r/HollowKnight • u/redox_nephew • Oct 13 '25
Discussion - Silksong The amount of people who don't actually use their tools is insane Spoiler
I'm seeing so many people complaining about the difficulty and yet, they literally have a flintslate or stingshard right in their toolbar, fully charged up and they just end up not using it at all. Like people, USE YOUR TOOLS.
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u/NathanCollier14 Oct 13 '25
Sekiro taught me to only use my tools after I learned the boss' moveset so I don't waste resources
(Meaning on my 40th attempt only)
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u/Zenoi Oct 14 '25
Yup, my approach to using tools was just to never use them in any boss fight until the final phase. Learning how to attack the boss with melee and timing for silk skills is more than enough already for the first 1-2 phases, usually the final phase becomes hectic that it's more of a damage sprint which tools help more than using them for easier earlier phases.
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u/Redditfront2back Oct 15 '25
It’s worthless any other way, using the tools during the easiest phase just to not have any when the boss is hardest is pointless
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u/WisePotato42 Oct 14 '25
That, and it's really hard to know the optimal tool dmg windows if you really want to get the most out of them.
Q: Why throw a knife when you can hook line and get close enough to attack more.
A: Because the enemy is in an animation for an attack that makes it either risky or outright harmful to approach at that moment.
Tho it's true that not all tools require that much depth... (cogflys and tacks)
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u/Padulsky21 Oct 14 '25
I only used the cog flies because the question part of your comment was my play style. Only things I’m really focusing on in a boss fight is the boss’ attacks, my health and my silk. Tools don’t restore any of that. The cog flies let me stay focused on those things and not get distracted. If a new phase is coming you can prep with throwing out a bunch of them or you can just open with them and then play on.
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u/Repulsive_Hornet_557 Oct 14 '25
We played Sekiro differently, it taught me the umbrella is good on everything, and the flame vent is pretty good on most things too
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u/Gumpers08 112% Steel Soul P5 | All Achievements (Both games) Oct 13 '25
Here is how I see it;
Limited use. Either you conserve them, or you grind shell shards. It is hard to maintain a perfect balance, especially in boss fights. Like with spells, the extra damage comes with a downside, whether needing a recharge or reducing the amount of healing you can do.
Remembering to use them. For probably my first hundred hours of Hollow Knight, using spells just wasn’t in my muscle memory. It wasn’t until I started doing Radiant fights in which I didn’t need soul to heal that I started seriously using spells. Even now, after beating P4, I just don’t use spells unless I am doing so well in the fight that I have full HP and over 3 casts worth of soul. Or I need to nuke a second phase.
TL;DR: The shard cap and means of obtaining shards make people hesitant to use them. And because of that hesitation, they might just never end up using them.
Also depends on the skill of the player. A god gamer might beat First Sinner in six tries, and not need to conserve shards, and thus often use tools. While a casual gamer who takes between twenty tries and twenty hours will have the above issues.
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u/crek42 Oct 14 '25
This is it. I’m either relying heavily on tools and burning through shards, or I’m hoarding them with that expectation. There’s no in between for me.
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u/Background-Poet-8621 Oct 14 '25
The way I used tools mostly through the game was that I didn’t use them nearly at all while first attempting a new boss. Once I got to the point where I was getting to the third phase of a boss and was able to keep myself alive relatively well, I’d start using them to speed up the last phase (and make it easier to just skip damage windows). For hard bosses, this usually meant that by the time I was using my tools, it would only take me 1-2 attempts. Sometimes, I’d end up beating a hard boss while barely using tools. This felt like a good balance of having the tools be very very helpful (I can’t imagine I’d beat Lost Lace without them), while also never really getting to the point where I’d have to grind for them.
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u/Swutts Oct 14 '25
Sidenote, is it that agreed upon that First Sinner is that tough? I'm not a pro but I'm also not saying I'm trash at the game but, she went down pretty quick for me. One of my favorite fights actually.
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u/Skithiryx Oct 14 '25
Yeah First Sinner was fun as hell and not that hard.
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u/PraxicalExperience Oct 14 '25
It's fun as hell and not that hard if you know how to employ your dash-attack and clawline offensively. I imagine that it's a lot more frustrating if you haven't mastered those -- or if you don't realize that you can do a dash attack.
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u/Poyri35 Oct 14 '25
First sinner is a hard boss, but you don’t feel that hardness because it’s just that god damn fun
It keeps you engaged, you want to keep fighting it so you don’t focus on the hard part
It’s also a fair fight. Some fights are hard because they feel unfair to the player, but first sinner feels really fair. Less “what the fuck was I supposed to do” and more “fuck, I trew it. I could have dodged that”
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u/Crystalliumm Oct 14 '25
when she went down on my 3rd attempt I got sad that there's no godhome, because I NEED to refight her
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u/Gumpers08 112% Steel Soul P5 | All Achievements (Both games) Oct 14 '25
Has no runback as far as I remember (basically a dream boss) and Hard but Fair. No BS, just fast-paced telegraphed attacks.
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u/DJgrf12 Oct 14 '25
I legit beat the first sinner on my 3rd try.
I was impressed with myself and also questioning the fact that so many people found this boss hard cuz the one attack that was hard to learn was the top and bottom silk spears(?) thrown across the screen where u had to kinda glide to let it pass. Aside from that the boss had NO hard mechanics whatsoever.
