AFK Journey offers 46 characters for you to use to explore the Story, top the ranks of Dream Realm, or dominate players in PvP. Initially, it seems like the game’s rating of A-Level and S-Level clearly marks the best ones, but it doesn’t. It’s just how hard it is to unlock them.
Mastering AFK Journey is a matter of finding optimal strategies, good offensive and defensive synergies, and assembling the best teams. Some characters have unique skills that give them increased survivability, scaling damage, and consistent healing, making them a menace in most game modes. Based on my experience with AFK Journey, here’s my tier list you can use to prioritize your characters rolls and resource investments to dominate the game’s biggest challenges.
AFK Journey hero tiers explanation
Here’s what each tier means in our AFK Journey tier list below. Journey Commanders (S-Tier) is the best tier, while Journey Recruits (D-Tier) is the worst.
| Tier | Tier description |
|---|---|
| S-Tier (Journey Commanders) | The best of the best. They have unique skills, buffs, and passives that give them tankiness, attack power, or healing that no other hero in their class has. For instance, some are able to revive, others can restore allies’ Energy. They are usually the carries of your team and are hard to counter. |
| A-Tier (Journey Captains) | Very strong characters who are often a good pick and can make a good team great. They’re just not excellent because they’re either slower to use their skills than S heroes or don’t get as good extra stats and skills with upgrades as S heroes do. |
| B-Tier (Journey Lieutenants) | Good characters that shine with specific team dynamics, such as focusing on diving the backline, debuffing targets, or high-healing comps. If you don’t have a focused strategy for your team, like diving the backline with Silvina, they will be outperformed by S and A heroes. |
| C-Tier (Journey Scouts) | Characters that need too many duplicates and tier upgrades to work properly, or who are only effective in a single game mode, like PvP or Dream Realm. You may take weeks of gameplay to take them to a level where they will be useful, since most of their potential is locked behind their late-game exclusive weapon skills. They’re still worth your late-game investment when you get there, such as Eironn and Carolina for PvP. |
| D-Tier (Journey Recruits) | Characters whose skills have lower range and raw stats than others, while also charging skills too slowly and having long cooldowns. They also don’t contribute significantly outside their ultimates, and their base skills are either weaker in raw numbers than everyone else’s or have lower range and area of effect. There is some hope to see them shine if you build your team to protect them and give them the shields, healing, and survival time they need to use their Ultimates often. |
AFK Journey tier list
| Tier | Characters |
|---|---|
| S-Tier (Journey Commanders) | Cecia, Koko, Temesia, Korin, Odie, Reinier, Rowan, Smokey & Meerky, Thoran, Vala |
| A-Tier (Journey Captains) | Brutus, Bryon, Damian, Hewynn, Igor, Lucius, Marilee, Shakir, Granny Dahnie, Antandra, Scarlita, Florabelle |
| B-Tier (Journey Lieutenants) | Dionel, Kruger, Lyca, Parisa, Rhys, Silvina, Viperian, Seth, Cassadee, Berial |
| C-Tier (Journey Scouts) | Arden, Carolina, Eironn, Niru, Walker, Kafra |
| D-Tier (Journey Recruits) | Atalanta, Fay, Lumont, Mirael, Salazer, Satrana, Valen |
| Not tiered | Alsa, Soren* |
S-Tier (Journey Commanders)
S-Tier heroes define the playstyle of their teams, though they work in every single composition. Thoran, with his resurrection passive, can act as the solo tank in many teams, while Smokey & Meerky can sustain any team and allow a turtle strategy, letting a strong DPS carry the team’s damage while tanky characters hold the frontline. Reinier can teleport a vulnerable enemy backliner to the middle of your team while simultaneously positioning a strong tank in the enemy backline to disrupt their damage dealers, completely changing the dynamics of team formations.
All heroes in this tier have unique and strong effects or combinations of those that are unmatched by others. For instance, while some mages like Cassadee have area control skills and Damian can summon a minion, Cecia can perform both actions simultaneously in her ultimate with Mr. Carlyle. It is this kind of exceptional ability that places these characters at the pinnacle in AFK Journey.
