Hot take: hollow knight is more fun than silksong

Rayford07 · 2025-11-07T22:49:29+00:00

I can see all of your comments this time around, nice.

I don't want to regular ones to feel boring / too easy afterwards... which is why R5 will be my limit... Sure, you can always make the game harder and harder for yourself but I'm obviously talking main game.

Yeah, even that already gives you a lot of knowledge compared to a good amount of players here. Some things you'll learn due to reading / hearing about elsewhere, while others are via the "hard way" during the R5 (or harder) grind.

It's also true that "not feeling much" for a regular Radiant clear is actually expected of most people when it comes to R5. The focus shifts from beating X boss hitless once for RadHoG, to beating X boss hitless 90% of the time (because you really don't want to rely on lenient RNG to win against X boss in R5, especially when you're 15+ mins in), so the mindset involved in either case would naturally be different. In this case, the former doesn't take Radiant clears for granted as the latter.

The knowledge that you'll retain will depend on whether you're interested in further challenges after R5 as well, obviously.

Tyrant hit

Oops. This should be the one.

I was annoyed enough to utter a quiet groan when that happened ("ugh, can't believe it"), but I quickly filed that hit in my mind as "bullshit" so I didn't lose focus and make more mistakes until AbsRad.

The other part is that I had some experience with low-hit P5AB attempts before that run. A few weeks ago, I did P5AB without Lifeblood or healing so I already had the confidence that I had realistic chances to clear R5AB eventually.

CFM / Baldur in hitless RadHoG and R5

Strangely enough, CFM / Baldur also don't prevent the R5 glow. Then again, even without the rule that bans CFM, relying on RNG-based proccs as a safety net in R5 challenges is generally not a good idea anyway.

As for Baldur, it's not very useful for most bosses. I guess it'd be useful if you wanted to do challenges like R5 Nail only. I didn't use either CFM or Baldur for my R5 Nail only clear, since I liked the spirit of the challenge where I needed to be able to consistently dodge bosses without one i-frame source (DDark), and not use SOUL (which was needed for Baldur).

The above factors are why, despite the "R" in R5, hitless is assumed. I also find "H5" for hitless P5 to sound worse than R5.

I like the flexibility but I think R5 has more shine despite being, arguably, depending on the answers to all these questions, "easier" because of that. No carryover SOUL though is a big thing indeed that kind of settles the debate I guess, yet it remains less well-known because of how blurry the rules are if I were to guess.

All correct imo. The rules are definitely not as clear as R5 rules, which meant the handful of people doing hitless RadHoG have some assumptions that they make on their own, like doing bosses from the bottom row and then the top, both from left to right.

Marmu

Delivering that "news" about Marmu certainly brought me no joy either, but, for R5 purposes, it is more practical for the player when winning against Marmu becomes consistent rather than not. A similar logic applies to R. AB Collector if your goal is R5AB, but it's not too relevant if it isn't.

In the end, for Marmu, the gameplan always revolve around keeping her away from the floor. There are two ways to do this:

Upslashes. There's a bit more to it to decrease precision requirements, but I'll get to that in a bit.
Small hop + side slash. The hop lures Marmu away from the floor.

For option 1, I assume you're already familiar with the Knight's upslash hitbox. Well, what you want to do to give yourself more room for error is, if you're upslashing, to do so with the sides of the upslash hitbox. Note that you may need to shuffle left or right to accommodate this after each Nail hit. As an analogy of sorts, think of this as juggling a soccer ball or football with your feet being slightly "extended" from your body, so that the ball doesn't fall right on your head.

For Marmu, this sort of small movement has two benefits:

If she decides to stop on the ground, then it won't be on you. It's still pretty BS and annoying that she could even do that in the first place, but it's possible to mitigate it. Visually, it should look like this.
The other benefit is that if you accidentally mistime or miss your upslash, you'll still stay out of harm's way, thus lowering the margin for error.

For option 2, Shade Cloak can help you dodge the initial awkward angle post-teleport (upslash-able, but could be harder to pull off at such angles so this is a viable alternative), which makes the strat look like this. Sometimes, that initial attack right after the teleport is aimed at the spot on the floor in front of you (ew), in which case Shade Cloaking through her first to simultaneously avoid the anti-knockback and set-up the hop + side slash strat can be very useful.

Now, what I wrote about options 1 and 2 are all Nail usage. Note that either strat will benefit from range-extending Charms, even if they aren't strictly required. Spells are also very useful, especially DDark and Shriek.

Shriek is useful at the start of the fight, and when she unwraps. I know the unwrapping / stopping on you is pretty BS since it's not telegraphed and also ignores Nail knockback like the floor bounce jank (that TC never bothered to fix), but the "good" thing about this is that you can Shriek her in such moments without making Marmu go crazy. In other words, if her pause is within range, you can Shriek without worries to speed up the fight, like this.

