How to Equip Charms in Grimoire Groves

In Grimoire Groves, charms are powerful items providing permanent buffs to Primrose’s abilities. They can increase her maximum energy, make her spells do more damage, or even reduce the amount of materials she loses on failed runs. They’re vital to optimizing your strengths and shoring up your deficiencies to ensure your success when dungeon-crawling. You can craft charms right from the beginning of a new playthrough. However, equipping those charms isn’t immediately available. It’s also not explained very well in-game. Here’s a quick guide on how to equip charms in Grimoire Groves.

How to Equip Charms in Grimoire Groves

Holding onto a charm isn’t enough to activate its effects. You have to set it down on a shrine pedestal. Shrine pedestals aren’t available until you start repairing the various shrines located all around the garden. Each element (corresponding to the biome of the same color) has a shrine. At first, every shrine looks like a big rock with a symbol etched into it. You can find them in the various sections of the garden. These shrines cost certain kinds and amounts of materials in order to repair. You can check what you need to repair a shrine by walking over to it. This will pop-up a tiny window on your HUD with the list of materials.

You need to fix and then upgrade the shrine once in order to unlock its first set of pedestals. Once you do, you’ll be able to interact with the pedestals and place a charm of your choice onto it. This will “equip” the charm for you. It’s worth mentioning that charms will only apply their effects when you are in the biome with the same element as the shrine they are placed in. For example, if you place a Gem Nut on the Earth Shrine, your max energy will only increase when you are in the Earth Biome. The only exception to this rule are charms placed on Rainbow Pedestals. There is only one Rainbow Pedestal per shrine, and they are the last upgrade for every shrine. Most importantly, remember that charms cannot be swapped around. Removing a charm from a pedestal will turn it into Compost. If you want to use the same charm on a different pedestal, you will have to craft it and upgrade it all over again.

How to Upgrade Charms in Grimoire Groves

Charms are viewable from your grimoire, under the Charms tab. This section catalogs the charms you’ve unlocked for crafting, as well as their crafting cost and how upgrades will improve their effects. It will also tell you how many times the charm will need to be upgraded to gain the next tier of bonuses. Charms can only be upgraded after they’ve been placed onto a pedestal. In other words, before you upgrade it, make sure you equip it on the right pedestal.

To upgrade the equipped charm, you simply need to craft another copy of it. Afterwards, interact with the pedestal holding the original charm. This will open a menu allowing you to upgrade the charm or turn it into compost. Select upgrade. This will open up your inventory. Select the identical charm from your inventory, and viola; the charm on the pedestal is now stronger than before! Be mindful of upgrading a charm you plan on removing later. No matter how much you upgrade a charm, you can never get it back after removing it from the pedestal.

Charms make your runs in Grimoire Groves a lot more convenient. Whether it’s giving you more damage or just giving you faster movement speed, charms are a valuable part of your loadout! Make sure to optimize your playstyle with powerful spells to make the most out of them. Composting charms hurts the soul, but at least you can use compost to recover from enemy attacks in the dungeon. Try to unlock those pedestals as soon as you can! It makes a big difference.

Grimoire Groves is available now on Steam.