Chart Strength: Is Your Day Master Strong or Weak?
A strong (身强) or weak (身弱) chart describes how much support your Day Master — you — receives within the chart. Strong is not good and weak is not bad: it is the starting point that shows what you need more of. The useful element is decided from here too.
What supports you, and what draws on your strength
Sort the five ten-god groups by your Day Master, and they divide into the side that supports you and the side that uses your energy.
| Side | Group | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Supports | Peers (Friend, Rob Wealth) | The same element as you. Holds out alongside you. |
| Supports | Resource (Indirect, Direct) | The element that generates you. Refills you from behind. |
| Uses | Output (Eating God, Hurting Officer) | The element you generate. Spends energy on expressing and making. |
| Uses | Wealth (Indirect, Direct) | The element you control. Spends energy on results and money. |
| Uses | Officer (Seven Killings, Direct Officer) | The element that controls you. Responsibility and rules press on you. |
Traditionally three things are weighed: whether your month branch supports you (得令, "having the season"), whether your day branch — the seat you sit on — supports you (得地, "having the ground"), and whether the remaining characters are mostly supportive (得勢, "having the numbers"). Having the season weighs most, because the energy of your birth season is the foundation of the whole chart.
Seven levels
Dividing charts only into strong, weak and balanced leaves people near the borders in limbo. So our reading shows the strength score in seven levels.
| Level | Strength score | Feel |
|---|---|---|
| Extremely weak | 20 or below | Almost carried along by the surrounding energies |
| Very weak | 21–32 | Needs a lot of support |
| Weak | 33–42 | Comes alive when supporting energy arrives |
| Balanced | 43–54 | Not leaning far either way |
| Strong | 55–66 | Shines when it has somewhere to put its strength |
| Very strong | 67–78 | Overflowing; needs an outlet |
| Extremely strong | 79 or above | One energy has nearly taken over the chart |
Strong charts and weak charts
People with strong charts have clear views and push hard. Surplus strength easily turns into stubbornness or going it alone, so they do best when they have somewhere to put it: Output (expression), Wealth (results) or Officer (responsibility).
People with weak charts are perceptive, read the room well and do their best work in cooperation. Carrying everything alone wears them out quickly, so they come alive when Resource (learning, backing) and Peers (colleagues) arrive.
Balanced charts have good equilibrium but are easily tipped one way or the other by incoming luck, which makes the flow of luck especially worth watching.
Common myths
- "A weak chart means bad luck." No. Weak charts rise high when supportive luck comes in, and strong charts feel stuck with nowhere to use their strength.
- "Just count the characters." The same character weighs far more in the month branch, and the hidden stems inside branches add strength too, so positions and hidden stems must be counted.
- Extremely weak or extremely strong charts. Charts tilted to an extreme are traditionally sometimes read as "following" structures (從格) that go with the dominant energy. Our engine does not yet judge following structures separately, so if your chart comes out extremely weak or extremely strong, ask Master Han about it.
How this site calculates it
When adding up the elemental strength of the eight characters, each position has its own weight: the month branch counts 3×, the day branch 1.5× and every other stem and branch 1×. The Day Master itself is left out.
Each branch is split by its hidden stems: with two hidden stems, residual and main in a 3:7 ratio; with three, residual, middle and main in a 2:3:5 ratio.
The share (%) of Peers and Resource in the total is the strength score. 55 or more reads as strong, 42 or less as weak, and anything between as balanced. Your level and score are on the five-elements card of your complete reading.
Enter your date of birth to see this in your own chart — free, and nothing is stored.
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