Infantry → Marksman → Lancer
This is the safest baseline for a developing three-troop account: protect the frontline, keep damage close behind, and finish the cycle without letting one troop line disappear.
← Frost AcademyBalanced / general Bear / damage Specialized PvP
Frost Academy · Chief Gear & Charms
Your Chief does not need six matching red dots cleared.
Chief Gear and Chief Charms are permanent troop-stat systems, which makes every material feel spendable. It is not. The better question is what your next upgrade actually improves, whether it finishes a useful breakpoint, and whether today is even the right day to spend it.
The short answer
There is a common baseline. There is not one universal upgrade order.
For Chief Gear, balanced set progression matters because matching gear quality can unlock account-wide bonuses. Inside that balanced cycle, Infantry → Marksman → Lancer is a common general-purpose order. That is a tie-breaker, not a commandment. Bear-focused accounts, two-troop formations, Lancer-heavy metas and different combat roles can all justify changing the order.
Marksman can lead
If your immediate goal is Bear damage rather than PvP durability, Marksman investment can reasonably move ahead — especially on Charms, where there is no matching-set bonus forcing an even spread.
Build what you actually field
Two-troop or Lancer-heavy formations can justify a very different order. Your march composition, generation and combat role matter more than blindly copying a universal chart.
First: know what you are upgrading
Six Chief Gear pieces. Three troop lines.
Chief Gear bonuses apply to your troops rather than one individual hero. The six pieces split into two pieces for each troop type. English item names can vary slightly between guides and game UI versions, so use the troop bonus shown on your own Chief screen as the final check before spending.
TroopCommon piece namesGear stats
InfantryJacket + PantsAttack + Defense
MarksmanRing + CaneAttack + Defense
LancerHelmet + WatchAttack + Defense
Chief Gear
Attack + Defense, with set progression to protect.
Chief Gear uses Hardened Alloy, Polishing Solution, Design Plans, and later Lunar Amber. Matching-quality pieces can provide set bonuses, so one shiny piece miles ahead of the rest is not automatically better account building. A deliberate one-piece push can make sense near a specific breakpoint, but otherwise the set deserves attention as a set.
Chief Charms
Health + Lethality, with 18 independent slots.
Each of the six Chief Gear pieces carries three Charm slots: 18 total. Charms strengthen the troop type tied to that gear piece and use Charm Guides, Charm Designs, and later Charm Secrets. Unlike Chief Gear, Charms do not have the same matching-set bonus pressure, which gives you more room to specialize by troop type and goal.
Chief Gear strategy
Balance first. Use troop priority as the tie-breaker.
For a standard developing account, the safest pattern is to keep your six Chief Gear pieces within roughly the same major quality range, then decide which pair moves first inside that cycle. Infantry → Marksman → Lancer is the common baseline because Infantry absorb the frontline pressure and Marksmen carry a large share of damage.
That does not mean Lancer-first is automatically wrong. If your established PvP formation leans heavily on Lancers, or your state's later meta is using two-troop compositions that make Lancer strength central, your upgrade order should reflect what you actually send. The warning is against starving the rest of the Chief Gear set badly enough to miss useful set progression.
A second gear breakpoint
Mythic T2 ★★★ can be worth a deliberate one-piece push.
Reaching Mythic T2 with three stars on a Chief Gear piece unlocks the Chief Gear enhancement material exchange. If you are already close, temporarily pushing one piece ahead can be a strategic exception to the balance rule because the exchange changes how you manage Alloy, Polishing Solution and Design Plans afterward.
That is very different from randomly overbuilding one troop line. Chase the breakpoint because you know what it unlocks — not because one icon happened to be upgradeable first.
Chief Charms
Charms give you more freedom to specialize.
Charms add Health and Lethality, and because there is no matching Chief Charm set bonus forcing all 18 slots to stay even, several upgrade approaches can be defensible.
Balanced PvP
Infantry or balanced rotation
Frontline Health is a strong default, but rotating upgrades across the troop lines can keep an all-purpose account from becoming too lopsided.
Bear focused
Marksman can lead
Players optimizing heavily for Bear commonly prioritize Marksman Charms because Bear rewards damage rather than PvP survivability. This is specialization, not a universal PvP rule.
Two-troop / Lancer-heavy
Invest in the formation you use
If your real march intentionally leans Infantry + Lancer or otherwise gives Lancers a larger combat role, Charm investment should follow that reality instead of a generic chart.
Charm material breakpoint
One Level 11 Charm changes your material planning.
Once any Chief Charm reaches Level 11, the Chief Charm Material Exchange becomes available. That matters because Charm Guides and Charm Designs rarely accumulate at the same rate. Before converting anything, look at the cost of your next several upgrades — not just the one currently glowing on screen.
Higher Charm progression adds Charm Secrets as another bottleneck. The exchange can help correct material imbalance later, but converting aggressively can create a brand-new shortage. Use it to solve a plan, not to empty a pile.
