DragonSword: Awakening Upgrade Priority
Quick answer
Upgrade in this order in DragonSword: Awakening: fix your team composition first (it costs nothing), then equip a matching-element Karma on your main damage dealer, then put Ailment Buildup Rate gear on your setup hero, then level heroes. Karma and gear return far more power than levels once the story tutorial ends.
Updated · Verified on Patch 1.0.x · Sources: in-game testing, Steam store page, Hound13 announcements
Materials are tight for the first thirty hours of DragonSword: Awakening, and DragonSword: Awakening does not tell you which system pays back best. This is the order.
Step 0 — fix composition before spending anything
The highest-return upgrade in DragonSword: Awakening is free. A team missing its setup, break or burst role underperforms a worse-geared team that covers all three, and no amount of material spending fixes a broken chain.
Check your trio against the three roles in best team comps, or run it through the team builder. If a role is missing, swap a hero before you spend a single material.
Step 1 — matching-element Karma on your main damage dealer
Equip a Basic Karma whose element matches the hero on whoever does most of your damage. Do this before investing in anything, because a matching basic card outperforms a mismatched better one — mismatched Karma silently loses part of its benefit.
This is cheap, immediate, and the single most commonly skipped step in DragonSword: Awakening.
Step 2 — unlock Tower of Trials
Complete Cerese's Bond Quest. The Tower is the sole source of Fragments of Memory and Whirling Thoughts, so until it is open your Karma economy does not exist. Treat it as a progression gate, not side content. See farming.
Step 3 — Ailment Buildup Rate gear on your setup hero
This is the affix that decides whether your setup hero applies an ailment in one skill cast or two, which changes the length of every rotation you run.
| Hero role | Prioritise | Do not prioritise |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Ailment Buildup Rate | Raw critical damage |
| Break | Survivability, uptime | Buildup Rate |
| Burst | Raw damage, critical damage | Buildup Rate |
Putting Buildup Rate on a burst hero is the most common gearing error in DragonSword: Awakening. It looks like a damage stat and is not — see status ailments.
Step 4 — level and ascend your core three
Only now does levelling deserve materials, and even then, concentrate it. Three heroes at a solid level beat six at a mediocre one, because you only field three at a time.
Hero EXP is rarely a hard bottleneck, which is precisely why it should not be your first spend — you will accumulate it while doing everything else.
Step 5 — Karma levelling, then ascension
Level one card properly rather than spreading Karma EXP across several. Then ascend it, which requires duplicate copies of the exact same card.
Hold your duplicates. Players who dismantle same-name cards for inventory space in the first ten hours find out around Tower floor 25 that they threw away their ascension path.
Step 6 — Exclusive Karma for the hero you actually play
Exclusive Karma is hero-specific and buffs signature skills, sometimes changing animations or burst windows outright. That makes its value concentrated in a hero whose skills you use constantly.
Chase it for your most-played hero, not the highest-ranked hero on a tier list. A modified signature skill you use every fight beats a stronger one you never press. Use the material planner to work out what the Afterimages will cost.
Step 7 — cook before pushes
Free power that most players ignore entirely. Food buffs are temporary stat boosts made from ingredients you gather while exploring anyway. Eat before a Tower push, a world boss or a Raid. See cooking.
What not to spend on early
- Levelling heroes you do not field. You use three at a time.
- Gear for benched heroes. Same reasoning.
- Multiple Karma cards at once. Concentrate.
- Crafting Fragments of Afterimage before checking your gold. 100,000 per craft.
- Cosmetic purchases before you have a working team. They do not affect power at all — see is it gacha.
FAQ
What should I upgrade first in DragonSword: Awakening?
Fix your team composition first, since it is free, then equip a matching-element Karma on your main damage dealer, then put Ailment Buildup Rate gear on your setup hero.
Is Karma or gear more important?
Both carry most of your post-story power. Karma first, because a matching-element Basic Karma is cheap and mismatched Karma silently underperforms.
Should I level all 19 heroes?
No. You field three at a time. Concentrate materials on your core trio and expand only when you change composition.
What is the most common upgrade mistake?
Levelling heroes while ignoring Karma, and putting Ailment Buildup Rate gear on a burst hero instead of a setup hero.