Age of Origins Drillmaster Officers: Maria, Eric, Simon & the PvP-Only Rule
The Drillmaster officer type explained: four appointment slots, troop-class buffs and debuffs, why they do nothing against zombies, and who to build first.
Part of the Officers series:
- Officer Types Explained: The three classic types this one joined.
- How to Get Officers: The rally-pack days for every name below.
Quick Answer
- Drillmaster is the fourth officer type (a Machinist fifth type arrived later, headlined by Emily and the orange officer Erica) — its skills buff your troops or debuff the enemy's by troop class.
- The rule that decides everything: Drillmaster skills are PvP-only. They do nothing against zombies, elite zombies, Doom's Iron Grip, or Mother of Doom.
- You can appoint four Drillmasters at once — the second, third, and fourth slots unlock at Commander levels 14, 16, and 20.
- Maria is the class benchmark: a percentage attack boost to every troop type with no downside. Cattie debuffs enemy attack; Eric and Simon share an EMP-and-weaken kit.
- Build Drillmasters only once your PvP life is real — against PvE content they're dead weight on the board.
The Type That Only Fights People
Age of Origins started with three officer types and has since added two more. Drillmaster was the fourth, and it works differently from the classics: instead of buffing your economy or your whole army flatly, Drillmaster skills operate per troop class — raising your attack and defense against specific classes, or dragging down the enemy's attack and defense by class.
That specificity comes with the single most important caveat in the officer system: Drillmaster skills are PvP-only. They contribute nothing against world-map zombies, elite zombies, or the weekly bosses — not Doom's Iron Grip, not Mother of Doom. An account that pours fragments into Drillmasters while doing mostly PvE has effectively spent months buffing nothing.
The flip side: in kill events, Triangle War, and Capital defenses, four Drillmaster slots of class-targeted buffs and debuffs are enormous — which is why serious war accounts treat them as the second officer project after the Warfare Trinity.
Your Appointment Board
Slots scale with Commander level, and the endgame board runs to roughly thirteen appointments:
| Type | Slots | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Warfare | 6 | Unlocking across Commander 15 → 30 |
| Drillmaster | 4 | 2nd/3rd/4th at Commander 14 / 16 / 20 |
| Strategy | 2 | 2nd at Commander 13 |
| Director | 2 | 2nd at Commander 10 |
Note what that table implies: Drillmaster slots unlock early and cheap (14, 16, 20) compared to the deep Warfare slots. If you have the officers, the board is ready for them well before your sixth Warfare seat opens.
The Roster Worth Knowing
Maria — the class benchmark and best-in-slot. A straight percentage attack boost to every troop type, no drawbacks, no conditions. If you build one Drillmaster, build Maria. She appears in Wednesday rally packs.
Cattie — the debuffer: enemy attack reduction across all four troop categories. Excellent for shutting down a strong attacker, though she cuts enemy attack less than Maria adds to yours — take her as a second project, not a first. Friday packs, sharing the day with Zeus (so she loses that budget fight most weeks).
Eric and Simon — near-identical kits, differing mainly in unlock order. Both carry the base skill EMP Pulse Wave (in the opening seconds of battle, cuts all enemy troops' HP and defense — Eric's documented figure is around −6.5%, scaling with Officer Mastery), the breakthrough Advanced Ammo at 5 stars, and three Drillmaster skills: Intensive Medical Training, Long-Range Weaken, and Mid-Range Weaken. Simon reaches Mid-Range Weaken earlier; Eric reaches Long-Range Weaken earlier. Pick by which enemy composition your server actually fields. Eric is a Monday officer, Simon a Saturday one.
Selina — a later Drillmaster release with a distinct twist on the class; her exact kit is thinly documented in public sources, so check her skill screen before committing fragments.
Freya, Emily, Erica — the newest wave, including the Machinist type (Emily introduced it; Erica is an orange Machinist). Machinist appears to specialize in targeting specific unit types, but the public detail is genuinely thin — treat any confident guide about them, including this paragraph, as provisional until you read the skills in-game.
Build Order
- Do you fight players regularly? If no, stop here and put the fragments into Warfare and development officers instead. This is not a consolation prize; it's the correct answer for PvE-heavy accounts.
- Maria first, to a real star level — the unconditional all-class attack buff is the one Drillmaster effect that's never wrong.
- Then a debuffer or weaken kit (Cattie, or Eric/Simon by matchup) to fill the second slot.
- Fill slots three and four opportunistically — with four seats and a shallow roster, even a modest Drillmaster beats an empty slot in PvP.
- Mind the calendar. Maria on Wednesday, Eric on Monday, Simon and Selina on Saturday, Cattie on Friday — the fragment calendar decides your pace, and Saturday and Friday are already crowded by Alexandria and Zeus.