Silksong Player Shatters Team Cherry Smokescreen with Ultimate Crest Damage Math — Wanderer Was the Right Pick All Along

Here we go: a very nerdy Silksong damage lab just crowned a winner, and yeah, it aligns with what the diehards have been saying. If you like getting up in enemies' faces and shredding fast, Wanderer looks absurdly good.

What got tested (and how deep this rabbit hole goes)

YouTuber Visic dug into Hornet's numbers and pulled back the curtain with actual HP bars and real damage values. This is pure mechanics talk — needle swipes, charged pokes, and sprinting attacks — with no extra damage from red tools counted in the baseline. That last bit matters: some Crests open up more red tools for layered damage over time, but the core tests focus on the stuff you're pressing 90% of the time.

'Normalized DPS puts Wanderer in a league of its own.'

The quick version: normal attacks decide most fights

Visic's most useful chunk of data is the basic needle swing breakdown. This is the bread-and-butter damage you lean on in regular play. Per-hit numbers first, then DPS (which factors in attack speed). Notes in parentheses are the caveats that make or break each style.

• Hunter: 21/26/29 per hit for 50.9/63.1/69.4 DPS (only if you never get hit and keep those buff stacks)
• Reaper: 21 per hit for 41.6 DPS
• Wanderer: 21 per hit for 68.3 DPS (and that number assumes you never land a 3x crit)
• Beast: 21/26 per hit for 52.4/78.9 DPS (it powers up and speeds up after binding)
• Witch: 21 per hit for 45.7 DPS
• Architect: 23 per hit for 50.2 DPS
• Shaman: 21 per hit for 41.5 DPS

Why Wanderer jumps to the front

The short answer: speed. Wanderer trades away extra range and a second red tool slot so you can swing the needle faster. That not only spikes DPS, it also makes it easier to squeeze in counterhits, which means more silk generated and more options in tight windows. Even more rude: if you land just one crit (3x damage, available whenever you've got a heal's worth of silk banked), Wanderer can outpace a perfect, hitless, fully stacked Hunter run.

But raw DPS isn't the whole story

There is a big caveat with lab DPS: it assumes you can attack constantly, which is not how real fights work when you have to actually dodge, reposition, and not die. That tweaks the value of range, mobility, and certain move types in actual boss rooms.

Charge builds: Architect and Witch get spicy with Flintslate

If you start layering in specific red tools, things shift. Flintslate — the fire weapon buff — supercharges multi-hit charge moves. Architect's charge poke already hits repeatedly and gets a big glow-up with Flintslate ticking; Witch benefits for similar reasons. Wanderer's five-hit charged attack also pops with Flintslate, but the multi-hit synergy pushes Architect (and Witch) ahead for pure charge-attack DPS. Of course, that means committing to a charge-focused kit — which fits Architect, the ranged-friendly style, better than most.

Other standout oddities

One that jumped out: Witch's sprinting attack hits hard and spits out two silk. That's a big tempo swing in the right hands.

So which Crest should you actually use?

If you like melee pressure and playing in close, Wanderer is just excellent at what the game constantly asks you to do. But the test also makes a decent case for variety: poison cogflies, the power drill, and Flintslate all enable nasty red-tool builds, and several Crests have their own lanes where they shine. The balance looks tight across the board, which is probably why every Crest debate ends with seven different camps insisting they're right. Statistically, six of them are wrong — Wanderer supremacy — but you've got legit options.