Gaming Hollow Knight - GOAT Metroidvania

@Moby
I have the same problem as @Ainu in that I get impatient with THK and die in stupid ways because of that. My set up is 100% for radiance atm. My set up is grubsong, livebloodcore, shaman stone and soul catcher. I tried out a few different things but I definitely need something to up my mask count and grubsong is great because I'm guaranteed to get hit at some point and it gives me nearly enough soul to get a full heal or shriek.
I've become pretty decent at avoiding the orbs but if they spawn near you its an issue. The biggest problem for me is that once I get hit by something I get offbalanced and get fecked basically. Those vertical nails are a pain. I saw fireb0rn use downstrike on them, definitely not something I'm going to attempt :')

I have zero interest in doing the pantheons tbh. Bossfights aren't really my thing but I guess would be a good way to practise if I ever attempt a speedrun.

@Dirty Schwein beat hornet 2 in one go, might be the only boss I've ever managed that on except for dung defender and most dreamwarriors. Completely cheesed the failed champion, I wasn't making any progress on it and needed the essence so decided to go the cheese route and still managed to die once :')
Completely forgot about salubra's blessing too, thanks for reminding me... saves me time having to go out of the temple to farm soul.

@dumbo good to know, I've used spells on him a few times during those moments...
I've only been incorporating spells into my fighting towards the end of my playthrough.. I don't think I've ever used descending dark in a fight but I'll have to give it a try, I know you get a bit of invincibility with it. I hope to get to the second phase someday and keep your tips in mind, somehow managed it during my first time and only once or twice since then. I need to be more aware of my health cause I just keep shrieking her as much as I can and not finding the time to heal and before I know it I'm down to two masks and get killed by something silly.
 
Healing on the first phase is risky, I generally don't do it. After the first phase you can heal up to about 6 masks if you have the soul so it's often better to get your own hits in. If you start getting low on health in the first phase save the soul and just use the nail on her because you'll need the health. The damage with quick slash and Unbreakable Strength is considerable and only slightly less useful than Abyss Shriek. The other thing is that I only ever use Abyss Shriek when I'm out of range of any possible damage. It's actually quite risky to use against her because of the vulnerable casting frames. As Dirty Shwein says use it at the beginning before the attacks starts but after that I personally would use it very sparingly and I find the nail more reliable.

Two more tips: In the first phase after she teleports wait for her attack before you attack. Don't try to trade blows with her, as tempting as it is because she hits harder. After her attack though she will give you a window before she attacks again (just keep in mind the spikes from left and right and the wipe will still come.)
Also in the first phase it is often a good idea to dash through the light-wipe before it reaches halfway, because The Radiance will rarely attack before it goes past halfway at which point you will then have to avoid the wipe and her own attacks.
 
)_( said:
@Moby
My set up is grubsong, livebloodcore, shaman stone and soul catcher.
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Wow I would be worried myself going in with that setup:lol:. Lifeblood core and soul catcher are terribly inefficient. Do you have all the charms, notches and upgrades? Lifeblood core will last you one and a half Radiance hits.

If you don't have the unbreakable charms then Quick Slash, Shaman Stone and Spell Twister are essentials. And then Long Nail or Mark of Pride would be my pick for you. Grubsong is a good one though.
 
dumbo said:
Wow I would be worried myself going in with that setup:lol:. Lifeblood core and soul catcher are terribly inefficient. Do you have all the charms, notches and upgrades? Lifeblood core will last you one and a half Radiance hits.

If you don't have the unbreakable charms then Quick Slash, Shaman Stone and Spell Twister are essentials. And then Long Nail or Mark of Pride would be my pick for you. Grubsong is a good one though.
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Lifeblood heart not core I meant and some other stuff too. But I've tried every possible set up and none of it has really worked so far. I need the lifeblood charms because I need the health and then I might possibly get through it with a bit of luck. Soul catcher because soul eater takes up too much space that I need for other charms. I have all the charms, notches and upgrades.

Yea I had that issue with the light wall that I waited too long and then she started attacking with other things, I should also save my dashes for these moments and just walk when I can to avoid things because now I keep wasting some shadowdashes on things that don't need it.

Tried it again a few times just now till I got sick of it. I am slowly getting a bit better at dodging things but usually if I hit one thing and I get off balance and it'll go downhill from there.

Good to know, I tried to attack her a few times after she teleported and got fecked. I just need to remember that dodging is the number one priority and not attacking. I keep going full on but that doesn't work in this fight.
 
