28+ AFK Journey Tips You Must Know

Whether you’re looking to enhance your tactical prowess or optimize your resource management, the right approach can make all the difference. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll dive deep into the most effective AFK Journey tips that will help you not only survive but thrive in this enchanting idle RPG. From mastering early game strategies to fine-tuning your combat tactics, let’s unlock the secrets to becoming a formidable player in the realm of AFK Journey.

Before diving into this guide, we recommend checking out the Beginner’s Guide if you haven’t already. It provides a solid foundation by explaining the game’s core mechanics and systems. You can find the Beginner’s Guide here.

Assuming you’re acquainted with the basics, let’s move on to some advanced strategies to enhance your gameplay in AFK Journey!

General AFK Journey Tips

Patience Pays Off

AFK Journey, true to its idle game nature, rewards patience more than heavy spending. While spenders might accelerate to the endgame quicker, diligent and strategic play will eventually allow you to compete at the same level. The game’s design supports free-to-play players generously through numerous events and progression rewards.

Strategic Resource Management

You don’t need to dominate the leaderboards to enjoy the game. Competing with spenders in rankings is feasible; reaching the top 20, or even higher, in the Dream Realm is possible with careful planning and resource allocation.

Casual play for about 70 to 80 days should bring you to level 240, allowing you to complete the currently available story at Stage 1125. Although the level cap has recently been raised past 240, only the Trial of Abyss content is gated behind completing the story, so take your time to build up your team.

Rerolling Is Not Essential

• Unlike many idle games, rerolling isn’t critical in AFK Journey. The game’s structure includes ‘fixed’ pities on the normal banner that ensure valuable heroes early on:
• First Pity (10 pulls): Guarantees Cecia, a top-tier damage dealer for story modes, though her effectiveness diminishes in the late game.
• Second Pity (20 pulls): Offers a chance to acquire one of the three best Healers/Supports: Rowan, Hewynn, or Smokey & Meerky.

For those interested in optimizing their starts, our Reroll Guide provides detailed instructions and strategies.

By following these tips, you can maximize your enjoyment and success in AFK Journey without feeling pressured to spend. Remember, the journey is a marathon, not a sprint—focus on strategic planning and steady progression to achieve your gaming goals.

Early Game Tips

In AFK Journey, navigating the early stages effectively can significantly enhance your long-term success. Here’s a structured approach to prioritize your activities and resource allocation during the early game.

Focus on AFK Stages First

While the main story offers enticing rewards such as hidden chests and quest bonuses, prioritizing it too early is a common pitfall. Instead, your initial focus should be on clearing AFK Stages. This approach not only unlocks additional game modes but also boosts your passive income streams, including: Gold, Experience, and Essence

Advancing through these stages also rewards you with Invite Letters and Diamonds, essential for acquiring more characters, and equipment boxes to enhance their capabilities.

Join a Guild Early

Joining a guild should be a priority as it opens up Guild Quests/Challenges, which are vital for acquiring guild currency. This currency is crucial for purchasing powerful characters from the Celestial and Hypogean tiers.

Explore Other Modes After Establishing a Foundation

Once you’ve established a steady progression in AFK Stages, delve into the Open World and other newly unlocked modes such as the Arena, Dream Realm, Labyrinth, and Legend Trial.

The rewards from these modes will support further progression in AFK Stages, creating a productive cycle of advancement.

Timing Your Arena and Dream Realm Efforts:

To maximize results, engage in Arena and Dream Realm challenges at the end of your gaming day when your characters are at their strongest.

Utilize A-Level Characters

Contrary to their role in similar games, A-Level characters in AFK Journey can be ascended to the highest tiers and are sometimes the best choices for certain modes. Investing in these characters can yield substantial benefits.

Strategic Use of Instant Rewards

Hourglasses, which instantly grant several hours’ worth of idling resources, should be used judiciously. Optimize their use by waiting until you are stuck or have reached the end of your daily progression, as later stages yield more resources.

Manage Your Idle Rewards

Ensure you regularly collect your AFK Stage idle rewards to avoid overcapping, which initially happens after 12 hours but can extend to 24 hours as you progress.

Equipment Prioritization

Unlike in other games, equipment in AFK Journey is class-based rather than character-specific, meaning all characters of a class benefit from the same gear:

Initially, focus on upgrading Marksman gear, as damage dealers in this class are vital for both Story progression and excelling in the Dream Realm.

