AFK Journey Tier List for best characters

Since in AFK Journey there's a lot of different modes, and some characters shine only in some of them, we have decided to split the ratings between a number of tier lists:

Season 2 Charms aren't currently taken into account for the ratings as we were not able to test them all during the test server period.

• AFK Stages - how the character performs in AFK Stages - so the main progression of the game. As long as you're playing below or on equal power level as the enemy team, you won't have that much issues with passing the stage, but the moment you have to fight higher power and level enemies, things change. This rating shows how good the characters are when fighting way below enemy power level. Characters rated at Supreme+ (all skills unlocked and EX weapon at +10).
• For some beginner teams for new players that give tips about characters you should use, check our team building guides: Beginner Team Building & Advanced Team Building.
• Dream Realm - how the character performs in the boss-killing mode where you get better rewards for doing more damage to them. Each of the four available bosses has its own rating as they require unique approaches to tackle them,
• For all bosses we're currently looking at them from the late game perspective, so Supreme+ (all skills unlocked and EX weapon at +10).
• Battle Drills - how the character performs in Battle Drill. This rating averages the performance in trash nodes and against the bosses. Characters rated at Supreme+ (all skills unlocked and EX weapon at +10).
• PVP - how the character performs in PVP. Characters rated at Supreme+ (all skills unlocked and EX weapon at +10).

Character categories:

• Damage Dealer - Characters that focus on dealing damage whose kit mainly revolves around that,
• Specialist - Characters that are hybrids - combination of other roles. Most often they are damage dealers who can provide buffs to allies, debuff enemies or Crowd Control them,
• Supports - Characters that focus on healing their allies or providing them with buffs (or both at the same time),
• Tanks - Characters that are the vanguard of the team and focus on keeping their allies safe by standing in front of them.

Our ratings explained:

• S+ - The character is simply overpowered and dominates in their role,
• S - a great and versatile character that has barely any flaws,
• A - a good character that has a few little flaws,
• B - a decent character that has a few big flaws holding them back,
• C - underwhelming character.

18/09/2024

• [Nara] and [Dunlingr] have been added to the tier list,
• The tier list has been revamped and updated for Season 2. A lot of characters ratings have changed as the Season 1 Skills and Season 1 Charms have been removed and they had a big impact on some ratings.

10/09/2024

• [Lenya] has been added to the tier list.

30/08/2024

• [Mikola] remaining ratings have been added and we also made several changes to various Dream Realm ratings for other characters.

25/08/2024

• [Mikola] has been added to the tier list.

15/08/2024

• Added remaining [Lily May] ratings and adjusted the Dream Realm ratings for every other character.

11/08/2024

• [Lily May] has been added to the tier list and we have updated some Dream Realm ratings to show her impact on the meta.

15/07/2024

• [Ludovic] has been added to the tier list.

11/07/2024

• We have updated all Story ratings to better showcase the progression meta for new players.

06/07/2024

• [Talene] has been added to the tier list.

24/06/2024

• We have updated Dream Realm ratings for the seasonal meta - now the ratings includes the Endless meta too where a lot of things had changed again.

17/06/2024

• We have updated AFK Stages (Pre-EX, EX and Deficit), PVP and Battle Drill ratings for the seasonal stuff discovered so far! Most characters ratings have been adjusted, so making a proper changelog is impossible - though we did updated the mini-reviews for more than half of the characters that give some insights into how they fit into the seasonal meta.

09/06/2024

• [Phraesto] has been added to the tier list.
• Renamed the Trial of Abyss category into AFK (Deficit). Trial of Abyss became a joke with the start of the season, but we rated characters there under very high deficit, so we will repurpose the ratings for the new category. And High Deficit means enemies with 4-5x your power, so basically what the 'whales' are pushing.

01/06/2024

• [Soren] has been added to the tier list.

27/05/2024

• We have updated all Dream Realm ratings - basically every character had their ratings adjusted, so we won't be listing all of them here,
• We have added two new Dream Realm sub-categories: Wolf and Alpha.

14/05/2024

Added Alsa to the tier list. We are still testing all the other characters to include seasonal changes and the tier list will be updated soon!

08/05/2024

• 
  Brutus We have increased Brutus rating from B to S in Tower of Abyss. At the massive 100+ level deficit most tanks falter easily and Brutus can always guarantee your team a few crucial seconds. He dies instantly after, no matter the investment you put into him, but the seconds he managed to buy you matter a lot.

29/04/2024

We have reworked the story tier list. Now we rate the characters by their performance before obtaining EX weapon and after instead of the artificial stage split. We have also added Trial of Abyss category where we rate maxed characters by their performance in this mode under big level deficit (100+).

22/04/2024

We have added the Battle Drills category. This rating averages the performance of all characters in both trash nodes and against the bosses - so it favorites characters who can deal both AoE and single target damage.

20/04/2024

• 
  Scarlita We have increased Scarlita rating from S to S+ in Story Late. Once invested, she's one of the best characters for late story and Trial of Abyss (which is part of the Late rating). Her ability to support the team and insta-kill opponents helps a lot in the toughest stages in the game currently.

