All Bosses In Hollow Knight: Silksong And How To Beat Them

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Confronting the numerous bosses scattered throughout Pharloom requires more than just quick reflexes—it demands strategic preparation. These formidable adversaries guard critical pathways and progression points, each presenting distinctive combat challenges that test your mastery of Hornet’s abilities. This comprehensive guide contains significant spoilers regarding enemy encounters and game progression.

Our boss strategies follow the natural campaign progression route. Before engaging these powerful foes, we strongly recommend reviewing our beginner’s guide for foundational combat principles and movement techniques.

Given the substantial difficulty spike in certain encounters, we advise collecting key upgrades that enhance Hornet’s durability and damage output. Consider these essential progression guides:

The Moss Mother serves as your introductory boss encounter in Hollow Knight: Silksong, designed to teach fundamental combat mechanics rather than present overwhelming challenge.

Advanced Moss Mother Tactics: Beyond basic pogo attacks, skilled players can maximize damage by timing silk skill usage during her brief recovery periods. Position yourself near walls to limit her sliding trajectory and create predictable attack windows. Many newcomers make the mistake of chasing her directly—instead, anticipate her path and intercept with aerial maneuvers.

Pattern Recognition: Observe that Moss Mother pauses briefly after completing three slide sequences. This creates your optimal healing or heavy damage opportunity. Her attacks follow a predictable rhythm: slide-pause-slide, making her ideal for practicing attack timing and evasion consistency.

Mastering boss encounters requires more than reaction time—it demands strategic application of Hornet’s complete moveset. Each boss has specific vulnerabilities that can be exploited through proper ability sequencing and positioning.

Silk Skill Combinations: Rather than using abilities in isolation, experiment with chaining silk skills together. For example, following an aerial attack with a ground-based silk bind can trap enemies in extended vulnerability states.

Environmental Awareness: Many boss arenas contain environmental hazards or platforms that can be used strategically. Some bosses can be manipulated into damaging themselves on hazards, while others may be forced into predictable patterns based on arena geometry.

Resource Management: Successful boss mastery involves careful management of both health and silk resources. Avoid the common pitfall of exhausting all silk energy early in the fight—maintain reserves for emergency evasion or healing opportunities.

Progression Optimization: Before attempting challenging late-game bosses, ensure you’ve collected at least 6 Mask Shards and 3 Spool Fragments. These upgrades substantially increase your margin for error and damage output potential.

Bellhart Boss Attack Patterns

Understanding early boss mechanics is crucial for building foundational combat skills. The initial encounters teach essential movement and timing principles that will serve you throughout your journey.

• Rip and Tear – This devastating multi-hit combo can rapidly drain your health bar if you fail to recognize the wind-up animation. The key is watching for the distinctive shoulder dip that precedes the attack sequence.
• Bounding Bells – Visual telegraphs appear as straight trajectory lines across your screen. Approximately one second later, bells launch along these paths either vertically or diagonally. Successful evasion requires spatial awareness and quick directional decisions.
• Bell Barrage – When the ground begins vibrating, prepare for spiked bell emergence. The optimal avoidance technique involves maintaining aerial positioning and executing precise pogo bounces just before contacting the hazardous spikes.

Weapon Upgrades and Area Access

After defeating the Widow boss in Bellhart, you’ll acquire the transformative Needolin ability. This upgrade fundamentally changes your Needle weapon’s functionality, allowing you to wield it like a musical instrument. The melodic vibrations emitted can interact with cocoon barriers, granting access to previously inaccessible regions that expand your exploration possibilities significantly.

Weavenest Atla represents one such newly accessible area, connected to Moss Grotto’s lower-right sector. Thorough exploration here leads to the duo Moss Mother encounter. Since you’re essentially facing two iterations of an earlier boss, this battle primarily tests your ability to manage multiple targets while applying previously learned patterns.

Grand Hunt Quest Mechanics

The Skull Tyrant represents a specialized boss category within Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Grand Hunt system. These wish board assignments task you with eliminating specific high-value targets. Initiate the quest at the Bone Bottom wish board, then journey to The Marrow where interacting with environmental clues helps track your quarry. Be aware that attempting to rest at Bone Bottom’s bench later triggers an unexpected Skull Tyrant appearance, demonstrating the dynamic nature of these encounters.

