AFK Journey Exclusive Weapons Guide & Weapon Priority List

There are many ways to increase the power of your Heroes in AFK Journey, but one of the most important upgrades comes in the form of Exclusive Weapons. This guide will tell you all you need to know about Exclusive Weapons, including their effects, how to unlock them and when to upgrade them for each of your Heroes.

Every Hero in the game has a unique Exclusive Weapon with unique effects that are individual to that Hero. You unlock the Exclusive Weapon separately (at level 0) for each Hero when a Hero reaches the Mythic+ rarity. The Exclusive Weapon unlocks a new skill for the Hero, which in some cases can dramatically increase the power of the Hero.

You can upgrade the Exclusive Weapon for each Hero in the Hero Upgrade screen, with every +5 levels unlocking a new ability or an improvement to existing abilities. The table below shows the general upgrade path, including the cost of each upgrade and what you unlock for each upgrade.

Use the table below to navigate between the different Heroes and find out everything you need to know about their Exclusive Weapon.

Heroes

Antandra

Arden

Atalanta

Berial

Brutus

Bryon

Carolina

Cassadee

Cecia

Damian

Dionel

Eironn

Fay

Florabelle

Granny Dahnie

Hewynn

Igor

Kafra

Koko

Korin

Kruger

Lucius

Lumont

Lyca

Marilee

Mirael

Niru

Odie

Parisa

Reinier

Rhys

Rowan

Salazer

Satrana

Scarlita

Seth

Shakir

Silvina

Smokey & Meerky

Temesia

Thoran

Vala

Valen

Viperian

Walker

Antandra

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Gale Barrier

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Antandra’s Exclusive Weapon isn’t a complete game changer for the Hero but it is worth rushing it to level +5 if you have her in one of your core line ups. By providing the guarded ally with +400 Energy over 4 seconds, you can accelerate the use of some powerful ultimates to shift the tide of the battle.

Arden

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Spring Thunderstorm

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5, +10

Arden’s Exclusive Weapon allows him to inflict Entangling Roots on all enemies within the range of the Dark Clouds produced by his Ultimate. Off the bat, it’s a little underwhelming, but when you upgrade it to +5, the range of his Ultimate becomes pretty large, meaning you will be able to find more targets for Entangling Roots. Another sizable upgrade comes at +10, when the duration of Entangling Roots is increased by 50% to 3s.

Atalanta

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Sleight of Hand

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Atalanta’s Exclusive Weapon is somewhat lackluster, but that is perhaps because she is a lackluster hero overall so this does little to make her viable. The Sweet Encounter damage bonus from the passive is minor at both +0 and +5 and although the immobilization effect from the double cast of Sweet Encounter is not to be sniffed at, it has a low impact overall. At +10, the ability to drain stats from her target is about as useful as her ability becomes, however the fact that it cannot stack holds it back from being powerful.

Berial

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Shadow Reflection

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Berial’s Exclusive Weapon is powerful and can wreak havoc on enemies who become isolated from their allies. Although already strong at +0, it really comes into its own at +10, with the Silhouette draining the isolated opponent’s energy as well as dealing considerable damage to it. Depending upon the isolated target, delaying this target’s ultimate can sometimes be enough to swing a victory.

Brutus

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Cleaving Strike

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Unfortunately, Brutus’ Exclusive Weapon is not quite powerful enough to make the Hero worthy of consideration in most teams. It can be situationally powerful if Brutus is able to land it on several tanky/high HP Heroes but most of the time it won’t do much to put you in the lead, particularly given its 1-tile range. If Brutus is tanking a lot of normal attacks from fast-attacking Heroes, the +10 upgrade can turn him into a cannon but again this is situational and therefore we find it hard to recommend pushing for this.

Bryon

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Tacit Strike

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +5

Bryon’s Exclusive Weapon makes a big difference to his power on the battlefield, by introducing increased damage, crowd control and a reincarnation effect. You will get most of the juice from this Exclusive Weapon just by upgrading it to level +5, since the +10 and +15 effects are relatively minor damage boosts.

