Questions About Nail Arts and Soul Casts

[Trashbag]

Now I'm not unfamilliar with the mechanics of Hollow Knight. I have completed all possible quests outside of the Godmaster content. NKG, Delicate Flower, 2 of 3 Delicate Flower + quests (because again - I hadn't touched Godmaster), all 10 fights with Big Zote, and of course Path of Pain.

But now I find myself at the Godmaster trials, and I want to push myself even further in attempting fourbind runs of the first three pantheons (maybe the last two someday if I'm feeling masochistic enough). But to do that, I'm going to need to familiarize myself with every possible tool in my arsenal, and I've really neglected Nail Arts - and even my Soul Arts to an extent - through the vast majority of the game.

So here are my questions:

1). First and foremost, how does the Nail Binding affect the damage of your Nail Arts? I read in the wiki that they are "adjusted accordingly," so does that mean they deal the same damage as a standard attack, or they scale accordingly with your reduced damage to deal damage appropriately higher than that? I imagine the latter, but the phrasing isn't terribly clear.

I also heard one gentleman claim the damage doesn't change at all when he ran through it with the debug console, but I don't know about that...

2). Does the damage of Soul Arts scale down? I didn't read anything about it, but I want to be sure.

3). Could I get some hard numbers for damage with the three Nail Arts and Soul Arts? I want to compare damage outputs so I can get a better idea of what options are worth taking.

4). How do I use Nail Arts? What are some good ways to get value out of them? Like I understand Great Slash is a good move to get extra range and air time, and Cyclone gives you that extra range plus free movement but without the airtime and verticality, and Dash Slash is...just garbage? Like I'm sure there's some moments it's useful, but it's basically just a Great Slash you have to dash into. Help me learn.

5). How do you use Soul Arts to the best of their potential? These I have a better grasp on, but I think I need more practice. Vengeful Spirit is a great screenclearer and tops for bosses you don't want to approach, but is pretty mediocre damage-wise. Howling Spirits is one of the best damage tools in the game, but obviously situational on account of how it's cast straight above you, and Desolate Dive...I'm not sure about its power, but those invincibility frames look sick and I wish I would have exploited that more in my playthroughs.

I think that's all my questions. I hope I can master these arts going into the pantheons. This could easily be the hardest thing I've attempted yet. I got to Oro and Mato on my second attempt of the first pantheon fourbinded, but I want to beat them the third time around.

[Darc Vader]

1. I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but I believe that nail arts were unaffected by the binding when Godmaster was released, but they are reduced now. They should still do proportionately more damage than normal strikes though.

2. No, the soul binding only reduces the amount of soul you can store to one spell/heal worth.

3. Great and Dash Slash do 2.5 x normal nail (~50 with a maxed out nail), Cyclone Slash does 1.25 x nail damage per hit (~26) and can be mashed to extend its duration to a max of 7 hits. Vengeful Spirit does 15(20 with Shaman Stone), Shade Soul does 30(40), Desolate Dive: 35(53) if both hits land and Descending Dark does 60(88) if all three do, and Howling Wraiths does 30(45) if all three hits connect with Abyss Shriek doing 80(120) if all 4 do.

4. Great Slash has a larger vertical hitbox, while Dash Slash has more range. Great Slash is better in most situations, but the extra range can be useful if you can time it. Cyclone Slash is phenomonal against less mobile enemies, and you fall slower while using it so it works against airborne foes too. It does significantly more damage than the other two, but isn't as safe.

5. You sem to have a good grasp on what the spells are for, but it really can't be overstated how good Dive is as a tool. The i-frames are enough to use it directly onto an enemy and still dash away even without the Shade Cloak.