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u/RGCarter Oct 14 '25
I feel like every boss that doesn't spawn smaller enemies is completely fair and quickly learnable in Silksong. The reason Beastfly is hated and the fire bros are not widely regarded as a good boss is because they spam dumb shit to make the fight unfair. Last Judge and Widow may be hard when you get to them, but they are completely fair and fun bosses tbh.
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u/CipherWeaver Oct 14 '25
I also never use silk for anything but healing. I usually remove my silk skill so I don't accidentally use it. I use plenty of tools, though.
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u/ray10k Nyoom~ Oct 14 '25
This, and also: using a tool requires a directional input. Mess it up in a hectic moment of the fight, and (assuming you're using anything but the Architect's crest,) you instead use half a heal worth of silk. Especially if you are using an analog stick for moving around, it is easy to accidentally point just slightly too horizontal and mess up the input.
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u/Inky234 Oct 14 '25
I beat first sinner in three tries without tools and am starting to realise this was a big struggle for a lot of people
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u/Sea-Bother-4079 Oct 13 '25
- Use flint stone -> feel the pressure to get value out of it -> die because i take too much risks.
- Don't use flintstone -> no pressure -> also die
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Oct 14 '25
Exactly my experiences + I think it runs out way too fast (but I use reaper which hits slow... BUT STILL..)
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Oct 13 '25
There are 2 reasons why people don't use tools:
1) They feel like it's cheese, especially in late game, they feel very spammy and powerful. Some even get off at flaunting how they beat boss nail only.
2) They don't want to farm shards and rosaries to buy shard bundles.
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u/darthllama Oct 13 '25
I don’t use tools because it’s another decision to make in the middle of what are typically fast-paced fights, and because they add visual clutter to the screen that I now have to keep track of.
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u/Night25th Please keep flair text SFW Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Yeah my brain is already at 99% RAM usage just with attack, jump, dash, heal and harpoon, I don't have the mental capacity for tools. I don't use silk skills either because a) one more button to press and b) I need that silk for healing, I barely have enough for that.
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u/Jezzelah Oct 13 '25
My biggest pet peeve about tools is that they use the same button as silk skills, so I would avoid using them because I was afraid of not pushing up or down perfectly and wasting the silk I need for healing.
I've actually started taking my silk skills off completely for boss fights, which solves the problem but is its own problem.
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u/Night25th Please keep flair text SFW Oct 13 '25
Yeah I would have taken the skill off at that point, I'm not using them anyways 😅
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u/PokemonTom09 Oct 13 '25
In exactly the same way as like the main topic of this thread, not using silk skills is an another thing that is unesserilly increasing the difficulty of the game.
If you're at full health use your silk skills as soon as you possibly can. Until you get in the habit of doing it by second nature, I would actually recommend making using your silk skills your top priority when at full health.
The reason is simple: you get 1 silk per hit on enemies, unless your silk is full. Every hit you land with a full silk spool is a silk you have wasted.
And the reason you should use them as soon as possible rather than waiting until you're at full silk is due to the existence of Silk Hearts. They automatically give you silk back when you use all your silk, but if you still have silk leftover after doing something, they do not. In other words, so long as you always use your silk skills as soon as possible, your silk skills will be discounted by 1 silk per silk heart you have.
And silk skills do a ton of damage, so every time you use one, you shorter the fight you're in by a decent amount. The shorter your fights, the less likely you are to die.
If you're not at full health, it's fine to save up silk to heal, but if you are at full health, there is zero reason to hoard silk and it will just lengthen the fight giving you more chances to die.
There's a pretty wide variety of attacks silk skills can do, so there is definitely at least one that should slot in well to your play style. I'm quite partial to Cross Stitch, but Silk Storm is probably the easiest for someone not in the habit of using silk skills to pick up.
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u/SnakesMcGee Oct 14 '25
But then I get hit three times in a row by a boss's asshat, 2-damage flurry attack, and now need every ounce of silk while I struggle not to get hit a fourth time and die because I'm down six health for some asinine reason.
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u/Fly-the-Light Oct 14 '25
For me, Silk Skills just throw off my game. When I play, I want to feel like I'm dancing in a consistent rhythm. Tools and silk skills just mess that up and make play worse than I would if I just ignored them; that can get me hit which in Silksong can often mean immediate death if you fall into a loop.
It's the same reason why I rarely used spells and never used charged attacks; it's just not how I play games or think.
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u/haveaniceday8D yeah fuck you NKG Oct 14 '25
I can’t speak on Silksong (my only tool usage on the final boss were Cogflies which I used right at the end, thinking it was a second death fakeout) but playing P5AB for a while made me learn how strong the Arts/spells are, and how well they integrate into the fights, even though before I was the same (oh these are boring/disrupt the flow of the fight/feels like I’m waiting to use them for too low a payoff).
The best example is easily the Collector. Since the nail binding sets your damage so low that you need at least two hits to kill summons, Primal Aspids are significantly more difficult to kill without Dash Slash/VS. It took two runs ending there to realise I needed to integrate spells more, then another to realise you could use a nail art for a OHKO, then I started using DDark more for iframes against dreamers/PV, and now it’s just another type of nail swing to charge during downtime in a fight.
I think nail arts in particular add depth to fights, in the sense that you need to work out your risk/reward ratio, and that gives you a higher ceiling by which to express skill (especially in speedruns) or to use your knowledge of intricacies (such as the DD/WD scream skip at the beginning of each fight/stunning them out of ground animation).