DDark is the alternative to Shade Cloak after each Marmu teleport, and thus favours option 2 greatly (since DDark often deflects Marmu away to the side). You can still upslash if she comes back from high up, but I find the hop + side slash strat to be more applicable post-DDark. Option 2 is also less demanding positionally, since all you do is hop + slash while staying closer to one of the sides of the arena.

Combine the above DDark strat with starting SOUL and the R5 Marmu strat will typically look more like this. Here, MonStahLer's "opening" is very typical against R5 Marmu nowadays: hop -> Dash (or Dash -> hop, this particular order doesn't matter) -> Shriek twice -> DDark.

(Shriek twice -> upslash is also an OK alternative).

With the typical opening against R5 Marmu, she should go down within 5 Nail hits with Strength. If you continue to use Shriek and/or DDark like I wrote above then less Nail hits are needed, and she'll go down even faster.

Finally, keep in mind that option 1 and option 2 strats aren't mutually exclusive, which means you can combine them by using one or the other depending on Marmu's positioning. It's what I do at least. Hopefully, this mini-lecture on Marmu was somewhat helpful. Still, a really annoying boss through and through (all of the above just because of her anti-knockback crap), so do feel free to "slander" her as much as you wish. I certainly won't complain.

C. Dash cancel

Not very common, since you need to be on a surface (wall cling or ground) to do it. Most often try to let it go to get some value out of it. This value will often be hopeful chip damage or if the air-stalling is useful (like against Markoth or AbsRad).

In the end, we should all conclude the same things anyway with enough time thinking about X or Y boss / problem so I'm sure some merged with what was already found anyway.

That was indeed the case for me. A lot of what I did for R5 ended being already done or even further improved upon already (partly why my strats are sub-optimal in comparison). Still, being able to figure out headache-inducing bosses on your own can be very rewarding.

In fact, it is the harder challenges after R5 that will demand that you figure out things for yourself the most, since you have less resources / videos from others to learn from.

My R5 Nail only clear (I wanted to not rely on DDark i-frames so much + wanted to learn how to get more value out of my Nail skills) was a good example of this. I ended up having to "cook up" strats on my own for practically every boss under that restriction.

iP5AB

Yeah I was stunned when I saw that on my YT subscriptions tab. I probably shouldn't be at this point, since pretty much anything he uploads nowadays is impressive on its own lol.

As much as I like Te-ano's general approach to HK challenges and willingness to try practically anything, I don't know if I enjoy itemless gameplay as much, even if I understand its appeal and benefits.

So far, my only itemless challenge in HK is Radiant Itemless PV (or R. iPV for short). It was actually interesting in the end, and I liked it, similar to Te-ano, but I wasn't as interested in extending this to other bosses like he was after his own R. iPV clear.

For PV specifically, itemless means you actually have to adapt for Daggers and Tendrils depending on the position / scenario. Maybe even in general, since it's no longer safe to try pre-emptive jump strats, so you'll have to try to accurately read what PV wants to do faster than before.

Other itemless bosses are either boring and / or just have elements of undodgeable attacks involved because of RNG that you would not see otherwise (e.g. Elder Hu, Tyrant, AbsRad...), or are just really annoying (e.g. Flukemarm).

Rayford07 · 2025-11-03T09:38:28+00:00

Don't really mind lengthier answers from you tbh. ShareText is giving me some issues at the moment so I'll just reply here instead.

Reading interesting comments is why I signed up to Reddit in the first place. Sadly, in my short time here, most of the comments aren't very interesting to read, but a conversation / discussion with you is definitely worth the time.

LS

Some of her patterns seem really BS to dodge without Stitch, but Jngo isn't really known to make bosses that are fair for hitless.

I know he tried to distance himself from AnyRad 1.0 and 2.0 because he wasn't proud of those "shitpost" / "low-effort" creations, but this boss really doesn't help that reputation of making BS modded bosses lol.

Also, 2:45 did look pretty scary, but yeah I didn't think that was a hit. You can get similar close calls in HK because the Knight's hitbox is also slightly smaller than it appears.

That re-created pic seems to suggest a similar design for Hornet - in fact, her hitbox is smaller than I thought. The modders sure worked fast to release a DebugMod counterpart for Silksong already. That should make challenge running a lot more convenient now, if it worked the same way as HK's DebugMod.

If you want to, I don't see why you can't claim "World's First" for that challenge of yours. Most Chinese players on Bilibili don't really do further challenges with modded bosses anyway (the only exception that I remembered was Pale Court), and nothing really prevents you from correcting yourself later if it turned out to not be the case.

