A year of patches quietly rewrote Silksong‘s crest meta, so launch-week tier lists will steer you wrong. The current consensus: Wanderer is the best all-round crest (fast hits, strong silk generation, roughly 68 unconditional DPS in community testing), Reaper owns silk farming, and the Hunter crest is no longer the weak default: Patch 3 buffed its damage multipliers from 25/40% to 30/50%. Here’s the full crest map and the builds that work now.
All 7 Crests and Where They Are
- Hunter: your default, and post-buff, genuinely viable to the credits.
- Reaper: Chapel of the Reaper in Greymoor, west of Halfway Home.
- Wanderer: Chapel of the Wanderer at Bonegrave in Moss Grotto; bring a Simple Key.
- Beast: earned by defeating Savage Beastfly, then claimed at the Chapel of the Beast (Hunter’s March / Deep Docks). Patch 5 made that fight fairer: the minions now die with the boss.
- Witch: complete the Rite of Rebirth and Infestation Operation, then give Yarnaby the Steel Spines.
- Architect: buy the Architect’s Key from the Twelfth Architect in the Underworks.
- Shaman: Ruined Chapel, Act 3 only.
Memory Lockets add tool slots to crests, which is where builds get their depth (and upgrading six crests with them feeds the Sylphsong ritual in the endings chain).
The Meta Right Now
- Wanderer: the all-rounder king. Fast attack cadence means more hits, more silk, more Bind heals, and its DPS holds up without conditions. If you main one crest, main this.
- Reaper: the silk economy crest; its generation advantage funds skill-heavy and heal-heavy playstyles, and its range makes it the safe-poke option for bosses you’d rather not hug.
- Hunter (post-Patch 3): the buffed multipliers reward the charged-strike rhythm (charged strikes also generate 1 Silk since Patch 2), making it the aggressive commitment crest rather than the beginner trap older advice calls it.
- Beast: the berserker option for players who convert rage into precision; pairs with the fights where you can stay glued to the boss.
Build Pairings
- Wanderer + Pollip Pouch + Druid’s Eye: the standard carry build; venom on tools plus silk-when-hit keeps both economies flowing.
- Reaper + Longclaw + Spool Extender: the range-and-silk toolbox for hard bosses like Lace.
- Hunter + Sting Shard: the charged-strike damage stack for players who like reading fights and answering hard.
Patch 2 nerfed the Crafting Kit (70% to 60%) and Cogwork Wheel capacity, so tool-spam builds lost a step; crest-core builds gained relative ground.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I switch crests freely? At benches; experimenting is cheap, so match crests to bosses rather than marrying one.
Which crest for the endgame? Wanderer or a mastered Hunter into Act 3; the Shaman crest is Act 3’s own reward to explore.
Do launch tier lists still hold? No; Patch 3’s Hunter buff and Patch 2’s tool nerfs are exactly why this guide exists.
What’s the best crest for silk farming? Reaper, uncontested.