Infantry
6 Charm slots
Jacket and Pants carry three Charms each, improving Infantry Health and Lethality.
← Chief Gear & Charms
Chief Expansion · Charms
Eighteen slots. No reason they all need the same personality.
Each of your six Chief Gear pieces carries three Charms, for 18 individual slots. Charms add Health and Lethality to the troop type tied to that gear piece. Unlike Chief Gear, there is no 3-piece or 6-piece matching threshold forcing your upgrade order — which gives you a lot more room to build for what your account actually does.
Lancer
6 Charm slots
Helmet and Watch carry three Charms each, improving Lancer Health and Lethality.
Marksman
6 Charm slots
Ring and Cane carry three Charms each, improving Marksman Health and Lethality.
The big difference from Gear
You can let Charms be uneven on purpose.
Chief Gear rewards keeping enough pieces at a qualifying tier to protect its set bonuses. Charms do not. Each Charm slot upgrades independently, so putting more resources into one troop type does not cost you a separate matching-set bonus.
That freedom is useful — not permission to upgrade randomly. Establish a reasonable baseline, decide what you are trying to improve, then let that job break the tie.
The three materials
The bottleneck changes as your Charms grow.
Needed from the start
Charm Guides
What it does
Guides are used throughout Charm progression. Early balances can make them look abundant, but higher levels consume hundreds per Charm.
Ways to earn it without buying a pack
Frostfire Mine, Castle Battle and other event rewards, plus shops such as Foundry, State of Power and Canyon when available. Tundra Trading Station and material chests can also help depending on current rotation.
Frost strategy
Do not treat a fat Guide pile as free exchange currency. Level 11 alone needs 560 Guides for one Charm, and the late levels continue consuming Guides alongside Designs and Secrets.
The mid-game squeeze
Charm Designs
What it does
Designs are required from Level 1 onward and climb sharply through the middle Charm levels.
Ways to earn it without buying a pack
Frostfire Mine, Castle Battle and other event rewards, plus Foundry, State of Power and Canyon shops when available. Tundra Trading Station and material chests may also provide them.
Frost strategy
Designs are often the material that makes an upgrade plan stall. Before converting any away, look several upgrades ahead instead of only checking the next red dot.
The late-game gate
Charm Secrets
What it does
Secrets join the upgrade cost at Level 12 and become increasingly expensive through higher Charm progression.
Ways to earn it without buying a pack
Once the Chief Charm Material Exchange is unlocked, spare Guides or Designs can be converted into Secrets. Event rewards and packs may also offer them as your state progresses.
Frost strategy
Secrets do not replace Guides and Designs — they stack on top of them. A Level 12+ push therefore needs all three material balances planned together.
Upgrade costs · one Charm
One level does not look scary. Multiply it by 18.
These are the materials required to complete each listed major level for one Charm. Higher levels can be divided into smaller in-game steps, but the totals below show the full cost of reaching that level. Level availability can also depend on state progression.
LevelGuidesDesignsSecretsHealth + Lethality
155—+9%
24015—+12%
36040—+16%
480100—+19%
5100200—+25%
6120300—+30%
7140400—+35%
8200400—+40%
9300400—+45%
10420420—+50%
11560420—+55%
1258045015+64%
1358045030+73%
1460050045+82%
1560050070+91%
16650550100+100%
Plan from the numbers shown in your own game before a large spend. Later Charm levels and state unlock timing continue to expand as the game progresses.
Level 11 breakpoint
One Level 11 Charm unlocks a new material economy.
Once a Chief Charm reaches Level 11, the Chief Charm Material Exchange becomes available when your state has the required progression. That makes a deliberate one-Charm push useful even if the other 17 slots are behind.
2 Charm Guides
→ 1 Charm Design
2 Charm Designs
→ 1 Charm Guide
40 Charm Guides
→ 1 Charm Secret
40 Charm Designs
→ 1 Charm Secret
The trap
Unlocking the exchange does not make Guides and Designs disposable.
Level 12+ still consumes hundreds of Guides and Designs per Charm alongside Secrets. Convert a real surplus to solve a real shortage. Do not empty one pile just because the exchange button exists.
Choose the job
Your upgrade order should answer a question.
General PvP
Build a floor, then specialize
Keep all three troop types useful instead of abandoning whole sections of your formation. Infantry durability is commonly valuable in PvP, but your actual formation, battle reports and weakest stat line should break close decisions.
Bear
Marksman can lead
Bear is a damage race, so heavier Marksman Charm investment can make sense when Bear performance is the specific goal. That is an event specialization — not a universal PvP upgrade rule.
Specialized formation
Follow what you actually field
If your account deliberately leans Lancer-heavy, Marksman-heavy or runs a specialized two-troop formation, Charms can reflect that much more aggressively than Chief Gear because there is no matching-set threshold to protect.
Frost rule: balance is the baseline, not a prison.
Cheap early levels give useful stats across the account. Once the easy baseline is established, spending harder on the troop that serves your actual goal is perfectly reasonable. Red dots are not strategy.
Event timing
The materials can wait. The points cannot.
If a Charm upgrade is not urgently needed for a battle, holding completed upgrades for a relevant scoring window can let the same materials improve your account and score event points. Check the current event requirements before spending — especially once individual Charm upgrades start costing hundreds of materials.
Okay, but what if I spend?
Buy the bottleneck, not the biggest-looking pile.
Pack names, contents and prices rotate. These are real $4.99 examples captured in September 2026, so use them as a comparison example rather than a promise about what your shop will show.
$4.99 example
Charm Design Pack
10 Charm Designs
$4.99 example
Charm Craftsman Pack
18 Charm Guides + 6 Charm Designs + a random material chest
$4.99 example
Charm Master Pack
40 Charm Designs + 20 Charm Guides + 10 Random Chief Charm Material Chests, plus VIP XP
$4.99 selected example
Artisan's Trove
26 Charm Guides + 54 Charm Designs in the captured selection
Ignore the VALUE % sticker here too.
Ten Designs can be more useful than a larger mixed pile if Designs are the only thing stopping your next planned upgrade. Check your next few Charm costs, identify the shortage, then compare packs against that shortage.
Before upgrading
Make the Charm answer for itself.
1.Have I established a useful baseline across my 18 slots?
2.What am I improving: general PvP, Bear damage or a specialized formation?
3.Which troop type actually benefits that goal most?
4.What do the next two or three Charm levels cost — not just the next click?
5.Am I close enough to Level 11 for an intentional exchange-unlock push?
6.If I convert Guides or Designs, have I reserved what the next upgrades still need?
7.Can I complete this upgrade during a useful scoring window instead?