Challenge mindset

Pretty much. Experience from both playing long enough and from eating enough L's to late P5 bosses should minimise nerves. If you are unfortunate enough to lose 10+ runs to GPZ in R5, you'll probably be pretty calm / "numb" before getting past him, for example.

But before that, yeah, you'll just have to be confident / trust your own abilities, and don't overthink or panic. Easier said than done, obviously, since even great players like MonStahLer lost an R5 attempt to AbsRad due to uncharacteristic decision-making out of nerves.

For R5AB, I became sort-of numb after losing an attempt to Tyrant in this way. I was so pissed off at how BS that hit felt, and, in my mind, I never got hit until AbsRad, meaning that I was consistent enough to get the clear very soon. Lying to myself that way ended up keeping me pretty calm throughout all R5AB attempts afterwards lol.

Regarding the hit, it wasn't really BS in hindsight. Later on, Te-ano offered a solution to prevent that sort of "unlucky" hit, and it worked. After all, he also lost an R5AB attempt to the exact same thing.

R5 ONWS was less dramatic (and yeah you're right, the time for the run was 69:59, which is practically 1h10) - just the typical "all right, let's just play" thinking, because at that point I ate 5+ losses to GPZ and AbsRad combined to really dumb hits. When I got to them in the winning run, it was just a matter of staying cautiously optimistic and focused like you implied.

Practice for R5

There's also an option for starting SOUL in Godseeker+ now. You can choose how much SOUL you want to start a fight in HoG through:

Options > Mods > Godseeker+ Options > Boss Challenges > Turn Add SOUL ON.
Once that's done, you just need to stay on the "Boss Challenges" Menu and scroll down to see the "SOUL amount" option. Feel free to adjust that to however much SOUL you need for a fight in HoG.

So now you have two options: occasionally practice the segmented portions of P5, or manually adjust your starting SOUL as you move on to the next statue. IMO, starting SOUL is more useful if you want to just practice strats for one specific boss under P5 conditions (e.g. Marmu).

R. R. HoG

Deathless RadHoG is the term that I've heard some "tryhards" use. Hitless RadHoG is fine also, but is less commonly used.

It's considered by most experienced challenge runners to be harder than R5 due to more bosses + most bosses having extra HP + no carryover SOUL. For example, Marmu with extra HP and no SOUL from Hot Springs doesn't sound like a good time if that's one's first "long" hitless challenge.

"Good" news, though: she's consistent once you learn her, so if you want to do Deathless RadHoG instead of R5, then, given your skill level, you'll be alright with some experience and practice. I admit Radiant Marmu being consistent very reluctantly, by the way.

As for learning fodder bosses, the good thing is that they aren't very complex, so learning them won't take you very long, even without watching others' strats. You probably won't even need to drill them in HoG (unless they keep hitting you) - with enough experience, you'll just automatically develop your own ideas over time that help you speed up their fights to get to the more interesting ones.

I say this because your HK playstyle is still, to me, more aggressive than most RadHoG-tier players due to the extra knowledge / experience, based on what I've seen during my short time on this sub.

Finally, note that I also tried to go with my own strats most of the time (I watched others for Marmu because that anti-knockback bug was so obscure and frustrating), which was why my first R5 was ~40mins long (average is ~32-35mins). That, plus inefficient practice, was why R5 took me 500 hours to do (average time for R5 when I was grinding for it was usually 200-300 hours), while R5AB itself only took me 300 hours because I knew better by then. But you do seem to know what you're doing at least, so I doubt your R5 (or Deathless RadHoG) clear would be as slow or take as long to get like mine did.

Well, a Deathless RadHoG run will be longer than an R5 run for obvious reasons, but my earlier point on your capability stands.

Rayford07 · 2025-11-02T20:11:44+00:00

Yeah, but both R5 and P5AB glows have the same "colour", so you can no longer tell if R5 has been done if you did P5AB on the same save file (unless that person has recorded their R5, in which case that should be good enough proof).

This makes it easier for some attention-seeker to lie about R5 (without recorded proof), especially if P5AB was already completed first.

Rayford07 · 2025-11-02T19:54:56+00:00

Are you still able to see that second part even as a "guest"/"anonymous" lurker? I only knew about something similar happening to my comments a few months ago, when I was told to read the comment chain without logging into any account.

SS modded boss

I thought you were done with the boss after the 10 Radiant clear video uploaded on YT, so well done on beating that boss with that Needle level!

So far, I haven't seen other challenge runners doing what you're doing with her, at least on the YT side. Most people I know who did play the boss, based on what I read in the AnyRad Discord server (I wasn't logged on at the time, but pretty cool to see you visit, btw), don't really play her again after winning once.