18/04/2024

• 
  Florabelle has been added to the tier list. You can consider Florabelle as Cecia's sister. Both focus on summons and their performance is very similar across the modes - they have the same advantages and disadvantages. Still, what sets Flora apart is the synergy with other summoners once you get her EX to +10.

17/04/2024

• After observing how the PVP meta formed on S1-S7 servers, we have decided to make several adjustments to the tier list,
• 
  Arden We have increased Arden rating from S to S+. Arden is the core member of the Eironn CC/nuke team and currently, he has no replacement there which makes him worthy of the top rating,
• 
  Cecia We have decreased Cecia rating from S to A. While Cecia is still very strong in the early and mid game, once you compare characters at S+ ascension, she fails behind other options. Even with Rowan boosting her, she's often too slow to make a difference against the current top meta teams, mainly the Eironn one,
• 
  Koko We have decreased Koko rating from S to A. Sadly, Koko takes too long to use her ultimate and it's not enough to counter Eironn CC team. PVP is all about speed at the moment and Koko lacks it (but she still can be used in some turtle teams on defense),
• 
  Seth We have decreased Seth rating from S to A. Maulers while being the best faction for PVE progression aren't good enough in PVP anymore. So the Seth + Shakir team that was super popular back in the day struggles with performance now,
• 
  Shakir We have decreased Shakir rating from S to A. Same reasoning as with Seth,
• 
  Viperian We have decreased Viperian rating from S to A. While back in the PTR days, Viperian often was used in the Eironn team as a source of additional damage, now he was replaced by Silvina who provides more damage and CC and isn't reliant on energy to perform well.

12/04/2024

• 
  Parisa We have increased Parisa's rating from B/B to S/S in the Mid and Late game Story categories and from A to S in PVP. Parisa low range on her AOE can be fixed by Eironn and coincidentally, she perfectly fits into the meta PVE/PVP Eironn CC comp (with Carolina, Arden and Damian), drastically increasing the damage output of the team. Parisa's damage potential against clumped enemies nearly matches that of Carolina. Just keep in mind that without Eironn, she's very RNG which limits her usage outside of that team.

06/04/2024

• 
  Antandra We have increased Antandra's rating from A/S to S+/S+ in the Early and Mid game Story categories. Her performance when played under deficit and during the early stages of the game honestly surprised us. She also works in multiple setups and helps keeping her frontline partner alive for the backline to do their thing.
• 
  Granny Dahnie We have decreased Granny's rating from S to A in the Early Story category. At one copy, she dies a bit too fast to help the team and without using her ultimate she struggles. Also her performance is worse than the other tanks at this stage of the game.

04/04/2024

• 
  Damian We have increased Damian's rating from A/S to S/S+ in the Mid and Late game Story categories. His performance there surpassed our expectation as the Haste boost and additional healing he gains from the EX weapon often makes a huge difference between passing the stage and failing. Past the 500-600 AFK Stage, you will often find Damian in the lowest power clears,
• 
  Koko We have increased Koko's rating from A/S to S+/S+ in the Early and Mid game Story categories. Mauler teams work very well at the lower end and the partnership of Smokey + Koko makes pushing content under big deficit a lot easier - especially for F2P players who currently are progressing through the early game,
• 
  Smokey & Meerky We have increased Smokey's rating from S to S+ in the Early Story category. With the raise of Koko and Smokey core, he deserves to be upgraded to the highest rating in the early game,
• 
  Vala We have decreased Vala's rating from S+ to A in the Early Story category. While she can be used as an energy vampire with low amount of dupes, her damage simply isn't there and she struggles in the early game compared to other characters. Her Mid and Late game ratings remain the same as with more dupes, and especially her EX weapon, she starts to shine a lot,
• 
  Reinier We have decreased Reinier's rating from S+ to S in the Early Story category. Reinier is still super strong, but he's more of a clutch in the early game - you use him when everything else fails and he's rarely the first choice when you're building your early progression team. So we decided to drop him down a rating in the early game only,
• 
  Hewynn We have decreased Hewynns's rating from S+ to S in the Early Story category. Hewynn in the early game is too slow and often your team will die before she is able to cast her ultimate. This can be circumstanced by pairing her with Rowan, but this also means that she has a flaw that you need to work around - so we feel dropping her one tier is the right move.

24/03/2024

Some characters had their ratings adjusted slightly (1 tier up or down). We still will be tinkering with some ratings before the release, so expect other smaller changes to happen.

16/03/2024

Added [Koko] to the tier list. Koko is an amazing support who can reduce the damage her allies take by staggering it. Early on, she won't feel that impactful as she's not that 'flashy' and because you can overpower whatever you face with strong DPS, but later on, her real value will be revealed and she will shine in both Story and Dream Realm (and even in PVP content as she can remove CC and counter the Eironn meta team).

08/03/2024

Tier list has been fully reworked to take into account the character progression rework that happened with the patch 1.0.11. We have also changed the criteria for rating characters in all categories, so do check the Criteria tab for the details.

08/02/2024

• Initial release of the tier list.