Battle Drills is one of AFK Journey’s PVE Battle Modes where you must cooperate with your fellow Guild members to take down increasingly powerful enemy strongholds and bosses.
Scroll down and read more to learn how Battle Drills work, what rewards you can get by participating in them, as well as some tips to help optimize your gameplay!
Battle Drills Overview
To unlock Battle Drills, you must clear AFK Stage 121 and either join or create a Guild. Your Guild’s objective in the Battle Drills is simple—defeat and occupy as many strongholds as possible and increase the round's difficulty for more rewards.
One round of Battles Drills lasts for three weeks, with the first week being the Preparation Phase and the last two being the Battle Phase. You can unlock the additional difficulties for each round upon beating prior Battle Drill difficulties:
| Battle Drill Difficulties | Unlock Requirements |
|---|---|
| Stout Recruit | None |
| Seasoned Challenger | Beat the Final Boss at Stout Recruit Difficulty |
| Restless Warrior | Beat the Final Boss at Restless Warrior Difficulty |
Aside from giving you valuable items as rewards such as Diamonds and Epic Invite Letters, beating certain Battle Drill difficulties also give you and your Guildmates unique Titles—all of which will be discussed further below.
As you can see from the image above, there are multiple major “locations” that you can interact with while playing Battle Drills:
- Camps
- Passages (Guards)
- Elite Strongholds
- Boss Strongholds
Aside from your Camps, each location is protected by a set amount of enemies that you and your Guildmates need to defeat before you can move on to the next location.
Furthermore, every time you battle enemies, the heroes you use in those battles will consume Stamina, which can only be recovered once per day. Your heroes get 120 Stamina at the start of each round.
Below are summaries of what each of the Battle Drill locations represents, as well as some tips to help you interact with them more efficiently.
Camps
Stamina Consumption per Battle: None
Clear Rewards: None
Camps can be considered as your Guild’s “starting point” in Battle Drills and limit which path you can take as well as what Strongholds you’ll be able to attack.
Upon picking a Camp, you’ll be able to deploy your Heroes as Camp Members there. Your Camp Members’ levels are then adjusted according to the Battle Drill’s baseline level instead of your Hands of Resonance.
You can increase your Camp Level and, by extension, the strength of your Camp Members through the Level Bonus feature by defeating enemy Strongholds and occupying them.
The higher your Guild’s Camp Level and Level Bonus, the more HP, ATK, Phys DEF, and Magic DEF your entire Guild's heroes/Camp Members will have.
TIP: Different Camps provide you with different starting Buff Skills, so we recommend checking what buff you’ll receive from each Camp before deploying any heroes!
Passages
Stamina Consumption per Battle: 40 Stamina
Clear Rewards: None
Around the Battle Drills map, Passages are guarded by specific numbers of enemies, as you can see in the image above.
To get through a passage, you and your Guildmates must defeat all the Guards protecting it via Passage Brawls:
Passage Brawls are divided according to their difficulty:
- Easy
- Regular
- Hard
The difficulty of Passage Brawls is not uniform and varies depending on which Passage you’re trying to clear or the current difficulty of the Battle Drill.
For example, some Passages might only require you and your Guildmates to beat 66 Easy Passage Brawls, while others might require you to beat 22 Easy, 22 Regular, and 22 Hard Passage Brawls instead.
TIP: Your heroes do not lose Stamina if defeated in Passage Brawls, so we recommend testing out the highest difficulty a specific team of heroes can clear before you deplete their Stamina, just so you can leave the easier Passage Brawls to your weaker Guildmates and clear the Passage faster. Also, note that your Heroes gain back Stamina depending on how fast you clear a Passage Brawl.
Elite Strongholds
Stamina Consumption per Battle: 40 Stamina
Clear Rewards: Chest Keys, Gold, Camp Level Bonus, Buff Skills
Elite Strongholds are guarded by only one set of enemies, unlike Passages which are guarded by multiple.
The difference, however, is that enemies guarding Elite strongholds are significantly tougher and require multiple attempts by you and your guildmates to clear.
The tradeoff, as you can see above, is that when defeated and occupied, Elite Strongholds give you and your Guildmates Buff Skills that improve the performance of your heroes significantly.
TIP: The best Buff Skill we recommend picking up in Battle Drills is Moment of Glory, as it provides a balanced boost to your team’s survivability and damage in addition to healing every time an allied Ultimate is cast. This skill is a must-have, especially if you have a reliable Energy battery like Rowan on your roster.
Boss Strongholds
There are two types of Boss Strongholds in Battle Drills, namely Mid-Boss Strongholds and Final Boss Strongholds.
Stamina Consumption per Battle: 40 Stamina
Clear Rewards: Chest Keys, Gold, Capture Bonus, Buff Skills
The Mid-Boss Stronghold can be unlocked once the location preceding it has been cleared and occupied. Unlike the Final Boss Stronghold, you don’t need to clear all locations just to unlock it.
