Hollow Knight Charms: A Complete Guide to Every Charm in Hallownest
Introduction
In the hauntingly beautiful and brutally challenging world of Hallownest, Hollow Knight charms are more than just collectible trinkets; they are the lifeblood of customization, the key to adapting your playstyle, and the difference between glorious victory and crushing defeat. These mystical artifacts, scattered throughout the kingdom’s forgotten corners, offer a myriad of buffs and abilities, allowing you to tailor The Knight’s capabilities to suit any situation, enemy, or personal preference. From boosting attack power and bolstering defenses to enhancing movement and granting unique special effects, the right combination of charms can transform your gameplay experience.
But with over forty unique charms to discover, the task of choosing the perfect loadout can feel overwhelming, especially for new players. Where do you even begin? What are the most effective combinations? Which charms are worth the precious notch slots they consume? This comprehensive guide will serve as your definitive resource for all things charm-related in Hollow Knight. We’ll delve into each individual charm, detailing its effects, explaining how to acquire it, exploring its synergies with other charms, and highlighting its best use cases. Prepare to unlock the full potential of The Knight and conquer Hallownest with the perfect charm setup.
Understanding Charm Categories
While each charm offers a unique benefit, they can be loosely categorized based on their primary function. This categorization can help you narrow down your choices when building a specific character archetype or tackling a particular challenge. Here are some general categories to consider:
- Offensive Charms: These charms primarily focus on increasing your damage output, enhancing attack speed, or modifying your attack patterns. They are ideal for aggressive players who prefer to take the fight head-on and eliminate enemies quickly.
- Defensive Charms: As the name suggests, these charms provide benefits that improve your survivability. This can include increasing your health, reducing damage taken, or providing other defensive abilities. They are excellent for players who prefer a more cautious approach or who struggle with the game’s tougher challenges.
- Movement Charms: Mobility is crucial for navigating the treacherous landscapes of Hallownest. These charms enhance your movement capabilities, allowing you to dash further, climb faster, and evade enemy attacks with greater ease.
- Utility Charms: This category encompasses a wide range of charms that provide various quality-of-life improvements, such as faster soul gathering, increased geo acquisition, and enhanced interaction with the environment. These charms can be particularly useful for exploration and resource management.
- Pet Charms: These unique charms summon and empower companions who fight alongside you. While these companions typically deal less damage than your nail, they can be valuable for distracting enemies and providing supplementary damage.
Individual Charm Descriptions: A Deep Dive
Now, let’s examine each charm in detail, providing you with the information you need to make informed decisions about your loadout.
Shaman Stone
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Increases the power of spells.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Salubra in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Synergizes exceptionally well with spells like Shade Soul, Descending Dark, and Howling Wraiths. Ideal for spell-focused builds and boss fights where you can reliably land spell attacks.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires a significant investment of notches.
Soul Catcher
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Gain more soul when striking enemies with the nail.
How to Acquire: Found in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Excellent for builds that rely on spells, providing a steady stream of soul for healing and casting. Works well in areas with many weaker enemies.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Less effective against bosses with few or no minions.
Soul Eater
Notch Cost: Four notches
Description of Effect: Gain even more soul when striking enemies with the nail than Soul Catcher.
How to Acquire: Found in Resting Grounds.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides substantial soul generation, allowing for frequent spellcasting. Best used in areas with dense enemy populations.
Drawbacks/Limitations: A high notch cost may limit the use of other beneficial charms.
Longnail
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases the range of the nail.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Cornifer in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Increases safety by allowing you to attack from a greater distance. Combines well with Quick Slash for increased damage output.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Offers no direct damage increase.
Mark of Pride
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Increases the range of the nail even further than Longnail.
How to Acquire: Found in Queen’s Gardens.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides a significant range advantage, making it easier to hit enemies and avoid damage.
Drawbacks/Limitations: High notch cost.
Quick Slash
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Increases the speed of nail attacks.
How to Acquire: Found in Kingdom’s Edge.
Synergies and Best Uses: Significantly increases damage per second. A powerful offensive choice.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires practice to master the increased attack speed.
Steady Body
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Prevents knockback when striking enemies with the nail.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Cornifer in Dirtmouth after finding him in Crystal Peak.
Synergies and Best Uses: Allows for more consistent damage output, especially against fast-moving enemies.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Provides no direct stat boosts.