A-Tier (Journey Captains)
The A-Tier characters in AFK Journey are very strong and have game-changing attacks or supportive skills, although they activate a bit slower compared to S-Tier characters. For example, Brutus can gain a temporary invincibility shield that nullifies all damage he receives, but his damage output doesn’t match that of Thoran, who also benefits from increased fight uptime upon resurrecting, unlike Brutus after becoming invincible. A similar issue affects Hewynn, who has global healing tied to her ultimate, but charges too slowly without Rowan’s support and is no match for Smokey & Meerky’s sustained healing.
Despite these limitations, these heroes can significantly benefit your team when used correctly and often perform best within well-constructed teams. They may require the support of other heroes to achieve peak performance, but their average damage, healing, or tankiness is already quite effective.
B-Tier (Journey Liutenants)
B-Tier characters excel under specific strategies, though they can be awkward to use otherwise. Silvina is a prime example; she performs exceptionally as a partner to Vala and Temesia, disrupting the opponent’s backline with her teleporting ability. However, she lacks sufficient health to survive alone or to eliminate an enemy backliner before being taken out herself. With Vala’s support, she becomes highly effective.
The same is true for Kruger, who is indispensable as a Fighter against Dream Realm bosses like the Necrodrakon due to his single-target Defense debuff. Nevertheless, he is less reliable in team Story and PvP fights, where frontliners need to sustain damage effectively and manage multiple targets with their skills, as Thoran and Lucius do with their ultimates.
C-Tier (Journey Scouts)
C-Tier heroes are challenging to maximize the potential of. Their basic abilities are typically underwhelming, their stats unremarkable, and their ultimates often require too long to charge. However, a significant increase in their effectiveness occurs when they are ascended to Mythic+ and unlock their EX Weapon skills, making them suddenly viable and strong.
Carolina serves as an excellent example of this tier. Her crowd control abilities are quite effective, particularly when paired in a control-heavy team with Eironn and Arden. Yet, her damage output is less impressive. She becomes significantly more powerful upon acquiring her Frost Protection EX Weapon skill, which boosts the damage of her snowballs by up to 70 percent and decreases enemies’ Magic Defense, allowing her to easily eliminate entire teams. Without this skill, her impact is minimal. Similarly, Niru, who can resurrect allies with his ultimate, becomes truly effective only after unlocking his EX Weapon, ensuring at least one use of his ultimate.
D-Tier (Journey Recruits)
The D-Tier characters are those I often see only working in the computer’s AFK teams when they’re extremely over-leveled. These heroes have slow-charging ultimates, low health, and an underwhelming basic kit. Sometimes, they can even disrupt their own team synergies, such as Lumont pushing enemies away from an area skill, forcing melee allies to leave the range of Smokey’s healing cloud to pursue them.
I have personally found no use for them in any team I’ve run so far. At best, I would use them in Honor Duel if I acquired multiple copies of them unintentionally, and only until I could replace them with a stronger character. Unless they are significantly stronger than the enemy team, using any other hero will be more effective.
AFK Journey Tier List changelog
May 2
- Florabelle tiered as an A-Tier hero. Her minion mechanics are really strong even before she unlocks her EX Skill, though she really shines after that. Since ascending her past Mythic+ to get that amazing unlock takes a while, she won’t be S-Tier since other offensive characters perform better than her in the early and mid-game.
- Berial up from C-Tier to B-Tier. As I got more playtime with Berial, I realized how strong his energy-draining ultimate is with the right team composition. It can shut down isolated targets pretty efficiently, mages in particular, so he has some good applications, though they are niche.
- Kafra down from B-Tier to C-Tier. Before his EX Skill, it’s really hard to argue for a good use of Kafra since it’s hard to coordinate his Forest Mark properly before the fight, unlike the marks of Vala and Silvina. His chase skills aren’t really that strong either, making him easy prey if enemies aren’t taunted.
If you’ve been playing AFK Journey for a while, you might have doubts about this list. For example, even though Eironn isn’t the best choice for most of the game, the current PvP strategy heavily relies on building a team around him. However, if PvP isn’t your main focus, putting resources into Eironn might not be wise, as there are stronger characters for other parts of the game. This tier list is meant to give you a general idea and guide you on where to direct your investments as you build your collection of heroes and gather resources.
We’ll update this article as new characters and AFK Journey patches arrive.