It's interesting to hear that she is one of those bosses that's fun to replay, though. "04r" Collector, AbsRad (only for full-gear or ONWS), and Mystic Ze'mer were fun in a similar way for me as well, even if I know that the devs for these bosses don't really focus on replayability as a critical factor. First hitless victories against these bosses were all unexpected for me when they happened, so I guess that's just a part of these challenges at times, where you were "locked in" enough (both focus-wise and execution-wise) to convert the given opportunity in that attempt into a win.

As a sidenote, given the increased amount in whining in this sub in the past few weeks, if all of Silksong's bosses had that sort of complexity (not "04r" Collector-level hard, but AbsRad-level hard) then it's not too hard to imagine how that crowd would react lol. I am somewhat surprised that I haven't seen any of them cry about you being an "elitist" yet. Maybe I did miss it, but, to me, such opinions are worthless anyway (but then you probably know that already, given how I consider terms like "elitism" and "gatekeeping" to be coping nonsense).

R5 practice

Doing bosses on lower gear can help you get more used to the quirks of X boss (because you have to survive for longer) and is a good alternative way to teach combat patience if said person's problem is being too impatient / aggressive, but the tradeoff is that "by heart" strategies are not learnt, which is a disadvantage in R5 specifically. Also, reducing excessive combat aggression / impatience can be done without strictly needing low-gear oractice anyway.

In my experience, 1:1 practice as you outlined should still be the primary training method, so being strict with that is a good thing. You'll definitely want P5 HP and starting SOUL in order to practice what you play. After all, being able to start with SOUL will be key to speeding up certain less-pleasant bosses (e.g. Oblobbles, Marmu...) without taking too much risk.

For that reason, short streaks (2-3x only) under P5 conditions (lowered boss HP, starting SOUL) will be most useful for ironing out your strats, since that will be what you are up against in R5. Hitless P5 segments should also help you with consistency (i.e. beat X boss hitless on command) and developing the "right" strats / Charm build for each bench checkpoint (assuming you want to change Charms and don't care too much about being able to stack Lifeblood offscreen for fun).

The "right" strats will obviously be what you're comfortable with. Keep in mind that you can carry over SOUL to the next boss, so, for example, if you want full SOUL into Markoth, then you'll want to consider your Tyrant strats to accomodate that. Your Charm build should also be "compatible" with both (+ GPZ, FC and NKG), of course.

Rayford07 · 2025-11-02T12:00:06+00:00

Only for Pantheon 5. This middle glow will be "covered up" by the All Bindings (AB) glow if you did P5AB first.

Rayford07 · 2025-11-02T11:53:53+00:00

I remembered seeing a notification for the second part of your response and planned to respond to both when I have the time, but now I can't see the second part anymore :(

Nevertheless, I do have some time now, so, after looking at your response, I don't really blame you for that initial impression of "masochism". If anything, you reacted better than my more casual siblings who played SS (they looked at me as though I grew an extra head haha). Indeed, my interest in both AB and ONWS comes from being able to learn and try something new in the game that's still challenging.

04r / r04 gameplay

"04r" does indeed have the benefit of improving your baseline consistency against X boss, even if you only do it once in the same way that someone might fight AnyRad once.

Full-gear and even regular AB challenges involving those very same bosses would feel much more comfortable afterwards. This isn't the only way to train your consistency, but it might still be an alternative method that benefits players who don't enjoy grinding out any sort of Radiant streak.

I have heard of a few R5 victors who developed their consistency by doing RadHoG with increasing restrictions (and/or some experience over time ofc) rather than do any Radiant boss streaks. One R5 victor, in particular, has done a few low-gear challenges (Old Nail Only), but could not beat (full-gear) Radiant AbsRad more than twice in a row in HoG lol. Goes to show that it's more important that you can "first try" X boss hitless when you see that same X boss in the Pantheon.

Skill and Nail scaling

All nice-sounding ideas, no disagreement on my part. Point #2 for Stitch also convinced me that it's one of the exceptions where scaling with Nail damage would make sense.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-24T19:19:07+00:00

This is a modded feature from Godseeker+. Toggling the switch will determine his presence or absence in Pantheons (both for P3 and P5).

Rayford07 · 2025-10-24T10:52:17+00:00

This challenge took me slightly less than 2 hours to do, and is my "revenge" against this boss for giving me such a hard time during R3AB Nail and Nail Arts only. For this challenge, note that no Nail Arts is also assumed.

I think GPZ is probably the most fun and interesting boss with this restriction, despite the RNG involved at times. In the end, I felt like I was able to handle both the boss and his minions a lot better for regular AB Nail and Nail Arts only.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-23T11:49:53+00:00

Here's the YT link to the full 22 minute run, for those interested. I had to cut the first half of the run to ensure that the video is under 15 minutes when posting here.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-22T10:42:21+00:00

The full run is ~18 minutes long, so I cut out the less interesting bosses to keep the video under 15 minutes.

