Skyclops

Skyclops is one of the four available Dream Realm bosses you will encounter in AFK Journey. In this guide we will go over the boss mechanics and the best characters and teams to use against him.

Boss Mechanics

At the start of the battle, Skyclops will designate the player’s closest character as the “Tank” and will keep attacking that character, pausing to summon 4 minions from time to time, or to use a sweeping laser attack that covers the entire area. In the early game, this tank can be any traditional frontline tank character. But this does not contribute much to your damage so you might want to switch to a more aggressive strategy! Examples:

When Skyclops summons his minions, he will gain 90% physical damage resist or 90% magic damage resist, alternating between them each time, making characters who deal true damage all the more valuable here.

In the mid to late game, it is prudent to let

Smokey & Meerky or

Kruger tank this boss as long as they can survive for the duration of the encounter, because this enables you to run as many damage dealers and buffers/debuffers as possible in order to maximize damage. Be sure to kill mobs as soon as they spawn in order to keep your tank alive. Characters who can protect your tank or who have inherent AOE or kill chaining abilities are great here. Examples:

You will want constant healing in order to deal with the dangerous sweeping laser attacks, which will be the main reason for party wipes in the early stages of the game before you can get to the end of the endless mode timer.

This stage does not feature skill channeling interruption, so

Smokey & Meerky is king here as they are able to keep buffing the team throughout the entire fight with little trouble.

Action Summary

Skyclops takes about 38-39 actions in the span of 90 seconds (the full length of the battle - if you survive through all of it that is). Here's a list of all possible actions:

melee attack (up to 9 times per cycle)
ranged attack (up to 9 times per cycle)
summon 4 minions (3 or 4 times total)
sweeping laser attack (4x)

Team Roles

For this boss, you will need:

Tank
DPS Carry
Buffer
Debuffer
Healer

Do try to keep faction bonuses in mind when putting together a team, with at least 3 characters of the same faction. You get more value the more support roles you can condense into a single character. For example

Smokey & Meerky can act as the Tank, Buffer and Healer!

Tank

Best in slot

Smokey & Meerky (doubles as Buffer and Healer)

Viable alternatives

Thoran (doubles as debuffer)
Brutus (doubles as debuffer)
Kruger (doubles as debuffer - has shield and life drean)
Seth (doubles as debuffer)

To be honest, Any ranged character who can keep themselves alive throughout the fight. One notable way to cheese this team role, is by using

Reinier swap to grant a ranged dps carry life leech, which allows them to heal faster than the boss can damage them.

Honorable mentions

Debuffer

Anyone who inflicts debuffs that decrease enemy defenses or increase enemy damage taken. There are other debuffs too, but we’ll focus on those that directly contribute to team damage output the most.

Best in slot

Reinier (+25% Damage Taken at [Mythic+])
Kruger (40% Phys DEF, +40% Phys Damage Taken)

Viable alternatives

Thoran (+17% Damage Taken)
Lyca (up to -37% Phys DEF)
Koko (+10% Damage Taken)

Honorable mentions

Not 100% uptime, low debuff value/not the best option or poor faction bonus synergy.

Eironn (-40% Magic DEF - top tier debuff, but the current pool of single target magic DPS carries is not good enough to make him worth running)
Brutus (-30% Phys DEF - you already use Kruger for this)
Carolina (-15% Magic DEF)
Walker (-10% Phys DEF, -10 Crit Resist)
Cassadee (-20% Magic DEF at [Supreme+])
Fay (-10% Phys or Magic DEF depending on enemy damage type)
Kafra (-15% Phys DEF)
Seth (-15% Phys DEF at 67% boss health, -30% Phys DEF at 34% boss health)
Temesia (-6% Phys DEF)

Buffer

Anyone who provides buffs that increase team damage output. We’ll focus on offensive buffs, defensive buffs are less important if you can already stay alive.

Best in slot

Smokey & Meerky (20% ATK, 30 Haste – doubles as Tank)

Viable alternatives

Shakir (25 Haste, [30% ATK at EX +10], uptime tied to ultimate – doubles as tank)
Lyca (40 ATK SPD, teamwide 50% uptime - Decent with Odie to help build up his damage)
Rowan (320 Energy, uptime tied to ultimate – doubles as healer - decent with carries such as Odie or Marilee who deal damage with their ultimate, not so good with Cecia)
Cassadee (Her buff acts as a Follow-up attack, high single target uptime, teamwide uptime tied to ultimate)
Damian (40 Haste at Mythic+ – doubles as healer)
Koko (10% ATK to team, 10% ATK to single ally)

Honorable mentions

Fay (14% ATK, 15 ATK SPD, uptime tied to ultimate, unreliable targeting – doubles as healer)
Hewynn (30 Haste at [Supreme+]uptime tied to healing skill – doubles as healer)
Parisa (30 ATK SPD, +30% Normal Attack Damage, single target)
Reinier (4% ATK)

Healer

Best in slot

Anyone who can keep your team alive while also increasing team damage output. Smokey is a safe choice as he does not get interrupted on this boss.

Smokey & Meerky

Viable alternatives

Honorable mentions

DPS Carry

Best in slot

Anyone who has great sustained single target damage output.

Viable alternatives

What’s the meta team?

Realistically speaking, your meta team will depend on your specific box, and your account focus, so use your highest rarity DPS carry characters, along with whoever can best boost their damage. Try running Dual/Triple carry, as currently there is no way to boost a Hypercarry’s damage high enough to make it worth running only one. Keep faction bonus in mind but don’t run suboptimal characters just to force it.

Still, below you can find a few example teams.

Team #1 - Triple Carry

Smokey & Meerky takes on the “Tank” role here, while also acting as both healer and buffer.

Kruger acts as the debuffer but is suboptimal in this team, we use him to support

Marilee here.

Odie can be replaced by

Scarlita for better AOE damage against the minions, and providing true damage. Kruger can be replaced by

Reinier to support our true damage dealers. In fact, even if you don’t have Reinier, if you happen to have built

Cassadee, we can actually ditch Kruger entirely and run Cassadee instead, as a rare Quad Carry team.

Artifact used: Starshard Spell.

Team #2 - Dual Carry – Ranged Tank

Here we replaced Odie and Kruger with

Scarlita and

Reinier. This team focuses on dealing true damage, with Reinier as debuffer and Scarlita as subdps for minion clear support with her AOE attacks, and has higher damage potential than the team shown above, but requires more investment, with a minimum of Mythic+ Reinier, so the above image wouldn’t work and is there only as a positioning example. You can still run

Odie instead of Scarlita, she helps clear the minions, but at low dupes won’t contribute as much damage as a highly invested Odie would.

Artifact used: Starshard Spell.

AFK Journey Skyclops

Dream Realm Skyclops guide that explains the boss mechanics and how to beat it!

Skyclops

Boss Mechanics

Action Summary

Team Roles

Tank

Debuffer

Buffer

Healer

DPS Carry

What’s the meta team?

Team #1 - Triple Carry

Team #2 - Dual Carry – Ranged Tank

Video