Chief Gear is a long-term investment system — every piece takes real material and time to forge and upgrade, so the order you tackle it in matters more than most other decisions you'll make mid-game.
Forge before you upgrade
It's tempting to pour every material into upgrading the first piece you forge, but a full set at a lower level generally outperforms one maxed piece with the rest untouched, because most gear bonuses are set-wide, not per-piece. Get a complete set forged before pushing any single piece hard.
Match gear priority to your actual playstyle
- If you're focused on rallying and offense, prioritize the pieces that boost attack and rally capacity first.
- If you're focused on defense and garrison duty, prioritize the pieces that boost defense and troop capacity.
- If you're not sure yet, a balanced set is the safer default until your playstyle becomes clear.
Materials are the real bottleneck, not blueprints
Most players end up sitting on unused blueprints while short on the actual forging materials. Before starting a new piece, check whether you can realistically gather or event-earn the materials to finish it in a reasonable window — an unfinished piece mid-forge doesn't help you at all.
Don't skip refinement
Refining (re-rolling substats) is easy to ignore because it's not as visible as the base upgrade, but a well-refined lower-level piece can outperform a poorly-refined higher-level one. Treat refinement as part of the upgrade, not an optional extra.
Where this connects to spending
Gear materials are one of the more reasonable things to target with real spending if you're going to spend at all, since they're a direct, permanent account-wide upgrade rather than a consumable. See our F2P vs. Spender guide for how to think about that decision.
