It has been nearly a full year since Team Cherry finally released Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the community has had ample time to dissect every crest, every silk skill, and—perhaps most entertainingly—every single tool in Hornet’s sprawling arsenal. While the revamped tool system brought fresh strategic depth, not every gear piece earned a permanent slot in the loadout. Some tools are so situational, so underpowered, or so bafflingly designed that players wonder if they exist purely as a joke. What makes a tool truly terrible? Is it the opportunity cost of using it over a genuinely good alternative, or does the tool itself actively work against the player? Based on months of community feedback, speedrun data, and countless heated forum debates, here is the definitive ranking of the ten worst tools in Silksong as of 2026—starting with the absolute bottom of the barrel.

10. Needle Phial – A Practical Joke Disguised as a Tool

Nobody expected the Needle Phial to be good, and it delivers magnificently on that expectation. Given to the player during a pair of deliberately frustrating side quests, this tool offers unlimited uses—but that is the only kindness it shows. Its range is laughably short, the damage is pitiful, and only a couple of enemy types can even be damaged by the green mist it spews. Can you recall a single moment after those quests where you thought, “I wish I still had the Needle Phial”? The entire point is that it sucks, and in that regard it is a masterwork. As a functional tool, however, it sits firmly at the bottom, never to be missed once it is snatched away.

9. Spider Strings – Extending the Wrong Kind of Reach

Ask yourself: how often have you used the Needolin’s sonic blast and thought, “This could be slightly wider”? If your answer is “never,” you are in excellent company. Spider Strings increases the Needolin’s area of effect, but it becomes available in Act 2—long after the one area where this might have been vaguely useful, The Mist, is already behind you. The timing alone makes this yellow tool feel like a cruel prank. Even ignoring the progression issue, the Needolin’s core function is so niche that stretching its hitbox barely registers. The only thing Spider Strings successfully extends is the time you spend looking at your inventory in disappointment.

8. Sawtooth Circlet – Self-Sabotage on Demand

The Sawtooth Circlet attempts to be a “get off me” tool, unleashing a burst of spikes from Hornet’s cloak when you open it mid-air or during a standoff. The problem? How many skilled players deliberately hover next to an enemy and unfurl their cloak as a combat maneuver? For most, that number is precisely zero. The activation condition conflicts with every defensive instinct, and the tool often triggers accidentally during platforming, sending Hornet careening into spikes or pits. Even when it works as intended, the damage is negligible. In the end, the Sawtooth Circlet punishes the user more than any foe.

7. Snare Setter – The One That Got Away (Literally)

The Snare Setter is a victim of its own obscurity. A small explosive trap that can be placed on the ground sounds decent on paper, and it even deals respectable damage when it detonates. Yet a staggering number of players pick up this tool and immediately hand it over to the Caretaker for a quest reward without ever realizing it was usable. Can you blame them? The game never telegraphs its combat potential, and the trap’s limited quantity and fiddly placement make it feel like a throwaway item. For those who do experiment, the Snare Setter is merely okay—but it is so forgettable that most will never know what they missed, and they will not care.

6. Weighted Belt – When Standing Still Kills You

Steady Body devotees from the first Hollow Knight may have hoped for a successor, but the Weighted Belt is an outright downgrade. By virtually eliminating knockback when striking enemies, it encourages a reckless “mash and stay” playstyle that Silksong’s bosses ruthlessly punish. Hornet’s i-frames are minimal, and many attack patterns demand rapid retreat. With the Weighted Belt equipped, you become a stationary target for every multi-hit combo and area‑of‑effect blast. Only a handful of low‑level encounters reward this hyper‑aggression, and even then the trade‑off rarely justifies the tool slot. Most players remove it after their first death to Lace and never look back.

5. Dead Bug’s Purse – Insurance You Hope to Never Claim

In theory, the Dead Bug’s Purse is a safety net: it lets you keep a portion of your rosaries upon death, provided it was equipped at the moment of demise. In practice, it is the tool you equip when you expect to fail—and that mindset rarely leads to victory. Silksong generously scatters silkworms and provides multiple ways to reclaim your cocoon safely. If you are dying so often that this passive income protection feels mandatory, you probably need a different tool loadout to keep yourself alive in the first place. For confident players, the Dead Bug’s Purse is dead weight that does nothing until you are already losing.

4. Spool Extender – A Faint Whisper of More Silk

The silk spool system is a subtle but meaningful layer of resource management, allowing Hornet to store extra silk for healing or skills. The Spool Extender grants three additional strands—just shy of a full extra cast of most silk skills. That sounds reasonable, yet it occupies a blue slot, the same color category that boasts genuinely transformative tools like the Crest of the Wanderer. When forced to choose between a modest bump in maximum silk and a perk that fundamentally changes how you approach combat, the Extender almost always loses. It is not a bad tool in a vacuum; it simply lives in a world filled with vastly better options.

3. Egg of Flealia – Full Health, Empty Promise

The Egg of Flealia is this game’s answer to Grubberfly’s Elegy, allowing silk skills to be cast at three strands of silk instead of four—but only while at full health. For a fleeting moment, this sounds incredible. Once you have all three Silk Hearts, you could theoretically spam skills without ever landing a hit. Yet another blue tool replicates this exact effect without the health restriction, and it arrives earlier in the game. Why would anyone use a conditional version when a strictly superior alternative exists? The Egg’s reliance on perfect health also makes it useless in the exact scenarios where extra silk efficiency is most needed: tense boss fights where taking a hit is almost inevitable.

2. Silkshot (Twelfth Architect) – Three Ways to Misfire

The Broken Tool recovered from Bilewater’s depths presents a tantalizing choice: three distinct repair paths yielding vastly different Silkshots. The Twelfth Architect variant is universally regarded as the weakest. It chews through Shell Shards and a strand of silk with each burst, only to fire three rapidly diminishing projectiles at point‑blank range. For a tool billed as a ranged option, it demands the resource economy of a late‑game powerhouse while delivering the damage output of a mosquito bite. The other two Silkshot versions are genuinely fun and effective, which only deepens the sting of accidentally investing in this one. An entire online subculture now warns new players away from the Architect, and rightly so.

1. Memory Crystal – Thorns of Agony, but Worse

At the very bottom of our list sits the Memory Crystal, a tool that somehow manages to be even less reliable than the first game’s Thorns of Agony. Upon taking damage, a crystalline mimic of Hornet appears at the impact point and eventually detonates—if an enemy happens to wander into it. There is no immediate knockback, no area‑wide stagger, just a fragile statue hoping for a deeply incurious foe. By the time the clone explodes, the fight has usually moved far away, rendering the damage meaningless. Is this revenge, or merely a commemorative statue of the health you lost? Either way, the Memory Crystal earns its crown as the single most pointless tool in all of Pharloom.

For players diving into the world of Pharloom, finding the best tools can be as challenging as mastering the game itself. Whether you're experimenting with advanced silk techniques or simply trying to avoid investing in the less effective options, timing your purchases wisely can make a big difference. With new releases and updates often affecting game toolkits, staying informed about pricing and availability is key.

If you're looking to keep an eye on discounts or track the cost of your favorite titles, a reliable game price tracker can be an invaluable resource. Platforms like DealNest provide gamers with up-to-date pricing insights, ensuring you never miss a great deal on the games you love.