The boss you’ll face from this stronghold will be weaker than the one you’ll face in the Final Boss Stronghold, but you’ll also get Buff Skills that’ll help you in future battles if you beat them.
Stamina Consumption per Battle: 40 Stamina
Clear Rewards: Diamonds
The Final Boss Stronghold, on the other hand, can only be unlocked once all locations have been defeated and occupied—including the Mid-Boss Stronghold.
This location features the boss that your entire Guild must defeat to increase your Battle Drills’ difficulty level.
TIP: You will be ranked within your Guild and your server’s leaderboard according to how much damage you’ve done on boss battles, so make sure to fill your teams with the strongest single-target damage dealers you have and pair them up with only one tank if you can help it.
Battle Drills: Obtainable Rewards
Guild Loot
Participating in Battle Drills increases your Reputation. The higher your Reputation, the more of the following rewards you get from the Reputation Treasure:
- Chest Keys
- Epic Invite Letters
- Acorns
You can use the Chest Keys you get by clearing Elite Strongholds, clearing Boss Strongholds, and claiming Reputation Treasures on the Chest of Valor.
Here are all the rewards you can potentially get from the two types of chests you can open in the Chest of Valor:
| Chests of Valor | Obtainable Rewards & Rates |
|---|---|
| Thrillseeker’s Treasure | x3,000 Diamonds (0.2%) x1 Epic Invite Letter (1.5%) x1 Invite Letter (3.0%) x30 A-Level Soulstones (5.0%) x10 Acorns (5.0%) x20 A-Level Soulstones (10.0%) x100 Guild Medals (10.0%) x2 Acorns (10.0%) x50 Guild Medals (22.0%) x10 Guild Medals (33.3%) |
| Caution's Collection | x1 Epic Invite Letter (1.5%) x1 Invite Letter (3.0%) x150 Diamonds (10.0%) x100 Diamonds (20.0%) x50 Diamonds (65.5%) |
TIP: If you’re having trouble picking where to use your Chest Keys, then consider using most of them in the Caution's Collection, as Diamonds are more versatile than any other resource in the game. But if you’d prefer to buy more Hypogean or Celestial Soul Sigils in the Guild Shop or if you just want more Acorns in general, you may consider opening the Thrillseeker's Treasure instead!
Titles
As a bonus, you and your Guildmates can also get a Title at the end of every Battle Drill round upon clearing varying difficulties:
| Titles Unlocked | Unlock Requirements |
|---|---|
 | Complete Battle Drills on Stout Recruit difficulty |
 | Complete Battle Drills on Seasoned Challenger difficulty |
Battle Drills: Recommended Heroes
When building a team for Battle Drills, making sure that each team you use has at least one tank, one damage dealer, and one support should be enough. Feel free to read our AFK Journey Tier List to know which heroes you currently own would most likely perform the best for each role!
Otherwise, you can view recommended heroes for Battle Drills by simply clicking on the “Hot” section on your Battle Drills page.
Recommended Frontline Heroes For Battle Drills
| Recommended Frontline Heroes | Faction |
|---|---|
 Granny Dahnie |  Wilder |
 Thoran |  Graveborn |
 Brutus |  Mauler |
 Antandra | Mauler |
 Lucius |  Lightbearer |
Listed above are your best tank/frontline options in the Battle Drills. Remember to bring at least one tank for every team that you're using and to take advantage of faction bonuses when pairing your tanks up with damage dealers and supports!
Recommended Backline Heroes (Elite Strongholds & Passage Brawls)
| Recommended Backline Heroes (Elite Strongholds & Passage Brawls) | Faction |
|---|---|
 Eironn | Wilder |
 Parisa | Wilder |
 Arden | Wilder |
 Smokey & Meerky | Mauler |
 Viperian | Graveborn |
 Cecia | Graveborn |
 Carolina | Graveborn |
 Cassadee | Lightbearer |
 Dionel |  Celestial |
Listed above are your best options for backline heroes in Elite Stronghold battles and Passage Brawls—most of which are proficient AoE/burst units.
Recommended Backline Heroes (Boss Strongholds)
| Recommended Backline Heroes (Boss Strongholds) | Faction |
|---|---|
 Odie | Mauler |
 Kruger | Mauler |
 Shakir | Mauler |
 Vala | Lightbearer |
 Marilee | Lightbearer |
 Rowan | Lightbearer |
Cecia | Graveborn |
Listed above are your best options for backline heroes in Mid-Boss and Final Boss Stronghold battles—most of which are proficient single-target DPS units.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to play Battle Drills more effectively in AFK Journey, how about checking out our guides for other Battle Modes?
AFK Journey – Honor Dueling Guide
AFK Journey – Dream Realm Guide
AFK Journey – Arcane Labyrinth Guide
Related Posts
Head over to our AFK Journey (AFK2) guides and walkthrough page by clicking on the link below to see a list of tips and tricks, strategies, and tier lists to make your journey through Esperia much easier!