)_( said:
Lifeblood heart not core I meant and some other stuff too. But I've tried every possible set up and none of it has really worked so far. I need the lifeblood charms because I need the health and then I might possibly get through it with a bit of luck. Soul catcher because soul eater takes up too much space that I need for other charms. I have all the charms, notches and upgrades.

Yea I had that issue with the light wall that I waited too long and then she started attacking with other things, I should also save my dashes for these moments and just walk when I can to avoid things because now I keep wasting some shadowdashes on things that don't need it.

Tried it again a few times just now till I got sick of it. I am slowly getting a bit better at dodging things but usually if I hit one thing and I get off balance and it'll go downhill from there.

Good to know, I tried to attack her a few times after she teleported and got fecked. I just need to remember that dodging is the number one priority and not attacking. I keep going full on but that doesn't work in this fight.
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You're hands are gonna sweat when you get to the final stage :lol:
 
I believe Spell Twister is twice as soul efficient as Soul Catcher.

Quick Focus would be another option instead of Soul Catcher and lifeblood heart. It would allow you to heal in the first phase of Radiance.

I think your damage per second is too low with the current build.
 
dumbo said:
I might take Godseeker a flower now.
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And then a bad thing happened.
id-1.jpg
 
Dirty Schwein said:
You're hands are gonna sweat when you get to the final stage :lol:
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I cant tell you how many times I've somehow managed to open screenrecorder or the ps4 menu screen during these fights. No clue how cause my fingers aren't supposed to be anywhere near these buttons.
dumbo said:
I believe Spell Twister is twice as soul efficient as Soul Catcher.

Quick Focus would be another option instead of Soul Catcher and lifeblood heart. It would allow you to heal in the first phase of Radiance.

I think your damage per second is too low with the current build.
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Okay might give this a try. I've given a life build a try but I kept getting fecked by thk somehow. It did give me the opportunity to practise dodging in the radiance fight for longer so it was useful for that at least but it doesn't really work in a fight where you need to get as much damage in every opportunity you get.

This moth just needs to die at this point.
 
)_( said:
I cant tell you how many times I've somehow managed to open screenrecorder or the ps4 menu screen during these fights. No clue how cause my fingers aren't supposed to be anywhere near these buttons.

Okay might give this a try. I've given a life build a try but I kept getting fecked by thk somehow. It did give me the opportunity to practise dodging in the radiance fight for longer so it was useful for that at least but it doesn't really work in a fight where you need to get as much damage in every opportunity you get.

This moth just needs to die at this point.
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Bro screw the lifeblood and stuff like that. Spell twister and shamans stone are absolute necessity. Beyond that take your pick between strength quick slash and long nail. The key things for me getting past phase two with abyss shriek spam. Then phase 3 is easy as hell you just jump and smash it and collect soul. Heal before phase 4 then like Dumbo said wait on lower platforms. Long nail will help in getting strikes in at that point plus that's where you need to find healing windows. That's what I had in the one run I completed. Beyond that it's just the climb and one hit so that phase 4 is mainly the game changer. But those two spell charms finish first two phases which is where most people end up taking most damage.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I dont think I can even do 25% of that if my actual life depended on it.
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I pretty much have developed PTSD from those spikes from white palace so just watching those things inside a boss fight sent shivers down my spine.

Also that Nosk fight. :lol: Think that's the first time I ever saw a slide in this game.
 
Moby said:
@dumbo you might wanna try this.

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Oh yeah I saw that earlier when looking for mod ideas to try. Very neat. I'm not sure if that Pantheon mod has been released yet but I think you can get all the modded bosses individually. I've only just started playing around with the installer. I tried one of the Mantis Lords mods and it was super quick and hard.

The use of the melody charm was interesting. I have it on one of my completion saves so I might try it out with some mods. I also still have the white mask which is apparently viable.

More impressive than the skill of the players is the designs of some of these mods. Someone turned the Radiance into a bullet hell and another imported a Cuphead level.
 
I've started working my way through the mod bosses. I just did Mantis Gods which were really fun once you get into the rhythm. Not too hard, and only took me about 10 minutes. If you stock up on soul on the first Mantis and then abuse D-Dark on the other two you can avoid most of the chaos.

Here's them done by an expert without DD:
 
And Tribe of Battle. Was harder than Mantis Gods because they have more health and you can't just abuse DD. It's a real clusterfecck of a fight and I just scrambled through it.

Done well it looks like this:


Will try some more tomorrow.
 
dumbo said:
I've started working my way through the mod bosses. I just did Mantis Gods which were really fun once you get into the rhythm. Not too hard, and only took me about 10 minutes. If you stock up on soul on the first Mantis and then abuse D-Dark on the other two you can avoid most of the chaos.