Free power is good. Free points are better.
Save big upgrades for scoring windows when you can.
Chief Gear and Charm materials are excellent resources to bank because many events reward upgrades you were going to make anyway. If an upgrade does not solve an immediate combat need, holding it for a matching SvS Prep, King of Icefield, or other scoring objective can turn the same permanent stat increase into event progress too.
Do not cripple your account waiting forever for the perfect day. Just stop spending a month of saved materials because the red dot annoyed you.
Avoid the regret pile
Six Chief Gear & Charm mistakes to skip.
1.
Upgrading whatever piece has a red dot instead of working toward a deliberate troop, set, or material breakpoint.
2.
Pushing one Chief Gear line so far ahead that the rest of the set cannot keep up with useful set-bonus thresholds.
3.
Treating Infantry → Marksman → Lancer as an absolute rule when your actual goal or formation calls for something different.
4.
Burning Design Plans, Charm Designs, or later-game materials immediately just because you finally collected enough for one upgrade.
5.
Doing a large Chief Gear or Charm upgrade on a random Tuesday when the same spend could score during a relevant event.
6.
Confusing Chief Gear with Hero Gear. Chief Gear is account-wide troop progression; Hero Gear is equipped on individual heroes and uses a different resource system.
Before you press Upgrade
Run the five-question check.
1.Which troop type does this piece actually strengthen?
2.Am I improving survivability, damage, a set breakpoint, or just displayed power?
3.Does this upgrade fit the march or event I actually care about?
4.Am I giving up a Chief Gear set threshold or creating a material shortage to do it?
5.Can this exact upgrade score points in an event soon?
If you can answer all five, spend it. If the answer is “the game put a dot there,” maybe keep your materials.
Go deeper
Chief Gear & Charms expansion guides
The main guide gives you the framework. These four pages are where we tear the systems apart: exact breakpoints, material bottlenecks, Charm progression, and the decision tree for what to upgrade next.
Chief Gear
Set Bonuses
See exactly why 3 qualifying pieces advance Defense, why all 6 advance Attack, and when catching up the set beats pushing your favorite piece farther ahead.
Open guide →Chief Gear
Gear Materials
Hardened Alloy, Polishing Solution, Design Plans, Lunar Amber, free sources, upgrade costs, exchange rates, and where the real bottlenecks show up.
Open guide →Chief Charms
Charm Deep Dive
All 18 Charm slots, Health and Lethality, Guides, Designs, Secrets, Level 11 exchange planning, costs, and when uneven investment is actually the smarter plan.
Open guide →Decision guide
What Should I Upgrade Next?
Use the full decision tree to weigh set breakpoints, account goals, Gear versus Charms, exchange unlocks, and event timing — with the WHY behind every branch.
Open guide →Keep learning
Chief Gear is only one stat layer.
Hero Gear, research, heroes, pets, Chief Gear, and Charms all stack into the account you actually bring to a fight. Fixing the weakest useful layer often beats endlessly polishing the strongest one.
Read Hero Gear next →Want the answer for your account?
That is what Account Review is for.
If your real question is “what should I spend next?”, Frost can look at your progression, goals, formations, gear, and bottlenecks together instead of handing you a generic chart.
See Account Review →Chief Gear & Charms FAQ
What Chief Gear should I upgrade first?
If you want a general-purpose baseline, keep the set reasonably balanced and use Infantry → Marksman → Lancer as the order within a cycle. If your formation or role is specialized, that order can change.
Should all six Chief Gear pieces be the same level?
They do not need to be perfectly identical every minute, but Chief Gear set bonuses make balanced progression valuable. Avoid pushing one line far ahead unless you are deliberately chasing a useful breakpoint.
Can I prioritize Lancer Chief Gear?
Yes. It is less common as an all-purpose baseline, but a Lancer-heavy or two-troop PvP formation can justify it. Your actual march composition matters more than copying somebody else's chart.
What is the difference between Chief Gear and Chief Charms?
Chief Gear primarily adds troop Attack and Defense and has set-progression considerations. Charms attach to the six gear pieces, add troop Health and Lethality through 18 slots, and allow more specialization because there is no matching Charm set bonus.
Should I upgrade Marksman Charms first for Bear?
That can be a smart specialization. If Bear damage is the goal, Marksman Charm investment can deserve more priority than it would in a generic PvP-first plan.
What unlocks the Chief Gear material exchange?
Reaching Mythic T2 with three stars on a Chief Gear piece unlocks the Chief Gear enhancement material exchange.
What unlocks the Chief Charm material exchange?
Upgrade any one Chief Charm to Level 11 to unlock the Chief Charm Material Exchange.
Should I save Chief Gear and Charm materials for SvS?
If the upgrade is not urgently needed, banking materials for a scoring window lets the same permanent upgrade do two jobs. Always check the current event schedule because scoring categories can change.