The Abyssal Expedition Guide (Vault of Time)

During Abyssal Expedition (ABEX) – Vault of Time, you join a special journey with your Guild friends to fight against a lot of enemies & their bosses on an open map in 14 days.

This is the ultimate guide to The Abyssal Expedition event in AFK Arena, giving you the best tips, formations, and strategies to get to rank Prince, defeat the final boss and earn a lot of valuable rewards!

The event starts from Sep 2 to Sep 22

The guide is written and shared by AFKArty & whitesushii.

Quick Abyssal Expedition Guide (Updated)

New ABEX Map & Some New Changes

• Heroes do not regenerate Stamina during the first 4 hours of the ABEX.
• Plain tiles are still connecting (but not earning giving rss) after getting abandoned.
• Each Spectator boosts overall Stamina Recover Rate for Militia members by 1.2%
• Each Spectator gives their Star of Dawn player 10% Stamina Recovery Rate.
• A new item called Relic’s Soul allows a hero to get to the current highest relic level. Players can select the desired hero in the preparation step before each battle.

Starting: Heroes to Bring

Try to get it as fast as you can to earn more Essence! The event starts at daily reset 00:00 GMT +0. 

Do note that hero slots do not regenerate Stamina during the first 4 hours of the ABEX. So in the first 4 hours, you want to start with 4-5 of your strongest Heroes and switch them to the other slots when they are out of Stamina.

After the first 4 hours, when Stamina starts regenerating,  you can choose to bring 2 teams.

• 1st team is your strongest campaign formation.
• 2nd team is self-sustaining or strong AoE heroes for clearing weak enemies.

Unless you are not using any Ranger carry (like Eironn), focus only on Celerity Relic Tree at the beginning as it gives the highest chance of getting 3-star wins during the first days.

Below are some suggestions but feel free to run whatever you can field full formations for (generally campaign lineups).

Other strong heroes for pathing (clearing plain tiles):

When talking tiles, focus on upgrades of two. For example, don’t abandon a Village 1 for Village 2, abandon it for Village 3.

Try to use 1-2 heroes for plain or weak tiles to save Energy and earn 3-star wins!

Obtain tiles as fast as you can, connect your tiles with nearby friends and go towards the nearest boss using the path from the map above!

Rank Baron

Swap for

The goal is to hit the “Baron” rank within 15 hours of the event (the earlier the better, to put these guys in).

Rank Marquis

Rank Duke

The above hero list is only for Vault of Time – Abyssal Expedition! For the general hero ranking, please take a look at AFK Arena Tier List.

Important Pre-Preparation Tips

1. Save Stamina by pathing with 1-3 heroes instead of a full team when facing weak enemies.
2. Try to obtain 3 stars from fights as that will refund you 6 stamina.
3. Try to not use x4 Battle Speed because you could lose the battle very quickly and cost you a lot of Stamina.
4. Connect your tile to the boss and “settle” next to it for a damage bonus.
5. Do not attack the boss right away. Generally, you only want to attack it after maxing out the relics of a specific tree.
6. Focus on only one relic tree (preferably Celerity tree) until Relic level 4.
7. When you get new hero slots, unslot your strongest team (once they are out of stamina) and place them into the new slots for an instant 60 stamina.
8. Garrison a hero on the tile you start on (it’s vacant by default).
9. Avoid wasting stamina on cursed tiles unless you know you can win.
10. Avoid tiles with tough enemies (below).
11. Abandon and re-take tiles to complete quests if there aren’t enough.
12. You can abandon and re-take tiles to complete quests but this is only recommended on the last day.
13. Work together with Militia mates and take down higher tier cities together.
14. While pathing, abandon tiles you move off from to save settlement slots.

Hard Enemies

Avoid battles that have the following enemies:

Getting Stronger

Focus all your essence on a single relic tree depending now at setup you are going and only invest in other trees where necessary (rank promotion quest).

Generally, prioritize attack relics but for later relic levels, getting 2 cheap relics (with some luck from drops) would usually outweigh getting a single relic.

Win Fights

Stamina is required to initiate a fight and the amount depends on if the fight is a regular tile or a boss. In general, regular tiles take 12 stamina per attack. The player generates a fixed 4 food per hour which is 96 food every day or 8-16 battles depending on bonuses.