Here's them done by an expert without DD:
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I remember seeing this (or a video like this) when I first started the game and therefore avoided Mantis Lords (thinking this was that) in the actual game. When I finally faced them, it was one of the easiest battles in the game. Probably because this video scared me :lol:
 
fecksake, finally got to the last phase. I didn't even realise at first and was just confused about where she was so then I started moving up and managed to get fecked by the void twice as I was dodging the beams and then as you can imagine, I got to the last platform and got hit by a fecking beam with only two masks left but enough soul for 1 or 2 heals.

Pantheon of nightmares looks nuts and then you hear fireb0rn say he removed the lifeblood cocoons because that would make it too easy....
 
I want to do another play through just to attempt watcher Knights with zero nail or spell upgrades and no charms like strength. I feel like I missed out on that fight as I was just able to smack them into oblivion. With a base build that would be really fun to chop them down bit by bit and evading those attacks for ages.
 
Moby said:
I want to do another play through just to attempt watcher Knights with zero nail or spell upgrades and no charms like strength. I feel like I missed out on that fight as I was just able to smack them into oblivion. With a base build that would be really fun to chop them down bit by bit and evading those attacks for ages.
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You could always just fight the Ascended version in Hall of Gods. They've got tons more health and do double damage then, should be a challenge.

I've actually started another playthrough, this time on PC (instead of PS4). It's insane how easy everything is on your second playthrough. I've forgotten a lot and I'm still exploring a lot so it's not particularly fast or anything, but 5 hours in, Hornet, Mantis Lords, Soul Master, Crystal Guardian, Brooding Mawlek are all down without a single death to them. I'm not even sure I'd made it past Hornet in that time in my furst run. I did have one death outside of boss fights due to being careless.

And I don't know what came over me, but I did save Zote again, bloody hell! :lol:
 
Ainu said:
You could always just fight the Ascended version in Hall of Gods. They've got tons more health and do double damage then, should be a challenge.

I've actually started another playthrough, this time on PC (instead of PS4). It's insane how easy everything is on your second playthrough. I've forgotten a lot and I'm still exploring a lot so it's not particularly fast or anything, but 5 hours in, Hornet, Mantis Lords, Soul Master, Crystal Guardian, Brooding Mawlek are all down without a single death to them. I'm not even sure I'd made it past Hornet in that time in my furst run. I did have one death outside of boss fights due to being careless.

And I don't know what came over me, but I did save Zote again, bloody hell! :lol:
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Clearly you fecking love the guy.
 
For some reason I'm once again fighting the 10 stages of Grey Prince Zote, currently beaten him 5 times. I figure if I can get this far, I could probably beat each stage on a good day. Maybe my days of hating Zote are over @dumbo :lol:
 
Ainu said:
For some reason I'm once again fighting the 10 stages of Grey Prince Zote, currently beaten him 5 times. I figure if I can get this far, I could probably beat each stage on a good day. Maybe my days of hating Zote are over @dumbo :lol:
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Good to hear. As long as you maximise your charm set up and keep at it you'll get it.

I continued playing through some of the mods for a while. I did a bonfire mod which had a soulsborne levelling system and a bunch of the modded bosses. All good stuff, with some really impressive designs. The more you mod it though the more it feels like you're playing this ungainly Frankenstein thing that is moving further and further away from the spirit of the original game, which is what you fell in love with originally. The original unmodded game is a finely crafted thing with a purposeful end point and a finite difficulty spike. The mods are fun but I think it's now wrung dry for me. I'll definitely return to the base game in the future and do another full play through. Silksong is what we now look to.

I want to tell you all to come over to Rain World because I want other people to have the same incredible experience I'm having, but it really is quite a grind to start with and you sort of need to be a little bit of a compulsive weirdo to push through that initial opaqueness. I'm 70 hours in and I've only just started to feel fully in control of my slugcat. It really isn't comparable to Hollow Knight or any Metroidvania, or anything really.
 
Just completed the Path of Pain again, actually a little disappointed it was still more of a struggle than I would've thought. This time I ditched the Hiveblood in favour of just Grubsong and Deep Focus and included Shaman Stone to spam strong Desolate Dives on the Kingsmoulds at the end. That worked well but the problem is there's actually one segment without a soul statue where I almost ran out of health, so it's not perfect. Still, made it through. It's a shame you can't enter it again afterwards. It requires 1800 essence to get there so it takes quite some time from a fresh start.
 