Fragile Strength
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Increases nail damage but breaks if the Knight dies.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Leg Eater in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Massive damage boost, essential for fast boss kills.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Breaks upon death; consider using Unbreakable Heart instead.
Unbreakable Strength
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Increases nail damage; doesn’t break on death.
How to Acquire: Obtained by giving Fragile Strength to Divine in Dirtmouth and paying her Geo.
Synergies and Best Uses: Same as Fragile Strength, but without the durability issue.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Expensive to acquire.
Fragile Heart
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases maximum health but breaks if the Knight dies.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Leg Eater in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides extra health for survivability.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Breaks upon death; consider using Unbreakable Heart instead.
Unbreakable Heart
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases maximum health; doesn’t break on death.
How to Acquire: Obtained by giving Fragile Heart to Divine in Dirtmouth and paying her Geo.
Synergies and Best Uses: Same as Fragile Heart, but without the durability issue.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Expensive to acquire.
Quick Focus
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Focuses soul to heal more quickly.
How to Acquire: Found in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Essential for builds focused on survival, greatly increasing healing speed.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires a good understanding of when to heal during fights.
Deep Focus
Notch Cost: Four notches
Description of Effect: Heals twice as much health as normal when focusing, but takes longer to focus.
How to Acquire: Found in Crystal Peak.
Synergies and Best Uses: Can fully heal with only two soul uses. Great for conservative healing strategies.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Long focus time can leave you vulnerable.
Focus Energy
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Generates more soul when focusing.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Salubra in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Helps to quickly fill the soul meter during breaks in combat.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only useful if you are using soul for healing.
Grubsong
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Gain soul when taking damage.
How to Acquire: Rescued from the Grubfather.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides soul even when making mistakes.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires taking damage to be effective.
Grubberfly’s Elegy
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: When at full health, nail attacks will release a ranged projectile.
How to Acquire: Received from the Grubfather after rescuing all grubs.
Synergies and Best Uses: Allows for ranged damage while at full health.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only works at full health.
Thorns of Agony
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: When taking damage, releases thorns that damage nearby enemies.
How to Acquire: Found in Greenpath.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides some retaliatory damage when hit.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires taking damage to be effective.
Baldur Shell
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Reduces damage taken while focusing soul to heal.
How to Acquire: Found in Howling Cliffs.
Synergies and Best Uses: Useful in conjunction with Quick Focus to heal during intense combat.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Does not negate damage completely.
Spore Shroom
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Emits a cloud of spores when focusing soul to heal.
How to Acquire: Found in Fungal Wastes.
Synergies and Best Uses: Deals damage to enemies nearby while healing.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Damage is relatively low.
Defender’s Crest
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Emits a foul odor, causing enemies to pause and also alters some interactions in the game.
How to Acquire: Received from Dung Defender.
Synergies and Best Uses: Can be used for exploration and interacting with some environmental elements, works well with spore shroom.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Mostly situational.
Flukenest
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Turns spells into a spread of flukes.
How to Acquire: Found in Royal Waterways.
Synergies and Best Uses: Creates a powerful shotgun effect, great for close-range damage.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Not effective at long range.
Fury of the Fallen
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases nail damage when at or below health point.
How to Acquire: Found in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Useful for risky, high-damage plays.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires being at low health, a very risky play style.
Lifeblood Heart
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Adds lifeblood masks to your health bar.
How to Acquire: Found in Abyss.
Synergies and Best Uses: Good for exploration, providing a buffer of extra health.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Lifeblood masks disappear when taking damage.
Lifeblood Core
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Adds even more lifeblood masks to your health bar.
How to Acquire: Found in Abyss.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides a greater buffer of health.
Drawbacks/Limitations: High Notch Cost.
Joni’s Blessing
Notch Cost: Four notches
Description of Effect: Transforms all health masks into lifeblood masks.
How to Acquire: Found in Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Best for exploration and allows use to have many lifeblood masks.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Prevents regular healing.
Hiveblood
Notch Cost: Four notches
Description of Effect: After taking damage, the last lost health mask regenerates automatically after delay
How to Acquire: Found in The Hive.
Synergies and Best Uses: allows exploration without needing to heal as much.
Drawbacks/Limitations: very long regeneration delay.
Dream Wielder
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Increases the amount of soul gained from hitting enemies with the dream nail, and speeds up the charging of dream nail
How to Acquire: Resting Grounds after obtaining the Dream Nail.
Synergies and Best Uses: allows for farming of soul.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only affects dreamnail.
