Aether Raids Question

It'll give you 1 or 2 more matches per week at best, depending on how well you collect Aether during your matches. This doesn't make any real difference until you're up in the higher tiers (19 and above).

If you lose heroes often in AR offense, or if it happens that you lose matches, then you probably won't go farther than tier 19 and in this case I don't recommend upgrading the pots as you won't need the extra matches. Now if you think you are a skilled player AND that your defense is okay (average of -60 or -40) then the 2 matches provided by the pots could make you climb tiers if you don't have an optimal scoring using Eir and blessings (though you should at least score 120 per match to hope getting higher).

TL;DR If you are a top player and win consistently, upgrade them; otherwise don't.

I want to get both my forts to rank 3 before I worry about upgrading my aether pool. Your lift gets reset to the lowest it can be in your tier at the end of the week, so theres limited benefit to the extra match or two as long as you're doing well otherwise. That said Ive gotten screwed twice and just barely fallen short of climbing up a rank. Freaking hurts.

But yeah I think fortress upgrades are far more valuable, especially if you're getting them ahead of most other people.

The lift you get from destroying pots does scale with the cost of entering a match, btw