Hollow Knight Charm Build Guide: Best Loadouts for Every Playstyle

Charms are the whole build system in Hollow Knight. You slot them at a bench, they burn notches, and suddenly the Knight plays like a completely different bug. The catch is you start with just 3 notch slots and the cap sits at 11, so the real skill is cutting things until a loadout fits. Four big playstyles cover most of the game: hit things harder, throw spells, refuse to die, and roam fast. Here's what actually earns notches in each one, and what to buy when you're broke.

Aggressive Nail Damage Setup

The spine of this build is three charms, nine notches:

| Charm | Notches | What it does | | --- | --- | --- | | Quick Slash | 3 | Attack cooldown drops from 0.41s to 0.25s | | Mark of Pride | 3 | Nail range up 25% | | Fragile/Unbreakable Strength | 3 | Nail damage up 50% |

Quick Slash is quietly the best combat charm in the game. Swings come out about 32% faster (0.41 seconds between swings becomes 0.25, closer to 39% if you cancel the animation with a turn or a dash). More swings, more damage. SOUL pours in faster too, so your heals and spells are always on tap. For raw value it usually gets rated above Strength. You grab it in Kingdom's Edge, out past Oro's hut - there's a breakable floor next to his training dummy that drops down to it.

Strength is the simple one: half again as much nail damage. A Pure Nail hit goes from 21 to 32. Leg Eater in the Fungal Wastes sells it for 600 Geo, or 480 if you walk in wearing Defender's Crest (he respects the smell). It breaks when you die and costs 350 to repair, 280 with the Crest. Two quirks worth knowing. It never breaks against dream bosses or anything in Godhome, so it's free power there. And it only boosts the nail itself - Nail Arts, Sharp Shadow, and Thorns of Agony don't get the bump.

Mark of Pride adds 25% nail range and sits in the Mantis Village, northeast of the Mantis Lords room once you've beaten them. Range sounds boring next to damage. It isn't. Hanging out a few pixels past a boss's swing is how you sneak in extra hits for free.

The last two notches

At the 11-notch cap, the core nine leaves you two to play with. Good fills:

• Grubsong (1 notch) - 15 SOUL every time you get hit. Panic-heal fuel, and it comes from the Grubfather at 10 freed grubs.
• Steady Body (1 notch, 120 Geo from Salubra) - no recoil when your hits connect. Sounds tiny, but it keeps you planted during pogo chains.
• Fury of the Fallen (2 notches) - +75% nail damage at one mask. It's free in King's Pass, east of the very first room. A Pure Nail swing hits for 37 with it active. Glass-cannon insurance.

Before you have the notches

Early on you can't field nine notches anyway. Fury of the Fallen plus Longnail (2 notches, +15% range, 300 Geo from Salubra) is a legit early setup for 4 notches. Toss in Steady Body and Grubsong and you're covered until mid-game.

One more thing: raw Geo into nail upgrades beats charms at the start. The Nailsmith charges 250, then 800, 2000, and 4000 for the four upgrades, with one, two, and three Pale Ore on the last three. Damage climbs 5, 9, 13, 17, 21 along the way. No charm in the game adds sixteen damage.

If Nail Arts are your thing, Nailmaster's Glory costs a single notch and cuts charge time from 1.35s to 0.75s. A Great Slash lands for 2.5x nail damage, which is 52 with a Pure Nail. Sly hands it over once you've learned all three arts.

Spell Caster Charm Combo

The math first. Spells cost 33 SOUL. A nail hit gives 11 back. This build bends both numbers until casting is basically free.

| Charm | Notches | Job | | --- | --- | --- | | Shaman Stone | 3 | Spells hit way harder | | Spell Twister | 2 | Casts cost 24 SOUL instead of 33 | | Soul Catcher | 2 | 14 SOUL per nail hit (up from 11) | | Soul Eater | 4 | 19 SOUL per nail hit |

That adds up to exactly 11 notches. The full spell core fills your entire bar with nothing wasted, which is honestly kind of beautiful.

Shaman Stone is the headliner, and Salubra sells it for a cheap 220 Geo:

| Spell | Base damage | With Shaman Stone | | --- | --- | --- | | Vengeful Spirit | 15 | 20 | | Shade Soul | 30 | 40 | | Desolate Dive | 35 | 53 | | Howling Wraiths | 39 | 60 | | Abyss Shriek | 80 | 120 |

It also makes the spirit spells about 30% wider and 60% taller, so they clip flying enemies they used to miss. Abyss Shriek at 120 damage is one of the biggest single hits you can buy at any price.

