is a security system. Raiders open doors from the inside; one door per wall ring, max.

F tier — loot insurance, nothing more

  • Flags, Torches, cosmetics. Zero steal protection. The hour-100 promo raft looks like a resort; the hour-100 surviving raft looks like a box with cannons. Decorate after you win.

How we tier

Rankings weigh observed raid outcomes (what actually stops a chest theft), confirmed mechanics from the dev team’s Discord answers, and material cost — not raw damage numbers, which the dev hasn’t published. After each Saturday update we re-verify and re-tier.