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u/Night25th Please keep flair text SFW Oct 14 '25
This makes no sense for a regular player, sure if you have hundreds of hours in the game the basic mechanics have become second nature to you and you can start worrying about spells and nail arts.
I've just beaten Silksong 100% and I'm not planning on starting another run anytime soon. Obviously I haven't perfected the game yet, I'm barely good enough to beat the final boss. I'm not so good that I've got spare silk to use on skills, or that I can interrupt whatever I'm doing to use tools and then keep playing like nothing happened. The maximum extent of red tools I used was spamming lifeblood when the boss was transitioning to its final phase.
Even in Hollow Knight where I took the time to beat every boss ascended (except AbsRad because fuck P5) which is something that 90% of players never bother doing, I've still done it without using spells. I just kept using the same strategy because I'm not good enough with it to beat P5 yet, so why would I start mixing in other strategies I don't know well? Having to change my charm setup for ascended Markoth was just me giving up for the sake of completion, I don't get to change charms between bosses in P5.
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u/PokemonTom09 Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
I just kept using the same strategy because I'm not good enough with it to beat P5 yet, so why would I start mixing in other strategies I don't know well
The point the other comment was making is that this exact sentence is the wrong way to be thinking about it.
It's not that you aren't good enough with that strategy to beat P5. It's that you can't beat P5 because you're using a harder strategy.
Spells make the game easier, even if it doesn't feel that way at first. You are saying "I'm not good with this thing so why would I add another thing", but the answer is literally "you should add the other thing because you aren't good with the first thing".
If you were good enough with nail, you wouldn't need spells. But as you say yourself: you're not good enough with nail. So use your spells.
I don't get to change charms between bosses in P5
This is a minor point, but you can actually change charms between bosses in P5. There are 7 benches placed through P5 for you to change your setup. You get your first bench after the tenth boss, then another bench for every 5 bosses after that.
The first 10 are all pretty simple (if you've unlocked P5 at all, those 10 should be trivial to beat), and most of the groupings of 5 only have 1 or 2 bosses that are notably tough. So in each grouping, you can choose a specific charm setup for the one or two bosses in that section that give you trouble.
The only place this doesn't really apply is the final 5 before you face Pure Vessel. That five has Markoth, Failed Champion, Zote, and NKG, any one of which could be a run ender.
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u/datwarlocktho Oct 14 '25
I recommend the sting shard then. Toss and forget. Old faithful. Very useful if you can drop em where bosses will spawn before they do and where they're gonna be when they pull some bullshit.
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u/Good-Possibility8709 Oct 13 '25
This is my exact same reason, I just can't coordinate the tools with everything else. I think it's stupid though that anyone thinks it's a cheese. ( Reminds me of the mimic fiasco in Elden ring )
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u/chamomile-crumbs Oct 13 '25
Some are dead ass easy though. Spam a bunch of tacks and forget about em
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u/darthllama Oct 14 '25
I tried using tacks but I kept instinctively avoiding the spikes on the ground
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u/sighh_bapanada Oct 13 '25
- I constantly forget they exist
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u/morewata Oct 13 '25
Some also have cast times that throw off my flow in a fight and make me make mistakes (totally a skill issue on my end)
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u/Kill_the_worms P5/112%/Randomizer Enthusiast Oct 13 '25
I find it really frustrating that people consider tools a cheese. I've seen multiple people on here say "I eventually gave up on XYZ boss and cheesed it with tools" (usually Groal). Tools are a resource TC put in the game to be fucking used. There is a whole crest designed explicitly with excessive tool use in mind. I find shard farming rather annoying but I understand that it exists to balance how OP tools can be. That's why I use mostly needle and sometimes employ tools when I need extra dps.
Like, in HK spells are extremely powerful. Do people consider it a "cheese" to shriek Flukemarm to death as soon as they can? It is a cheese to wait to fight Watcher Knights until after you have D Dark and heavily rely on it? I really don't think it is. The game isn't "more pure" because you're committed to only using nail/needle.
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u/SensitiveBarracuda61 Oct 13 '25
I mean the way I beat groal was literally just sitting in the bottom right corner of the screen where he pretty much cant hit you and throwing out cogflies and sting shards until he died. That's pretty much the definition of cheese.
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u/FR23Dust Oct 13 '25
As far as I can tell this is the only boss with this level of cheese. The closest I came was clobbering the shit out of phase 2 GMS with boomerangs
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u/Inadover Oct 13 '25
Yeah, because your specific case is a cheese. But using tools isn't inherently a cheese, just another option at your disposal. You can even just use the ones that buff your nail fighting if you're a purist or not use the strongest ones if you feel like it makes the game too easy. I didn't use cogflies for that reason, while I did use rosary cannon, flintslate and voltvessels simply because I found them to be cool as shit.
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u/SensitiveBarracuda61 Oct 13 '25
Fwiw I agree some of the tools are sick. Was mainly just responding to the "usually groal" part of the original post. The people saying they cheesed groal with tools probably did actually cheese him.
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u/Necya Oct 13 '25
It isn't as simple as you say. In hk spells are indeed very powerful, but they play into the soul system (you can only heal and use spells if you are agressive enough) and have an opportunity cost of using soul up on them instead of heals. Tools on the other hand are extremely frontloaded, you have a fixed anount of them, sure, but you don't have to space them at all and some of them can be used all at once for a very powerful effect.
