This is an unverified personal tier list of all of the tools in the game based on their use. This tier list accounts for all golden, silver, and regular tools, and gives a description of why each is good or bad.
As with the villager rankings, every tool in the game has its own uses. Today, I'm ranking all of them from best to worst. Feel free to debate this list with others in the comments. Please respect each other's opinions.
God Tier:
The undisputed best tool in the game. Nothing will ever match it as the best.
SS: Golden Shovel
The shovel is probably the most versatile tool in the game. You can dig up lloyds, buried items, fossils, and pitfall seeds with it, as well as use it to hit the money rock. When leveling up to the silver shovel, you have a small chance of getting gems when hitting the money rock. The Golden Shovel increases the chances of getting gems, as well as increasing the effectiveness of fertilizer. You can plant money trees with a golden shovel by burying money. The shovel is one of the most useful items in the whole game, and its golden counterpart is the only tool in God Tier.
Top Tier:
Very strong items that are very helpful when used to the best formats. However, none of these items reach the versatility and use of the God Tier golden shovel.
S: Golden Net, Golden Fishing Rod
These two items are notable for being direct improvements of their counterparts, and nothing else. The Golden Net increases the net radius when catching bugs, and the Golden Fishing Rod makes it much easier for fish to latch on to your lure. Unlike the Golden Shovel, these two S tier items do not give any more benefits, but simply improve upon what came before it. Don't fix what ain't broken, right?
A+: Golden Axe
The Golden Axe is placed in A+ tier instead of along with the golden variants of the net and fishing rod because the axe's only major use is for cutting down trees. Since a perfect town status will require at least 110-200 trees, unless a tree has directly obstructed a PWP or a villager's home, there's no purpose for the axe. The Golden Axe still gets a spot in Top Tier however, mostly because of it's indestructibility. You can also get rare designs like a triforce on the tree's stump.
High Tier:
Great tools that are awesome in the midgame, but become useless when advancing to all golden tools around 100 hours in.
A: Golden Watering Can
The watering can is a useless tool if you have the Beautiful Town ordinance, unless you are growing trees. If not, then the only helpful thing the Golden Watering Can does is if you have a Bell Boom or other ordinance and cannot have Beautiful Town; in that case, this is an awesome tool! The Golden Watering Can waters up to nine flowers in a row, and will turn wilting flowers into Golden Roses, which never wilt. Again, if you have the Beautiful Town ordinance, the only use of the Golden Watering Can is for completionist's sake.
B+: Golden Slingshot
The last of the golden tools, the Slingshot is only used for getting balloon pieces for the set. I barely use the Slingshot, and sometimes forget it's in my inventory. Sure, the Golden Slingshot shoots three pellets instead of one, but the balloons are so easy to shoot out of the sky that it doesn't even help. The Golden Slingshot just barely makes High Tier because it's a golden tool, and needs to be collected to finish the catalog. Also it looks pretty cool ^^
Mid Tier:
The majority of Silver tools fit here. Mid Tier tools are useless past the Golden tools area of the game, and should never be picked up. It's just a waste of money.
B: Silver Shovel, Shovel, Silver Net, Silver Fishing Rod
Lots of tools are in B Tier because they are the intermediary tools before reaching Gold. The Silver Shovel and Shovel are grouped together because both of them have almost the same use, with the Silver Shovel giving a chance of gems from a money rock, but being rarer to find, and almost always bought from the museum shop. The Silver Net and Silver Fishing Rod are just downgrades of their S Tier selves.
B-: Silver Axe, Silver Watering Can
At this point in the game, the Watering Can becomes a bit more useful. Not all players have the money to unlock Beautiful Town, and the Watering Can waters multiple plants at once, so it's a very useful item in the beginning of the game. After that, though? It becomes irrelevant. The Silver Axe also falls into the "irrelevant" category because it breaks after just over 130 uses.
C: Silver Slingshot
Again, it's a slingshot. It shoots two pellets. It's useless after all the Golden Tools are received. What else can I say?
Low Tier:
The bad, but not awful, tools. Most of these tools are just the original versions of themselves.
C-: Net, Fishing Rod
The original versions of these great tools are depressingly useless. These tools are still great in the first 10-15 hours of gameplay, but after that- kaput. There is no reason to have these items unless you are holding them for a friend or are some weird hoarder.
D: Watering Can, Axe
This follows in C-'s footsteps; great tools at the beginning of the game, but are completely worthless once you reach Gold tools.
Garbage Tier:
Memo to everyone: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, USE THIS TOOL.
F: Slingshot
F Tier is reserved for the overall most useless item in all of Animal Crossing: New Leaf: the original Slingshot. Geez, I've got a whole page on this guy. Alright, let's try and lightning round these. breathes in
- It only fires one shot, so it has lowered accuracy
- You can't aim it, just like the rest of the Slingshots, so combine that with only one pellet, and you have even lower accuracy
- It's only useful for cataloging the balloon set, and then does nothing else
- In the beginning of the game, the Net can sometimes do the job FOR the Slingshot
- You cannot get a slingshot from the beginning of the game
Whew, I think that was all of my points. If you read all of those, then yeah. You can see why Slingshot is in this tier. The only useful thing the Slingshot ever did was give Villager in Smash for Wii U and 3DS his forward and backward aerials.
And that's every single tool in Animal Crossing: New Leaf ranked from best to worst! Thank you for reading this far, and feel free to critique and give constructive criticism below. Keep in mind, this list was just made for fun, and I don't mean to upset anyone with it! I'll be answering any questions below, as well! I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!