After Marksman gear, equally prioritize Tank and Support gear. Enhanced gear for Tanks increases their survivability, while better gear for Supports speeds up their Ultimate ability usage.

Class	Equipment Upgrade Priority
	Head → Leg → Body → Accessory → Weapon → Hands
	Weapon → Head → Hands → Accessory → Body → Leg
	Weapon → Accessory → Head → Body → Hands → Leg
	Weapon → Head → Hands → Accessory → Body → Leg
	Leg → Body → Accessory → Head → Hands → Weapon
	Weapon → Leg → Accessory → Head → Hands → Body

Resource Management

How to use Diamonds

Optimize Your Summons: Avoid using single pulls on the All-Recruit banner, as it costs 300 Diamonds for a single pull, whereas a 10-pull costs only 2700 Diamonds, offering a discount and guaranteeing at least one A-Level character.

This makes multi-pulls a more cost-effective choice.

Set Up Your Wishlist Early:

You should set up your Wishlist as soon as it becomes available, which will happen automatically after your first 30 pulls on the All-Recruit banner during the tutorial.

This feature helps you target the characters you most want to acquire, improving your chances of pulling them from the banner.

Balance Spending on Summons and Shop Items:

While the majority of your gems will likely go towards summons on the All-Recruit banner, don’t overlook the importance of saving some for purchasing weekly/monthly items in various shops, as these can offer great value such as Invite Letter and Epic Invite Letter.

Managing Upgrade Essences

Be judicious with your use of Temporal Essence and Twilight Essence, which are essential for upgrading EX weapons.

These resources are particularly scarce for free-to-play (f2p) players, and once your initial reserves dry up, they can be tough to replenish, especially if you aren’t ranking high on leaderboards.

Not all characters require the same level of investment in their Exclusive Weapons. Some may only need a +5 or +10 enhancement, or even none at all (+0), to be effective. Overinvesting in one character’s weapon can lead to wastage of precious essences.

Character Affinity

Characters gain Affinity by participating in battles, but you can expedite this process by giving them plants found throughout the game world or gifts purchased from the Friendship store. Each plant boosts

Affinity by 100, which is sufficient to earn 50 Diamonds.

To earn an additional 50 Diamonds, you must reach 700 Affinity, and reaching 1300 Affinity will also reward you with an Invite Letter.

Instead of concentrating all your plants on a single character, distribute them among several to maximize the freebies you can collect, such as Diamonds and Invite Letters. This strategy enhances your overall resource pool and helps you progress more smoothly through various game stages.

By employing these combat strategies, you not only enhance your tactical approach but also optimize the effectiveness of your team in AFK Journey. Remember, flexibility and strategic planning are key to conquering the challenges that await in the game.

Essential Game Modes Tips

Navigating the various game modes in AFK Journey can be daunting, but with the right strategies, you can maximize your progress efficiently. Here’s how to optimize your gameplay across different modes.

Story / World Map

• Complete Zone Objectives: Ensure you kill every enemy and loot all chests on the map for full zone completion rewards.
• Collect Plants: These are crucial for the Affinity system, allowing you to convert them into [invite letter] and Diamonds.
• Regular Visits: Make it a habit to check in with Browa Ironhoof and Keith in Holistone for available gear and experience boosts that can strengthen your characters.

AFK Stages

• Prioritize Progression: Your position in the AFK stages significantly affects your passive income, so focus on advancing in this mode.
• Manage Instant Rewards: Use the Instant Rewards feature sparingly; it’s best utilized when you’re stuck since the rewards depend on your current stage.

Arena

• Smart Matchups: Early in the game, challenge opponents with lower power to ensure victories rather than risking battles against those with similar or higher power.
• Use Strong PVE Characters: Don’t worry about forming a meta team initially; your strongest PVE characters can serve you well in early Arena matches.
• Maximize Attempts: Utilize all daily free challenge attempts, including two additional ones available through the + button. Advancing in rankings boosts your one-time and daily rewards, making it cost-effective to spend Diamonds on extra attempts if you’re close to advancing.

