Build and Defend Your Raft Defense Tier List
What actually stops a boarder, ranked by loot saved per wood spent.
This list ranks defensive jobs on a Build and Defend Your Raft deck. Named HP numbers are not public yet, so we do not invent them. We rank what official art and the live loop already show: a pallet dies, a plated spiked box with cannons lives long enough to keep the chest.
Use this with how to defend and raft layouts. If you still need a square footprint, go back to how to build.
S tier
Closed four-wall ring with one door. The cheapest real defense. Everything else fails if this is missing.
Inner chest room. Storage one tile in, not on the lip. Official chests glow; hide the glow.
Crafting Table on a protected tile. If the table dies, you cannot reprint walls. That is a defense piece even though it is a station. See the table guide.
A tier
Spiked outer skirt. The fortress shot wears one. Climbers pay a tax.
Plates on economy tiles. Table, chests, door frame.
A human at the door. Solo or crew anchor. A wall is a timer; a player is a wall that aims.
B tier
Corner cannons covering the approach. Promo guns fire. Point them at the swim lane you actually see, not 360 degrees of empty water.
Roof gun with a hatch offset. Height helps. A hatch that drops guests onto the chest does not.
Lamps on the outer ring. Seeing a dark avatar is defense. A disco in the core is not.
C tier
Second floor as extra HP. Useful after the ground ring is done. A second floor on an open pallet is a diving board.
Decorative rails with gaps. They look finished and leak.
D and F
Open docks. Runways. Chests on the welcome mat. Donations. Four cannons, zero walls. Fireworks. AFK on the roof. You cannot see the door.
How to apply this in a loud lobby
If the server is spicy, print S and A only. Skip the palm. Use the loot checklist before you even think about raiding. If a code drops wood, it goes into S-tier rows first — what codes give.
After Saturday patches, walk the ring. If a plate vanished, the recipe moved. Rebuild S-tier before you restock B-tier guns.
Scripts that auto-repair are not a tier. They are a ban roll. Fair repair is you, a stack of wood, and the hole. The scripts hub is elsewhere on purpose.
Pairings
A closed ring plus a light raid loadout is how you start stealing. A closed ring plus no gather tool is still a win because you keep yesterday’s wood. Defense is the only skill that protects progress you already paid for.
Wood math without fake HP
You do not need a wiki to invent 1,250 HP on a spike. You need to notice that a closed ring costs less than the chest it protects. If a boarder spends thirty seconds on your door and leaves empty, the wood paid for itself. If they walk in because you spent that wood on a palm, the palm was the most expensive piece on the raft.
Rebuild after a hole even if the rest of the ring looks fine. One missing tile is a door you did not authorize. How to build is the repair path; this list is the rank of what you reprint first: ring, then spikes, then plates, then guns.
When Raft Pirates name the wall pieces, this page will grow rows. Until then, rank the job. If a YouTuber lists fake HP, ignore it unless you can see the number in the live table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers for raft builders and raiders.
What is the best defense?
A closed ring and inner chests. Cannons are A or B until that exists.
Are spikes worth it?
Yes, on the outer skirt, after walls exist. Interior spikes mostly grief you.
Should I turret an open raft?
No. Print walls first. Guns without a box are a wood dump.