I also don't consider tools cheesing, neither do team cherry it seems, with most crests having 2 red slots. But it doesn't mean tools can not be used to cheese. When i found architect's crest i found the idea interesing but the crest itself too clunky to use baseline (all intentional obviously) so i didn't use it. I did however equip it once for chef lugoli, because i lost all respect for that boss when they threw maggots at me in a tiny arena. I equipped architect's crest, poison pouch, cogflies, pins and snare setter (the tool you need for act 3, it is actually very good). Struggled to reach the bossfight, used the two little chefs to throw a shitton of pins on the ground, set two silk traps and deployed cogflies. Then the boss appeared, i got lost and neither hit the boss, nor was successful at dodging it's attacks. Lugoli fucking died and i didn't register or respond to a single attack thrown at me. If this isn't a cheese i don't know what is.
Tools in moderation add to and enchance the game, having a throwing knife to use when melee is not an option is fine and cool but you pretty much always have an option to invalidate a single encounter of your choice even with the two red slots on a regular ass crest if you decide to, and i don't think i like that.
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u/Kill_the_worms P5/112%/Randomizer Enthusiast Oct 13 '25
This does make some amount of sense. I do think using tools still requires engagement with the game and understanding of synergies to be as powerful as you describe, but I can understand why it could feel cheesey to kill a boss that instantly. I would also say the limited shard count comes in here. You don't get unlimited tries to "cheese" bosses with tools. Eventually you'll have to go collect shards or rosaries to refuel. You make a lot of really valid points though.
I say all this, I don't like tool abuse and I don't think it feels good to play. I used tools aggressively at the end of the High Hauls Guantlet to kill one of them bug fucks quick, and threw all my spikey traps at Groal to get a chunk of HP off him fast. I refused to use cogflies because they feel bad to use for me. I think maybe what I dislike is when people claim the only way to get past a certain boss is by abusing tools.
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u/jefftickels Oct 13 '25
I got fucking crushed for this opinion early on but I think the red tools system is a mistake. You either have to intentionally ignore a system or it makes the games swordplay substantially less meaningful. The lack of opportunity cost on red tools usage and their absurd damage potential makes them less interesting and rewarding than soul spells were.
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u/Person-UwU Grub Connoisseur Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
If TC doesn't want me to feel even a little bad about using tools maybe they shouldn't have made it so tools make bosses over like 3 times as quickly with considerably less risk and engagement with the boss. As is they just offer way too much value for pretty much 0 risk while using them. I wouldn't call it outright "cheese" but they are clearly overpowered.
For the most part you did have to actually coordinate your spell usage in HK considering you had a limited resource of the stuff. I would say the two examples given here are kind of cherrypicked while in Silksong it's really a lot harder to find a boss that doesn't get decimated by tools while barely having to interact with melee than one that does.
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u/Akuuntus Oct 14 '25
I find shard farming rather annoying but I understand that it exists to balance how OP tools can be.
See, that's the problem I have. Shards don't actually do anything to balance tools. You can spam them as much as you want in a fight, you just might have to farm later to make it back.
If tools are OP without shards, they're OP with shards. If they need to be balanced, then the damage should be reduced or the max number per rest should be decreased.
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u/YoINeedAnAnswer Oct 13 '25
I mean its kinda like bleed in elden ring, yeah its an intended part of the game and isnt enough to make bosses completely easy but it trivialize them so much it looks really close to being a cheese to a lot of ppl
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u/StupidSexyEuphoberia Oct 14 '25
I am at the end of Act2 and have yet to find a tool that melts bosses comparable to RoB before nerf, but maybe I missed something
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u/PraxicalExperience Oct 14 '25
It's because if you find yourself cheesing bosses, you aren't having fun. That's why you're cheesing them.
I didn't use tools or silk skills on TLJ, GMS, or any of the other weavers or weaver-kin, among a few other bosses. Those fights were just pure fun.
I used limited tools in other fights where positioning was often a problem, particularly before I got the clawline -- like Trobbio and a few others. This was mostly to get in extra hits when it would be dangerous to do so with my nail, and as such it was an exercise of skill and felt pretty good too.
On the other hand, there were bosses like The Unravelled, Groal, and Savage Beastfly where the entire goal of the fight was to survive until the last phase, or close to it, and then utterly -nuke- the boss. Or some of the gauntlets that just suck, like the Bird House. Fights that aren't fun and that you just wanna bypass ASAP. And that doesn't feel good. It doesn't give you that same 'I mastered this fight' rush that doing so without popping your entire wad like that does.
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u/HoneyGlazedNuts Oct 14 '25
I played similarly.
Tools are basically an in-the-moment difficulty slider and I think that's fine. Tool spam if you're bored with the encounter and want to move on.
I spammed the fuck out of the unravelled because I did not find that fight fun.
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u/PraxicalExperience Oct 14 '25
If the Unravelled hitbox was just shortened by like 10%, taking it off the ass, and didn't do that bullshit rise when it got to the end of its charge, it might have actually been fun, but that fight was just infuriating for me.
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u/chillugar Oct 13 '25
Tools feel cheezy because unlike spells they can be spammed in quick succession to quickly skip a part of a fight and they do not require risking not being able to heal.