I've decided to go for the Pantheons this time around. It might just be my imagination, but I feel a lot more comfortable playing this on PC. Perhaps it's just my skill that's improved, or perhaps playing on a 144Hz display with 1ms input latency really does make that much of a difference in this game. Trial of the Fool only gave me minimal trouble this time, that's something. I'm now working on learning Sly's moves but I've got the rest of that third pantheon on lock. I've been fighting high level Zotes for so god damned long that his 1 damage Pantheon version is practically harmless. I think I might go all the way, but let's see if my motivation holds,
 
Ainu said:
I've decided to go for the Pantheons this time around. It might just be my imagination, but I feel a lot more comfortable playing this on PC. Perhaps it's just my skill that's improved, or perhaps playing on a 144Hz display with 1ms input latency really does make that much of a difference in this game. Trial of the Fool only gave me minimal trouble this time, that's something. I'm now working on learning Sly's moves but I've got the rest of that third pantheon on lock. I've been fighting high level Zotes for so god damned long that his 1 damage Pantheon version is practically harmless. I think I might go all the way, but let's see if my motivation holds,
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I salute you!
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I salute you!
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Thanks, still a long way to go though.

Third Pantheon is down, really easy all things considered. The fourth one is going to be a real struggle. There are some bosses in there I've often face tanked, not to mention I've never even attempted Lost Kin without Defender's Crest, which is a waste of a charm here. I'll need a lot of practice before I attempt it.
 
@dumbo How long did it take you to get consistent on Pure Vessel? I've been at it for a couple of hours and I'm still not even close to a 50% success rate. The triple slash is a real problem for me, the hitboxes on that thing are insane.

Edit: Okay, I'm getting somewhere. Won 8 out of the last 10. This fight is relentless but brilliantly designed. It's a shame only a fraction of players ever get to experience it.
 
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Jump pogoing his attacks is the key to consistency. Dashing through the attacks should be a last resort. Sounds like you're getting there though. On his aoe attack I dash away from his down attack and then desolate dive.
 
dumbo said:
Jump pogoing his attacks is the key to consistency. Dashing through the attacks should be a last resort. Sounds like you're getting there though. On his aoe attack I dash away from his down attack and then desolate dive.
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For some reason I don't like pogoing him. I limit myself to double jumping but getting in 2 quick hits while I'm falling. I managed to get him hitless 3 times in a row while training, reached him in the 4th Pantheon on full health and died anyway. :lol: So stupid. Got him easily the next time though, so I've only got Pantheon of Hallownest left now. First goal will be to reach and learn Sisters of Battle, then I'll have to train some particularly annoying ascended arenas and do something about my NKG consistency.

What were your worst fights in the Pantheon? I'm assuming Markoth will be a nightmare but for some reason I often struggle on Lost Kin. I'm just never confident going into that fight. I'm fairly confident in my ability to become pretty consistent on NKG. Yeah he's fast but the rhythm is a bit more forgiving than Pure Vessel for me. Pure Vessel is by far my favourite fight in the entire game at the moment. It's utterly brilliant, I could (and did) fight him for hours and not get bored. Hell I would do an entire Pantheon of Pure Vessels.
 
Moby said:
Go with the speedrun strat. D-Dive + facetank like there's no tomorrow. Same for Sly.
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That's pretty much what I ended up doing most of the time. Only Enraged Guardian before him so easy to reach with high/full health and No Eyes after so should be easy to heal up again. I've never really struggled with Sly, don't know why he's considered hard. He'll get me a couple of times but I find that fight fairly easy to control.
 
Ainu said:
For some reason I don't like pogoing him. I limit myself to double jumping but getting in 2 quick hits while I'm falling. I managed to get him hitless 3 times in a row while training, reached him in the 4th Pantheon on full health and died anyway. :lol: So stupid. Got him easily the next time though, so I've only got Pantheon of Hallownest left now. First goal will be to reach and learn Sisters of Battle, then I'll have to train some particularly annoying ascended arenas and do something about my NKG consistency.

What were your worst fights in the Pantheon? I'm assuming Markoth will be a nightmare but for some reason I often struggle on Lost Kin. I'm just never confident going into that fight. I'm fairly confident in my ability to become pretty consistent on NKG. Yeah he's fast but the rhythm is a bit more forgiving than Pure Vessel for me. Pure Vessel is by far my favourite fight in the entire game at the moment. It's utterly brilliant, I could (and did) fight him for hours and not get bored. Hell I would do an entire Pantheon of Pure Vessels.
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Nice going.

Do you have any of the lifeblood cocoons? At the time of first completing Hallownest I definitely needed them and I'd still need them for a Charmless run. 5 is ideal but you might be able to get by with the base 3.