• Win Fight (+2 Stamina)
• No Heroes Lost (+2 Stamina)
• Win Within 30s (+2 Stamina)

Since losing a fight consumes 12 stamina while retrying only takes 1 (again for regular tiles), it’s sometimes better to play on slower speeds so you can quit/retry before your team gets wiped!

Best Heroes for ABEX

Source: 剑与远征手游兑换码, Bergenholf, DuskWatchIra 

For the general hero ranking, visit Tier List page.

How to defeat Abyssal Expedition Bosses?

Updating…

Zaphrael

(Relic on Mortas)

(Relic on Twins)

(Relic on Saurus)

Zaphreal is very weak in general. You can do well again him with enough Relics.

Desira

 

 

Morael

 

Eluard

The Unhinged

This is the easiest T3 boss to attack.

Grotesque Mage

Spamming 1 hero is also very efficient:

 Ice Shemira

Destroyer of Reason (The Balancer)

Tier 5 Relic Priority

Key relics such as #3 and #4 give your heroes enough Tenacity to survive Gouldos longer, dealing more damage!

Settlement Information

Higher settlements give more essence/hr but players should be careful about making too many small up-grades since they take stamina.

Ideally, only upgrade settlements if the tier rises by at least 2 to be more efficient in this regard.

Also, T8 isn’t worth it since it takes you almost 3 teams and you don’t get much more so never attack T8 except for quest.

Energy Info

Players regenerate 4 stamina per hour for every hero that is slotted.

As such, you want to slot heroes in as soon as you unlock new slots (i.e. spending energy on your strongest team, moving them over to new slots, and putting new heroes into their original slots).

• Win Fight: 12 Stamina (-2 Stamina per Star)
• Start & Quit/Retry: 1 Stamina
• Lose Fight: 12 Stamina
• Bosses cost 24/24/36/48 respectively

Infographic

This part is for the previous ABEX season

By Arty & Alpattex

Abyssal Expedition Gameplay For Beginners

• Abyssal Expedition can be found in the Dark Forest tab in the bottom left, as pictured below.
• You must be over stage 15-40 to participate.
• This event is a cooperative where you join the fights with a lot of players to beat the final bosses.
• It lasts for 15 days.

Note: The event features 70 Players, the same as a max level guild. Players in the same guild who enroll will always be together and vacancies will include those from other guilds until a number.
You can participate even if not in a guild, you will just be randomly allocated to a “militia”.

Starting Out

At the beginning of Vault of Time, you get placed on a massive map along with all 70 players and are asked to add a selection of 10 heroes to your pool.

Do note that hero slots do not regenerate Stamina during the first 4 hours of the ABEX. So in the first 4 hours, you want to start with 4-5 of your strongest Heroes, and switch them to the other slots when they are out of Stamina.

After the first 4 hours, I heavily suggest choosing two strongest teams of heroes to use:

• 1 team is your strongest PvE Team
• 1 team of strong AoE or self-sustaining hero for pathing.

Ranger Heroes (like Eironn, Lyca, etc.) are currently the best for this event.

Overall ABEX Gameplay

As you’re on the map you are allowed to attack any adjacent camps, each of these camps has varying enemy heroes and tiers. Camps are scaled to a player’s power.

Attacking a camp will use up “food”, which is basically a stamina resource. Each attack uses a total of 12 food per hero. However, each fight has rewards that give food back, the tasks are:

• Defeat an opponent.
• Defeat enemies within 30 seconds.
• Do Not Lose Any Heroes in Battle.

Food is regenerated at a rate of 4 food per hour, and at the moment there is no known cap for food.

When failing a fight, you have the option to re-battle and pay food again, with enemies energy and health staying the same as it was when the previous battle ended, you also cannot use the same heroes that lost.

Note that after 1 hour, the enemy camp recovers and the battle resets (including later camps where there is more than 1 round).

There is a max amount of territory (camps) you can occupy.

The number of camps will go up as your title grows. You are also able to abandon territories in order to claim stronger ones. This works by clicking “abandon”, and after 2 minutes they will revert back to their original state until then you can undo this option.

Note: There is what seems to be a bug on the AFK Arena test server were abandoning a camp, leaving the event tab, and going back, will cancel the timer and instantly abandon the slot.

