Meridianfrost, you asked a VERY broad question, and Frosty (and others) are simply trying to narrow it down so that they can give a good answer. What you want to know may be obvious to YOU, but we can't read your mind.
Rather than just broadly asking "What's the best?", give us specifics. You say "knives and tools"; okay, fine. What kind of knives and tools? Machetes, survival knives, and paring knives are knives, but need to perform differently under different circumstances. Hot-cut hardies, mortise chisels, stonecarver's points, and violinmaker's gouges are all tools, but again, need to perform differently and will require different steels.
If you can't be bothered to be specific about what you want to accomplish, don't be surprised if you don't get an answer that makes you happy. Being rude isn't going to help.