warning you're all disappointments and don't deserve my pity if you aren't prepared to get yelled at right now you're in the wrong place okay so we're doing this hello you absolute morons my name's windet and welcome back to idiot [ __ ] central today we're covering a topic i hoped i wouldn't have to but as was made quite astonishingly apparent by you lot in my discord server none of you seem to know how damage works in hollow knight the question goes as such which is better the nail or spells great i'm once again teaching a bunch of five-year-olds how [ __ ] numbers work and i've already run out of patience for you a lot so let's get this over with first up there are three total ways to kill something in hollow knight your nail casting spells and the most dangerous of all the last one doesn't affect us at all so just tell one of your limited brain cells to forget about it and leave space for something useful the nail without upgrades charms or nail arts can attack just faster than once every half second with a base damage of 5 per hit for reference hornet in greenpath has 225 hp in kingdom's edge has 700 and zot has [ __ ] none if you're too stupid to do the math then i'll do it for you it takes 45 hits to defeat bass hornet with this nail and 140 to take her out in sentinel form in case you idiots hadn't realized it yet that's really [ __ ] slow if you don't believe me let's take a moment to look at the most basic spell in the game vengeful spirit with no upgrades no charms and not a single [ __ ] to give this spell deals 15 damage in other words it's three times as [ __ ] strong not to mention that the other two spells deal more than double that with the base dive dealing 35 and the rates at 39 so without question we know that spells deal more damage but this was obvious right right oh my god how could i forget that i was dealing with you lot okay look if the base values alone don't make it through your thick skulls then perhaps this next section will upgrades the upgrades for the nail are pretty straightforward you go to the nail smith pay him a bunch of geo trade in more and more payload as the upgrades improve until you eventually reach its pure state and kill the guy who helped you make it at its absolute strongest the nails damage with no charms reaches a whopping total of am i reading this right it says 21 damn at least that number is bigger than your iq regardless 21 damage per hit is quite a lot more than what we were doing at the start of the game you're more than four times as strong and probably have a charm or two that can help you out but before you idiots jump to any conclusions let's take a look at the spells first oh god it looks like we have to do more maths i know i shouldn't have signed up for explaining this [ __ ] if we wanted to upgrade all of our spells to the maximum potential without charms we're looking at about 800 geo to get the elegant key another 1800 for the optional lantern and a kings brand so 2600 geo in a hornet fight for some reason i thought this would take more than that you're still following there's no way your brain's fried already well regardless of how cheap they are surely they're not like that much better right i'm sorry did i just read that abyss shriek deals more than double damage now hang on the other spells practically do the same okay so this is looking very one-sided at the moment surely we can balance this out somehow there's no way spells are this broken right otherwise everyone would be using them i need to know the reason why every idiot in my server still uses exclusively the nail like it's some kind of crutch oh yeah i've still got one more point to cover charms surely this one will settle the debate let's start with the nail all right when it comes to damage i'm gonna say that these three are the most influential sorry fury you're not invited we've got strength to boost our nail by a whopping 50 quick slash to boost our attack rate by nearly double and steady body to max out our ability to actually hit the damn thing we're swinging at assuming you idiots aren't swinging this thing around aimlessly with all these charms added our nail can deal 32 damage at a rate of 4 hits per second this gives us a total dps of 128. damn that's not bad in fact that's more damage than a fully upgraded abyss shriek well mind you that's with only one charm equipped and cast a singular time okay never mind that let's look at the spells first no jumping to conclusions today so which charms affect spells well given that you can't cast them indefinitely i'm going to have to include charms that assist your ability to cast them as well which leaves us with two charms all right at least you're not gonna get confused by that the first charm shaman stone does two things it increases our spell damage but differently for each spell shade soul gets buffed by thirty three percent the dive by forty seven and a bish shriek gets a whopping fifty look i know that was a lot of numbers for your remaining three brain cells to handle but just stay with me here as a bonus each of the spells get an increased hitbox size the most dramatic change in hitbox goes to shade soul which more than doubles and lets us multi-hit enemies up to three times with all that considered this means that the most damage that each spell is capable of in one cast is 120 for shade soul triple hits 120 again for four hits with the shriek and a measly 88 for the dive couple this with spell twister and you can pull off a scary total of just shy of 500 damage on a full soul meter but i suppose this brings us to the final conclusion which is better nail or spells at the end of the game when you've already thrown all of your money patience and wills to live at this dude with a hammer the nail easily comes out on top it's more consistent has infinite ammo and lets you get up close and personal with each and every boss and it's no surprise that people are so hardwired to using this thing given that it's your only option at the start of the game and if by the end of it you're still alive it'll actually deal the most damage so why am i still here well sure at the end of the game when you already have everything spent countless hours exploring and experiencing hello nest it almost makes sense that the trusty weapon you've always had at your side would become your strongest asset but what about at the start of the game when you're just starting out bouncing through greenpath and the city of tears taking in the sights and being fully aware that you a haven't found quickslash yet and b have virtually no upgrades it should come to no surprise that when your nail hasn't been fully upgraded spells don't give a [ __ ] does dealing well over 200 damage and only three button presses sound nicer than pathetically poking away at the boss you've been stuck on for half an hour or does gaining temporary invincibility while dealing splash damage sound more appealing to you than taking a face full of watcher knight if being able to deal end game damage in less than an hour's play time sounds like a good idea pick up shaman stone and a couple of upgrades and use those to get yourself through hallownest and with that thanks for watching this was an interesting video to make and i actually ended up learning way more than i thought i would when making it i'm working on some interesting ways to tackle deep nest and some other areas in my next videos so keep your eyes peeled for them if you're looking for more content like this then tell me what you want to see i'm sure you've all realized by now that i read almost every comment and reply to most i even have a discord server set up for this as always i'm windet you're a [ __ ] and i'll see you idiots next time [Music] you