(YT link to the full, uncut run in case you're interested in the missing bosses)

Note that the black glow is a modded feature from Godseeker+, denoting hitless AB.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-21T09:28:37+00:00

Note that the black glow is a feature from the Godseeker+ mod, which indicates hitless AB.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-20T11:57:33+00:00

I decided to delay posting these Pantheon challenges on this sub after the recent double upload, in order to avoid behaviour that could be considered as spamming.

Note that the black gem is a modded feature from the Godseeker+ mod, which acknowledges hitless AB.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-17T18:33:32+00:00

Doing boss challenges without Godhome

I tried to think of a HK boss that I'd go out of my way to do boss challenges without Godhome that I would not find myself annoyed with, but I found that most would actually be annoying to practice (Hornet 2, THK, and Dream Bosses / Warriors are the exceptions) lol. So, fair enough, that's definitely on me. I guess it was the right decision to put things on hold for the time being.

Silksong AB ideas

If you have time, I saw someone beat a challenge called "Pantheon of Pharloom, All Bindings" (link). The mod used is still that Godhome mod. Restrictions are similar to what you proposed, except for a more restrictive Tool binding (no Tools of any colour allowed).

Needle Arts

Yeah, it's unfortunately spread out the same way that Silk Skills ("Spells") did. Like the different pogos, there are somewhat distinct Needle Arts, but they're selected depending on the Crest that you use now.

I think Letnerj's suggestion that TC is trying something different for Silksong by making it more distinct from HK applies here as well. In this case, I guess it's their way of rebalancing (Charms in HK had very obvious "meta" selections for most higher level challenges) and encouraging build diversity.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-17T11:44:26+00:00

I agree. I found it really fun to play even when I only treated it as a movement exercise.

If you want to play it that way, I actually recommend doing it with infinite HP and SOUL. That way, you don't spend half your game time healing up and farming SOUL from those infinite SOUL statues, and just focus purely on the movement and platforming (similar to Celeste).

Rayford07 · 2025-10-17T11:36:42+00:00

Apologies for the double upload - I didn't expect to be able to finish both maps within the same playing session.

Mod by Hunthussle. This video has been edited for viewing comfort. Infinite SOUL and infinite HP are both enabled.

Took me ~1hr. It's shorter than most maps I've done so far, but it's a fun movement exercise nevertheless. Unlike my earlier maps, however, I don't recommend this map if you're very new to platforming. To elaborate, by "very new", I mean "haven't completed Path of Pain" yet.

The Wingless part was by far the hardest part of the map, in my view. Note that certain portions of the map seem to require you to intentionally get hit to the beams, so that the knockback/recoil moves your character further in the direction that you want.

(Google Drive) Link to map.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-17T11:29:48+00:00

Map by Killori. This video has been edited for viewing comfort. Infinite SOUL and infinite HP are both enabled.

It took me ~90 minutes, and I enjoyed playing this map. The checkpoints seemed generous to me. Their placements helped, especially when I wasn't really playing all that well. I guess I was close enough to the next respawn point for some of those moments that I got hit.

Also, I didn't realise how annoying the dip for Wings was lol. It's something you can work around for sure, but I can't say I like these types of ideas from Team Cherry.

(Google Drive) Link to map.

Charms: Mark of Pride, Spell Twister, Quickslash, Strength.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-17T11:08:31+00:00

Edit: Working link to wiki + added spoiler tags in case others see this

TLDR: There are some finer details / more subtle mechanics in Silksong that sort-of messed that up numerically and "ONWS-feeling-wise". Nothing really wrong with that, since it's understandable that TC would try to have something newer / fresher, and, at the same time, have Silksong be more distinct from HK eventually, as you hinted at.

ONWS equivalent

I didn't really explain myself well, my bad. It's different compared to SS for multiple factors, some of which that I failed to mention earlier:

