Hollow Knight Boss Ranking & Analysis

hey folks technovoid back here with more that good old hollow knight content this game is a damn masterpiece and if you haven't played it yet here's a few tips first off you should definitely go do that it's one of the best if not the best metroidvania ever number two you should probably click off this video now because we're entering spoiler territory this wonderful game succeeds on so many fronts whether it be the beautiful art style the sprawling world the colorful enemies and npcs or the immense amounts of content for exploration hollow knight's firing on all cylinders but if there's one thing that really makes this game tick it's the myriad of interesting bosses these foes take your combat platforming and pattern recognition skills to the limit with tons of dangerous foes who will turn you into a shade faster than you can say shaw and yeah hollow knight's a tough game some of these baddies are as unforgiving as they are spectacular and you might find yourself respawning at a bench pretty frequently the final update to the game godmaster introduced among other things the hall of gods a location where you can fight any previously fought foe at any time either on their in-game difficulty a harder version with increased health damage and potential layout changes and a version of that harder mode that makes you die in one hit no exceptions this mode takes all the bells and whistles of the rest of the game off and really gives players a chance to master these fights outside of their single story appearance and while some of these bosses are the gift that keeps on giving some are admittedly less impressive on repeat trials with the impending release of silk song and my channel somewhat recently hitting 500 subscribers i'm gonna pretend like this video has to do with either of those things instead of a video that i put on the back burner for like a year because it was taking a really long time to make and i had so many other things to do speaking of subscribing only about 13 of viewers are subbed and doing that really helps my content reach more people so please consider hitting the subscribe button if you like this video anyway silksong hype 500 subs the hollow knight boss ranking and analysis let's go i will be ranking every boss in this game on two scales their difficulty and their fun factor both of these ratings will be decided on a scale from zero to five with their overall ranking based on a combination of the two the ratings will be primarily decided on the ascended setting in godhome meaning some fights will be noticeably different from their story counterparts however a boss's place in the main game will be considered and mentioned where relevant obviously a good deal of this list will be opinion based as different people have trouble with different bosses and some might find certain fights to be more enjoyable than others so please let me know your opinions in the comments and understand these are just my personal thoughts and ramblings on a game having played it a whole lot like like a whole whole lot more than it's probably healthy let's get into it [Music] number 46 massive mass charger difficulty zero fun factor zero hey y'all does this even count the massive mass charger comes in at the bottom of this list because i'm not even sure if this thing can be considered a full-on boss it does get a stature in the hall of god so i guess there's really nothing to this fight though you can defeat this enemy without moving an inch just by pressing the attack key in a rhythm that continually knocks the big bush back the only way you can possibly get hit during this fight is if the boss starts with a jump instead of a dash and even then the animation is so long that you can easily get out of the way and prepare to nail spam to victory it's kinda sad but the regular moss chargers are probably more difficult than this variant at the very least you need to chase them to do any real damage which you know at least requires the movement keys next number 45 vengefly king difficulty one fun factor one much like the massive mass charger this boss is a souped-up version of a regular enemy there's a couple more of these on the list but the vengeful king is definitely the least impressive of the ones remaining the boss hovers slightly out of range for most of the fight and will either call in regular vengeflies that can be easily dispatched or swooped down to attack you which is where you'll primarily be getting your hits in the boss moves super slowly and is not easy to be hit by which makes the fight more of a waiting game than an actual battle at least you have to move in this one the ascended version of the boss adds a second vengefly king to the mix which does double the number of entities you need to be paying attention to but it's not really harder it's sort of just diminishing returns at that point number 44 fluke marm difficulty 1. fun factor one oh here's fluke marm finally i was wondering when we'd get here flick marm is pretty globally considered to be one of the only truly bad boss designs on hollow knight and for a good reason in the story the fight is a simple damage check if you can one shot the fluke phase that fluke marm spits out you win if not holy geez you're in for one hell of a time as it can get overwhelming fast fluke arm can actually be sort of fun under these conditions but as it stands this canonical milf is still purely just a punching bag in godhome she exists purely to fill the time between other actual fights fluke marm's only saving grace is that the boss at least respects your time unlike some other battles there's no cooldown on damaging her so you can end the fight as quickly as it starts and move on to well gameplay number 43 umu difficulty two fun factor one umu or as it's known in the storyline the interactive cutscene umu has the same problem as the vengefly king in that most of the fight is waiting for an opportunity to attack but unlike with that boss where smart positioning can let you get some hits in umu says no you can't hurt me until i decide it's okay in the story version of the fight you'll be jumping around the room dodging one of two very simple attacks constantly until coral pops its protection for a few seconds so you can damage it in the godmaster version you'll have to pop umu by yourself by knocking umas into it the extra dodging and leading of explosive