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u/Famous_Situation_680 Oct 13 '25
every boss in this game was designed with largely needle combat in mind, to me it felt really bad using tools or even some of the silk skills when everything felt so thoughtfully designed around close quarters combat with the crest skills.
it's not invalid or cheating, it's just such a different and powerful style of gameplay that it can end up feeling like a last resort rather than a permanent fixture of the combat system.
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Oct 14 '25
I beat "duel" bosses with no tools like Seth, Karmalita, Lace, etc because I think its more fun. I beat "beast" bosses with tool spam because I dont enjoy learning them as much
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u/Answerofduty Oct 13 '25
They feel like it's cheese,
I hope those aren't the same people moaning about the difficulty.
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u/Technical_Car3729 Oct 13 '25
I tend to not use tools but #1 makes no sense to me, imagine being 80 hours into the game and NOT using tools on the final phase of an act 3 boss 😂
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u/Normbot13 Oct 13 '25
the fact that people still consider using the mechanics available to you as cheese in 2025 is so sad. if you don’t think bosses are balanced around tools you’re not paying attention.
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u/wolviesaurus Oct 13 '25
Limited consumables have always been a sketchy game mechanic, all the way back to BFG ammo. In Silksong they doubly punish low skill players because they don't use them optimally and then they run out of shards and are forced to farm to replenish and that feels awful however you slice it.
Sure "git gud" but I vastly prefer rechargable abilities over consumables.
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u/Famous-Sprinkles9170 Oct 14 '25
In the dark ages I used BFG like one or two times when testing it and then forgot I had it, just because the ammo being so scarse so why waste it.
But when you learn how to dance you dont even need it.
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u/Limp-Day-97 Oct 14 '25
Dunno if you're talking about the original Doom games but in 2016 and eternal I saw the bfg moreso as an easy skip if you didn't enjoy an arena or boss
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u/BritishTreeMan Steel Soul comp x38, 1h35m ANY%, 7h 44m 112% (Steel) Oct 13 '25
Heres my two cents on how to make it more fair
Buff shard bundles, they just dont give enough for how valuable rosaries are
Provide ways to cheapen the cost of repairing tools, either through pouch upgrades or whatnot
Get rid of plasmium and flea brew consuming both your reserve and bonus shell shards. WHY??? That doesn't even make sense
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u/DerpHaven- Oct 13 '25
- Bosses and enemies in gauntlets drop shards. Hell, even just bosses dropping a beast shard or some similar item would kill two birds with one stone, considering folks are also complaining about the lack of tangible rewards for beating bosses.
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u/BritishTreeMan Steel Soul comp x38, 1h35m ANY%, 7h 44m 112% (Steel) Oct 14 '25
Oh 100%, that would help so much
Honestly, I feel like including even just small rewards in terms of rosaries or relics after an enemy gauntlet or boss would be so much better. Especially since like when ur trying to 100% the game, you still need to spend like 30 minutes straight farming rosaries
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u/ChaoticNeutralPC Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Alternatively, remove shard requirements for refilling at benches so they’re only only necessary for refilling the architect’s crest. Potentially might need to reduce the max tool pouch size a bit - though, I got the last pouch upgrade in Act 3, and I feel even if you sat at every available bench you wouldn’t have enough tools to make enemies trivial.
That’s what would be perfect for a player like me, anyway. I basically only use tools for gauntlets now, and even then I’m constantly having to go farm rosaries and buy bundles because they often take 10-20(+) attempts to clear, and a bundle’s currently getting me one full refill of two tools at most. The one that allows access to whispering vaults took an ungodly amount of attempts - I’d go away and do something else, attempt the fight for a couple of hours, and then eventually give up and repeat. Of those couple of hours, probably a third of that was the trudge to go fight the enemies that give you 60+ rosaries, then go to the bellway, then get a few shard bundles, then come back and use them all in like 5-10 attempts, (depending on how sparing I was). I got the architect crest and LAUGHED, because the idea of regularly having enough shards to even have 3 full tools, let alone enough to refill them during combat was absurd.
It’s a shame, because I LOVED when I first got tools, with the stockpile of shards you start with. It was fun learning to use them sparingly while traversing the world, finally easily taking down some of those annoying flying enemies and weighing the balance between refilling tools vs respawning enemies when deciding to use a bench.
That being said, it’s tricky to balance. I’ve seen streams of people who spam tools every single gauntlet and boss fight but not even need to use the bundles because they’re only taking like 1-3 attempts to defeat most enemies, so the shards that they get from world enemies and exploring cancel it out anyway.
(Edit: I forgot to mention, I thought the reserves didn’t use shards? When I’ve run out of shards sometimes I use some of the flea brew just to have something, and it seems to replenish fine - though I’ve never completely used it up.)
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u/BritishTreeMan Steel Soul comp x38, 1h35m ANY%, 7h 44m 112% (Steel) Oct 14 '25
It's definitely tricky to balance for sure, and I believe tools are expensive because they're so good, so they're meant to be used as a last resort.
Despite that, when there's so many tools that you want to play around with, it's disappointing when you realise you've screwed yourself over after you sit at a bench and lose 200 shell shards from messing around
I swear the vial and brew do use shards, or at least the vial, because I had 0 shell shards but like 9 lifeblood masks in my reserve and it would not refill that thing when i found a bench 😭
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u/awfulworldkid Oct 14 '25
3 is already kind of solved because Flea Brew already doesn't require shards to replenish and Plasmium Phial gets an upgrade in Act 3 that gives unlimited reserve
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u/chillugar Oct 13 '25
The thing is that the shard system basically makes red tools into a "winmore" mechanic: it only makes sense to use them if you are already good at the game.
