Hollow Knight gives you eleven notches and a lot more charms than will fit in them. That constraint is the build.
Charms are not incremental bonuses. Several of them change how the game plays, and the good loadouts are the ones where three or four charms all push the same direction.
Notches, and overcharming
You start with a handful of notches and find more throughout the game. Charms cost between one and five each.
You can exceed your notch limit by overcharming, which lets you equip one charm more than you can afford at the cost of taking double damage. That is a real option for a boss you can dodge cleanly, and a terrible one for anything you cannot.
Costs are what make the loadouts hard to assemble:
| Charm | Notches |
|---|---|
| Quick Slash | 3 |
| Mark of Pride | 3 |
| Unbreakable Strength | 3 |
| Shaman Stone | 3 |
| Spell Twister | 2 |
| Quick Focus | 3 |
| Soul Catcher | 2 |
| Grubsong | 1 |
| Dashmaster | 2 |
Three notches is a lot when you have eleven, which is why the strong loadouts usually run two expensive charms and fill the remainder with one-notch support rather than three roughly equal picks.
Fragile charms break on death and cost geo to repair at Divine. Unbreakable versions cost considerably more and never break, and they are worth buying the moment you can afford them if you are attempting the harder content.
The loadouts that actually do something
Nail damage. Unbreakable Strength, Mark of Pride and Quick Slash together turn the nail into a genuinely strong weapon with reach and speed. Expensive in notches, and it makes most of the game straightforward.
Spell damage. Shaman Stone and Spell Twister make spells the primary attack, with Soul Catcher and Soul Eater feeding them. This melts several bosses that are painful to approach with the nail.
Survival. Quick Focus and Deep Focus change healing speed and value. Quick Focus in particular is the difference between healing during a boss fight and never getting the chance.
Movement. Sharp Shadow and Dashmaster for players who would rather not be hit at all.
Mixing across these produces a loadout that is mediocre at everything. Pick a direction.
Soul is the resource everything competes for
Soul fills as you hit things and is spent on healing and on spells. You cannot do both with the same soul.
That is the central tension of every boss fight. A spell build spends soul on damage and takes hits it cannot heal. A survival build heals reliably and takes longer to kill anything.
Soul Catcher and Soul Eater increase gain per hit and are quietly among the best charms in the game because they ease that tension rather than picking a side.
The Pantheons are where builds get tested
Godhome's pantheons chain bosses together with no shops and limited healing between them, and they expose any loadout that relied on retreating to recover.
Builds that work here tend to favour consistent damage and reliable healing over burst. Grimmchild and Weaversong add damage that continues while you dodge, which suits long chains better than anything requiring you to stand still.
If a pantheon keeps ending in the same place, the answer is usually a charm swap rather than more practice.
The Hollow Knight walkthrough covers the map and the charm locations.