jellies does up the fight's interactivity by a bit but at the end of the day you still need to just jump around the stage until umu decides it's time to summon friends and if you miss your opportunity back to the drawing board credit where credit is due the gameplay of knocking the umass around makes popping the metroid-inspired balloon somewhat interesting and there was a patch which increased the frequency with which umu summons friends however uma physics and rubber banding ends up being more wonky than not and with the large number of platforms they can explode on before reaching their destination you're much better off just waiting for a clear shot and knocking the explosion into umu with a shade soul so more waiting the rest of the fight isn't challenging whatsoever so it's hard to not get bored while waiting for the stars to align which not a good boss mechanic makes the ascended version of this fight replaces the acid water with a bit of poison gas which actually does make positioning a decent bit harder so it's not a total waste of your time just mostly one number 42 false night difficulty one fun factor one the false night is the first entry on this list that i'd consider to be an actual boss rather than a slightly larger regular enemy or a cut scene or fluke marm for what it's worth the false knight is actually an incredibly well designed intro boss with the possible exception of gru's mother this is going to be the first big baddie that most players will fight and it does a great job of being engaging and just tough enough to separate it from the respawnable foes in the forgotten crossroads this knight errant is quite intimidating on the surface which may trip you up on your first playthrough but his tails are all slow and super obvious making this quite a simple victory overall after you beat this guy for the first time he becomes a complete pushover and not much more than a way to fill time between other fierce foes but at least you can spam through his health bar and for what it's worth he's a very good first boss but he's still a first boss you know number 41 marmu difficulty two fun factor one the worst of the warrior dreams in my humble opinion has to be marmu while none of the warrior dreams except markov are designed to be particularly difficult foes marmo's fight manages to be just brainless enough to not be engaging at all while still having the potential to punish you if you stop paying attention which is super easy since this whole fight might as well be a game of glitchy paddleball marmou's momentum and trajectory can change on a dime and she gets stuck in weird corners which turns this otherwise massive mass charger level of smack back the enemy boss into one that can very easily catch you unawares and make you feel like a real dumb idiot i mean taking damage against marmo it's embarrassing given how easy this fight's mechanics should be and yet we've all been there screw those corners number 40 crystal guardian difficulty one fun factor one coming in at the big 4-0 is the crystal guardian i actually really love this boss i wish he was harder rather i wish he was hard like at all but the concept is quite solid in my opinion cg shoots lasers from his hands jumps around and occasionally makes four lasers shoot down from the ceiling after a short delay i really do think crystal guardian is well designed his lasers have an incredibly obvious tell but are quick enough that you get exactly as much time as you need to get out of the way unlike a lot of attacks in this game the hitbox also lingers for quite a while meaning using the floaty jump mechanics properly is a necessity if you don't want to get hit the boss is also very good at teaching players that dashing and nail bouncing is a great way to avoid damage as even though cg doesn't take damage on the top half of his hitbox it still refreshes your movement abilities in mid-air which is super great for newer players to learn if you've got the shade cloak you can just go right through him which makes things a lot simpler also if you have any nail or damaged charms you can just wipe through cg's entire health bar in a matter of seconds hell you can even kill this boss without starting the fight sequence if you're smelly enough it's unfortunate that this boss is such a pushover because there'd actually be a pretty interesting fight here if he didn't explode in 20 seconds of face tanking number 39 winged nosq difficulty two fun factor one hey vengefly king can i copy your homework sure but don't make it too obvious wingnask is a boss with a huge amount of potential that just really really falls flat combining event fly king's swoop and adds attacks with nox's two acid spray attacks does make this fight a little bit more difficult and engaging than the ones before it on this list but not by a whole lot unlike nosk the fight has almost no pressure due to how long wingnoss takes to perform every attack leaving huge healing opportunities every few seconds arguably constant pressure is one of the only things nask does do well so that's a huge knock against the winged variant it's really a shame how two-dimensional this fight ends up being because the lead-up is very good encountering hornet and pantheon 5 only for the iconic nosq head crack and scream is a super cool fake out in the final moments of the game it's also really interesting to consider that beta dosk did have wings so it's possible that this is an older version of nos that tried prying on a young hornet who summarily kicked his ass and cut off his wings to turn him into the nosq that we fight in the story unfortunately this is maybe the only case in gaming history of pharaoh monstrosity but with wings this time that is far less terrifying than the landlocked version i honestly feel like just speeding up the tempo of this fight by decreasing down time between attacks could have made this a decent duel but alas number 38 soul warrior difficulty one fun factor one soul warrior takes a similar role to a few of the previous bosses on this list and that it's kind of just a souped-up version of a basic enemy although unlike vengeflys and moss chargers soul twisters are actually threatening the game kinda tricks you into thinking this guy deserves miniboss status instead of just being an enemy by locking you in the room that you fight him in during the story and then does it again with some additional folly spawning