Dream Realm

• Focus on Key Characters: Early on, prioritize upgrading characters that perform well in Dream Realm, such as Odie, Marilee, and Kruger.
• Daily Boss Battles: Tackle the Dream Realm boss daily—it’s a prime source for A-Level character duplicates. Investing in strong characters here speeds up their upgrades, enabling higher damage output and better rankings.
• Experiment with Runs: If you’re struggling to find a better setup, retry your best setup to potentially achieve higher scores, as runs can vary even with the same characters and positioning.
• Commit to Battles: Once a battle starts, you can’t restart, and each entry is limited daily. Make every attack count.
• Adapt Strategies for Each Boss: Each boss may require a different approach; consult our Dream Realm dedicated guides for specific strategies.

Legend Trial

• Optimal Timing: Legend trials allow only a 20-stage gap between each faction. All faction trials open on Sundays, making it the best time to catch up on any missed stages.

Effective Team Building Strategies in AFK Journey

Optimize Faction Composition:

Faction bonuses provide significant stat boosts to your team and are activated when you include more than two characters from the same faction.

Ideally, your team should consist of characters from no more than two different factions to maximize these bonuses.

Incorporating Celestial and Hypogean Characters:

Celestial and Hypogeans characters are unique in that they count as ‘neutral’ members, meaning they can complement any faction to activate matching bonuses.

For example, if you have four Wilders in your team, adding a Celestial or Hypogean will trigger the five-character faction bonus, maximizing your team’s stats.

Building Around a Faction

While it might be tempting to build a team around a single faction to maximize the faction bonus, this approach is typically not advisable.

Most factions do not have five characters that are individually powerful and have good synergy.

Furthermore, the slight increase in stats does not usually compensate for the loss in versatility and utility offered by top meta characters.

Establish a Strong Core

Instead of a 1-faction approach, focus on creating a ‘core’—a group of three characters from the same faction that will form the basis of your team’s strategy.

This core dictates the primary faction of your team, while the remaining two slots can be filled with characters who enhance the core’s effectiveness, often including Celestial or Hypogeans heroes to leverage their flexible faction bonus.

Strategic Considerations

Balance Utility and Power: When selecting characters for your team, balance between utility (such as healing, crowd control) and offensive capabilities. This ensures your team can handle a variety of scenarios effectively.

Adaptability is Key: Be prepared to adjust your team composition based on the specific challenges you face in different modes such as the Arena, Dream Realm, or Labyrinth. What works well in one area might not be as effective in another.

Keep Developing Your Roster: As you progress in the game and unlock more characters, continuously evaluate your team setup. New characters might offer better synergy or stronger abilities that could necessitate changes in your core strategy.

Combat Tips

Understanding and mastering combat mechanics in AFK Journey is crucial for advancing through the game effectively.

Here are several key strategies to enhance your combat tactics and overcome challenging stages.

Auto-Play: While auto-play simplifies progression by handling battles automatically, it often doesn’t utilize character skills optimally. If you find yourself stuck at a particular stage, switch to manual control. Manually activating your characters’ abilities allows for strategic timing and placement, which can significantly extend how far you progress compared to solely relying on auto-play.

Vary Your Formations: Using the same formation for every battle is a common mistake. Small adjustments to character placement can dramatically change the outcome. For example, if your tank is falling quickly, try adding a second tank or adjusting their positions to split enemy aggro more evenly. This can give your backline characters enough time to unleash their ultimates.

Utilize Environmental Features: Many stages include obstacles like barrels or balls that can be used to your advantage. Slight adjustments to your formation to interact with these elements can often make a seemingly impossible stage manageable.

Capitalize on Combat Mechanism: Not all stages feature mechanisms, but when they do, using them can significantly hinder the enemy. Activate traps during combat to inflict damage or debuffs on opponents, tipping the scales in your favor.

Experiment with Less Used heroes: Since AFK Journey levels your entire roster based on your top 5 heroes and shares gear among classes, you can integrate less frequently used heroes into your lineup without them being underpowered. This flexibility allows for dynamic team compositions that can be tailored to specific challenges.

Faction Advantage: Characters deal 15% more damage and receive 15% less damage from factions they counter. For instance, if you’re struggling with a Rowan protected in the backline, using a Silvina from the Graveborn faction, which counters Lightbearer, can be an effective solution to quickly eliminate him.

Learning from Others: If you’re unable to pass a stage, consider consulting the battle records of other players. Look for the small ‘I’ icon in the bottom left corner of the Battle button, then press on “Records” to see a list of teams that have successfully completed the stage.

This list includes details like team power levels, individual character damage, and even allows you to watch replays of the battles.

Learning from these records can provide insights into effective strategies and formations that might work for your own team.