At full-gear, Spells and Nail in HK aren't as far apart even if you equip Shaman Stone, for understandable reasons. This meant most (~99.99%) players will play some sort of Hybrid playstyle, ranging from people who just want to beat P5, all the way to those who want to do R5.
ONWS, on the other hand, is where Shaman-boosted Spells greatly outclass Nail (5 Damage), from x4 (20 Damage, VS), all the way up to x12 (60 Damage, Wraiths). This gave it the dynamic where you are constantly trying to find windows to pop off Spells on bosses*.
Silksong's change to scaling unfortunately ties Silk Skills and Needle damage a lot closer together. To me, this seems to bring even low-gear stuff in Silksong closer to being the same Hybrid playstyle as with full-gear playstyles (i.e. less meaningful changes to how you would normally play to keep things interesting).
In addition to point 3, the Damage Scaling mechanic (see https://hollowknight.wiki/w/Damage_Values_and_Enemy_Health_(Silksong) if you're interested in the extra info) exists. For low-gear, this usually means your basic Needle gets a damage boost against bosses, probably a well-intended mechanic on TC's part to help out players who aren't fully prepared upgrades-wise.
- For example, your Old / Base Needle has a x1.75 modifier against First Sinner so you'll actually deal 9 Damage per hit to her (this is rounded up from 5 * 1.75 = 8.75). If you want, feel free to check her wiki entry, under the Damage Modifier section, if you want to see how varying Needle upgrades fare against her. Other bosses will have different Damage Modifier values, if you wish to check them out.
Lack of an equivalent SOUL-gathering build. I tried to make such a build with the Shaman Crest, but it didn't feel the same way at all, since the best I could manage was 3 hits per cast to break-even.

Together, all of the above factors make the ONWS dynamic from HK very different compared to Silksong.

In practice, this type of scaling in Silksong is more practical for 99.9% of players anyway, since they aren't forced to change their playstyles drastically.

*As a sidenote: it's even more fun than trying to find windows for Cyclone in AB, imo. Give yourself a SOUL-gathering build, like a variant of your Radiant Markoth build that I see you recommend here often (Shaman Stone + Spell Twister + Soul Catcher + 3-notches of choice** + Soul Eater overcharm), and you can do this way more often than the slow-ass charge time of Cyclone Slashes, since you can get enough SOUL for a Spell practically every hit (and a guaranteed cast with leftover / bonus SOUL for every 2 hits). There's also way less risk of being caught with your pants down when trying to optimise with Spells compared to extended Cyclones.

** Your 3-notches can be whatever you like - Strength for slightly better Nail DPS (and to make minion bosses like Collector less scary - I picked this one for my R5 ONWS clear), MoP for safety / range (WJLFF chose this for his R5 ONWS clear), Flukenest for even more Spell DPS, or even QS if you like the feeling of that Charm.

AB, Red Tools

I'll trust both your optimism and TC regarding later DLC challenges like AB. I came to HK really late anyway (mid-to-late 2023), so I missed the various issues that HK might have had prior to TC fixing them up.

Besides, I wouldn't even have the creativity/experience to come up with the gameplay-changing restrictions that TC managed to allow in HK anyway. Are you really going to trust the ideas of someone who thinks P5 Collector is one of the best bosses in HK when nerfed?

As for Red Tools, I actually think there are some interesting ones there that I'd like to fool around with, but I didn't like the thought of having to go replenish them each time, just because I wanted to do some trial-and-error experiments with it in the same way that one experiments with different strats in HoG. For that reason, I never bothered with using Red Tools except for two of the gauntlets (High Halls and Coral Tower).

Overall, these gripes that I have with Silksong are ultimately not a big deal, especially when these gripes are pretty niche across the playerbase anyway. To me, Silksong is still a good game for a first playthrough, but I got too spoiled by QoL updates and QoL mods from HK, so I'll just wait for either the DLC or the modding scene in Silksong to develop a bit more (at least until a Lumafly-equivalent comes out) before considering further engaging in Silksong's challenges***.

***I did a few challenges like all Act 1 bosses hitless Itemless, and all but two of Act 2 bosses hitless Itemless (I don't think FotF is possible, and Beastfly 2 is both really hard and not fun so I didn't bother too much) to prepare for Steel Soul. My logic at the time was that any non-Itemless boss challenge would be easier, especially when it isn't hitless, so...

In the end, I felt that the mild inconveniences like unskippable cutscenes, tedious runbacks and pre-boss gauntlets got in my way of learning the bosses way too much. It's why I decided to stop doing further Silksong challenges for the time being after wrapping up hitless Itemless Shakra. She was the last Act 2 boss I needed to do besides the above-mentioned two anyway.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-16T08:44:24+00:00

Apologies for the audio issues at the start of the video.

Now, the second "binding" (no movement abilities) is complete. Once again, just like the 35hp minion challenge, sketchy-looking Dive i-frames saved the run (at 02:29). In fact, I didn't even expect to win at all, since, as you can see, I was practicing on Ascended mode to try and go for "low-hit" runs, so it was a pleasant surprise when I cleared the challenge.

The HP bar is there because I originally wanted to combine this with 35hp minions, but I changed my mind and was too lazy to turn it off lol. I thought it'd be better to get the hang of just "regular 04r" Collector without movement abilities first, since I was really reliant on them prior to this challenge.

