Best AFK Arena Factions & Hero Priority

This guide will be focused around finding the best AFK Arena factions and building up your teams from there.

Keep in mind that there is no “right” way to play the game. This is just the take of myself and echoing the opinions of many late and end game players.

With that preface out of the way, let’s begin!

Quick Hero Build Priority

Below are some of the most optimal Hero build orders in AFK Arena.

You can focus on either faction depending on the campaign teams you want to build up first. In general, spending resources on Wilder is the safest choice at the moment.

Priority / Faction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

It’s a must to get 3/3 Furniture ability for    if you want to use them properly. Eironn works fine with Signature +25.

Check out our Stargazing guide for Celestial, Hypogean & Dimensional Hero Priority!

AFK Arena Factions

Guide by Arty & Alpattex

Lightbearers

Pros

Cons

Lightbearers are the dream for new players, with appealing heroes such as Belinda and Lucius who are extremely simple to use, and fodder flowing in due to the 4th rare hero Lightbearers have.

Their strongest suit is undoubtedly the hero Rowan. Who many debate to be the best hero in the entire game, however beneath him are two very sufficient heroes of Gwyneth and Rosaline.

Outside of that, there are many more average heroes who perform adequately when invested in such as Estrilda, Hendrik, Fawkes, Oscar, Rigby.

Do note that I have not mentioned Belinda nor Lucius among these top. Both of these heroes are what I’d call a starter’s trap.

Although Belinda and Lucius may seem very strong early, they quickly fall into lackluster applicability, both only being truly useful as niche supports at late and end game (This is NOT to say they cannot work, but they will take higher levels of investment for similar payoffs of other options. I will discuss the issue of available copies at the end of the guide).

Lightbearer Faction Build Order

Maulers

Pros

Cons

Maulers are the simple and often neglected faction headed mostly by the old meta staple of Brutus.

However as time has gone on, many of the newer maulers such as Skriath, Safiya, and Tidus, along with old reworks like Vurk and Skreg have given maulers a prominent rise in the meta which has continued to rise as time goes on.

These heroes, undoubtedly, the worst early game faction, needing to build their innate synergy which comes through ascensions, signature items, and most important furniture. (If you aren’t aware of what these are, look into it! They come later into the game.)

If you plan on using maulers, delay it till late game and end when you can pair them with even more synergistic heroes, Wilders ideally with heroes such as Eironn and Lyca.

Most may call Maulers the worst of the four factions, however, there’s a solid debate to be had around this now with end game statistics consistently showing a rise in the faction.

Mauler Build Order

Wilders

Pros

Cons

Wilders have always been the most consistent heroes in the game, from the classic “wilder trio” of Tasi, Lyca, and Nemora to vastly newer staples like Eironn on Saurus.

This faction doesn’t lack in any regard of the game.

They provide some of the highest pushing potentials in the game, although their carries very early game are lacking a little, but as soon as mythic gear is an option both Eironn and Saurus become very effective.

These heroes do not ever fall off, and continue to grow in effectiveness as PvE and PvP staples, however, there is a lack of tankiness in the faction which requires gear to truly shine due to dodge tanks and Tasi.

This faction stands among the best in the game, however does struggle due to their best heroes not being store accessible and often requiring some wishlist luck, it’s very difficult to overinvest in wilders unless you start making the very low priority heroes such as Seirus or Solise.

Wilder Build Order

Graveborns

Pros

Cons

Graveborns have been the topic of wild discussions for the past few months, with extremely impactful heroes and changes coming such as Daimon, Silas, and Izold with furniture.

This faction has grown in popularity, and for good reasons as results show many players performing to a similar level of Wilders with them.

The inclusion of Silas to the roster removes the severe lack of support for Graveborn and  Ferael performs the secondary support role.

Both Izold and Daimon are both extremely strong carries at all stages in the game, and the already effective heroes like Oden, Nara, and Thoran all make the faction very appealing.

They do notably need some levels of setup, as the carries are prone to burst and high-level deficits can often need the support of another faction such as Rowan’s energy or Wilder’s overall CC.

Graveborn Build Order

What is the Best Faction in AFK Arena?

First, let me explain the two routes of F2P that I’ll discuss here.

• Classic Strategy involves building roughly 15 ascended heroes before stargazing
• 4 Faction Strategy popularized by [Aimb] regarding the disregard of spending diamonds on stargazes for a f2p. His post will be linked below. I will explain both of them and the ways I’d go about said strategies.

Classic Strategy

With the intention of stargazing heroes, that means each individual unit on your roster must be as strong as possible to make up for a lack of a wide roster.

I would skip Shemira, Belinda, or any “store-bought” carry, and aim specifically for Izold, Daimon, Eironn, or Saurus as carries, as they’ll provide the most rewards for the lack of total summons in comparison to the 4 faction strategy.

This means for faction scrolls, choose between Wilders or Graveborn, both have their positives and I think personally my mentality goes to Wilders being harder to use but also having a slightly higher pushing potential.

So if you know you won’t be investing heavy time into learning the game, choose Graveborn.

With faction choice cards, you either have the option of choosing your main faction, OR aiming into Lightbearers for Rowan copies.

There is no “best option”, it’s often a matter of necessity.

As you build your first 2 to 3 heroes in your primary faction, start diversifying your investment into the other factions.

Notably for the classic strategy, hero choice high payoff heroes such as Rowan, Daimon, Eironn, Ferael, etc, and avoid just choosing to finish off a random hero with it.

Also when using the classic strategy, select Ezizh from the challenger store and use lab coins for Arthur except when a dimensional ex-change is ongoing.

4 Faction Strategy

This strategy doesn’t spend Diamonds on stargazers, choosing to pull until a majority of every faction is finished, rough-ly 30 Ascended heroes.

As such, a wide roster is more applicable, and other carries like Belinda, Shemira, Gwyneth, or even Safiya and Vurk are viable alongside the already mentioned wilder and Graveborn core.

I would still suggest going into between Wilders and Graveborn, with the same priorities as the classic strategy, however, with cards, you can focus your primary faction, and once you have the copies of either Graveborn/Wilders, I suggest doing the other with scrolls.

DON’T use faction scrolls on Lightbearers with this strategy as they’ll naturally build fodder faster and you can pull copies through natural wishlist RNG.

Hero Choice priorities should remain the top heroes, but also selecting less meta options is viable.

In the challenger store, I would suggest Athalia, and lab store priorities remain Arthur unless a dimensional exchange is ongoing.

Optimal Wishlist For Both Strategies

Click here for the general Wishlist idea.

Notably, if a hero like Belinda or Shemira is chosen as a carry, you should remove the last hero listed for their respective faction, from there priorities are based on build order but unique rosters may change the priorities.

Hero Copy Debate

Building a hero like Belinda, Shemira, ect due to them being store accessible – Hero Choice tends to make this far less necessary, 8 copies of a hero is quite easy, and you from there can cascade that hero into others with the high rate of summons and push the potential of the heroes being wishlisted, and hero choice whatever carry is closest.

Belinda and Shemira are just low payoff, high investment mages who are trumped by the far greater aforementioned carries.

Keep in mind that things change over time, the old metas are no longer as relevant, and the game has changed. We are no longer in a meta where Lightbearers are optimal, their largest advantage is their simplicity.

The game has developed, and we as a community need to develop our advice accordingly.

Infographic

Hopefully, after reading this guide, you have got a general idea regarding the best factions in AFK Arena. Thus, understanding the best ways to spend your resources and AFK Arena codes in the game.