There is no downside to owning territory besides the possibility of needing to abandon it in the future and I suggest occupying whenever possible.

Camps and Relics

All camps produce a type of resource only available for the event called “Blessed Essence” which is used to level unique traits inside the event.

There will sometimes be an option on certain camps to “Garrison” a hero. This just takes any hero from your overall hero inventory (not selected heroes) and places them inside the camp similar to a bounty board hero, this will generate you more essence than a normal camp.

The essence is used to unlocking “relics”, which are moderate but unique stat boosts to heroes underneath an “elder tree” like structure.

A strategy section further on in the guide will dive deeper into this.

All camps naturally drop relics after a period of time as well, the level of relic dropped depends on the camp and the drop timers seem to be around 12 hours for the first level.

In order to unlock the special effect shown in each branch, you first need all the relics of the branch, then it automatically unlocks similar to the elder tree with leveling.

You can achieve level 2 Relics through Camps, Essence, or combining different lower Relic pieces.

Titles

This are where the rewards and progress come in.

Titles grant you rewards upon obtaining them and give you additional traits, these benefits include extra camps available to be owned, heroes you can use, and max relic level.

There are quests that are achieved through raw gameplay for the increasing of one’s title.

Press + for more details of each title – Credits to xSkye#4210

Miscellaneous Information

In the same tab as Titles, a “Settlements” tab shows you where all of your units are settled and the ordering they were settled in, along with coordinates.

Another tab is called “Militia”, which is the name of the combined group of multiple guilds. Interestingly, the first player to reach Duke can edit the name and icon of it, it’s unsure if others get this power as well.

Map random debuffs

Name	Description
Blade of Punishment	All non-Lightbearer heroes lose 50% health and are stunned for 10 seconds when attacked at the beginning of the battle and have their Attack Ratings reduced by 50%.
Forest’s Fury	All non-Wilder heroes lose 50% health and are stunned for 10 seconds when attacked at the beginning of the battle and have their Attack Ratings reduced by 50%.
Rock Bombardment	All non-Mauler heroes lose 50% health and are stunned for 10 seconds when attacked at the beginning of the battle and have their Attack Ratings reduced by 50%.
Death’s Ambush	All non-Graveborn heroes lose 50% health and are stunned for 10 seconds when attacked at the beginning of the battle and have their Attack Ratings reduced by 50%.
Bolt of Wickedness	All non-Celestial, non-Hypogean and non-Dimensional heroes lose 50% health and are stunned for 10 seconds when attacked at the beginning of the battle and have their Attack Ratings reduced by 50%.

Progression

As you move through the event you’ll fight stronger and stronger camps. These are fightable due to the obtained relics. Some of the fights may have unique restrictions, such as a debuff to heroes of a specific faction.

City-level camps fights will also require multiple teams, similar to boss battles from chapters 31 and above in campaign, and as a result will take up lots of food. (keep in mind before death you can pause and restart just like in the Labyrinth.)

Eventually you may even reach large stages like the one pictured on the right. This is classified as a “Territory boss.”  It is unclear if the “boss” has attributes similar to those in the Solar Plane. There is a possibility these fights happen with allies as well!

The end goal is to fight Gouldos, the Lovecraftian looking creature pictured in the spoilers.

It’s unclear exactly how we get to this boss but through some data mining we can assume you must be at least Marquis in the title and move towards the right side of the map. The boss also has multiple control type abilities similar to a permanent Mehira charm, which only has one counter, which I’ll move into.

 

Militia Honors

Reach each new title to earn 100 point. Unlocking premium Battle Pass costs $15

1. Militia Honors shall become available during the Vault of Time event.
2. Each time a player raises their Title they shall receive Legion Merits as a reward.
3. After accumulating a certain quantity of Legion Merits, the next tier as well as its rewards will become available.
4. Unlocking the Premium Pass will
reward you with 980 VIP experience 1 points and Premium Pass rewards.
5. Militia Honors will become unavailable when the Vault of Time event ends.
6. Any Militia Honors rewards that were unlocked by the player, yet still remain unclaimed will be sent to the player’s mailbox when Island Survival ends.

