With the introduction of the Celestial Tower in faction towers in AFK Arena patch 1.65, I think it is a good time to start talking about faction towers. I don't believe faction towers are rocket science as they pretty much rely on complementing heroes you built for the best AFK Arena teams with other decent or good heroes.
Since your hero pool includes a single faction for each tower, your synergy options are minimal, and the point of this guide is that you need to get it right. Otherwise, you will end up wasting time. In this guide, I will show you some faction towers meta teams and my own teams, and I will also explain what I did wrong in the 10 months I've been playing AFK Arena.
Keep in mind that some of these formations, especially the Wilder and Mauler ones are also among the best teams for AFK Arena's Campaign mode.
King's Tower
This guide is not about King's Tower, but the best team comps for campaign also work on King's Tower. Personally, I mostly play the Ainz Comp there, or stall variations of it, with Ainz, Albedo, and Arthur being the core member.
After stage 451 in all faction Towers you will have to win 2-team battles to progress. With that in mind, I decided to provide a core 5-man team for the first 450 floors and a second one that you will use together with the first one after floor 451. Please note that these team compositions are very generic and it is always best to check the Formations functions for each stage to see how your friends or guildies beat a floor and use the same formations and artifacts.
However, the recommendations below have some value as they indicate which heroes you should focus on until you get there.
Tower of Light (Lightbearers Faction Tower)
There is finally a great Lightbearer carry in AFK Arena and that's Scarlet. She is a bit Squishy, but a far superior DPS to Belinda, and I believe she should be your main carry until stage 450. The problem with Lightbearers remains though as you are going to also need a carry for your second team and Morrow was not the answer, sadly. While I have invested in him, he turns out to be quite unreliable.
Investing in Gwyneth is totally worth it, though, even though she is quite old. Mine is 5-star with SI +25 and 3/9 Furniture. The obvious alternative to Gwyneth is Awakened Thane. An amazing option, but that's mostly for whales.
Lucius remains a decent option as a tank even though Hendrik is a better tank, thanks to his stuns and shields. However, in most cases Lucius can't survive in the front line, making Rosaline and Rowan better tanks, while in rare cases placing Scarlet at the front may be necessary to trigger the Ultimate faster.
Rowan and Rosaline are must-haves for the most part and I wrap up the formation with Raine (when I need more damage output) or Fawkes (when I need CC and buff removal). Note that 9/9F on Rosaline is not a recommended investment, it happened accidentally for me.
The problem I face in the first formation is that I have to use the best support characters to ensure that Scarlet kills the enemy team before she dies. This can be tricky on several occasions.
As for the second team, honestly, it's just a team of leftovers, where I also throw Eluard or Peggy on occasion. The team does not excel at anything though and it is very unreliable on high level deficits.
Tower of Light Formations
Brutal Citadel (Maulers Faction Tower)
My Maulers situation is an exemplary case of wrong investments. I never liked Maulers and I only invested in Brutus. Even on his SI, which doesn't really make much of a difference. Currently, my Maulers stand 60-70 floors below the rest of my faction, even the not-so-great Lightbearers. The best thing to do in my opinion is to start building Skreg Invade variations as it's the current meta. But first, let's see the crappy team I use.
Cyberfunk's Mauler Team
I invested in Drez for Abyssal Expedition and Warek for Wrizz and Soren without ensuring I have a proper 5-hero lineup for Brutal Citadel. I'm going to correct this (to an extent) by adding Antandra in place of Warek and Tidus in place of Drez, while I'm about to Ascend Skriath (I just did actually).
Skreg is a long term investment so I don't expect to use him any time soon. But let's see the current meta team.
Just build this team and use Safiya instead of Kren until you Ascend him. It feels like a pretty awesome team. I'm working on getting it too.
The World Tree (Wilders Faction Tower)
The easiest Tower. The most consistent faction with the most obvious heroes to work on. I use two variations of the meta team and I'm gonna show you both the current and the possibly new meta for Wilders.
Cyberfunk's The World Tree Wilder Teams
I use Respen because I like him, but I should have invested in getting Pippa to SI +20. Respen works really well too and I believe he gets broken at SI +30, so I'm working on it. The team is great though with 2 carries in Saurus and Eironn, Lyca's Haste and Tasi's CC. You complement this with Nemora's healing or Respen's CC and DPS. Sweet.
The World Tree Wilder Meta Teams
These teams are amazing and Raku has started taking over in a new meta. The old one with Saurus still stands strong though and another great character to build is Lorsan.
The Forsaken Necropolis (Graveborns Faction Tower)
This is another easy one and the only mistake I have made is still using Shemira. However, Daimon carries me like a breeze and replacing Shemira with Thoran or Izold will do the trick long term. There are a ton of options here as Desira is a great, Silas is also great, especially with Izold, Oden is also a great character, while Grezhul remains underrated. Finally, Nara is part of the meta.
Cyberfunk's The Forsaken Necropolis Team
I'm gonna get rid of Shemira here and add Thoran, initially at SI +20 and eventually I will get him to SI +30. I'm going to replace Isabella, who is another mistake with Nara or Silas depending on the situation. After that the team is good to go. Since I love Graveborns I also want to ascend Izold and Oden. I have to admit Desira is probably a higher priority than some of these heroes, as I think she is an amazing staller (check my Alna's Frozen Mist formation).
The Forsaken Necropolis Meta Graveborn Teams
The meta teams are pretty straightforward for Graveborns. Full Graveborn Izold and Thoran Cheese variations dominate, Daimon comps work well too, but I've also seen some formations that rely on Oden.
The above team comps are all devastating. Some of them rely on synergies, others on raw power and stalling. An SI +30, 9/9F Ferael can even be in the front row since he is a constant stun locker. Well, overall, this is Graveborn domination.
Celestial Sanctum (Celestials Faction Tower)
The Celestial Faction Tower is a new one, introduced in patch 1.65. However, it is quite easy to figure out the initial meta teams, although I won't be able to use any of them. I will have to rely on Athalia as my main carry (Jesus…) and utilize stall teams featuring the twins too.
I don't think this team can go too far so let's see what I expect the meta teams to be.
I expect the Celestial Sanctum meta to feature stall heroes all the way. Talene, Alna, and Orthros (attainable from the Challenger Store) will shine. Wu Kong can be a monster if ascended and built, and many people have ascended him as you can get him from the Labyrinth Store. He is also a great CC, and his clones can deal a lot of damage. The other great damage dealer and disruptor is Zaphrael. This is a very whale-oriented team, but it's the one I would try to build for end-game.
Update: Evaluating the best teams for Celestial Sanctum and crowdsourcing what other players use will take a few weeks. For now I use the team I showed above without Alna, Wu Kong at the frontline and Flora at the back, just because Alna slows down the fight.
Conclusion
Please keep in mind that building the right Faction Tower meta teams will be of great help in campaign too. I have used several of these in Chapters 33+ so they are totally worth investing on.