Scaling Guide — Where Your Next Fragment, Core and Stone Should Go

Every upgrade system in this game — hero levels, hero stars, D5 promotion, exclusive weapons, Mythic forging — shares one design: costs climb steeply while the gains stay flat. The last steps of anything are the worst value in the game, and the first steps of something new are the best. If you remember nothing else from this page: breadth before depth. All numbers below come from the verified cost tables in this hub. ✅

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The whole guide in one table — how much better the early steps are than the late steps, per resource spent:

System	Resource	First steps buy…	Last steps buy…	Early-vs-late value
Hero levels	EXP	90M EXP per capacity point (Lv.150–155)	400M per point (Lv.170–175)	4.4×
Hero stars	Fragments	39 ATK+DEF per fragment (1★)	4.9 per fragment (5★)	8×
D5 promotion	Power Cores	90 power per core (hexagon 1)	9 per core (hexagon 5)	9.5×
Mythic forging	Forging Stones	0.40% per stone (Lv.2)	0.08% per stone (Lv.5)	5×
Hall of Honor statues	Fragments	10 per level (Lv.1–100)	30 per level (Lv.201–350)	3×
Tactical Plugins (chips)	Plugin EXP	~24K EXP per stat point (0→7★)	~50K per point (8★)	2×
Exterior modules	Module parts	17.5K EXP per +1% DMG (Lv.10)	26.2K at Lv.15	1.5× — the exception

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1. Hero stars — the 5th star costs 5× the 3rd star for the same stats

Here is the fact that settles most arguments. On an S hero, stars 3, 4 and 5 each give exactly the same stat gain: +2,437 ATK and +2,437 DEF. Only the price changes:

Star	Fragments (per step × 5)	Fragments for the star	ATK & DEF gained	Value per fragment
1★	5	25	975	39.0
2★	10	50	1,463	29.3
3★	20	100	2,437	24.4
4★	60	300	2,438	8.1
5★	100	500	2,437	4.9

What that means in practice: 175 fragments takes a brand-new hero from 0★ to 3★ and buys +4,875 ATK and DEF. The same-tier hero’s 5th star alone costs 500 fragments and buys +2,437 — half the stats for triple the price. Fragment for fragment, early stars are 8× more efficient.

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“But I’m focusing my first formation” — that focus is exactly what the math punishes. The game constantly asks for more than one march: Alliance Duel, Enemy Buster and Canyon Clash all run multiple formations at once, and you garrison and rally at the same time. A maxed F1 next to 0★ F2/F3 heroes means most of your army fights unbuffed — while the fragments that could have fixed it went into the least efficient purchase in the hero system. Get every hero you actually deploy — F1, F2 and F3 — to 3★ before anyone gets a 4th or 5th star.

The honest exception: the 5th star also unlocks the biggest skill bump (the 5-star skill levels — e.g. a faction leader’s final capacity bonus), and that can be worth the premium. So the rule is an order, not a ban: everyone deployed → 3★ first; then 4★/5★ for your faction leader and main damage heroes only; never star an economy hero past 3★.

The same curve applies to exclusive weapon fragments: per-step costs run 5 → 10 → 20 → 30 → 50, so the final level costs 10× the first per step. Every deployed combat hero holding their weapon at a mid level beats one hero at max.

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2. D5 gear & Power Cores — every hexagon buys the same power, at up to 9.5× the price

Each promotion hexagon — first or fifth — adds roughly the same ~99,500 equipment power (six steps of ~11,700, with a ~41,000 finisher). The core cost per hexagon is what explodes:

Hexagon	Power Cores	Power gained	Power per core	Weapon Troop DMG% at completion
1	1,100	~99,500	90	7%
2	2,800	~99,500	36	9%
3	4,500	~99,500	22	11%
4	6,500	~99,500	15	13%
5	10,500	~99,500	9	15%

What that means in practice: the final hexagon of one piece costs 10,500 cores and adds +2% Troop DMG. For 8,400 cores — less — you take a whole new piece from 0 to hexagon 3, which adds ~298,500 power and +11% Troop DMG. Three times the power, five times the damage, for fewer cores.

