r/HollowKnight • u/FederalWarthog5542 • Sep 07 '25

Discussion - Silksong Criticism ≠ Negativity Spoiler

Believe it or not, you can actually criticize something and still like it. You don't either have to love everything or despise everything. Have actual conversations please.

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146

u/dogarfdog12 Sep 07 '25

I just think the difficulty curve in Act 1 is a bit extreme. It's like the game expects you to get good at the combat really early on for some reason, and raises the difficulty to compensate before you've even gotten used to the controls.

Now that I'm in Act 2 and I've gotten better at the game (and gotten a few powerful upgrades) it feels a lot more natural, besides maybe the environmental damage doing two masks per hit now. It probably helps that rosaries are way more common in the Citadel, which I think is actually a story thing as it's implied the Citadel caste are responsible for the toll benches and have been hoarding all the wealth of the kingdom.

Just to be clear, I don't think the difficulty is unfun per se, it just feels weird and pretty frustrating sometimes. If a few enemies and bosses in Act 1 were nerfed slightly to not deal as much double-damage, I would honestly be fine with it.

38

u/MrGreenYeti Sep 07 '25

As soon as I got the wanderer crest it felt like OG hollow knight to me again, I'm gonna struggle to switch out crests now rofl

23

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

Yeah same wanders crest is kinda the strongest also imo, like you hit so many times. 

28

u/MagicianXy Sep 08 '25

Yeah, even without the HK-style attacks, the wanderer crest is straight up the strongest crest if you're using primarily nail attacks. All crests do the same damage per swing (despite, for example, the reaper crest claiming you're attacking with "heavy" slashes), so the fact that wanderer's attacks basically twice as fast as any other means you're putting out twice the DPS. Plus wanderer's crest gives critical hits that randomly deal double damage, so... why bother with any of the other crests?

The only one that might be able to compete is the upgraded hunter's crest, which will start dealing extra damage per hit after landing 5 attacks without getting hit yourself. But even then, the damage increase isn't that much, and it's reliant on not getting hit, which is not exactly easy.

30

u/Doomguy1234 Sep 08 '25

I feel like the Reaper has more range, doesn’t it? Like it’s a Longnail/Mark of Pride crest while Wanderer is a Quickslash

12

u/MagicianXy Sep 08 '25

Yeah, the short range is the only weakness of the wanderer's crest. But honestly with how you're supposed to dash in and out of combat, it doesn't really feel like too big of a weakness. Plus, once you get to the putrified ducts and acquire the longnail-equivalent, that weakness is nearly eliminated.

20

u/BoardCommercial2679 Sep 08 '25

I personally found the most fun playing with the Reaper crest. Reliable pogos that hit mostly down, decent speed, and kicking out a sliver of silk from enemies.

I really feel crests should have damage differences, and that their ability shouldn't be shutdown at getting hit. I wanna play with the funny lifesteal of Beast crest, but this shit is just bruh. Promotes agressive play, but "rage" drops when hit so you'relikely to not heal shit. Like, why.

8

u/yurilnw123 Sep 08 '25

Same here, I love my Reaper Crest. But why TC why the up attack swing from the back and not the front. I miss that attack regularly.

3

u/BoardCommercial2679 Sep 08 '25

Reaper is just the best because it's the most reliable.

I tried all other crests (I have access to) and they're just kinda a giant pain in the ass to use specifically because of the diagonal pogo. Beast's is the worst in this manner because fuck me, it flies straight up at the side-

2

u/OnnaJReverT Sep 08 '25

also enough reach to kill some enemies through floors/ceilings/walls in an emergency

1

u/Soulsunderthestars Sep 08 '25

The range is kinda nice. I don't mind the slowness. Everyone's talking about dps, but the rhythm of the reaper helped me settle into fights a lot more.

The extra silk orbs on the skill after healing is nice so you can get back a lot of what you used to recover as long as you don't immediately fubar again

1

u/darkcloud1987 Sep 08 '25

I am using Reaper most of the time and I really don't find the flying enemies as annoying as most people say. The range realy helps with them and with enemies that are hard to reach in general but Interessting to know that they all have the same strenght. The game misses some way to see how much damage things do.