I’m still only in A0 (R14) myself, but I’ve been using the same one since R3 and it’s worked quite well. It’ll probably need to be tweaked a bit for post-Ascension use, but we’re both a good ways off that for now.

You don’t quite need nonstop online time, but it builds way faster online than offline. Leaving it open for a few hours a day works well. I have the mobile app so I generally just leave it running while I sleep.

The Assistant Syndicate

Alignment: Any. I initially designed this for Evil to use the Night Time spell, but I haven’t noticed any significant difference between alignments without having to do a bunch of tedious save-and-restore testing. Any of them seem to work roughly as well, though I’d maybe recommend Neutral if you already have a high Gem count. Good alignment might be better for post-Ascension future-proofing, but I’m nowhere near close enough to that to be sure.

Bloodline: Druid preferred, though Fairy is also useful if you’d prefer to buff building production over mana regeneration.

Spells: Fairy Chanting, God’s Hand. Both of these should get much more powerful post-R18 after all the Vanilla challenges are complete, which will help.

Upgrades: GB1, DD2, EL2, FC3, AN5, FR5, DN6, DD6, TT7, UD8, AN8, EL9. Note that DD2, FC3, and DD6 provide the basic loop for increasing assistant count and mana regeneration and are absolutely vital for making the build work. Prioritize FC3 and DD6 as your first upgrades whenever possible.

Required Autocasting/Secret Trophy Upgrades: You will need silver autocasting for this build to work! Mana Waste and Coin Pillage both make this build stronger and should be used if you have them. Fortunately, this also works to get those trophies in the first place, so you should be in good shape.

How It Works: The basic loop here is a constant increase over time in assistant count, which buffs mana regeneration and allows constant spell activity and TC spam. The other upgrades either make spells more efficient or boost Assistant production (either directly or indirectly via clicking reward). You’ll need to set spells to auto cast in roughly this order: God’s Hand, Fairy Chanting, (Spiritual Surge, if available), (alignment spell), Call to Arms, then Tax Collection. Your assistants should provide enough mana regen to make that work, especially when it’s buffed by the 3x temporary assistants from Fairy Chanting. Note that you mana regen will generally end up exceeding your max mana, especially when using Druid bloodline. In practice, this means your spells are basically constantly active and you end up auto casting as many TCs as your mana bar will allow per second. A lot of your production is going to end up coming from that. Mana Waste feeds into this by buffing the bloodline but also increases max mana which allows more TC casts per second. Production tends to top out at around 2-3 orders of magnitude increase in gem count (e.g. going in with a couple Ud gems tends to top out around a few Qad before needing to start another Merc run). This is still better than my best normal faction run to date by a good margin.

Downsides: Faction coin production is lower than other builds might be and there is nothing to reduce Royal Exchange cost. Royal Exchanges tend to top out around 200 of each type per run. This build also requires a decent amount of online time per run to work at its best.