CONTROL Resonant Best Artifacts: Trusted Spanner, Bar Blade, and More | CONTROL Resonant
Quick answer: The best CONTROL Resonant Artifacts depend on your build, but the Trusted Spanner, Bar Blade, Wallet, and Bout Guard are among the most commonly recommended. You can equip three Artifacts on a first playthrough, with a fourth slot unlocking in New Game Plus.
What’s the safest generalist pick?
The Trusted Spanner is widely treated as the safest, most generalist Artifact to equip. It grants a flat +15% Raw Damage, which benefits essentially every build regardless of playstyle, and it’s unlocked through Every Dog Has Her Day, the Mysterious Dog side story. For players unsure where to start building their loadout, Trusted Spanner is a reasonable default pick that’s hard to go wrong with.
What does the Bar Blade bring to a build?
The Bar Blade is a reward from The Party Won’t Stop and is generally called out as helping with summon sustain. It’s a more situational pick than Trusted Spanner, since its value depends on how much your build leans on summons, but it’s worth having unlocked and available to swap in when that situation comes up.
Is the Wallet actually worth equipping?
The Wallet is a Digital Deluxe exclusive Artifact and is explicitly described as high-risk, higher-reward Deluxe tech. Rather than being a safe default like Trusted Spanner, it’s a build-around pick that rewards players comfortable managing risk, so it’s not automatically the right choice just because it’s exclusive content; it’s a pick to consider specifically if its particular trade-off suits how you play.
What is the Bout Guard, and where does it come from?
The Bout Guard is a reward from Complete Set, the Altered Item side story built around the Subwoofer and SINKKI speakers puzzle in the Auction House. It’s another situational pick worth having in rotation, and since it comes from a specific completable side story rather than general play, tracking down Complete Set is the prerequisite step before it’s an option at all.
| Artifact | Where it comes from | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Trusted Spanner | Every Dog Has Her Day | Generalist raw damage |
| Bar Blade | The Party Won’t Stop | Summon sustain builds |
| Wallet | Digital Deluxe exclusive | High-risk, high-reward builds |
| Bout Guard | Complete Set | Situational defensive utility |
What about Pickpocket’s Tool and the other early picks?
Pickpocket’s Tool, the all-platform pre-order Artifact, is also worth factoring into this conversation. It removes the Power cost of your next Combat Ability after a Perfect Dodge, which makes it a strong fit for players already leaning on Perfect Dodge as a core technique. The Amulet, unlocked after The Dancer and focused on melee crits, and the Heart Monitor, from the Urban Survival side story and good for a one-time revive, round out the other Artifacts commonly mentioned alongside Trusted Spanner, Bar Blade, Wallet, and Bout Guard when players discuss early-to-mid-game loadouts.
How many of these can I actually equip?
Three at a time on a first playthrough. That cap means you’ll need to pick which of Trusted Spanner, Bar Blade, Wallet, Bout Guard, and anything else you’ve unlocked actually makes the final loadout, rather than running every strong option simultaneously. It’s worth revisiting that choice periodically as your build evolves, rather than locking in three Artifacts early and never reconsidering them.
What changes in New Game Plus?
A fourth Artifact slot unlocks in New Game Plus. That extra slot is specifically tied to starting an NG+ run rather than something available on a first playthrough no matter how far you progress, so if you’re planning a build around four Artifacts at once, that plan only comes together once you’ve started a New Game Plus save.
How should I pick between a safe pick and a build-around pick?
A reasonable approach is anchoring your loadout with a safe, generalist pick like Trusted Spanner, then filling your remaining slots with more situational options like Bar Blade, Wallet, or Bout Guard depending on what your specific build needs. That way, even if a situational pick doesn’t pay off in a given fight, you’re not losing the baseline value the generalist slot provides.
Where should I go to actually track these down?
Each of these Artifacts is tied to a specific side story or edition, Every Dog Has Her Day, The Party Won’t Stop, Complete Set, or Digital Deluxe ownership, so the practical first step is working through whichever of those you haven’t finished yet rather than hoping to stumble into the Artifact by chance. None of the four covered here are available from a single vendor or a simple purchase, which is part of why planning around them means treating side story completion as part of your build planning rather than a separate, unrelated checklist.
For the full catalog of every known Artifact and how crafting at The Gap works overall, see our artifacts guide. And for more on exactly how the New Game Plus fourth slot and carryover work, our New Game Plus guide covers the details.