You might be able to make use of this chart. I made one for each of my binding runs and put my optimum charm build in the blank space, so I could quickly refer to it and not have to remember which charm set up came next. The white lines were important landmarks and safe spots along the way. The bosses highlighted in white were the critical points in a run.
The Collector either requires Strength charm or the ability to effectively use Cyclone Slash because the jar enemies will require a double hit otherwise.
Ummu is easy but requires a good amount of soul or you can get into trouble
Markoth is a nightmare because he requires new strats and you will struggle to leave with any soul left.
Failed Champion before his first knock down is tough off the back of Markoth and Zote. It required you to replenish health and as much soul during Zote's fight. FC hits for double so you might only get a few chances. After his first knockdown though he should be a gimme because you can restore all your health and soul by dream nailing him and pogoing his shell when he's down. After you are fully replenished you can just spam spells from a distance.
Pure Vessel and Absolute Radiance are relatively easy because you get full health (and lifebloods) before PV and then a full health replen before AR. So you don't need to worry about any previous fight bullshit and it's simply a matter of getting consistent with them individually.
I broke it down like this:
hallownest-nail-binding1.jpg
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And the name right. I've been out of the game too long. But yep you can get two dream nails before they attack if you stand on the edge of the top left platform and strike as they rise up and then move back slightly and strike again.
 
dumbo said:
Nice going.

Do you have any of the lifeblood cocoons? At the time of first completing Hallownest I definitely needed them and I'd still need them for a Charmless run. 5 is ideal but you might be able to get by with the base 3.

You might be able to make use of this chart. I made one for each of my binding runs and put my optimum charm build in the blank space, so I could quickly refer to it and not have to remember which charm set up came next. The white lines were important landmarks and safe spots along the way. The bosses highlighted in white were the critical points in a run.
The Collector either requires Strength charm or the ability to effectively use Cyclone Slash because the jar enemies will require a double hit otherwise.
Ummu is easy but requires a good amount of soul or you can get into trouble
Markoth is a nightmare because he requires new strats and you will struggle to leave with any soul left.
Failed Champion before his first knock down is tough off the back of Markoth and Zote. It required you to replenish health and as much soul during Zote's fight. FC hits for double so you might only get a few chances. After his first knockdown though he should be a gimme because you can restore all your health and soul by dream nailing him and pogoing his shell when he's down. After you are fully replenished you can just spam spells from a distance.
Pure Vessel and Absolute Radiance are relatively easy because you get full health (and lifebloods) before PV and then a full health replen before AR. So you don't need to worry about any previous fight bullshit and it's simply a matter of getting consistent with them individually.
I broke it down like this:
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No lifeblood yet, I don't think I'm going to do too many bindings. Maybe the easiest ones, we'll see. The sequence Markoth - GPZ - Failed Champion is not one I'm looking forward to. I generally don't mind Failed Champion because I always abuse his staggers, but coming in with low health will be stressful. Fortunately he staggers really quickly with Unbreakable Strength and Quickslash. It's one of those fights you either die before the first stagger or you finish it with guaranteed full health and soul. I think it's become literally impossible for me to die to him if I enter it with a decent amount of health, funny to look back and think how I ever considered it difficult. :lol:

I'll have to see if I'm going to be mixing up my charms. Unbreakable Strength, Quickslash and Shaman Stone are non-negotiable for me so that only leaves 2 notches. At the moment those are taken by Soul Catcher as you can never have enough soul.

Moby said:
Have heard it a lot, youtubers like reb0 etc swear by it. Shame it is only available in the pantheon as it looks quite fun.
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It's brilliant because it's both relentless and fair. If you're focused you can get him hitless or with minimal damage and it will still feel like he gave you a hell of a fight. If you lose focus for even a split second a single mistake can ruin your rhythm and suddenly you've taken 3 hits for 6 damage in a handful of seconds, and then you're really up against it for the rest of the fight. There are no cheap attacks in this fight, if you take damage you made a mistake. I guess you could say the same about NKG.
 
Ainu said:
It's brilliant because it's both relentless and fair. If you're focused you can get him hitless or with minimal damage and it will still feel like he gave you a hell of a fight. If you lose focus for even a split second a single mistake can ruin your rhythm and suddenly you've taken 3 hits for 6 damage in a handful of seconds, and then you're really up against it for the rest of the fight. There are no cheap attacks in this fight, if you take damage you made a mistake. I guess you could say the same about NKG.
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I guess comparing it to THK would be a massive disservice, but I pretty got used to getting him hitless. It was quite easy to predict pretty much everything but I am guessing even for the attacks the both share, PV would be a lot faster. And of course he has a bunch of added stuff as well.
 
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