As with the villager rankings, every tool in the game has its own uses. Today, I'm ranking all of them from best to worst. Feel free to debate this list with others in the comments. Please respect each other's opinions.
God Tier:
The undisputed best tool in the game. Nothing will ever match it as the best.
SS: Golden Shovel
The shovel is probably the most versatile tool in the game. You can dig up lloyds, buried items, fossils, and pitfall seeds with it, as well as use it to hit the money rock. When leveling up to the silver shovel, you have a small chance of getting gems when hitting the money rock. The Golden Shovel increases the chances of getting gems, as well as increasing the effectiveness of fertilizer. You can plant money trees with a golden shovel by burying money. The shovel is one of the most useful items in the whole game, and its golden counterpart is the only tool in God Tier.
Top Tier:
Very strong items that are very helpful when used to the best formats. However, none of these items reach the versatility and use of the God Tier golden shovel.
S: Golden Net, Golden Fishing Rod
These two items are notable for being direct improvements of their counterparts, and nothing else. The Golden Net increases the net radius when catching bugs, and the Golden Fishing Rod makes it much easier for fish to latch on to your lure. Unlike the Golden Shovel, these two S tier items do not give any more benefits, but simply improve upon what came before it. Don't fix what ain't broken, right?
A+: Golden Axe
The Golden Axe is placed in A+ tier instead of along with the golden variants of the net and fishing rod because the axe's only major use is for cutting down trees. Since a perfect town status will require at least 110-200 trees, unless a tree has directly obstructed a PWP or a villager's home, there's no purpose for the axe. The Golden Axe still gets a spot in Top Tier however, mostly because of it's indestructibility. You can also get rare designs like a triforce on the tree's stump.
High Tier:
Great tools that are awesome in the midgame, but become useless when advancing to all golden tools around 100 hours in.
A: Golden Watering Can
The watering can is a useless tool if you have the Beautiful Town ordinance, unless you are growing trees. If not, then the only helpful thing the Golden Watering Can does is if you have a Bell Boom or other ordinance and cannot have Beautiful Town; in that case, this is an awesome tool! The Golden Watering Can waters up to nine flowers in a row, and will turn wilting flowers into Golden Roses, which never wilt. Again, if you have the Beautiful Town ordinance, the only use of the Golden Watering Can is for completionist's sake.
B+: Golden Slingshot
The last of the golden tools, the Slingshot is only used for getting balloon pieces for the set. I barely use the Slingshot, and sometimes forget it's in my inventory. Sure, the Golden Slingshot shoots three pellets instead of one, but the balloons are so easy to shoot out of the sky that it doesn't even help. The Golden Slingshot just barely makes High Tier because it's a golden tool, and needs to be collected to finish the catalog. Also it looks pretty cool ^^
Mid Tier:
The majority of Silver tools fit here. Mid Tier tools are useless past the Golden tools area of the game, and should never be picked up. It's just a waste of money.
B: Silver Shovel, Shovel, Silver Net, Silver Fishing Rod
Lots of tools are in B Tier because they are the intermediary tools before reaching Gold. The Silver Shovel and Shovel are grouped together because both of them have almost the same use, with the Silver Shovel giving a chance of gems from a money rock, but being rarer to find, and almost always bought from the museum shop. The Silver Net and Silver Fishing Rod are just downgrades of their S Tier selves.
B-: Silver Axe, Silver Watering Can
At this point in the game, the Watering Can becomes a bit more useful. Not all players have the money to unlock Beautiful Town, and the Watering Can waters multiple plants at once, so it's a very useful item in the beginning of the game. After that, though? It becomes irrelevant. The Silver Axe also falls into the "irrelevant" category because it breaks after just over 130 uses.
C: Silver Slingshot
Again, it's a slingshot. It shoots two pellets. It's useless after all the Golden Tools are received. What else can I say?
Low Tier:
The bad, but not awful, tools. Most of these tools are just the original versions of themselves.
C-: Net, Fishing Rod
The original versions of these great tools are depressingly useless. These tools are still great in the first 10-15 hours of gameplay, but after that- kaput. There is no reason to have these items unless you are holding them for a friend or are some weird hoarder.
D: Watering Can, Axe
This follows in C-'s footsteps; great tools at the beginning of the game, but are completely worthless once you reach Gold tools.
Garbage Tier:
Memo to everyone: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, USE THIS TOOL.
F: Slingshot
F Tier is reserved for the overall most useless item in all of Animal Crossing: New Leaf: the original Slingshot. Geez, I've got a whole page on this guy. Alright, let's try and lightning round these. breathes in
- It only fires one shot, so it has lowered accuracy
- You can't aim it, just like the rest of the Slingshots, so combine that with only one pellet, and you have even lower accuracy
- It's only useful for cataloging the balloon set, and then does nothing else
- In the beginning of the game, the Net can sometimes do the job FOR the Slingshot
- You cannot get a slingshot from the beginning of the game
Whew, I think that was all of my points. If you read all of those, then yeah. You can see why Slingshot is in this tier. The only useful thing the Slingshot ever did was give Villager in Smash for Wii U and 3DS his forward and backward aerials.
And that's every single tool in Animal Crossing: New Leaf ranked from best to worst! Thank you for reading this far, and feel free to critique and give constructive criticism below. Keep in mind, this list was just made for fun, and I don't mean to upset anyone with it! I'll be answering any questions below, as well! I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!
