I used Hunter's Crest almost exclusively, mostly because I like its moveset. Though I did switch to the Wanderer's two times: one to activate the Sinner's Road bench and the other in Choral Chambers where you rescue a flea.
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
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Wanderer's Crest for sure. You mention it's because it's the closest to the moveset in HK1 but I use it because it simply does the most damage with the highest attack speed. You gain one silk per hit on all crests, so the quick attack speed of Wanderer's lets you tank hits and quickly get enough silk to heal back. The high attack speed also lets you parry many attacks by just spamming, even if you didn't mean to.
I wasn't the biggest fan of it at first but when you pair it with
spoiler
the tool that increases the length of your attacks
I think it's hands down the best. Other crests can be useful in certain fights but I kept it on for most of the game.
My tier list is this:
spoiler for the name of all crests
(S) Wanderer
(A) Hunter
(B) Reaper / Architect / Beast
(C) Witch / Shaman
Yeah, especially the accidentally parrying saved me a lot of health and I honestly think that should even be nerfed a bit. It was to easy to just spam and even be rewarded for it.
For me it was the Wanderers crest, because it was the closest to little ghosts move set. While I tried out all the others for a bit, I always quickly died to bullshit were I thought: that wouldn't have happened if I had the wanderers crest. And so I always switched back in the end. The fast attack speed fits better to my play style of "go in there and smash that attack button, healing later with the accrued silk from all the attacks". I'm mostly a bash your head through the wall player with these kind of games...
Agreed, Wanderer seems to be the most versatile and the most usable, at least for me. They seem to really, really want you to default to the Hunter Crest what with the constant upgrades that it can get, but that diagonal downward strike is bullshit and the rest of its moveset is just the Wanderer's Crest anyway except slow. Being able to do 1.4x or 1.7x damage per swing in specific circumstances does not trump being able to fit in two hits with the Wanderer, nor does it confer any advantage when you can't get a hit in, or miss, or dive-bomb into the enemy's attack, when the Wanderer would would have been able to hit.
The Reaper crest is okay. The Beast is 100% worthless. Theoretically the Architect should be able to enable some cheese strategies, but it's slow and its dive attack also sucks, so refilling your silk with it is problematic especially against faster bosses. It's good for farming rosaries from the Citadel faithful, though, since a charged up standing drill attack can one-shot many of them.
The Shaman crest is occasionally useful for cheesing a handful of annoying bosses when combined with the Volt Filament by simply out-damaging them in a war of attrition before you run out of health.
I found no use whatsoever for the Witch crest and never touched it again once I unequipped it after you're forced to use it briefly after you pick it up.
TL;DR: Get the knife.