How to build teams in AFK Journey and what are the best teams you can run early in the game.
Last updated: 18/04/2024
Foreword
In this guide, we offer information about the basics of team building and examples of pre-made teams. Please note that these are just guidelines, and not hard rules. Due to the existence of several key factors — that we will go over in a minute — that somewhat restrict the ways teams can be built in AFK Journey. If you don’t see your preferred character in this guide, it doesn’t mean they’re not viable; in that case just refer to our Tier List or character page to see what place they have in teams.
If you're looking for late game or PVP teams, check our other guide:
While creating a team, it is important to maximize your faction bonus. Whenever more than 2 characters of the same faction are put on a team, the entire team’s stats are increased by a certain percent. This means you’re incentivized to keep your teams to two factions at most, though the
Celestial and
Hypogean factions are here to help mitigate the issue.
Celestial and
Hypogean are interesting, as they serve as ‘neutral’ characters that can count towards any faction. To make it easier to understand: if you run 4 characters of the
Wilders faction, then add either a Celestial or Hypogean character, it’ll activate the 5 character matching faction bonus.
Note that it’s not worth it to go for a mono-faction set-up. Not only do most factions not have 5 characters that both are good and synergize with one another, the extra stats are just not worth it when compared to the utility of some of the meta characters. Instead, most teams function on a ‘core’, which is a set of 3 characters of the same faction that dictate what faction the team will run around. The other two units are then added based on synergy or power.
Standard Team Setup
Even though there are many possible teams in this game, more often than not, they will follow the same style of building when deciding between which characters to use.
Pick a Tank. Tanks are the key figures in a team, even if their presence doesn’t often decide the other characters that will make up the team. Tanks have an exceedingly small roster, so be careful with who you pick to build around the faction bonus.
Pick 2x DPS. At the time of writing this, there is no real reason to run just 1 DPS. There aren't enough characters that can support that kind of playstyle, so most teams opt to run at least 2 DPS.
Pick a Support Supports are often the backbone of a team. Though most Supports (depending on the character) can provide enough sustain on their own, sometimes their kits trade raw healing output for things like buffs or debuffs.
Flex spot. Pick a Specialist, a second Support or a second Tank.
Specialists are either characters with quirky kits, or characters that focus on multiple roles at the same time. A key observation you may have is that the “good” Specialists often provide something in terms of buffs, debuffs or enhancements for your other characters,
You can also run a second Tank to split the agro, allowing the frontline to survive long enough for your team to use their Ultimates or a second Support - so you get more healing and more buffs. There's no one team setup to rule them all and who you choose for the flex spot depends a lot on the enemy formation.
Team Suggestions
The teams below are just examples and while the Core Members of each faction are pretty set in stone, you can slot a lot of characters into the two remaining flex spots. So experiment with whoever you have raised on your account, rather than trying to force a character you don't have dupes of into the team.
Also, the teams blow are meant only for the campaign/story progression as the Dream Realm and PVP meta is different.
Team compositions typically feature a core of 3 units of the same faction (so you can activate the +10% stat bonus), with the other 2 being flexed either between another faction or non-matching units. Below you will find beginner core teams for every faction - while some factions are better than others, we decided to review each of them to give you guys a choice on who you want to play (and also since we're at the mercy of RNG - despite the wishlist, you might get only dupes from one faction and you will be forced to play them).
Maulers
This team is focused mostly around comfortable AFK Stage progression as a F2P player. From all the core teams, the Mauler team is probably the strongest and makes progressing through the game easier.
Brutus, despite being of the Warrior class, is quite potent as a Tank due to the passive that allows him to become invulnerable upon taking damage that would kill him. This buys enough time for his allies to stack up Energy for their Ultimates and turn the tide of combat in case things go wrong. Still, under higher deficits he falters as beside the immortality he has nothing in his kit to keep him alive and is often used in dual tank teams,
Antandra is a better tank than Brutus once you ascend her a bit, but early one it will be hard to get her dupes as there's a big competition for the Maulers wishlist spot for the A-Level characters,
Smokey & Meerky is the standard Support here providing constant healing, ATK Up and Haste Up buffs in his aura,
Koko is often paired with Smokey as she provides a defensive layer of buffs that makes them work well together.
Pick two DPS from the list above - or even try another one that you have a lot dupes of,
Cecia is so good, she can be used as the secondary DPS with any other faction. She provides powerful physical damage, an additional frontliner in the form of her summon and a large AoE root that keeps enemies peeled off your backline,
Rhys is a AoE DPS providing constant area damage and being tricky to hit while
Seth is a killing machine but he requires a lot of dupes to be consistent since he jumps toward enemies. But once Seth gets going, he is hard to stop as he can selfheal,
Odie is probably the best and most universal A-Level character in the game. His damage is insane and he gets a huge powerspike with his EX weapon, allowing him to execute targets below certain HP. You can use him in any PVE mode and in PVP with great success,
Rowan are two very different characters that accomplish a similar thing: to provide additional utility to the team. In Shakir’s case, his Lupine Aura provides a series of buffs to him and allies standing within it. Rowan on the other hand provides additional burst healing and a smooth cycling of Energy provision. You can try using one of them instead of Koko if you don't have her duped or replace the secondary DPS to fully focus on making Cecia the carry,
Thoran can also be used as another tank, to either replace Antandra/Brutus or to be used alongside them and replacing one of the Damage dealers.
If you want to see this team in action, check Volkin's video:
Graveborn
The core Graveborn composition functions and is viable in PVE from Early to Late game, and only gets more potent as Exclusive Weapons are being unlocked over time.