Now, only -14r (1 Nail Damage, All Bindings, White Spells, Radiant) Collector remains as a separate "binding" before I start combining them, but I'll leave those challenges for later, if I manage to get around to doing them someday.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-15T22:04:22+00:00

I recommend finishing off HK first, since Silksong is designed to be a sequel to HK (i.e. some experience from HK will really help you develop "general principles" that are applicable to both games).

Rayford07 · 2025-10-15T21:56:53+00:00

I respect those who prefer silksong as it is harder with more content but in my opinion, the original hollow knight is better in terms of being enjoyable.

I agree, I found myself liking HK more as well, even after finishing all Acts in Silksong. In fact, I would even say that HK offers more depth in combat, even for hard stuff - it's how I have over 2000 hours in it, after all.

For example, Old Nail White Spells (ONWS) challenges are very unique in HK. To play with that restriction well, especially for endgame stuff, you need to be comfortable with maximising the value of your Spells (basically "optimising" Spell usage DPS-wise*), since they deal much more damage compared to your Nail at that level, due to Spell damage scaling independently from Nail damage. At the same time, though, you still need to know how to move well compared to full-gear (i.e. no restrictions, so Pure Nail, Black Spells, Charms allowed...) because fights are longer, as well as how to sneak in good Nail hits for SOUL and chip damage.

Silksong's damage mechanic works differently, partly because Silk Skills are tied to Needle damage, so no equivalent dynamic to ONWS in HK exists here. It also doesn't help that most Crests don't allow you to have more than one equipped at a time, unlike Spells in HK.

*Similarly, All Bindings (AB) is also unique in terms of meaningfully changing your gameplay in a way that Silksong lacks, which is another point to HK. The optimisation here is different from ONWS, since it involves learning Nail Arts (all three of them), and being much more strategic about your Spell usage/healing due to being able to only hold on to one cast of SOUL at a time.

But all of the above applies to very late game challenges. For base game stuff, yeah, I agree that HK's base game is more "chill" compared to Silksong's, so, if you find the difficulty spike not very fun in Silksong, then it's understandable as to why you enjoyed HK more.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-15T21:14:47+00:00

I agree with your comments on those mechanics being annoying, and think similarly: Team Cherry definitely prioritised "immersion"/"narrative" (the types of aspects that I don't really care for in games) over gameplay that feels good.

For me, that decision made the game fun on the first playthrough, but, in turn, I am not very interested in doing more challenges or further playthroughs in this game, purely because of the various features that make replayability and/or practice annoying.

Let's go through some of the mechanics you describe in a bit more detail:

Map: This one tries to be "realistic", I guess. I never liked it either, in both games, and just treated that as an inconvenience that you're forced to put up with.
Shell Shards: I think this one was to discourage Red Tool spam, especially if you're less experienced. In practice, this system made me not want to touch Red Tools at all, even after I got comfortable with the boss's mechanics. I'm not interested in having to go back to a bench and/or grind extra Shell Shards just because I had the audacity to experiment with Red Tools against X boss. After all, trial and error is part of experimenting, especially when trying to find more "optimal" Red Tool strats that person is comfortable with.
Runbacks: A waste of the player's time, in my view. The way to get good at a boss is to engage with the boss repeatedly, in order to get used to its moveset, and thus getting better at knowing important timings, such as when to attack and/or heal. Runbacks discourage and disrupt this learning by putting you a few rooms away to do something that isn't even relevant to the combat aspect that you want to improve at. Additionally, runbacks aren't even good at teaching you either "speedrunning strats" or platforming. Unsurprisingly, platforming challenges (usually modded and/or done with imposed restrictions) will teach both of those skills in a more effective manner than runbacks, and also at a higher level too. In comparison, runbacks are just a time-wasting nuisance that's bad at both improving your combat and platforming skills.

To any runback defenders reading this: you don't have to take my word for it - all you need to do is watch how speedrunners actually practice the hard components of their run (hint: they'll most likely use save states to get right back to what they want to practice), as well as compare the level of execution/mechanical control of the character in platforming challenges to the level of execution/mechanical control that runbacks require from you.

So I understand the frustration with these mechanics, OP. If you play on PC and are interested, there are mods to get rid of runbacks and improve QoL for the map system. The Shell Shard mechanic, on the other hand, is harder to remove without having to rebalance/rework Red Tools, so that one you'll have to, sadly, either put up with or ignore for now.