Spectators – Star of Dawn

1. The 10 players with the highest Combat Ratings will be displayed as Stars of Dawn. Each Star of Dawn player can be spectated by 1 other Militia member.
2. All militia members may apply to become spectators.
3. Spectators may only apply after enrollment ends and within the first 24 hours from when battles commence.
4. Spectators cannot participate in battles, but can still receive rewards. Title rewards will become available for spectators when the Star of Dawn player they are supporting levels up.
5. Each Spectator boosts overall Stamina Recover Rate for Militia members by 1.2%
6. Each Spectator gives their Star of Dawn player 10% Stamina Recovery Rate.

Abyssal Expedition Rewards

The event rewards players immediately upon gaining a new title, and all rewards are obtainable without spending any money as there are no possible purchasables with abysmal exploration

There are no borders, skins, or other goodies. This seems to be a first time testing of a large scale feature. The rewards are however worth quite a bit, although it’s unsure how they scale in relation to other events that take less time to complete.

How to Always Get Title Prince in ABEX

Guide by SilentBobUS

If you are finding it hard to get to rank Prince in Abyssal Expedition, this part of the guide is for you! Getting to Price is not a problem anymore, for sure!

This guide is for all normal players out there who have 5+ ascended heroes and have the Signature Items +30 ready for 1-3 heroes!

If you have less than 5 ascended heroes, ABEX is kinda hard for you to get to Price regardless of the strategies you use.

Normal or Honorable?

When you first enter AE, you need to choose the mode: Normal or Honorable.

This guide is for maxing out the potential rewards of the event, so always go with Honorable. it is 100% worth it.

Not to mention that when you sign up for Honorable mode, it is much easier to get to the Prince rank because you will most likely have a great team with active & strong members, who are always willing to help you get those Large Cities at the end. 

You will need to make some good moves as you progress further. This is because by being ahead of the power compared to the nearby allies, the Expedition will be a lot easier for you!

Focus on a Single Carry Class

Your power in AE will grow up like crazy so the heroes you pick first at the beginning will play a huge part in the event.

The best advice is to focus on a single carry class: Celerity, Warrior, or Sorcery.

Meanwhile, working a bit on the Sustenance tree to strengthen the supports so that they can keep the Carry heroes stay alive as long as possible.

In the end, Rowan is a super-strong hero as his healing scales like crazy while his SI+30 helps you finish the battle in just seconds. 

The best current carry class is:

Celerity (Ranger) → Might (Warrior) → Sorcery (Mage). 

To get 3-star wins, you need to finish the battle within 30 seconds without losing any hero. 5 Celerity Team or 4 Celerity + 1 Sustenance Team can easily do this by getting the early kills to collapse the enemies.

Thus, from now on, I am assuming that we are focusing on Celerity as the main carry class. 

You do not want to focus on the Fortitude (Tank) class here because there are always better options.

Wombo Combo

Wombo Combo is the only want thing you want to have to complete the event with ease!

In order to use this team, you want at least every one to have SI ready and Skriath 3/3. The combo actually runs best when you have Rowan SI +30, Eironn SI +30, and others SI +20. With this, you can easily take down the tier 3 settlements right on the day 1 without a single relic.

As you progress further in AE, you want to primarily build up Celerity relics and only equip the Sorcery and Sustenance relics when you get them.

The Wombo combo is very powerful at first, but as you focus on a single relic tree, it will soon be overshadowed by your all Celerity team.

When you have the Celerity relics at level 4, your all Celerity team should be better than the starting Wombo combo.

At this point in the event, you should replace Rowan with Tidus. You can get 3-star wins a lot easier now while having Rowan regenerating Energy for the next boss fights.

Best Heroes in Abyssal Expedition

While the Ascension level plays a huge part during the first days, it will become less important later.

This is because Relic Levels will determine most of the hero’s power.

Then, you will want to focus on hero class, SIs, and Furniture Effects.

Top Celerity Heroes

There are some superb Celerity Heroes you want to bring to the EBEX even if they are only Elite+ heroes:

 Lucretia – She is simply just the best.

Zaphrael – Same.

Cecilia – Similar to Athalia, she does an incredible job taking out the best backline unit from the enemy team. Cecilia is also super good at dealing with bosses. She is a real nightmare to Twins and some other specific Heroes.