Carolina

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Ice Vortex

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5, +10

With Carolina’s Exclusive Weapon in play, you’d definitely want her on your team in a snowball fight. It’s strong off the bat, increasing her damage significantly over the course of the battle, in addition to providing her snowballs with an AOE effect and reducing enemies' Magic DEF significantly. The most powerful upgrade comes at +5, ensuring that Carolina can nuke down her primary, controlled, target. The +10 upgrade is also powerful however, increasing the Magic DEF reduction to 25%, from 15%, allowing the rest of your wombo combo team to wreak destruction.

Cassadee

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Tidal Blessing

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Cassadee’s Exclusive Weapon would be much stronger if she had better energy regeneration and was able to get Running Tide off in battle more frequently. Despite this however, it is still a worthy Exclusive Weapon which can become powerful if a lot of your allies are caught in the Running Tide. At +10, if you have a lot of allies affected with Tidal Strength, then you can start to trigger a lot of Undercurrents, doing significant damage along with a stun.

Cecia

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Trial of Thorns

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +5

Cecia’s Exclusive Weapon is not a game changer. The vast majority of her power will still come from her Ultimate and the wonderful Mr Carlyle. However, it still provides Cecia with a powerful Crowd Control ability and allows her to sap the strength of enemy Heroes while buffing herself and Mr Carlyle. After +5, there is little benefit to be gained by upgrading it further outside of the improved Hero stats.

Damian

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Inventor's Will

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Damian’s Toy Chariots become full blown medics when his Exclusive Weapon reaches +5. Although the haste boost at +0 is definitely appreciated, the AOE healing is where this Exclusive Weapon really shines. The haste improvements at +10 and +15 are minor.

Dionel

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Celestial Spear

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Dionel’s Exclusive Weapon turns him into a Zeus-like Celestial, smiting your opponents from the heavens with team-wide true damage. Although it does require some set-up to proc, requiring full stacks of Intoxication, it is powerful and with the additional bonuses provided at +10, it can obliterate your opponent’s line up.

Eironn

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Howling Hurricane

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Eironn’s Exclusive Weapon is not only extremely powerful, but essential. Right off the bat at +0, this allows Eironn to immediately cast his Ultimate at the start of the battle, grouping your opponent’s team together and allowing you to set up devastating combinations with other Heroes like Carolina. At level +10, the immobilization duration is doubled from 3s to 6s which is frankly incredible.

Fay

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Grand Entrance

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Definitely one of the weakest Exclusive Weapons in the game, Fay’s provides fairly minor buffs to a single Hero in front of her at battle start. The vitality is ok, so if you are playing her in your comp, you’ll want to get her Exclusive Weapon to at least level 5.

Florabelle

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Protective Blessing

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Although it’s still quite early to say just how powerful Florabelle’s abilities are, given that she has only just been released, we consider her Exclusive Weapon to be of moderate power, with the shield she is able to grant to her summons of considerable value. The additional buffs granted to a petalium at +10 make it likely worth reaching +10 as a minimum if you are using her in one of your core teams.

Granny Dahnie

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Glimmerbloon Blessings

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Granny Dahnie’s Exclusive Weapon increases her stickiness considerably, making it much harder to remove her from the battlefield. Most of the value is already realized at +0, with the ability dramatically increasing her defense and providing her with a long-lasting passive health regen when she is taken below 50%. At +10, Granny also becomes immune to crowd control when the skill takes effect.

Hewynn

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Tranquility

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +5, +10

Hewynn’s Exclusive Weapon is extremely powerful and just gets better as you improve it to +5 and +10. Immediately the immunity to crowd control and flat damage reduction for your allies makes it a must have, but the initial energy at +5 and the additional Revitalize buff at +10 push it over the edge. The +15 effect is immaterial.

Igor

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Horror Strike

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Although Igor’s Exclusive Weapon effect is powerful at +0, Igor will often be below the 70% HP required to get full value from it. Therefore we recommend pushing the Exclusive Weapon to +10 in order to ensure that the healing reduction effect is triggered.

Kafra

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Sylvan Banishment

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

The Exclusive Weapon itself is actually not terrible, but because Kafra is so weak, it isn’t able to really do all that much. The haste reduction is ok but what we’d really be looking for here is Kafra to be able to dismantle or assassinate the opposing team’s primary healer and unfortunately his damage is just not good enough to do that.

