Chief Charm Upgrade Strategy
Charms rebalance the Health and Lethality the game is stingy with, but they are expensive and Lv.12-16 only unlocks at Gen 7. Defer them until then, take Designs from packs, and keep your two main classes close together.
✦ At a glance
| Question | Ton's answer |
|---|---|
| Where from | Frostfire Mine (the big one) · Frostdragon Tyrant · Intel · the season 3-way choice. The items do not say where they came from, so go by your ranking routine instead. |
| Early bottleneck | The game hands out far more Charm Guides than Charm Designs → Designs run dry first. Get Designs from packs. |
| When | Pack value jumps +25% from Gen 6 to 7, and Lv.12–16 only unlocks at Gen 7 → Gen 7 is the efficient moment. Before that, spend elsewhere. |
| Why they are good | The game is stingy with Health and Lethality → Charms rebalance your stats (Health ≈ Defence, Lethality ≈ Attack). |
| What first | Infantry first as the default, then follow whichever composition you actually run (2-class or 3-class). |
| Overall rank | Fire Crystals > hero gear, Experts, pets > Charms (middle). Push them back until Gen 7. |
1 Where they come from your ranking routine is your Charm income
❄ The main sources
- Frostfire Mine — the most important. Regular ranking rewards
- Frostdragon Tyrant — large amounts, from an easy recurring event
- Intel missions — small amounts
- The season event 3-way choice — meat / Fire Crystals / Charms
△ The Design/Guide imbalance
- The game gives you far more Guides → collect materials and Designs run out first.
- The fix: take Designs from packs — season and shop packs usually include them.
- Ton ended up with 10k+ Guides sitting idle → which is why he unlocked the exchange (section 5).
2 From a spender's view — they are expensive priced off the Charm Artisan chest
Even a 2-year-old account sits at 8–9
Ton has spent hundreds of dollars on Charms and is still at 8–9 (Lancer 7–8). A full Lv.16 max runs into the thousands. One level takes about 500 materials, and the $5 Charm Artisan chest gives 78 — so 8 → 9 alone costs roughly $30–40.
💡 Gen 7 is the efficient moment — wait for it
Charm packs improve with every new building and generation, and the jump from Gen 6 to Gen 7 is worth about +25% in pack value. On top of that, Lv.12–16 only unlocks at Gen 7 (Lv.11 is the cap before it).
So: spending heavily on Charms at Gen 5–6 is inefficient. Fill in pets, Experts and hero gear first and concentrate on Charms around Gen 7. (Experts are the one thing whose value does not depend on your generation — though that will probably change eventually too.)
❄ Why Charms are good — balance
The game gives out less Health and Lethality than Attack and Defence. Damage and survivability peak when you get to Health ≈ Defence and Lethality ≈ Attack, and Charms are the best source for closing that gap (Chief Gear next). They are just expensive, which is what keeps them mid-priority.
3 What to raise first — three approaches every composition uses a lot of Infantry
A · Default (Infantry first)
- Infantry Charms first — secure Health, plus a little Lethality
- Then whichever class you field most
- Ton's example: Infantry 9 / Marksman 8 / Lancer 8 (a narrow spread)
B · Two-class focus
- The current fashion. Good for city burning and Bear damage
- 60/40 Infantry-Lancer → Infantry first, Lancer right behind
- For pure damage, Marksman first is an option (the 40/10/50 attack build)
C · Three-class balance
- Flexible across 50/20/30 and 60/10/30
- Charms still go Infantry first
- Cover the other classes through Chief Gear, hero gear and research
⚠ Do not neglect Lancers too badly
Low levels (4 → 5) are cheap and high ones (9 → 10) are very expensive → keep your two main classes close together. That matters most at 20% Lancer, where the Lancer Charms cannot be allowed to fall behind. At 10% Lancer (60/10/30) some lag is fine.
Still undecided on a composition? Raise everything a little and stagger the classes across your sources — Charms as Infantry/Marksman/Lancer, Chief Gear as Infantry/Lancer/Marksman, say — and you will be fine either way.
| Composition | Character | Charm priority |
|---|---|---|
| 60/40 (Inf/Lan) | Strong at city burning, Alliance Championship and garrison. But weak Bear damage (Lancers hit the Bear far softer than Marksmen) | Infantry → Lancer |
| 48/48 (Inf/Mrk) | Available from Gen 3, with excellent Bear damage | Infantry → Marksman |
| 50/20/30 · 60/10/30 | Flexible three-class (Ton took plenty of #1 kill rankings on 50/20/30 right through Gen 9) | Infantry, then spread the rest |
4 The exchange — is unlocking it worth it? needs Gen 7 and one Lv.11 Charm
❄ Rates and caps
- Guides ↔ Designs at 2:1 · 500 a week
- Guides → Charm Secrets at 40:1 · 50 a week
- Designs → Charm Secrets at 40:1 · 50 a week
- Both together → up to 100 Charm Secrets a week
- Charm Secrets are Lv.12+ only and barely appear in shops → the exchange is effectively the only source
✓ Worth unlocking for most people
- The exchange is a real loss of value (2:1) — but the point is the surplus Guides you cannot otherwise spend.
- Run the Mine and Castle Battle consistently and Guides pile up to 10–15k → burning 5–7k of them converts into one or two levels more than everyone else.
- Not game-breaking — an optimization that makes you somewhat stronger.
⚠ Around Lv.11–12, start hoarding Guides
Up to Lv.9 Designs cost more, but from 9 → 10 and beyond it flips and Guides become the heavier cost. (Lv.7 = 100 Designs / 50 Guides · Lv.8 = 75 Designs / 100 Guides · Lv.9 ≈ even.) So as you approach 11–12, Guides turn into the bottleneck instead. Like T11 steel: burn all your Guides and you cannot make the upper levels at all.
5 Where Charms sit on the whole account lower than they used to — middle
| Rank | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Top | Fire Crystals | Critical for F2P above all — they raise troop level. Fall behind and you are dead weight in Tyrant, Tundra and Sunfire Castle rallies. |
| High | Hero gear · Experts · pets | Permanent, useful everywhere, and multiplicative (pets) → these come first. |
| Middle | Chief Charms | Slightly ahead of research and Chief Gear, which accumulate on their own. Deferred entirely until Gen 7. |
Even as a spender, holding Charm spending back until Gen 7 is correct. Take only the good packs — Journey of Light and the like — while banking materials, then concentrate around Gen 7 once pets, Experts and hero gear are solid. For F2P, Lv.11 across the board is the realistic first goal (which means running Frostfire Mine every season).
✕ Common mistakes
✕ Do not
- Spend heavily on Charms at Gen 5–6
- Let Designs run dry (the game gives more Guides)
- Neglect Lancers while running a 20% Lancer composition
- Burn all your Guides at Lv.11–12
- Put Charms ahead of Fire Crystals and pets
✓ Do
- Wait for Gen 7 and spend elsewhere first
- Take Designs from packs
- Keep your two main classes close together
- Hoard Guides for the upper levels
- Treat Charms as mid-priority