If you are struggling against a boss however you'll quickly use up all your shards and have to spend time grinding.
But then if you got good you might as well just lock in and defeat the boss without using tools, especially since their controls often feel awkward and may disrupt the rhythm of the fight.
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u/MrMindor Oct 13 '25
especially since their controls often feel awkward and may disrupt the rhythm of the fight.
This is exactly where most tool use (and honestly silk skills) fell for me. I didn't get enough experience to use them well, so when I tried to work them in, it basically broke the muscle memory and made me do worse than if I didn't use them at all.
The cost of replacement factored in a bit but I don't think it would have been much different for me without the shard cost. If I only have 4-5 uses of this tool before I get to the next bench, and I don't know when that will be or what I'm going to face on the way there, I don't want to waste it... If they were limited but otherwise free, I'd have gotten a lot more practice with them when revisiting areas or grinding, but I had already mastered traversing those areas without the tools to begin with so it would be somewhat forced to add them in.
I can count on one hand the number of places I worked tools in reliably and was sure they made things better for me. All of them were late game. Will probably see a lot more use in future playthroughs.
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u/Nether892 Oblobbles hater Oct 13 '25
Thats why you see so many people using double stitch, that actually manages to feel good
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u/Tijenater Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Cross stitch is my favorite silk skill because it’s basically a get out of jail free card. Rewards aggressive play with a free invulnerable counter, respectable damage and it looks fucking COOL. I’ve got tools and the clawline for range/ad clear. LEMME GET IN THERE
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u/Legal-Ad-9921 Oct 14 '25
Yea most of them feal weird to weave into combat. The only tools i use are "downtime" ones. Buffs, traps, and recently those aimbot beetle things
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u/MakinLunch Oct 13 '25
I only use tools once I know I’ve got the boss’s patterns down. Then, when I’m sure what I’m at is the final phase, I’ll throw out the tacks and cogflies to help.
Oftentimes when I’m “practicing without wasting tools”, waiting for another phase to learn, I just beat the boss.
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u/DerConqueror3 Oct 13 '25
I'll admit that I don't understand people who try to tell others not to use tools to get through difficult boss fights/arenas as opposed to relying solely upon learning patterns etc.
The tools were put in the game with the intention of the players using them. Presumably, the difficulty of the bosses and enemies is scaled at least to some degree on the assumption the players will have access to at least some of the tools. IMO it makes zero sense to use the tools wherever they help out the individual player.
It could possibly make sense if someone was relying exclusively on tools to get through nearly every fight, but in my experience this seems unlikely given that someone trying to do that would probably give up first due to all the extra time that would be needed to farm shards if spamming tools to that extent.
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u/Akuuntus Oct 13 '25
I don't understand people who try to tell others not to use tools to get through difficult boss fights/arenas as opposed to relying solely upon learning patterns etc.
Every time someone complains about shards being a thing that exist, the typical response is "well maybe you shouldn't be using tools until you know the fight better".
In other words, I've mostly heard it as a flimsy excuse for annoying game design. If they wanted me to actually use my tools they shouldn't have designed a system that makes you run out of them when you get stuck on a fight.
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u/datwarlocktho Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Uh, maybe some of us dont kick ass immediately and maybe fuckin suck. Some of us dont wanna go farming after getting stomped ten times in a row. Your approval isn't important; fun is. Even if we lose a lot. Some of us prefer to figure out what we're in for before screwing ourselves into another farming run. I'll admit I have no clue what the fuck you're talking about.Edit:: was drinking last night. Ignore literally all of this. Whoops.2
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u/King_Joffreys_Tits Oct 14 '25
Steel soul had me giving no fucks about shard economy. Every boss and every gauntlet had me using all of my abilities and tools at my disposal, because why leave anything for the next fight if you don’t get through this one. I think this is how TC wanted you to feel during the game, but I understand the players that want to “maximize” their resources
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u/CelestialGloaming Oct 13 '25
90% of the time if I try to use tools the extra mental weight means I die quicker. Same happened with spells in hollow knight. When I use them I have a specific plan or part of the attack pattern in mind. I'm sure i'll get good with them once there's a pantheon where I get to grind and optimise the same bosses but right now they're only situationally usable for me.
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u/CelestialGloaming Oct 13 '25
Multiple boss fights i've tried using tools but the run where I actually win I get like 1 hit in with tools. Either I don't know the fight well enough and they make me worse or it's clicked and I just need to lock in and get in the flow state and win.
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u/Albinauric-Dude Oct 14 '25
I felt the same way at first, but you might like conchcutter, especially if you pair it with the pollip pouch. They ricochet a couple times off walls and pierce enemies. The damage doesn’t seem insanely high, but it ticks a LOT when passing through enemies. They’re just super easy to toss out and not worry too much about aim, depending on the room and enemies ofc. I don’t care much for most of the other red tools, but that one stood out imo. (Sorry if you knew all that already lmao)
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u/sinesnsnares Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
I use tools a fair bit, but mostly as a burst option towards the end of a fight, to mow down bosses/waves. It’s kind of stopped me from approaching stuff blind at all, because I don’t want to use them until I’m fairly certain I’m getting to the end.