Koko

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Fluffy Shield

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Koko’s Exclusive Weapon is ok. The shield gained when Full Energy ends at +0 is helpful, especially if your team was able to dish out some serious damage through Ultimates during the duration of Full Energy. Again the crowd control removal effect at +10 can be helpful and the Resilience buff is fine. Nothing too exciting here but useful nonetheless.

Korin

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Vine Arms

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Korin’s Exclusive Weapon is quite powerful, mostly as a result of the attack speed increase which is obtained at +5. For 8 seconds, he is able to dish out a fair amount of damage and particularly against tanky Heroes with high max HP. The damage being ‘true’ damage also has a significant impact, allowing him to really shine in the Dream Realm in particular.

Kruger

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Ruthless Vanguard

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Kruger’s Exclusive Weapon is underwhelming. The shield is average at best and forces you to isolate your Kruger in all situations. At +10, the adjacency/distance restriction is removed so Kruger can use Vital Strike at distance.

Lucius

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Sacred Beam

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

This is another very underwhelming Exclusive Weapon. Not only is the damage and shield at +5 both very low, but the most useful effect which is the enemy ATK reduction only lasts for four seconds. I would be hesitant to recommend using any Essences on Lucius in his current state.

Lumont

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Totem Slam

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Lumont’s Exclusive Weapon provides him with a repeated AOE slam after taking damage. It’s not a terrible ability but it is pretty weak and certainly is not a game changer. You will need +5 at a minimum in order to allow him to cast the ability multiple times and maximize the value you are getting from it.

Lyca

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Meteor Catastrophe

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

I’m starting to see a pattern here for Characters starting with L and unfortunately Lyca’s Exclusive Weapon is another big L. None of the level abilities or upgrades are good but at least at +0 you are getting a passive damage boost with your normal attacks. The shield-busting ability at +10 is just too situational.

Marilee

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Battlefield Learning

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Battlefield Learning turns Marilee into a Dream Realm killing machine. At max stacks, she does ‘true’ damage to opponents, in addition to receiving a 30% (45% at +10, 51% at +15) buff to her ATK. Shoot for +10 to get the extra 50% ATK bonus if you can, but even at +0 and +5 it’s pretty strong.

Mirael

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Dance of Flames

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

This another case of the Exclusive Weapon being fairly decent but the Hero wielding it being rather useless. At +0, Mirael’s normal attacks become pretty powerful AOE fireballs and if using her for whatever reason, the Exclusive Weapon is essential. There are few benefits to be gained by leveling it up further, outside of the stats however.

Niru

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Ethereal Form

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Ethereal Form is a situationally useful Exclusive Weapon that can in some cases be used to protect an ally which would otherwise have been targeted and destroyed. It’s essential to get this ability to +5, so that the Spirit does not lose HP over time until all allies are in Spirit form.

Odie

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Heart Crusher

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Luckily for us, lovable Odie has an excellent Exclusive Weapon, that is an essential part of his kit. Heart Crusher allows Odie to instantly kill any opponent which has been poisoned by him if their HP drops below a threshold equal to a multiple of the poison damage. This can be used, for example, to instantly kill annoying threats like Igor, as well being a very powerful Hero for your second line-up in the late game. You will be in a good spot if you can get to +10, allowing Odie to get an early Ultimate off.

Parisa

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Falling Blossom

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +15

Parisa’s Falling Blossom is quite poor. At +15, you are able to get two marks down fairly quickly to start taking advantage of the additional target, however it’s a modest overall damage increase and definitely not something that is really going to shake things up. It’s difficult to get an Exclusive Weapon to +15 so there are much better places to spend your Essences. Sorry Parisa.

Reinier

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Tuned Art

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Is there anything that this Hero can’t do? Tuned Art excels from the get go, with the swapped opponent taking an additional 25% damage for the entire battle, as well as receiving significant damage from the ability itself. At +10, the Exclusive Weapon gets even stronger, also providing your switched Ally with a huge 25% damage taken reduction for the entire battle. Rush to +10 for this one.

Rhys

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Fury Rush

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

There’s not too much to get excited about here, Rhys’ Fury Rush is not great and ultimately just provides a slight improvement to Blast Ammo as you rank it up.

Rowan

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Great Bargain

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Potions anyone? Rowan’s great but he’s not really reliant on his Exclusive Weapon for that. The primary benefit is realized at +0, allowing Rowan to provide a powerful Phys DEF and Magic DEF buff after three health potions have been used.