The SOUL engine

Spell Twister hides in a secret room at the top of the Soul Sanctum, right before Soul Master. Soul Catcher sits in the Ancestral Mound. Soul Eater is over in the Resting Grounds and needs Desolate Dive to reach, so it arrives late. Stack Catcher and Eater and every swing earns 22 SOUL (11 base, plus 3, plus 8). With Twister knocking casts down to 24 SOUL, one clean hit plus change buys you a spell. What that feels like in real fights: you cast whenever the boss gives you a window, and the meter never really runs dry.

The catch is that Focus drinks from the same pool. Every spell you throw is a heal you don't have. That's the whole trade with this build - things die about twice as fast, and you patch yourself up half as often. Nine times out of ten that trade's fine, since dead enemies don't hit back.

Swaps and variants

Soul Eater's 4-notch price stings? Drop it for Quick Slash (3) and you're at 10 notches with one slot spare - a nail-and-spell hybrid that people regularly take through the Pantheons. Going the other way, Flukenest (3 notches, dropped by Flukemarm) turns Vengeful Spirit into nine baby flukes at 4 damage each, 36 total, and Shade Soul into sixteen of them for 64. With Shaman Stone those numbers hit 45 and 80. The flukes spray in a spread, so the charm is nasty up close and wasteful at range - great in cramped arenas, kind of a pain in open ones.

Survivability and Defense Build

The tanky setup is less about stacking masks and more about turning hits into nothing. Here's a 10-notch core with one slot spare:

| Charm | Notches | Job | | --- | --- | --- | | Fragile/Unbreakable Heart | 2 | +2 masks | | Stalwart Shell | 2 | Longer invincibility after a hit | | Quick Focus | 3 | Heal about 33% faster | | Baldur Shell | 2 | Block up to 4 hits while healing | | Grubsong | 1 | 15 SOUL per hit taken |

Fragile Heart is another Leg Eater purchase (350 Geo, or 280 with Defender's Crest), and Divine will make it unbreakable for 12,000 late game. Stalwart Shell runs 200 Geo from Sly - your invincibility window after getting hit lasts about 35% longer, and the locked-input stun drops by 60%, which matters more than it sounds. Quick Focus costs 800 from Salubra and is really a defense charm wearing an offense hat: a heal you actually finish is a mask you keep.

Baldur Shell is the training-wheels charm, in a good way. While you're focusing, it eats up to four hits before it shatters, and a bench rest resets it. You find it in a chest in the southern Howling Cliffs. Grubsong quietly funds everything, since every hit you take is most of a heal banked.

Spend the spare notch on Thorns of Agony (1 notch, Greenpath) for a nail-damage burst whenever something hits you. Or trade Baldur Shell up for Dreamshield (3 notches, Resting Grounds south of the Seer) - a shield that circles you, blocks some projectiles, and smacks enemies for full nail damage.

The lifeblood route

Lifeblood masks don't come from Focus. They get handed to you when you rest. Lifeblood Heart (2 notches, 250 Geo from Salubra) gives you two at every bench. Lifeblood Core (3 notches) gives you four, but it hangs on the west wall of the Abyss and you need 14 lifeblood masks just to reach it, 15 if you're wearing Joni's Blessing.

Joni's Blessing itself is 4 notches from Joni's Repose: your mask count goes up 40% (rounded up), but every mask becomes lifeblood and you lose Focus entirely. Five masks becomes seven. "No healing" sounds scary. Pair it with Grubsong and a spell build and it's a known pick for bosses where finding a heal window is hopeless anyway. Hiveblood (4 notches, south of Hive Knight in the Hive) takes the opposite approach and auto-heals your last lost mask after ten seconds without damage. Great for slow, careful players, useless in fights where you get tagged every two seconds.

The weird heal toys

Shape of Unn (2 notches, Lake of Unn, you'll need Isma's Tear) lets you walk around while focusing, which is exactly as strong as it sounds in wide-open fights. Deep Focus (4 notches, Crystal Peak) heals two masks per cast but takes 65% longer to do it. Spore Shroom (1 notch) vents a spore cloud while you heal, worth roughly 28 damage if every tick lands. Fun stuff. Stacking Deep Focus with Quick Focus claws some of that speed back, but in a hard boss fight a slow two-mask heal usually gets you killed anyway. These are learning charms - use them while you need them, then swap damage back in.

Exploration and Movement Charms

Nothing here wins a boss fight. All of it saves you ten minutes and a map-related headache.