Strategic Optional Battles

The Great Conchflies encounter remains technically optional but provides valuable combat experience. Their movement patterns across rooms create distinctive rumbling effects on surfaces that indicate vertical or horizontal traversal. Adopt a measured approach, landing precise strikes when targets pass within range. Eliminating just one of the two creatures concludes the engagement, allowing strategic resource conservation.

Key-Locked Gauntlet Encounters

Accessing certain boss battles requires obtaining a Simple Key first. This item unlocks the ornate door positioned below the vendor and bench room. Prepare for an extensive traversal through multiple chambers filled with environmental hazards including lava pools and explosive enemies. The looping path eventually culminates in a demanding gauntlet-style confrontation against two coordinated opponents.

Weak Point Targeting Mechanics

Certain Hollow Knight: Silksong boss battles emphasize precision targeting over general aggression. The giant wicker man confrontation requires specifically attacking flame-spewing lanterns mounted on its structure. The Delver’s Drill tool, located in the Underworks zone, provides the ideal solution. This implement enables double-jump maneuvers combined with pogo actions, followed by downward drilling motions that deliver multiple hits to each lantern. The battle’s second phase shifts focus to the exact center of the boss’ body, demanding quick adaptation to new target priorities.

High-Speed Encounter Management

The Phantom boss materializes within the Exhaust Organ, a compact zone linked to Bilewater. Alternative access routes include navigating through Sinner’s Road after successfully escaping The Mist. This opponent boasts some of the game’s fastest attack animations, requiring exceptional reaction times. Fortunately, certain maneuvers feature telegraphing indicators—particularly her weapon throw that signals the subsequent stab or dash direction, providing crucial reaction windows for seasoned players.

Encountering Lugoli becomes possible exclusively when undertaking the Great Taste of Pharloom quest, initiated through dialogue with an NPC situated within Choral Chamber. The primary combat complication stems from Lugoli’s capacity to apply the poison maggot status effect, methodically depleting your vitality over time. Crucially, the sole method for eliminating this affliction involves healing actions—specifically utilizing your bind spell or resting at designated benches. This mechanic ensures your initial healing attempt won’t replenish health, instead prioritizing maggot removal first.

Understanding this healing hierarchy proves vital for survival. Many players mistakenly waste multiple heals attempting to recover health while still afflicted. Instead, anticipate that your first healing action serves as a debuff cleanse, requiring strategic planning around when to engage healing sequences during the encounter.

Transitioning to another maggot-themed adversary, Groal the Great patrols the expansive Bilewater region, characterized by multiple chambers containing contaminated water pools teeming with maggots. Unsurprisingly, Groal’s personal battleground incorporates this same hazardous liquid environment.

The ironic tactical advantage lies within the very maggot-infested waters that define this arena. This particular boss confrontation permits strategic exploitation through environmental manipulation. The optimal approach involves deliberately positioning yourself within the contaminated liquid to evade the majority of Groal’s offensive maneuvers. Temporarily disregard the debuff accumulation, focusing instead on sustained projectile bombardment using tools like the Threefold Pin, Curveclaw, or Sting Shard. For additional damage-over-time pressure, consider equipping the Pollip Pouch obtained through the Pollip Hearts/Greyroot quest to poison your opponent.

Advanced players should note that standing in specific deeper sections of the pool provides superior coverage against aerial attacks while maintaining clear sightlines for counter-offensives. The debuff damage remains manageable throughout the encounter if you maintain consistent offensive pressure.

The Broodmother represents your designated target for the Grand Hunt mission titled The Wailing Mother. This assignment originates from the wish board located within Songclave settlement in Choral Chamber. Your visceral reaction to this distended fly’s appearance proves justified, as its offspring resemble fecal matter formations. Indeed, the creature even expels excrement projectiles at Hornet, temporarily immobilizing her through adhesive properties.

Combat preparation should include strategies for managing the Broodmother’s minion spawns while avoiding the immobilizing spit attacks. The sticky projectile mechanic creates temporary environmental hazards that can trap you in compromising positions if not carefully navigated.