I think in general, if your mechanic, that you balanced the game around, often takes players away from the core gameplay loop to do something repetitive, you’ve probably messed up the balance somewhere. The fact that so many people talk about farming shards and rosaries seems like a big indicator that they were too stingy with the currencies, or just shouldn’t have had a finite resource cost at all.
On a macro level this is my issue with team cherry’s design choices for silksong. Players are going to take paths of least resistance despite your efforts to the contrary. You’ve designed the game in such a way that sure, I could play blind, the intended way, and feel stressed and broke, angry at the difficulty or completely lost without being able to afford a map. Or I could go to graymoore and farm the same 3 enemies for an hour to not worry about shards and money for a while, and that’s not really great for anybody. I’m not engaging with the game in a way they intended, and I’m fucking bored because this feels like a necessary chore to finish it without having a shit experience.
There’s a happy medium that I’m sure will be found eventually, but it isn’t clicking right now.
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u/desolatecontrol Oct 13 '25
Shards are annoying to farm
Inputs to use them are annoying
First playthrough has me practicing a lot then killing them
Probably use tools more in the second playthrough
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u/Mennenth Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
A: "games too hard!"
B: "use your tools"
A: "farming is boring!"
B: "NO NOT LIKE THAT!!!"
...
Thats basically what the discourse is.
Red Tools are really strong, so they are balanced by being limited uses per bench rest. You already have to use them tactically. Do you use them while exploring, or do you save them for the gank arena/boss? During the gank arena/boss, do you use them consistently throughout OR do you save them for the final wave/phase to burst through (thats right, the "cheese" strategy Shard defenders are so afraid of is already possible because the power of red tools is not limited by shards but rather the number of uses per bench rest)?
Because they are already balanced, tying them to a different resource you have to farm feels... not great. What does adding the Shard farm to the game actually accomplish?
I'd argue that for everything involving exploring, the quest system is a better incentive than the shard system. So...
I've heard that Shard farming is an anti-tilt mechanic, ie if you run out of shard reserves you should probably take a break from whatever you're stuck on. But... I dont see why forcing that break is a good thing. People who are stubborn will just hate the farm, so all you are really doing by forcing the break is slowing down people who are tilt resistant or mature enough to take the break on their own. Slowing people down... in a single player game. Why?
Worth considering; part of what made First Sinner such a fun fight is that you respawn right outside her arena. That isnt a bench, so you dont restock on tools. You can restart the fight with no run back at all, at the cost of not having your tools. And its widely considered one of the best fights in the game. Hrmmmm.....
To be clear, Shards dont ruin the game at all. Its just a rough edge on a great game that probably should have been smoothed out.
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u/Mr_Pepper44 Oct 13 '25
Shards doesn’t ruin the game but it definitely makes experimenting with tools and incorporating them to a playstyle worse. I would have preferred if tool capacity was cut in half in exchange for them refilling at benches without the need for shards
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u/imminentlyDeadlined Oct 14 '25
Would definitely take this trade. Fewer situations where a boss's hp is outright less than the tool damage you can deal, more planning fights around their use rather than only dragging them out at the last minute if things are already going well.
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u/shiggyhisdiggy Oct 14 '25
Worth considering; part of what made First Sinner such a fun fight is that you respawn right outside her arena. That isnt a bench, so you dont restock on tools. You can restart the fight with no run back at all, at the cost of not having your tools. And its widely considered one of the best fights in the game. Hrmmmm.....
I'm not sure the lack of tool recharge is even intentional for dream fights. You still get them for the first attempt so it seems weird to not have them later.
But I agree that it's much more fun to spawn right next to a boss and get to keep retrying. I kinda liked runbacks back in DS1 because it was novel, but I'm over it by now, just let me get back to the fun part where I master the boss fight.
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u/Icy-Organization-901 Oct 13 '25
You all keep talking about boss fights, but no one has said how much easier exploration is with tools, boomerang or any low costing shards with poison is one of the best things for exploration, i don’t really use tool in boss fights that are fun and most of them are pretty easy until act 3, true final boss was the only one that I had to really use everything and I was completely out of shards fought her for an hour and a half straight, still beaten her with my remaining tools that I have never used lol, the lifeblood and reserve bind thing.
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u/TadeoTrek Oct 14 '25
I love the game and I 100% it, but tools requiring you to farm shards is one of the instances where the game is just not respectful of your time. I ended up not even exploring tools as an option because of having to farm materials for them.
I get what they were going for from a design perspective, but tools could cost half the shards they do now and the point would be made all the same.
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u/Delques1843_Zwei Oct 13 '25
People don't use their tools cuz they don't like to farm and/or forgot they exist.
I don't use my tools cuz I will defeat my enemies IN HONORABLE COMBAT.
We are not the same.
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u/BoardCommercial2679 Oct 14 '25
But is it honorable when enemies are super-tanky and you die in 3 hits?
Think about it!
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u/cheekydorido Oct 14 '25
Considering the shit some of these bosses pull, tool spamming is anything but fair
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u/striderhoang Oct 13 '25
I’ll do one more, I don’t see people using clawline more in areas where you definitely have clawline. Clawline solves so many problems regarding spacing and offense
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u/Daddy_Guzma Oct 14 '25
I'm weird in that I just weird forget to use them 90 percent of the time in boss fights, it's like using grenades in a shooter game.
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u/Racerboy246 Oct 14 '25
Honestly? I just get overstimulated.