🛠️

Rules for cores: (1) Bring all four slots of a formation to the same hexagon before pushing any single piece higher. (2) Bring your second formation’s gear to hexagon 3 before your first formation touches hexagons 4–5. (3) Never park at 4/6 or 5/6 — the completing step is the best buy in the hexagon: ~41,000 power in one step plus the base-stat bump, the +5 enhance cap and the biggest promotion-stat slice (+434 / +0.7% vs a sub-step’s +174 / +0.2% — see the gold-gated steps).

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3. Mythic forging — everyone to Stage 2, then stop and think

The forging track’s value per stone is a cliff, and Stage 2 is the peak:

Forge stage	Forging Stones	Basic stat boost gained	Value per stone
Lv.1	30	+10%	0.33%
Lv.2	50	+20%	0.40% — best in the track
Lv.3	100	+20%	0.20%
Lv.4	200	+25%	0.12%
Lv.5	300	+25%	0.08% — worst in the track
Mythic step	300 (+50 Pulse Modules)	+100%, and enhance cap +25	0.33%

What that means in practice: taking a piece to Lv.2 costs just 80 stones and banks +30% basic stats. Going from Lv.2 to Lv.5 costs 600 more stones for only +70% — stages 3–5 are the worst stones you will ever spend, and their only real purpose is to reach the Mythic step. So:

⚒️

Rules for stones: (1) Forge every equipped piece across your formations to Lv.2 first — it’s the cheapest +30% in the game. (2) Stop at Lv.2. (3) Push one main piece at a time past Lv.2 only when you can afford the full ride to Mythic (900 stones + 50 Pulse Modules + 420M Electricity from Lv.2) — stopping at Lv.3, 4 or 5 means you paid the worst rates and got neither the Mythic +100% nor the +25 enhance levels.

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4. Hero levels — park at 160–165; Lv.175 is a trophy

Past Lv.150, every 5-level bracket gives the same gains — +15 troop capacity and roughly the same ATK/DEF — while the EXP bill explodes:

Levels	EXP required	Capacity gained	EXP per capacity point
150 → 155	1.35B	+15	90M
155 → 160	2.16B	+15	144M
160 → 165	3.10B	+15	207M
165 → 170	4.25B	+15	283M
170 → 175	6.00B	+15	400M

What that means in practice: Lv.165 → 175 costs 10.25B EXP — 47% of all the EXP a hero ever consumes (21.8B from Lv.1 to 175) — and buys just +30 capacity. Almost the same amount (11.6B) takes a whole second hero from Lv.1 to 165, which buys +395 capacity and an entire hero’s worth of stats. To feel the scale: even with maxed refugee crews (~2.07M EXP/h), those last ten levels on one hero are about 200 days of your entire base’s Training Ground output.

🎖️

Rules for EXP: (1) Every deployed hero to Lv.150 cheaply, then to 160–165 as EXP allows — that’s the efficiency peak. (2) Only your F1 core (faction leader + main carries) goes past 165. (3) Treat Lv.175 as an endgame trophy, not a milestone — it’s the single most expensive +15 capacity in the game.

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5. Hall of Honor — three statues pay your troop capacity ✅

The Hall of Honor capacity line on every hero’s panel doesn’t come from the big S-hero statues — it comes from one purple (A) statue per faction, and most players never touch them:

Statue	Faction it buffs	Milestone bonus	Also gives
Christina	Wings of Dawn	WoD Hero Troop Capacity	All Heroes’ DEF +2 per statue level
Vivian	Blood Rose	BR Hero Troop Capacity	All Heroes’ DEF +2 per statue level
Maria	Guard of Order	GoO Hero Troop Capacity	All Heroes’ DEF +2 per statue level

Statue leveling costs that hero’s fragments (the hero must be 5★ first), and the price climbs in three flat brackets:

Statue levels	Cost per level	Levels	Fragments
1–100	10	100	1,000
101–200	20	100	2,000
201–350	30	150	4,500
Total 1 → 350		350	7,500

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A hero’s complete lifetime fragment bill: 975 to reach 5★, then 7,500 more to take the statue to Lv.350 — 8,475 fragments total. The Hall costs almost 8× the stars, which is why fragments stay precious long after a hero is “maxed”. Budget for it: after 5★, every fragment that hero earns has a permanent home.