it's in the hall of gods and pantheons though so i guess that's the status team cherry felt this guy deserved while having a larger health pool and larger variety of attacks than soul twisters makes this enemy more engaging to fight it's actually a lot less frustrating since he doesn't fly or teleport every god damn second a lot of his attacks also resemble those of the mantis lords which is also a huge plus in my book it's not hard in the slightest but there's enough moves on display here and a constant spawning of homing adds during the fight that keeps you entertained despite the fact that this is really just a regular enemy in disguise [Music] number 37 gruz mother difficulty one fun factor one the introductory boss for most players grug's mother has a very simple attack pattern she either does a body slam in the general direction of the night or winds up and bounces around the arena like a dvd logo screensaver upon death all of her now severely cranially damaged children will burst out of her abdomen and present exactly zero threat the boss is about as basic as they get as the player has only just been introduced to enemies with more than one attack and any sort of real health pool but this fight manages to steal a higher slot on this list due to some of the arena changes in the ascended and radiant versions of the fight here the solid floor gives way to several platforms with spikes between them which actually really increases the need to play the fight carefully especially at the radiant level the fight is of course still quite easy but the limited ground options go a long way in forcing smart positioning if you don't want to get hit and make a fool of yourself especially with how huge grug's mother's damage box is the ascended version of this fight does a really great job of changing the playing field just enough for a fresh spin on an otherwise very simplistic boss both in the literal and figurative sense number 36 hornet protector difficulty two fun factor two your first encounter with the silk song senorita herself in green path is a pretty basic fight but tends to be one of the big difficulty curves for new players without the dash the knights movement options are still severely limited which prevents hornet from getting too crazy with her attacks regardless she does still manage to keep the pressure on against a player still unfamiliar with reading towels and boss pattern recognition up until this point you've been fighting large and lumbering foes like grubs mother and false knight so a small and agile opponent like hornet forces you to re-evaluate your bossing strategies and the fight is very rewarding on the first victory discerning whether her jump is going to combo into a gossamer storm or a tracking diagonal down slash might leave first-timers overwhelmed but after getting the hang of this boss hornet begins to move in slow motion and her health bar becomes laughably small making the fight more of an obligatory cameo than any real challenge speaking of cameos silk song when number 35 gorb difficulty two fun factor 2 itsyaworm gold hit in the 35th spot among the warrior dreams gorb is probably the most simplistic sans marmu but the fight is a blast to play nonetheless gorb floats around the arena and shoots out a ring of spikes every few seconds that isn't too difficult to dodge as the fight progresses a second and third round of spikes get added to the attack giving you less time to stay on the offensive if you want to avoid getting hit the lead time on gorb's attacks is quite large giving you ample time to pass out safe zones but the timing gets more precise as extra waves get added getting close to the yodeling worm is obviously necessary if you want to get nail hits in but the timing positioning on dodging gorb's attacks gets tighter the closer you are to his attack's origin staying near the boss in the fight early to build up soul and then unloading spells into them when the extra waves get added is likely your best option at staying safe of course if you'd like to ascend with gorb you're gonna have to do all this but with three small platforms to stand on making this bullet hell a bit more tricky while not particularly difficult or complex this fight does one thing and it does it well making for an enjoyable all-beat samey altercation number 34 god tamer difficulty three fun factor one coming in at number 34 and also coming in after 20 minutes of painfully fooling around is god tamer this boss is very unique in that attempting the third pantheon actually does not require beating this duo despite every other boss in the game being a requirement to attempt their pantheon and that's for good reason other than godhome this perilous pair can only be fought as the final challenge in the trial of the fool a lot of the perceived difficulty of this fight comes from the fact that you've already been knocked around for the past 10 to 20 minutes by every enemy imaginable and that losing here means you get to do it all again it's honestly more stressful than anything god tamer herself should be summarily ignored as her attacks are slow telegraphed and have a way bigger hitbox than you'd think defeating the beast will end the fight even if the tamer still has health whereas killing the timer first doesn't meaningfully change anything as such this fight devolves into big monster plus the annoyance pretty fast the beast attacks are limited only really spitting infection at you or rolling into a ball and slamming across the arena tracking your position when coming back down for a landing positioning yourself where you'd like the beast to land alongside smart use of the mantis claw descending dark and shade soul abilities should make quick work of this combo regardless of where you fight them the real enemy is your own nerves constantly reminding you of the trial you'll need to redo if you mess up here number 33 no eyes difficulty three fun factor two much like the god tamer the fiercest foe in the noise fight is your own impatience no eyes presents a considerable challenge both in the storyline and god home when fighting her in the stone sanctuary the dark map will leave you guessing if that jump you're about to make is a safe one especially with a floor littered with spikes and tons of wraiths weaving their way across the screen in the ascended version of the fight the arena actually changes quite a bit adding hazards in the