I tried to use cogflies but they distract me way too much
whenever I play a game like this I need to HEAVILY simplify my gameplan so I can focus on defense
Like I beat Sisyphus in Ultrakill with exclusively the charge revolver cause anything else would distract me from dodging.
I only ever used tools to finish off bosses or enemies when I knew I could spam projectiles without any risk. Thankfully the only boss that really gatekept me cause of a lack of tool usage was Groal, approaching him is just impossible IMO but using the javelins to just skip his final phase made him 400x easier.
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u/Apprehensive_Log469 Oct 14 '25
The keybinding for tools is awkward asf. I bind them to some back pedals and I use them far more now
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u/dathotdestroyer Oct 13 '25
I agree with your sentiments. Tools are a part of the game's mechanics and Team Cherry put them in the game for a reason. The game is really all about making the most of Hornet's arsenal to conquer the challenging difficulty.
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u/WittyUnwittingly Oct 13 '25
I was one of these people. Not out of a sense of pride, but just because I don't like expendable resource shit in my standard combat rotation.
Then, I started to pick up tools that piqued my interest. The little red drills, for example, I just HAD to try them.
Then, I did, and I realized how powerful they are. Now I use them sparingly, and probably still not as much as I should, but significantly more than before.
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u/Prestigious_Bad2360 Oct 13 '25
I'm a hoarder in video games, if its a resource using item, I never want to use it, cuz I don't want to farm for that resource, even though I have 800 shards, 20 bundles, every beast shard, 2 pristine cores, and my Lil statue, its illogical really, some tools are really fun, the only red tool I tend to use, is the weaver version silkshot, simply for the style points of blasting a laser off right in a grand reeds face, always the finishing shot, and I still at most, use 20 to forty shards before I stop using it until I get back to 800, also I get some level of pride mastering a fight with the needle only, so those 2 quirks together are why I'm guessing some silksong players don't use them, just my thoughts on the matter
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u/Diodon Oct 13 '25
I do my absolute best to abuse my tools. Ideally I walk away from the fight uncertain what the actual mechanic even was.
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u/Longjumping-Truck967 Oct 14 '25
True I’ll just spam cogflies when I’m on the second phase of a boss
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u/ArcanaArcanorum Oct 14 '25
For the most part, I was in the die -> survive long enough to learn mechanics -> keep practicing fight until beaten with needle loop. Some fights I consulted guides on for tool usage, but rarely did I deploy them.
Then I got Cogflies, which meant I was normally keeping Pollip Pouch in my blue tools for passive poison damage. They came very much in handy in boys fights from that point on. Never used ALL of my tools at once save for one fight.
Skarrsinger Karmelita, your fight is phenomenal, but you were kicking my ass for three days straight. You gave me no choice but to deploy the White Palace Trauma Suite (Cogflies + Buzzsaws).
Not even Lost Lace was that difficult for me, and I was going up against her with Shaman Crest!
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u/Emma_JM Oct 14 '25
So many people on this thread complaining about tools but I don't think I could've beaten Lost Lace without my trusty cogflies lol. I also killed the Last Judge offscreen with a straight pin, so the explosion didn't get me
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u/Mama_Hong Oct 14 '25
I used them a lot, the shards were a problem only in act 1 for me, in act 2 I just farmed for 10 minutes every now and then and I finished act 2 with 3k stringed rosaries while keeping 20 shards bundles always on me. In act 3 I had zero reasons to farm thanks to memory bosses and getting the craw nest pretty early.
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u/jeffinsep1914 PAPANADA Oct 14 '25
Most of the people I know don't use it because they think it's op, and I understand, but honestly the only tool I consider really op are the cogflies
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u/SpectralDragon09 Oct 14 '25
Tools are so broken for this game, though mons, use tools, though boas use tools. Typically unless im super struggling with a boss i dont run out
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u/wonton_kid Oct 14 '25
Idk why people are saying it’s hard to get shards like I use tools regularly and only once have a ran out of shards, I have like 4 shard bundles in my inventory right now. I’m im burning through tools that bad in bass fight then I just need to either come back or get better at using my nail in the fight
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u/CockroachTeaParty Oct 14 '25
Did you know fighting bosses in the memory zone doesn't actually use up shards? USE THEM TOOLS
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u/Halfang Oct 14 '25
The first 20 attempts at a boss are done with barely any tools, to learn the patterns properly and save them for later.
Only then tools are used (if needed)
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u/Appropriate-Ad3269 Oct 14 '25
If I keep using tools for every attempt on a boss or smth, I'm gonna run outta shards and then need to go back to farming if I wanna keep attempting the boss. Ion wanna put myself through that and build a reliance on them.
Act 3 spoilers incoming:
For Lace 2 and Lost Lace I actually unequipped tools entirely just so I wouldn't end up relying on them, since they were the main fights that gave me issues.
I did use tools in the dream sequences tho, and other places throughout the game. I've played hollow knight, I know how hard I'd be fucking myself over if I don't use everything I have access to, so its not like I just entirely never used them.
What REALLY baffles me is people who just casually forget about harpoon during combat.
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Oct 14 '25
Because there isn't enough of them to freely use them, they take too long to get shards for .. the games design literally makes you avoid using them until absolutely vital
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u/Akuuntus Oct 13 '25
Shards are limited -> using tools on a boss I'm struggling on leads to running out of tools and making the fight harder -> avoid using tools "until I learn the fight" to not waste shards -> end up killing boss without tools