Wild Hearts – Karakuri Tier List

Karakuri building is one of the key differences between Wild Hearts and Monster Hunter. It plays a huge role in Wild Hearts, with many different mechanics and even weapon moves tied to the system directly. There is a large selection of Karakuri to choose from in Wild Hearts, but not all of them are equal in usefulness. Some are more universal, while some are more niche. In order to help you choose which Karakuri in Wild Hearts to use, we've devised a useful tier list for your consumption.

Best Basic and Dragon Karakuri in Wild Hearts

For clarity, we've ranked the following Karakuri based on their respective sections. Basic Karakuri will have its own tier list, and Dragon Karakuri will have its own as well. Tiers will be based on the typical letter grade scale, starting from S-Tier (the best) to D-Tier (the worst).

Basic Karakuri Tier List

Tier	Basic Karakuri
S	Spring, Glider
A	Crate, Celestial Thread
B	Torch
C	Stake
D	N/A

All Basic Karakuri, Ranked

S-Tier

Spring

Provides significant I-frames(invulnerability frames) that allow you to stay safe for a long time. Excellent on-demand mobility at a moment's notice. Enables powerful moves from most weapons in Wild Hearts, especially for the Nodachi. Key to building some of the most useful Fusion Karakuri in the game. Safest Karakuri for animation canceling due to the extended I-frames it provides.

Glider

Provides the best aerial mobility in the game. Can be used to recover from attacks that knock you away. Enables powerful aerial attacks with most weapons in the game. Key to some of the best fusion Karakuri available.

A-Tier

Crate

The Crate is extremely versatile in that it can be used in many situations, even outside of combat. Enables some aerial moves that can potent if used correctly. Acts as a verticle spring for reaching high places. Used to build some of the most useful Fusion Karakuri in the game.

Celestial Thread

This Karakuri offers the fastest horizontal mobility in the game. It is great for chasing down monsters or getting places quickly. Controls make it a bit wonky at times, but can be effective for aerial attacks on certain weapons.

Related: Wild Hearts – Weapon Tier List

B- Tier

Torch

The Torch provides a useful fire buff to your weapons that can be useful for stacking the Burning status on the monster. A great way to animation cancel an attack quickly. However, outside of the fire buff, Torch's animation cancel ability is completely outclassed by the Spring. Fire buff also is largely ineffective toward monsters resistant or immune to the Burning status effect.

C-Tier

Stake

Stakes provide a solid way to catch up to fleeing monsters and offer a useful verticle spring upon attaching to a surface. However, Stake is not consistent, and will often miss easy targets or misfire entirely. Accuracy is also not tied to your camera. It is tied to your character's direction, making it clucky to use in high-intensity situations.

Dragon Karakuri Tier List

Tier	Dragon Karakuri
S	Field Forge, Hunting Tower, Hunter's Tent, Campfire
A	Flying Vine, Tsukomo Ore Shrine, Tsukomo Food Shrine
B	Smoker, Fermenting Cask, Celestial Tsukomo Camp, Wildlife Pen, Pickling Jar, Drying Rack, Ingredients Chest
C	Roller, Wind Vortex, Enhanced Flying Vine, Paddle Scoop
D	Launcher, Tsukomo Lantern

All Dragon Karakuri, Ranked

This ranking contains the Dragon Karakuri that are useful to you in some way. As such, cosmetic or alternative Dragon Karakuri are omitted. This ranking also assumes that you have all possible upgrades from the Dragon Karakuri talent tree.

S-Tier

Field Forge

Allows you to craft new weapons and armor in the field. Also allows you to change your gear on the fly. Extremely useful at all points in the game.

Hunting Tower

Allows you to find monsters out in the field via a scanning radius once activated. Multiple can be placed to cover most of the map, making this Karakuri the best way to find your target monster.

Hunter's Tent

Allows you to create spawn points anywhere on the map. Also allows you to change the time of day. Incredible useful.

Campfire

Used to upgrade your Tsukomo, thus your total Thread capacity, and create sessions for multiplayer hunts.

A-Tier

Flying Vine

Very useful for bypassing hard-to-navigate areas by going over them. Especially useful in the early game for chasing fleeing monsters. Still useful mid-game, but you'll have more efficient tools for chasing by then.

Tsukomo Ore Shrine

Using these is an effective way to gather a large amount of ore from its placement location. The only cost is time. Ore Shrnes provide five total ore per loadout and are fire-and-forget upon placement. However, the ore received is random, and can often not yield the ore you need when you need it. Less efficient than just gathering the ore yourself.

Tsukomo Food Shrine

Similar to the ore shrine, Food Shrines provide free vegetables at the cost of time. Vegetables are always the same, and the buffs they yield raw are mediocre. However, they can be used in combination with other foods to make strong buffs instead.

Related: All Monster weaknesses in Wild Hearts

B-Tier

Smoker

Useful for buffing up meat food items to their maximum potential. Can only buff up one at a time, so we recommend using a few of them for efficiency. It may be a bit expensive for resources.

Fermenting Cask

Used to create spices and condiments to further buff food items. Cost-effectiveness is questionable but allows for significant buffs.

Celestial Tsukomo Camp

Provides the Hunter's Arm buff to you. Useful for starting a hunt, but the same buff can be obtained just by extracting it from monsters instead. Resource cost makes it especially suspect to efficiency concerns.

Wildlife Pen

Allows you to obtain specific resources from small kemono. The resources you receive are based on what you put in the pen. The resources themselves are niche for very specific items, so this may not always have a use.

Pickling Jar

Used to improve food quality, but like the other Karakuri similar, cost-effectiveness is a concern.

Drying Rack

Used to dry out meat and vegetables. The total yield is questionable when compared to the resources necessary to use this Karakuri.

Ingredients Chest

Storage that allows you to store food items. These are useful because food items are commonplace, and you will need these to maintain your consumables.

Related: How to Dye your armor in Wild Hearts

C-Tier

Roller

A very fast vehicle that can get you to the destination quickly. Travels only horizontally, making some navigation an issue depending on the location and the map. This is an expensive option for travel, especially in multiplayer scenarios where you'd want your team hunting team to have one. Can also be easily destroyed.

Wind Vortex

A turbine building that blows hunters upward a great distance. Clucky to use if you don't use a glider to escape the vortex itself. Niche to use due to the existence of other transversal options.

Enhanced Flying Vine

Functionally works the same as the Flying Vine for mobility. However, this Flying Vine allows it to tackle monsters. Effectiveness is extremely niche in that the time it takes to use this against a monster, you can probably just summon a Harpoon for a stronger effect.

Paddle Scoop

Placed on the water, generated edible fish based on the location. Fish buffs are mediocre, but can be combined with other food items for larger buffs. The main issue is that gathering of fish takes a significant amount of time.

D-Tier

Launcher

Allows you to build a Karakuri-flavored catapult that can launch items as well as hunters. Overall usefulness is called into question when hunters can launch themselves higher than what the Launcher can. We also never found a real use for launching items when the items it can launch all cost valuable Thread.

Tsukumo Lantern

Mostly a cosmetic tool, one use it does have is marketing important areas on the map for your fellow hunters. Niche.

For more quality content relating to Wild Hearts, check out our guide on How to farm Kemuno Orbs in Wild Hearts right here on Pro Game Guides.