Athalia – Her charge at the beginning of the battle can easily flip the table, helping you take out an enemy hero in just an instant. Her ultimate is also crazy good for Abyssal Expedition, helping you finish the battle within 30 seconds.

Eironn is one of the best Celerity carries in all AFK Arena tier lists. He is excellent at beating the standard 5-hero enemy teams without losing any hero. He is still very decent in AE at Elite+ without having his SI.

Ferael has been one of the best heroes in AFK Arena for years now. Having him in your team just makes the enemy team worse. He is strong in all modes of the game.

Gwyneth: Excellent ranged carry. Her abilities help you disable the enemy healing, which is super useful at the end of AE when you attacking the Large Cities.

Lyca with SI +20 increases the damage for all of the heroes in her team. However, even without SI, she is still super solid to use.

Fawkes: His ability turns the battle into a 5 vs 4 for a while, which is always useful after you have strong gears for your carries.

Tidus: A crazy glass-cannon with super high damage that cannot be ignored.

Vurk with his Ultimate will tear the enemies apart. After the rework, he is now very helpful for your Celerity team where all of your heroes stay on your side.

Drez is helpful at the end of the AE in case you don’t want to miss out a Wilder/Lightbearer Large City and you have to use a Mauler hero.

Late Celerity Heroes

Thane: The weakest large cities to take at the end of the game is the Lightbearer ones (Rowan + 4 Lightbearer Celerity teams). As I mentioned Cecilia, Gwyneth, and Fawkes above, Thane should be the other best choice hero for you!

Kaz: Great one for your all Wilder team at the end.

Best Supports

Rowan: Undoubtedly the best support in AFK Arena because he doesn’t need relic investment to scale his potion. He is also very likely the most invested support you have in the game right now. He is the core for a lot of lineups.

Numisu summons the totems to distract the opponents, protects your Celerity heroes from getting hit. Great to achieve the 3 star wins.

Twins are exceptionally good for all boss fights in AFK Arena. There is no exception here.

Talene: If you already have her ready, there is no reason to not use her here. 

Rosaline: You don’t have to get her to follow any certain hero. She already has a lot of skills that can scale perfectly.

Late AE Supports

Tasi – Great support for the late game in case you want to take Wilder large city. Tasi is the great sub for Skriath if you don’t have the Skriath Furniture 3/3. Remember that her best skills are CC skills, which don’t work on bosses and don’t work well if your Insight is not high enough.

Nemora – To get Wilder large city.

Sorcery Crossover

You want to take some Sorcery heroes to the late game because the final bosses reduce a lot of damage dealt by Celerity and Warrior heroes.

You probably need 4 Sorcery heroes for the last boss and the last slot is Sustenance.

Safiya – Her ultimate is one of the best scaling skills in AFK Arena. The spectral disruption also protects the entire backline. She works perfectly for the Wombo Combo.

Skriath: Not as great as Safiya, but he is still the core of the Wombo Combo.

Belinda: One of the best boss fighters in the game.

Lorsan: Great for amplifying ultimate damage.

Solise: Great to distract the enemies and her heal is great against boss.

Even if you don’t want to invest the relics on Sorcery heroes, Safiya and Skriath 3/3 are still worth taking on still day 1.

This is because the team of Lyca, Eironn, Rowan, Skriath, and Safiya is super overpowered. It will serve you perfectly from day 1 till the last day of the event. You can see how easily this team takes down the enemies by just using their normal abilities at the start of the combat.

This Wombo Combo helps you take down Tier 3 settlements right from day 1, before building relics.

Starting Lineups

Your starting lineup is very important.

Assuming you have Eironn, Lyca, Rowan, Safiya, and Skiriath 3/3 ready with SI enabled, you want to have them all right from the beginning.

Next, you want to fill out the last 5 slots with heroes from the Celerity list above. The heroes at the top are better than the ones at the bottom.

You want to aim for having a great 5 Celerity team or 4 Celerity + 1 Sustenance team of a single faction.

My ideal starting teams would be:

• Team A:
• Team B:

Note that you can replace Skriath 3/3 with Tasi.

If you don’t have enough heroes to do the Wombo Combo, I would put the heroes from the Celerity & Support list above.

Rowan and Numisu are the only 2 supports I want to bring from day 1.