Viperian (who is constantly losing HP) to deal their damage. Thoran is the go-to in this case, given his resurrection mechanic and incredibly high damage ceiling,
Viperian form the offensive basis for this team and round out the 3-man Graveborn Faction bonus. Cecia provides powerful physical damage, an additional frontliner in the form of her summon and a large AoE root that keeps enemies peeled off your backline. This enables Viperian, who takes the first few seconds of a fight to set up his snakes before continuously dealing high AoE damage,
Silvina can replace Viperian in battles that rely on quickly taking out a backline unit or orienting your teams round physical damage, Silvina is considered here for her quick and high damage output and relatively safe dive after she obtains her Exclusive Weapon to gain a shield.
Rowan are potent supports here, with Rowan having powerful burst-healing and helping Viperian with his damage output by granting him Energy (since Mages are reliant on their Ultimates most of the time). Hewynn can also be effective here due to the global healing on her Ultimate,
The second frontliner is added here to cover in case Thoran is killed and needs some time for his resurrection to kick in.
Lucius can mitigate the damage Thoran takes outright, making him harder to kill, while
Brutus ensures that Thoran has enough time to regain his health due to Brutus going invincible when he is about to die, buying extra time,
Reinier can also be placed in the Flex Position spot if you need extra team manipulation and support in the form of crowd control. With Reinier being a Hypogean it also opens up the 4-man Graveborn Faction bonus increasing your team’s overall tankiness and damage output,
You can also double down on your Supports and simply run both
Granny Dahnie provides a powerful defensive basis here with a lot of self-sustain and defensive debuffing in the form of Haste Reduction and Taunt. In addition, if Energy is provided properly, with different units such as
Rowan, Granny can set up a mighty decent chain of crowd control,
Bryon is the typical pick in terms of core here. His constant basic attacks synergize with both Cassadee and Lyca and he can dish out a lot of single-target damage to quickly break up the opposing frontline,
Hewynn forms the defensive anchor, having the highest healing output of all the Supports currently in the game and having an Ultimate that provides map-wide healing over time. She also provides additional Haste, further playing with the cooldown cycle and helping allies get off their important skills,
Exclusive Weapons are amazing additions to the defensive power in this core. Granny transforms into a defensive wall when falling below 50% HP, Bryon gains the ability to stun a unit when he’s being bursted down and Hewynn becomes Unaffected by crowd control while casting her Ultimate.
Lyca is the thing that brings this team together. She provides a burst of Energy at the start of the match, shreds Phys.Def of all enemies, increases A.SPD and her Ultimate provides a basic attack enhancing field that can quickly wipe the floor with enemy teams. Depending on the other DPS, you may not use the Phys.Def Shred, but it’s still nice to have,
Parisa is a more damage oriented alternative to Lyca. She still can support Bryon by buffing his ASPD and basic attack damage, but on top of that she boasts high damage - though it's reliant on enemy positioning a bit,
Cassadee is flexed into the open position here. Cassadee provides additional support for units like Bryon who are both Magic DPS and utilize a lot of basic attacks with her special buff while Rowan provides additional sustain and helps set up a powerful Ultimate cycle through the amount of Energy he provides,
Cecia also fits here. If you want additional crowd control and a DPS that can capitalize on Lyca even more than Byron can, Cecia deals physical damage, her Ultimate can root enemies inside Lyca’s enhancement field and her summon also triggers the basic attack enhancement in said field.
Lightbearers
By far the weakest faction as far as team-building power goes. Most of the good Lightbearer characters are used to supplement other teams rather than forming a core of their own. Despite this, there are options for a Lightbearer based team, as Lightbearers generally have a mix of offense and defensive capabilities, it’s just that you typically don’t need the amount of defensive options they provide.
Vala (who should be the first rate-up character on release), is a powerful Assassin unit that can help pick off annoying targets like healers. Unlike Silvina, Vala starts in her ranged form, causing the frontline to draw aggro before she dashes in with her Ultimate to deliver high single-target damage. Even if the enemies turn on her,
Lucius allow Vala to tank more damage through the use of their shields,
Korin is a surprise pick for the Specialist role here. While he isn’t the greatest in the early game, his dual-role nature splitting his kit between high single-target damage and a potent (and consistent) shield on an ally helps when survivability becomes an important factor in progressing through AFK stages. He also becomes a beast in Dream Realm once you unlock his EX weapon,
Rowan is a no-brainer here. Amazing burst healing, consistent Energy generation for most of the team, and extra Haste/Energy buffs for himself, he is the reason this core finds a sense of consistency.
Lucius provides solid early game tanking and can really help make your frontline more sustainable with the AoE shields on his Ultimate and the bit of CC he has access to in his kit. Especially when paired with either melee units or summons a team can draw out a lot of value out of his abilities. Still, while Lucius is a great early game unit, his lack of immediate presence (and ultimately, guaranteed survivability) really harms him as you climb AFK stages. Instead, once you hit mid game, consider using
Thoran instead. Though unnecessary, if you want to keep a 3-2 faction bonus team, try and match the Flex DPS with the Flex Tank factions,
The Flex spot varies here, so
Cecia is used for being an extremely powerful and easily accessible damage dealer. Her summon synergizes with both Lucius and Korin, providing a powerful frontline that is hard to break though, and her crowd control prevents enemies from spreading too far apart given that most of the units in this core are single-target focused,
Reinier can also be placed in the Flex Position spot if you need extra team manipulation and support in the form of crowd control,
You can also double down on your Supports and simply run both