Salazer

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Soul Drench

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Salazer is not great so unfortunately neither is his Exclusive Weapon which grants Soul Drench. His Exclusive Weapon really just provides additional uses and buffs for an ability which is too weak to really make much of a difference.

Satrana

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Radiant Vigor

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Satrana’s Exclusive Weapon really just provides her and an ally with a moderate amount of magic damage reduction. The Energy she receives from ignited enemies at +5 is helpful, or at least it would be if her Ultimate were more powerful.

Scarlita

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Divine Wrath

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +15

Scarlita’s Exclusive Weapon grants Divine Wrath, which actually confers two separate, powerful buffs/abilities. The first is that Scarlita will deal ‘true’ damage if there are at least 3 (+5) or 4 (+0) allies on the battlefield. We like ‘true’ damage. The second is an instant-kill ability if she targets an enemy that is within the low health thresholds indicated above. If you are running Scarlita then first of all lucky you. Second of all of upgrade her Exclusive Weapon all the way to +15 if you can.

Seth

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Hunting Spree

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

Seth is ultimately an assassin and his Exclusive Weapon leans into this. At +5, Predator’s Lunge is going to get a nice stacking buff and the energy gained when an opponent is defeated can help to quickly snowball once the first opponent is downed. This ability can be a bit ‘win more’ though in the sense that you already need to have defeated an opponent to realize any benefit from it. Very minor gains at +10 and +15.

Shakir

Exclusive Weapon Ability: All-Conquering

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

The key to an effective Shakir is maximizing Wolf form uptime and thankfully his Exclusive Weapon helps do just that. All of the level tiers here provide Shakir with a useful upgrade, all the way to +15. The sweet spot is probably at +10 though, at which point your allies will gain a significant damage buff.

Silvina

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Shield of Light

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Silvina is a squishy assassin, so the huge additional survivability gained by the shield is well received. At +10, she also gets some powerful crowd control if she eliminates the marked enemy early on in the fight while Blade Vortex is still active.

Smokey & Meerky

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Withering Potion

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Most of the power coming out of Smokey & Meerky’s Exclusive Weapon comes at +0, whereby Special Aroma receives a much needed range increase, in addition to dealing meaningful damage to enemies who stand in its effect after it has received its third upgrade for the first time.

Temesia

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Invincible Fury

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Temesia receives a pretty significant power spike when she gets her Exclusive Weapon as a result of the +0 upgrade which converts her charge damage into ‘true’ damage once she has cast Knight’s Heart twice. In particular, this makes her damage output in the Dream Realm considerable.

Thoran

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Soul Pact

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +5

As if Thoran wasn’t hard enough to kill already, his Exclusive Weapon makes him even stickier, allowing the ally he is chained to, to sacrifice the majority of their current HP to give him a powerful hp boost. At +5, damage dealt by that ally also heals Thoran, this is the sweet spot for him.

Vala

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Night Maneuver

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Very Powerful

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Vala’s Exclusive Weapon turns her into a killing machine. Upon defeating an enemy, she will flit about the battlefield, untargetable, with a huge movement and haste buff that lasts an impressive 10 seconds. At +10, she restores almost half of her health upon killing a marked enemy which helps keep her in the fight. Very powerful.

Valen

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Eternal Thunder

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +10

Valen’s Exclusive Weapon provides him with permanent Invigoration, increasing his ATK by 20%, +10% for each Ultimate used. It’s not great. Unfortunately none of the upgrades really help much either, resulting in a very lackluster Exclusive Weapon overall. However the ability to target another enemy with normal attacks at +10 is worth going for if you really want to have Valen in your team.

Viperian

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Crimson Waltz

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Moderate

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0, +10

Viperian’s Exclusive Weapon is pretty good, providing him with a powerful AOE attack if he has greater than 90% HP 10s into the battle. This requires him to be topped up to ensure that the threshold requirement is met.

Walker

Exclusive Weapon Ability: Aerial Thunder

Exclusive Weapon Overall Power: Weak

Exclusive Weapon Sweet Spot: +0

Walker, what have they done to you. Unfortunately Walker’s Exclusive Weapon doesn’t help him much and he remains a low tier Hero. The only real value is at +0, where he is able to place a minor debuff on enemies and stun for 2s.