Battle Drill: Guide and Overview v1.0.3

Seas0n Analytica

Hi there! I'm 'Seas0n' - Guild Master of 'Analytica', an 'AFK Arena' and now an 'AFK Journey' guild! I've played within the world of Esperia for 3 years now, ranking within the top 200 of all global players (top 3 in Journey), and clearing more stages than I'd like to admit. Journey just launched, so I'd like to share with you it's new Group vs. Environment (GvE) mode - Battle Drill (BD).

What is Battle Drill?

Veteran AFK Arena players, who have participated in 'Abyssal Expedition' (AE), will be familiar with the basic concepts of GvE content. AE revolves around managing player actions and resources to gain rewards for defeating enemies and ultimately bosses. BD is no different, but instead of the 60-70 players AE requires, BD requires only 30. Instead of a grueling 16 days of constant group cooperation (often 'group panic'), BD only lasts 6 days with a maximum of 3 actions per player (per day). AE's maps are massive, often consisting of thousands of tiles, whereas BD has a lean, 20 piece tile-set (what I'll be calling 'nodes'). 

The mode resembles a simple boardgame - traverse the nodes, clear the mode's 2 'mini-bosses' and defeat the final boss. The mode is fun, intuitive and easy to understand from the get-go, which is a major improvement from the 'headache' that is Abyssal Expedition. If AE is a simplification of 'Rise of Kingdoms'-style gameplay, then Battle Drill can be considered its successor - a further simplification of the 'Real-Time Strategy' genre.


Rules: Basics

BD starts every Tuesday, at the Base Camp (lvl 1) of which you can choose two nodes to progress. Each node (2 types) is guarded by a number of enemies. Guild members will need to use 'Action Points' (120 points daily) of which (40 points) are required to challenge enemies. Once captured (or destroyed), you may progress to the connected nodes. When all nodes are captured, you may confront the final boss. The better you perform on these battles, the more Gold and 'Treasure Keys' you gain. Keys can be used to open 'Member Chests' which may be opened at the end of each event (6 days from the beginning). Capturing each node results in an increase in Base Camp level and/or a skill ('blessing') that applies to the entire guild. Each Base Camp Level is equivalent to +0.37% HP, ATK, Physical Defense, and Magic Defense. Once you capture the first node, Stats are increased by +30% across the board, so don't be discouraged if your initial attacks seem below average.

Single-Camp Nodes

Single-Camp nodes consist of '300' guards, net +3 Base Camp levels (100 Guards / lvl), and yield a skill that takes effect the following day.

Single-Camp nodes are 'less level efficient' but also unlock a skill, so guilds' must consider whether the skill outweighs the level gain differences.

Multi-Camp Nodes

Multi-camp nodes consist of '340' guards and net +10 Base Camp levels (34 Guards / lvl). This node has 6 camps: 

The node is only captured after clearing all 6 camps, but Base Camp levels unlock after each camp is cleared.

Hidden Jungle IV Strategy

Our overall strategy is as follows:

From here, all that's left is to kill the final boss 'Bloom Mother'.

Wait, but why?

Hopefully you have a few questions about why we choose this particular route. We decided to go straight for 'Hewynn' because we believe the skill reward from that mini-boss has the largest impactful, so we want to grab it as quickly as possible.

The second most valuable skill, we believe, is 'Divine Punishment'. This skill adds 5% damage to allies' normal attacks, equivalent to 5% of the target's max HP (no more than 150% ATK of the attacking hero). Now, you'll notice, we didn't go directly for this skill after killing 'Hewynn'. The reason we didn't is because we believe farming out 'Multi-Camp' nodes is a larger overall gain than pushing towards skills at that point during the event. Multi-camp nodes are roughly 3x more efficient than single-camp nodes for Base Camp level bonuses. 

But there's a catch!! Multi-camp nodes are only efficient if your attacks are 'kill efficient' to the camp guard number. If it takes you 4 attacks to kill a 35 guard multi-camp, then it's unlikely to be very efficient. You want to make sure your guild members are killing these 35 guard camps with 2 attacks (~18 kills per attack). Similarly - for the 100 guard camps - you want roughly 20 to 25 kills per attack. This way, you'll destroy 100 guard camps with 4 or 5 attacks.

If your guild member's attacks are below 12 kills, you may want to advise them to put their attacks into Single-Camp nodes, instead of multi-camp nodes. Otherwise you may lose some attack efficiency.

Assist Team Building

When building assist teams, you generally want: 

Currently, 'Brutus' is a popular tank choice because his 'invulnerability' skill allows him to survive for 5s (Works at 'Epic'). Usually this is enough time for your DPS and support heroes to land some kills and setup. Granny is great as well, synergizing with Cecia (a strong DPS) by chaining together 'Entangle' skills.

As for DPS: Cecia, Eddie, Vala, Shakir, Merrin, Eironn, Atalanta, Merrin, Seth, Valen, Korin, Silvina, Ella, Carolina, Enya, and Satrana are all viable options. I personally recommend Cecia, Eddie, Vala, and Satrana currently - as they have the best current performance.

Support heroes can be a bit tricky. Currently Lyca, Rowan, and Kruger seem to be the most popular as they generally have faster 'start up' time and synergize with tanks and DPS the best. Healers don't ramp up fast enough and tend to drag the team down. Igor and Smokey haven't been very successful for this same reason, they require a lot more start-up time.

It's important to remember that assist teams can only kill 5 units per fight, so try to optimize for shorter battles. Additionally, assist teams may only be used on Multi-camp and Single-camp nodes, not bosses. If your players prefer to double up on DPS, ditching the support, this can work as well!

Assist Team Lending

First and foremost - you want your strongest players (highest power / highest kill count) lending their assist teams to your weakest members (lowest power / lowest kill count). You do this because it ensures your strongest assist teams get the maximum number of kills for as many attacks as possible. The higher the kill number of any particular attack, the stronger the enemy units are, and the more difficult it is for your assist teams to land kills.

Conversely, you want your strongest members to apply for your weakest players' assist teams', but again - there's a catch!! Each player can lend out 2 assist teams, for a total of 60 assist teams across the entire guild. Therefore, in a perfect world, you want your strongest player to take your 30th power assist team, and your 2nd strongest player to take your 29th power assist team! So have your strongest players pick teams roughly 20 power ranks below the max.

Bossing

Last but not least, we'll discuss boss formations and strategy. Generally speaking, for boss teams you want:

Currently, the most popular formation is Kruger, Smokey, Eddie, Cecia, and Lyca. If the boss is below 50% HP, Vala can be swapped in for your lowest damage DPS or Lyca. Be sure to use 'Frenzy Meter' Artifact (Especially <50% HP), and 'Dust of Punishment' or 'Blazing Inferno' for boss fights.