The capacity ladder is identical on all three (verified live):

Statue level	50	100	150	200	250	300	350
Capacity gained	+3	+3	+5	+5	+7	+7	+7
Running total	3	6	11	16	23	30	37

What that means in practice: the measured account finished the climb on 2026-09-24 — Christina, Vivian and Maria all sit at Lv.350, and every hero’s panel now shows the full +37 Hall of Honor capacity. Each Lv.350 milestone was a single purchase that paid +7 to every hero of that faction at once. The milestone economics: cumulative fragments at each capacity milestone run 500 / 1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000 / 4,500 / 6,000 / 7,500 for a running capacity of 3 / 6 / 11 / 16 / 23 / 30 / 37 — so Christina, Vivian and Maria’s first two milestones cost just 1,000 purple fragments each for +6 faction-wide capacity. Compare that to hero levels: Lv.170→175 costs 6B EXP for +15 capacity on one hero.

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Rules for honor: (1) Keep Christina, Vivian and Maria climbing toward their next capacity milestone before spending honor on anything else. (2) Prioritize the statue of the faction your marches actually use. (3) The Lv.350 milestones take the account-wide line from 30 → 37 — the cheapest capacity in the endgame. The full 31-statue system — what every S/A/B statue gives and how the panel’s Hall of Honor ATK/DEF lines decompose to the digit — is now on the Endgame Benchmarks page.

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Fragment doctrine — 3% vs 5%

A debate that keeps coming back: is it better to push one statue at a time to 350, or spread fragments wide? The milestone schedule decides it — and we now have the complete schedule live-read ✅ from the new S3 statue (all seven milestones on one screen): an S statue pays its faction +2% at Lv.50, +2% at Lv.100, +3% at Lv.150, +3% at Lv.200, and +5% at each of Lv.250, 300 and 350 — +25% lifetime. Against the bracket prices above:

Climb	Fragments	Milestone	Fragments per 1%
Lv.1 → 50	500	+2%	250
Lv.50 → 100	500	+2%	250
Lv.100 → 150	1,000	+3%	≈333
Lv.150 → 200	1,000	+3%	≈333
Lv.200 → 250 / 300 / 350	1,500 each	+5% each	300

The curve is U-shaped: the first hundred levels are the cheapest milestone fragments in the whole Hall (250 per 1%), and past Lv.100 the race is nearly flat — the 5%-segments beat the Lv.100–200 climbs by about ten percent (300 vs ≈333), not the 2× the “rush one to 350” camp claims. Worked through on 6,500 fragments with everything at Lv.100: one statue pushed 100 → 350 buys +21% for its faction plus 1,250 account-wide flats; the same spend taking three statues to 200 buys +18% plus 1,500 flats. One-at-a-time keeps a real but modest lead. What actually decides where fragments go:

1. Every statue to Lv.100 first. Cheapest account-wide flats (10/level) AND the cheapest milestones (+4% for 1,000 fragments) — this stage pays whatever faction the statue is.
2. Then faction decides. Milestones are faction-only — a +5% on a faction you never march is worth nothing in your reports. Your march faction’s S statues continue in any order (the 350-rush edge is a tiebreaker, not a strategy); off-faction statues wait at Lv.100.
3. The capacity statues still jump the queue (rule 1 of this section): their milestones pay troop capacity from Lv.50 up, and every march uses capacity regardless of faction.

Corrected November 6–10, 2026: an alliance member caught the missing Lv.150 milestone, and the full seven-milestone schedule was then read live on the new S3 statue — our own account had capped all statues on Oct 1, hiding everything below 200. 1 → 200 pays 10%, not 3%. Exactly the kind of catch the corrections process is for.

6. Tactical Plugins (chips) — wide to 7★ costs half per point ✅

Measured live on a full 0★→8★ rebuild (every bar logged, then validated on three more plugins — the curve is identical for all of them). Two things make chips different from every other system on this page: every marker inside a star pays the same stat tick — there is no completion spike and therefore no parking penalty — and the EXP curve is unusually gentle. What bites is the absolute size, and the copies:

Star	EXP for the star	Duplicate copies	Primary stat gained	EXP per stat point
1★	129,500	— (20 catalysts)	96	1.3K
2★	512,000	1	128	4.0K
3★	1,266,300	2	192	6.6K
4★	3,195,700	3	192	16.6K
5★	5,292,100	6	256	20.7K
6★	9,680,600	8	304	31.8K
7★	16,149,800	16	368	43.9K
8★	22,260,700	21	448	49.7K
9★	~30.7M (est.)	?	512	~60K

What that means in practice: EXP per point worsens only ~13–21% per star past 7★ — gentle by this game’s standards — but taking a second chip from 0★ to 7★ averages 23.6K EXP per stat point, half the price of pushing a first chip’s 8th star (and it banks 1,536 points to the 8th star’s 448). In fodder terms: 1 purple plugin = 50,000 EXP, so an 8★ point costs about one purple each. The harder wall is duplicate copies — stars 7 and 8 alone eat 37 of the 57 copies the whole track needs, and orange copies barely farm.