Dreamshield
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Summons a shield that spins around the knight and can block projectiles
How to Acquire: Resting Grounds, near seer
Synergies and Best Uses: blocks ranged attacks and damage enemies.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Slow speed.
Weaversong
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Summons weaverlings that fight along side you.
How to Acquire: Deepnest, near weavers den.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides additional damage.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Weaverlings deal small damage and are weak.
Glowing Womb
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Summons hatchlings at the cost of soul.
How to Acquire: Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides additional damage at the cost of soul.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Hatchlings deal small damage.
Grimmchild
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Summons Grimmchild to fight alongside you. Grimmchild upgrades over time by defeating bosses.
How to Acquire: Received during the Grimm Troupe quest.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides long term damage.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Deals low damage at the beginning.
Carefree Melody
Notch Cost: Three notches
Description of Effect: Negates damage sometimes.
How to Acquire: Complete Grimm Troupe quest a certain way
Synergies and Best Uses: provides protection from attacks.
Drawbacks/Limitations: random effect.
Sprintmaster
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Increases walking speed.
How to Acquire: Forgotten Crossroads, purchased from Sly.
Synergies and Best Uses: For speed running or fast movement.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only increases walking speed
Dashmaster
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases the frequency with which you can dash and allows dashing downward.
How to Acquire: Forgotten Crossroads.
Synergies and Best Uses: Increases maneuverability and damage with Sharp Shadow.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Can be disorienting.
Sharp Shadow
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Increases the damage of your shadow dash and increases the length.
How to Acquire: Deepnest.
Synergies and Best Uses: Provides damage, and invincibility.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires a good understanding of enemies.
Shape of Unn
Notch Cost: Two notches
Description of Effect: Change shape while focusing, allowing movement.
How to Acquire: Greenpath, requires defeating a boss.
Synergies and Best Uses: for quick healing while dodging.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Slow movement.
Nailmaster’s Glory
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Decreases the charge time of nail arts.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Sly after learning all nail arts
Synergies and Best Uses: quick usage of nail arts.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Requires using nail arts.
Kingsoul
Notch Cost: Five notches
Description of Effect: Opens the way to a new area.
How to Acquire: White Palace
Synergies and Best Uses: required for some areas.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Large notch cost.
Void Heart
Notch Cost: Zero notches
Description of Effect: changes endding.
How to Acquire: Get all endings.
Synergies and Best Uses: required for some endings.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Changes endding.
Gathering Swarm
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: Summons small bugs that collect Geo.
How to Acquire: Starting charm.
Synergies and Best Uses: For farming geo.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only collects geo.
Compass
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: shows the knights location.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Iselda after Cornifer is rescued.
Synergies and Best Uses: Helps with exploration.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only shows location.
Wayward Compass
Notch Cost: One notch
Description of Effect: shows the knights location, and can be seen on the map.
How to Acquire: Purchased from Cornifer at start of the game.
Synergies and Best Uses: Helps with exploration.
Drawbacks/Limitations: Only shows location.
Powerful Charm Combinations for Hallownest’s Trials
The true mastery of charms lies in their synergistic potential. Combining the right charms can amplify their individual benefits, creating powerful builds that excel in specific situations. Here are a few example combinations to get you started:
- The Spell Weaver: Shaman Stone, Soul Eater, Spell Twister. This build maximizes spell damage and soul generation, allowing you to unleash a barrage of powerful spells.
- The Agile Striker: Quick Slash, Mark of Pride, Steady Body. This combination focuses on delivering consistent damage with enhanced reach and attack speed.
- The Stalwart Defender: Quick Focus, Shape of Unn, Thorns of Agony. This build prioritizes healing and defensive capabilities, allowing you to weather even the most intense attacks.
Conclusion: Mastering the Art of the Charm
Hollow Knight charms are a vital part of the game’s intricate mechanics, providing endless possibilities for customization and strategic gameplay. By understanding the individual effects of each charm and exploring their synergistic potential, you can create personalized builds that perfectly suit your playstyle and conquer the challenges of Hallownest. Remember, the best charm combination is the one that works best for you. So experiment, adapt, and don’t be afraid to try new things. The world of Hallownest awaits your exploration, and with the right charms at your side, you’ll be unstoppable.
Now, it’s your turn! What are your favorite charm combinations in Hollow Knight? Which charms do you find to be the most useful? Share your thoughts and strategies in the comments below! Happy hunting, Knight!