You want to focus on Celerity heroes from the same faction for the faction bonus.

Be Committed

Never sit on your food.

On the first day, do all battles until all of your heroes are exhausted so that you can earn as much essence as possible when you are sleeping.

During the rest of the event, you generally want to log in multiple times every day to attack stronger settlements whenever your heroes are available to attack.

Use fewer Heroes to Achieve 5-Star Win

When you get stronger, you will be able to get 5-star wins without using full 5 heroes in some battles.

In fact, when you get some good relics, you can get the plain titles with just a single hero in the team.

The general idea is to look at the power of the enemy team, if your team has more power, stop dropping your heroes until both teams have the same power.

Save the energy of your Wombo Combo heroes for stronger enemies. This combo can help you beat the enemy teams that have about x2 of your power.

When to Attack Bosses?

Food/Energy is limited in Abyssal Expedition.

You don’t want to use a lot of food on something like damaging the bosses until you are ready.

It’s recommended to just focus on improving your Essence/Hour, Relics, etc. and only attack when you are ready.

If your last remaining title goal is related to boss, this is the best indicator showing you are, or about, ready. 

Get Higher Settlement Tiers

You will hit the tile limit very fast. This is when you want to drop the low tier settlements and focus on the higher tier ones.

The general rule is to leapfrog with your settlements split between your 2 highest tiers.

For example, if you can raid tier 5 settlements, you should be removing your tier 3 settlements to get them. When you can take tier 5 settlements, you can start dropping your tier 4 ones. And so on.

You will probably want to keep a few tiles for getting connected with your teammates. Try to get those at the lowest number.

Keep in mind that plain titles in the inner zones can be better than the outer zones.

Focus is Key

Always remember to focus on a single type of relics, especially at the beginning when you just have a little number of resources.

Because of this, after the first team, at least 3 of the next 5 should be the Mauler Celerity heroes.

If you want to help out your friends deal against boss, Twin is a good pick to go. However, Numisu is better in general battles. If you don’t want to pick them 2 at once, you can pick 1 later in the late phase of the event.

If you focus on a single type of relic, an Elite+ hero will even be able to outperform an Ascended hero from the unfocused type.

The only time you want to upgrade the other relics is when you have to do to get to the new title.

When you are about to add 5 more heroes into the Abyssal Expedition, remember that your first 10 heroes are generally much stronger than the new 5.

Remove your 5 strongest heroes and then re-add them into the new 5 slots so that they will get 60 Stamina immediately. Use the 5 old slots for your new Heroes!

No Room to Grow?

Just find one!

In my first AE event, I did a lot of bad moves and got far behind all my teammates. All of the settlement tiers I needed to take were taken by the others. But I once decided to branch off from the main group and slowly strengthen my relics by taking the settlements which are not on my teammates’ radar. Finally, I got back to the track and were able to beat strong settlements, becoming a strong member of the team.

Thus, don’t hesitate to branch off from the main path of the team if it gives you room to grow.

Getting Large Cities

The hardest goal for almost all players to get the latest title, Prince, is to get the Tier 7 settlement, Large City.

When you are at Duke, you must start thinking about the way to do it.

I usually find a group of 3 people who also need that Tier 7 Settlement. Then, find 3 Large Cities you think you can takedown. Each person does a battle in each city so everyone will end up having the Large City.

Lightbearer is the easiest Large City faction to take. Then you can go with the team of Cecilia, Rowan, Gwyneth, Fawkes, and Thane and raid those Cities them right away.

The second easiest Large City faction is Wilder because a lot of players bringing Wilders into ABEX. For the Wilder team, you want to go with Lyca, Nemora, Kaz, Eironn, Nemora, and Tasi.

Finally, Mauler team should be Tidus, Numisu, Drez, Vurk, and Safiya.

Taking Graveborn Large City is not recommended if you are following this guide.

Since most players want to take the Lightbearer Large City, you can simply just abandon your own city and keep recapturing it to finish the task!

Relics List

Credits to xSkye#4210

The Abyssal Expedition (Vault of Time) event is long-term progress, and will not finish within a few days. Once more information is out I will add it to this guide.

If there are any questions please ask me and I’ll try to figure out the answer if I do not already know it.

Thanks to you for your time and good luck with the Abyssal Expedition event!