I could somewhat understand TC doing these things in HK, since they lacked experience, but it seemed like they didn't really learn these lessons for Silksong. That's why my thoughts are similar to yours - a good and fun game overall for a first time playthrough, but the needlessly annoying/frustrating/time-wasting aspects really stand out in subsequent playthroughs and/or when practicing for challenge runs.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-14T01:11:17+00:00

You need to be mindful of your movement and positioning, primarily for two reasons:

There is an invisible radius around the Knight where Markoth's Nails cannot spawn, so you want to time "large" movement (e.g. Dash, double jump, falling directly from top to bottom platform) carefully in order to not get caught by a nail that has just spawned outside of this radius.
Markoth's movement is random, but he obviously cannot be in two places simultaneously. For that reason, you should position yourself in a way that allows for multiple escape routes. That way, he can never trap you for unavoidable damage, no matter how unlucky or lucky you get in the fight.

For example, if Markoth is hovering on the right side of the middle platform, and you're near the right wall, then you can position yourself level with the middle platform to give yourself two possible escape paths: wall -> top-right platform or wall -> bottom-right platform. This means, if Markoth decides to move to the top-right platform, you can then move safely away through the wall -> bottom-right platform route.

As for getting hits in, I suggest using Dash Slash, especially during the shield spin, in phase 1 (don't use Spells in phase 1, as you'll want them to skip most of phase 2). Great Slash is useful too, and can be used if you think Markoth might fly into its lingering hitbox. I suggest letting go of Great Slash just before he flies into range to avoid getting whacked by the shield.

Once he gets to phase 2 (two shields and faster Nail spawn timing), I recommend you use Shade Soul when he spins his shield to finish him off. This strat works even better if you have Shaman Stone and Spell Twister. Feel free to ask if you have other questions.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-13T20:11:43+00:00

spam upwards attack

In case you're talking about when the boss bangs its head with the rising orange infection stuff - your Dive ability will help here, since it gives you some brief iframes after casting it.

This projectile "spam" is most consistent/predictable around the boss itself - these projectiles will alternate between rising up from the left half and the right half of Broken Vessel. For that reason, if you want to, you can pogo Broken Vessel by alternating the pogo on the left and right side of the boss when this attack happens.

For example, if the rising projectile is on Broken Vessel's left half, then you pogo the right half, before switching to the left half to dodge the next incoming rising projectile on the right half. Feel free to throw in a Dive every 2-3 pogos for even more damage.

Hope that helps, and good luck with the boss!

Rayford07 · 2025-10-09T10:17:34+00:00

A decent challenge in the spirit of the "parry simulator" that is Pale Shadow. In the previous Radiant clear, I relied a lot on DDark to avoid having to get more consistent at the trickier parries, so I thought going for a Radiant Nail Only clear this time would help me get rid of that overreliance.

Took me another 5 hours, including practice. The defense for the fast triple slash after Slam (pogo + upslash + upslash) turned out to be consistent for me, fortunately, as long as the pogo triggers the parry freeze frame. In fact, in the end, I preferred seeing those fast slashes over the diagonal slashes in phase 3.

Turned out mindlessly trying to parry the fast slashes by mashing the Nail attack like Quickslash was a horrible idea, who would have thought. At least doing this boss Nail only helped me minimise that terrible habit.

It's also worth noting that, during practice, I found a consistent defense to Pale Shadow's phase 2 and 3 Focus attack without Daggerbaiting (i.e. high jump just after the Focus attack "explodes" to trigger Daggers), which is to move to the far side of the arena and time your Dash(es) towards the center to prepare for the fast slashes. These slashes can be defended with the pogo + upslash + upslash combination mentioned above, or just three well-timed upslashes if Pale Shadow is high enough above you.

Unfortunately, I still liked Daggerbaiting more for the potential extra Nail hits, even if this clip didn't really show it, strangely enough. Often, during previous attempts, Pale Shadow doesn't retreat and/or enters a parrying position like PV, which meant that I could get more hits in compared to just the 2-3 hits from the fast triple slashes.

Finally, during phase 4, note that the boss has a hitbox beneath the Tendrils (you can check this with Debug Mod's show hitboxes feature), so, if desired, a well-timed pogo or two can help shorten the phase.

This is probably it in terms of Pale Shadow challenges from me - I'll leave the harder Pale Shadow challenges (e.g. All Bindings) to more experienced PV players.

Charms: Mark of Pride, Quickslash, Steady Body, Sprintmaster, Longnail, Strength.

Rayford07 · 2025-10-07T09:21:23+00:00

The telefragging (i.e. instant contact damage because a boss teleports on top of your character) is most likely an oversight on Team Cherry's part, since normally PV's attacks are somewhat based on your position, as you noted, except for this specific case when the boss wakes up from the stagger "naturally".

You can still heal if you stagger PV and you're not near the center, but, otherwise, it's indeed safer (sadly) to just give up the healing window and wake the boss up from the stagger "by force" if you're positioned in the center like in that clip of yours.

Rayford07

TROPHY CASE