• Wayward Compass (1 notch, 220 Geo from Iselda after you've met Cornifer) - puts your dot on the map. People act like it's a crutch. It's a crutch that saves you from wandering the Abyss for an hour, so who's really winning there?
• Gathering Swarm (1 notch, 300 Geo from Sly) - vacuums up loose Geo. Pays for itself fast, since Geo you never walk over is Geo you lost to a spike pit.
• Dashmaster (2 notches, Fungal Wastes south of Mantis Village) - dash cooldown cut by a third, plus you can dash straight down. The down-dash makes drops and repositioning way quicker.
• Sprintmaster (1 notch, 400 Geo from Sly, needs the Shopkeeper's Key) - about 20% faster running, and it stacks with everything else that speeds up travel.
• Sharp Shadow (2 notches, southeast of the Deepnest hot spring, needs Shade Cloak) - your shade dash now deals nail damage and moves 40% faster. Run it with Dashmaster and the damage climbs to 1.5x nail. Every dodge becomes a hit.
• Steady Body (1 notch) - no recoil from your own swings, so platforming enemies don't shove you off a ledge mid-fight.

A roaming loadout

Compass, Swarm, Dashmaster, Sprintmaster, Steady Body, and Grubsong is 7 notches and feels great to travel on. That leaves 4 free: slot Grubberfly's Elegy (3 notches, the Grubfather's reward for freeing every grub) and at full health every swing fires a beam worth half your nail damage - 10 with a Pure Nail. Running between benches at full HP turns Hallownest into a shooting gallery. Just remember the beams switch off the moment you take a hit, so it's a travel toy, not a boss charm.

Farming Essence instead? Dream Wielder (1 notch, from the Seer at 500 Essence) doubles Dream Nail SOUL gain to 66 and charges the swing about 37.5% faster.

Swap at the bench, not in your head

Charm changes only happen at benches and cost nothing, so run two sets: a travel set and a boss set. Sit down outside the arena, swap, walk in. A decent chunk of deaths in this game are just showing up with Gathering Swarm equipped.

Notch Costs and Priorities

You start at 3 notches. Eight more exist out in the world, and the game never really points at them.

| Notch | How to get it | Catch | | --- | --- | --- | | Salubra, 120 Geo | Buy it | Own 5 charms | | Salubra, 500 Geo | Buy it | Own 10 charms | | Salubra, 900 Geo | Buy it | Own 18 charms | | Salubra, 1400 Geo | Buy it | Own 25 charms | | Fog Canyon | Hidden room northeast of Cornifer's spot | Needs Isma's Tear or Monarch Wings | | Fungal Wastes | Cave guarded by two Shrumal Ogres | Beat both ogres | | Colosseum of Fools | Trial of the Warrior reward | Clear the trial | | Dirtmouth | Inside the Grimm Troupe tent | Beat Grimm |

Each notch pickup also fully heals you, a nice freebie when you're grabbing one deep in hostile territory.

The Salubra ones are the priority. The first two come almost automatically - you'll own 10 charms long before you own anything worth 11 notches, and 620 total Geo for two slots is a bargain. The 900 and 1400 ones are gated on charm count, so don't hoard Geo for them early. The Colosseum notch is a skill check, and Trial of the Warrior is very doable around the Channelled Nail era with a solid nail setup. Fog Canyon's is late by design. Grimm's is basically endgame DLC.

Quick headcount while we're here: 45 charms exist, but you can hold at most 40, because five get traded away over a full run (Kingsoul becomes Void Heart, the three Fragiles become Unbreakables, Grimmchild becomes Carefree Melody).

Overcharming, explained

Short on notches? You can force a charm in anyway. Pick the charm you can't afford five separate times and it cracks into place, purple fractures and all - the game makes you click through a warning the first time, and only one click after that. The price: every point of damage you take is doubled, except environmental hits during invincibility frames.

So when is that worth it? Radiant fights in the Hall of Gods, for one, since a single hit kills you there regardless and the multiplier costs you nothing. Confident players also overcharm traversal and grinding setups where getting hit is rare. Don't overcharm a first attempt at a boss you don't know. Eating two masks per mistake is how a learning run turns into a rage quit.

A rough shopping order

For your first couple thousand Geo: Wayward Compass (220), Gathering Swarm (300), then Shaman Stone (220) if you're casting or Longnail (300) if you're not, then Salubra's first notch (120). After that, save toward the Channelled Nail (800 Geo plus one Pale Ore) before buying much else. The nail is secretly the best charm in the game.

And do the math before you sit down. The spell core is exactly 11 notches and the nail core is 9 plus two singles. If your plan doesn't fit at 11, something's getting cut or you're taking double damage, and that's a much better decision to make at a bench than mid-fight. For budgeting, Salubra's four notches run 2,920 Geo all-in - right about what the Channelled and Coiled Nail upgrades cost together at 2,800, plus their Pale Ore.