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Rules for chips: (1) Every deployed chip to 7★ before anyone goes 8★ — wide points cost half as much. (2) Let copy income, not EXP, decide who pushes past 7★. (3) Park anywhere freely — every marker pays the same tick, so mid-star is never wasted (the opposite of gear hexagons). Full star-up table on the Tactical Plugins page.

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7. Exterior modules — the exception: the last level is fair ✅

Every other system on this page punishes the last step. The vehicle’s exterior modules are the exception, and it’s worth seeing why. Costs triple per level (a level-N part = 3^(N−1) level-1 parts, verified live at the Lv.14→15 bar: exactly 393,660 EXP) — but the stat payout accelerates too. On the attack modules (Mounted Cannon, Nitro Booster, Solar Cell), per point of Troop DMG:

Module level	EXP for the level	Troop DMG% gained	EXP per +1% DMG
11	98,415	+5%	19.7K
12	196,830	+6.25%	31.5K
13	196,830	+6.25%	31.5K
14	196,830	+7.5%	26.2K
15	393,660	+15%	26.2K

What that means in practice: Lv.15 costs double Lv.14 — it’s exactly one third of the entire 1→15 track — but it pays +15% Troop DMG (the single biggest DMG jump in the vehicle, as much as a maxed D5 weapon’s whole promotion track) plus +25 main stat. Per point, the top levels are cheaper than 12–13. So there’s no value cliff to avoid here; the constraint is part income: free drops run ~1,019 level-1 equivalents a week, which puts one maxed module literally decades out for F2P. That’s a paywall, not a trap — and it means whatever parts you do have are never badly spent at the top.

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Rules for parts: (1) Parts are the budget — push exactly as far as income reaches; Lv.15 is worth it whenever you can afford it. (2) Attack modules first, matched to your fights: Mounted Cannon = open field, Nitro Booster = siege attack, Solar Cell = siege defense. (3) Keep all six roughly even early (each level costs 3× the one before, so breadth is nearly free) and start focusing pushes past ~Lv.12. Full module economy on the Vehicles pages.

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The order of operations — one checklist

Priority	Do this	Before this
1	Every deployed hero to Lv.160–165	Anyone pushing Lv.166–175
2	Your faction’s purple statue (Christina / Vivian / Maria) to its next capacity milestone	Honor spent on other statues
3	Every deployed hero (F1–F3) to 3★	Anyone’s 4th or 5th star
4	All 4 gear slots of a formation to the same hexagon	One piece racing ahead
5	F2 gear to hexagon 3	F1 gear into hexagons 4–5
6	Every equipped piece forged to Mythic Lv.2	Any piece into Lv.3+
7	Every deployed chip to 7★	Anyone’s chip pushing 8★+ (copy income decides)
8	All six exterior modules roughly even, attack modules leading	Focused pushes past ~Lv.12 — then go as far as parts reach; the top levels pay fairly
9	5★ and Lv.175 for your faction leader & main carry; one piece to full Mythic	— the depth phase, once breadth is done

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Why this wins fights: power is multiplicative across your whole deployment. Three formations at “good” beat one formation at “perfect” flanked by two at “poor” — in every event that fields more than one march, which is most of them. The player who spreads first and deepens second gets there with the same resources.

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Level, star, fragment, promotion and forging values are from the verified cost tables in this hub (Heroes → Hero Leveling Chart 1–175 & Progression Costs, D5 Full Tables, and the Mythic forging track). Plugin star-up costs were live-measured on a full rebuild and the module EXP model live-verified (Vehicles section). Star stat bands measured on S heroes; A/B tiers scale lower but follow the same cost curve, so the rules hold everywhere.