You’ve been playing DragonSword Awakening and you’ve probably already started sticking these cards onto your weapons.
I guess You’ve noticed some of them completely change how a character hits. Well, Karma is the system that sits on a hero’s signature weapon and decides a big part of how that weapon actually behaves in combat, separate from your gear and separate from your hero’s own level.
So, Karma is an important part of the game. I gathered everything I knew plus all the tips I learned from the community to help you in this. I hope you find what you want.
About Karma:
Where Karma Goes
Karma slots directly onto a character’s weapon. That’s its only slot. Everything about upgrading it happens from there and it’s a different system from your hero’s overall level or your gear pieces.
Karma Ascension: How the Duplicate System Actually Works
The real power spike doesn’t come from a separate “level” on the card itself. It comes from Ascension. Pull up the preview on a Karma card you care about and at base it just has its starting stats. Once you start feeding it duplicate copies of the exact same Karma, the special trait effect unlocks and gets stronger.
You need a full set of duplicates (one, two, three, four, five) to push that effect as high as it goes, with each duplicate bumping the trait lines up a notch. You can always open the preview to see exactly what the next duplicate is going to buy you before you commit one.
How You Actually Get Karma Cards
The game hands you a few Karma cards as you move through the campaign. Everything else you either buy or farm. The currency for buying them drops from random treasure chests and, more importantly, from the Tower of Trials once you unlock it.
For Exclusive Karma specifically, there are a couple of extra routes worth knowing: finishing a hero’s own character quest can hand you their Exclusive Karma directly, and if you end up with copies you don’t need, you can dismantle them for a dedicated currency you spend on the Exclusive Karma you actually want.
A Tip I Know: For Basic Karma duplicates, the most reliable sources are World Bosses (pick the boss whose element matches your main hero) and the currency you earn from Tower of Trials or treasure chests.
Why Element Matching Matters
You can technically put any Karma card on any character. That doesn’t mean you should. Look at the trait effect on the card, extra break damage, extra knockdown damage, whatever it is.
If you drop that onto a frost character, the trait effect simply does not apply the way it should. The element has to line up with the hero or you lose the important part of the card. Match the element first, then worry about ascending.
What Exclusive Karma Actually Is
Exclusive Karma is locked to one specific hero. It still gives solid stats, but the big difference is the passive. That passive can change one of the character’s abilities and turns the card into true best-in-slot for that hero.
If you get Exclusive Karma for a character you are not using, dismantle it. You recover exchange currency that can be redirected toward the Exclusive cards (or duplicates) for the heroes you actually play. Always check the dismantle preview first so you know exactly what you get back.
Where Exclusive Materials Come From
For a long time a lot of people (myself included, at first) couldn’t figure out where the materials even came from. They come from the Tower of Trials.
You unlock the Tower by finding Cerese and completing her Bond Quest. The main story doesn’t hand it to you automatically, so you have to go looking for her once the area she’s in opens up.
Turn Tower Materials into Exclusive Karma
For this, go to Shanoa the Alchemist in Orbis Royal Castle (near the cathedral). The transmute recipe is:
1 Whirling Thoughts + 100 Fragments of Memory + 100,000 Gold: 1 Fragment of Afterimage.
Most Exclusive Karma cards need around 6–7 Fragments of Afterimage (plus matching Fragments of Memory) to obtain and fully ascend. Whirling Thoughts only come from the Tower of Trials.
How the Tower of Trials Works
Once the Tower is open, you’ll see the area is color-coded. One section recommends stun characters, another is for aerial, another for downed. It’s not pure elemental, which is a little annoying, but that’s how it’s set up. The Gale Tower is the one most people start with; there are other variants further in for different team comps once you’re deeper into the content.
Clear the floors and you get a star just for beating the bosses. Clear fast enough and you get extra stars. First-time clears give you a yellow currency that buys basic Karma resources. Every so often you also get a dark hole item, that’s what you use at the transmutation menu to turn lesser materials into Exclusive Karma pieces.
You’ll need a bunch of them, because you still have to fuse and ascend the Exclusives the same way you do regular cards.
Variants of the Tower
The Tower has three variants (Tower of Gale, Tower of Amplitude, Tower of Crushing). Clear floors within 90 seconds to receive the full star and material rewards.
You can earn well over 160 Whirling Thoughts by clearing all floors across the three towers. You do not need three fully built teams early. One solid team is enough to push progress and start collecting the materials.
What to Focus On First
Early on, put a matching-element Basic Karma on your main damage dealer first. Even a low-rank version is a clear power spike. Unlock the Tower of Trials as soon as Cerese’s quest is available, then start collecting Whirling Thoughts.
Only after that should you invest heavily in Exclusive Karma and only for the 1–2 heroes you actually use as mains. Do not try to collect or fully ascend every Exclusive early.