Gaining access to confront the First Sinner within The Slab requires obtaining the Key of Apostate, discovered in the lower-left quadrant of Putrefied Ducts. This specialized key unlocks the final two chambers in The Slab—specifically the room nearest the bench and fast travel point that provides passage to the First Sinner’s domain.

While this formidable opponent commands numerous lethal techniques—including omnidirectional sword projectiles and area-denial explosions—its most perilous characteristic involves continuous teleportation. Throughout this dynamic engagement, persistent pursuit becomes mandatory as the First Sinner blinks between positions. Employ jumping maneuvers and grappling mechanics to narrow distance gaps, while remaining vigilant against her projectile patterns.

Successfully defeating the First Sinner grants the Rune Rage ability, enabling utilization of her signature area-of-effect detonation spell. This skill proves particularly effective against clustered enemies in later game segments, making the challenging encounter worthwhile for progression-minded players.

Lace returns with intensified aggression in this subsequent confrontation. Maintain heightened awareness near environmental boundaries, as plummeting into chasms inflicts substantial damage. Conceptualize this duel as requiring calculated hit-and-disengage tactics—delivering single strikes before creating distance. Prime opportunities for pogo-style attacks emerge when Lace completes her attack sequences, while standard slashes connect during her dash or rapid stab combinations.

Throughout the secondary and tertiary combat phases, Lace incorporates area-of-effect detonation circles and luminous flashes accompanying mid-air combination assaults. When healing becomes necessary, the most secure approach involves scaling walls and executing double jumps to reach ceiling areas beyond her effective range.

Mastering the rhythm of her attack patterns allows for precise counter-attack timing. Each phase introduces progressively faster sequences, demanding improved reaction times and spatial awareness. The ceiling healing strategy provides approximately 2-3 seconds of safe recovery time if executed correctly.

The Grandmother Silk encounter awaits at the Citadel’s summit in Hollow Knight: Silksong. Her diverse attack arsenal will rigorously challenge your reflexive capabilities and decision-making under pressure.

Preparation should include mastering quick-direction changes and anticipating telegraphic tells for her various offensive maneuvers. Successful navigation of this climactic battle requires integrating all combat skills acquired throughout your journey.

Navigating treacherous battlefield environments requires precise movement control and strategic positioning. The primary environmental threat you’ll encounter involves spiked vines covering both floor surfaces and vertical walls, creating a three-dimensional hazard zone that demands constant awareness. Success depends on mastering your double jump mechanics with proper timing – activating too early or late can result in taking unnecessary damage from these persistent threats.

The Ascendant’s Grip utility tool proves invaluable for managing these challenging spaces, providing extended wall adhesion capabilities that create tactical advantages. While securely anchored to surfaces, you gain the ability to deploy projectiles and tactical traps that systematically weaken enemy defenses. This positioning strategy allows for sustained offensive pressure while maintaining defensive security against environmental hazards.

Locating Skarrsinger Karmelita’s combat arena presents its own navigation challenge within the Far Fields region. You must first traverse the Hunter’s March area, then locate the concealed passageway originating from the distinctive deer statue landmark. This hidden route requires careful exploration but provides the only viable access point to this particular engagement zone.

The confrontation with Karmelita demands acute pattern recognition skills as she employs three distinct combat techniques:

During your progression through The Old Hearts primary mission sequence within the Sands of Karak region, consider diverting briefly to explore the compact Voltnest sub-zone. The Voltvyrm encounter features limited but potent offensive capabilities: generating intense purple energy beams and creating multiple explosive orbs that discharge electrified area-of-effect fields. These attacks follow predictable patterns that skilled players can consistently evade while identifying optimal strike windows during the boss’s recovery phases.

The returning Great Conchfly confrontation presents a significantly enhanced challenge compared to earlier encounters, featuring accelerated attack sequences and expanded move sets:

Advanced combat strategy involves anticipating the Conchfly’s attack direction based on its preliminary positioning and movement telegraphs. Mastering the pogo-style counterattack requires understanding the exact height and timing needed to connect while avoiding collision damage.

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