form of thorns basically everywhere noise herself simply floats in place for a few seconds before teleporting while her medusa head-esque children bob and weave through the arena with increasing tempo the less hp their mother has left you'll obviously need to get close to noise in order to deal damage which can be a tall order given the playing field and her penchant for persistent porting so staying calm and collected and planning each jump thoroughly will give you your best shot at victory even if your itchy trigger finger begs you to throw yourself directly into danger number 32 tiso difficulty number 32 brooding malik difficulty two fun factor two this is in my opinion the most default boston hollow knight which all other bosses should be compared to the vanilla middle point of hollow knight boss design as it were brooding malik is very well designed in that you can load up a new file immediately get to this boss in five minutes with some clever platforming and defeat it with zero upgrades or skills using a basic knowledge of hollow knight's mechanics and brooding molex patterns that is in my opinion the mark of a good basic boss fight this baddie has a surprising wealth of attacks so learning its tells in proper positioning are immensely valuable in turning this optional ordeal into an engaging intro battle the molok will spew infection in an arc that tries to track the player with varying success as it walks back and forth across the middle platform get too close and you'll be on the damaging end of a claw swipe every once in a while the boss will spew a lot of infection onto the side of the arena you are on you can either dash over the vomiting vermin or if you haven't unlocked the dash yet you can nail bounce off of its head the nail bounce is incredibly vital in this fight as the maulik has enough down time after this attack that you can easily switch sides while amassing very substantial damage the corners of the arena will also usually be safe for healing during the one at a time spray attack but the boss can jump over to you knocking you out of your heel before jumping directly back to the center platform maulek has a fair amount of depth for how early it is possible to fight and it really rewards you for understanding how the boss moves and making use of your nail pogo making it a very fun fight to start off a playthrough if you're a veteran the center platform is removed for the ascended version of the skirmish which is a mixed bag in terms of difficulty on one hand it can now walk across the entire map which adds some depth to avoiding melee attacks and its jump positioning on the other hand getting to the other side of the boss becomes a lot easier which is one of the main mechanics of the fight despite not being an incredibly difficult foe brooding malik's wealth of options interesting arena and players basic mechanics make it a very good default boss to which i believe all the others can be fairly compared number 31 galleon difficulty three fun factor two next up on the dream warrior chopping block is galleon despite being one of the tougher dream warriors galion lands in the same pitfall as a lot of his spectral siblings and that his fight is very mechanically simple like the other dream warriors galion will simply float around the arena while his weapons do the work the most prominent of which is a giant spinning scythe that tries very hard to track the player but has a lot of inertia preventing it from homing in too closely this attack is easily dodged by leading the scythe away from galion and then dashing back towards him forcing the weapon to bound around you while you wail on the wide wisp be careful however because much like marmu if galion scythe gets trapped into a corner it has a tendency to break numerous physical laws and beeline for you at unreasonable speeds galin's second and third phases will each add another smaller scythe then to the mix which travels slowly and bounce around the arena independently like a screensaver keeping track of their current trajectory is very important when considering positioning so that you don't end up dashing into one while getting away from the main scythe overall this fight just ends up being a cooler and more engaging version of the marmo battle although it may give you some nasty white palace flashbacks with all the spinning blades of death if you're fighting galleon over on deep nest make sure to pass by him and jump above the arena to grab a few lifeblood masks you'll probably need them number 30 broken vessel difficulty three fun factor two this boss actually made it onto the last hollow knight ranking video i did and i stand by pretty much everything i said back then broken vessel is a really great rival battle and arguably fits the bill of a monoi mono duel much better than the hornet fights broken vessel has a pretty long nail and will either dash at you on the ground or at the peak of a short hop after a decent wind-up or will swing their nail back and forth in a vertical crescent several times if you get too close he can also jump around which hits people far more often than they're willing to admit or do a slam from the midair position to release four rising blobs of infection all in all the boss's moveset mimics yours very well with the added modifier of infections spewing from some attacks which makes this a very interesting and evenly matched fight broken vessel loves spending time arcing through the air so staying close to the ground is generally your safest option this becomes especially true when infected balloons begin to spawn in the arena a very good use of adds to force smart positioning and keep pressure on during boss downtime the use of some charms such as defender's crest or shape of ooon will allow you to get heals in during some of the boss's staggers of which there will be many if you're coming into this fight with an unupgraded nail finally after getting deep enough into its health pool the broken vessel will make its way to the center of the arena and spew a barrage of rising infection bubbles which can be somewhat tricky to dodge using moves like desolate dive which have lots of iframes and deal substantial damage are a great way to speed through this phase while finishing off the boss for good despite being one of the easier mid game bosses the broken vessel really shines as team cherries take on the knights move set with an infected twist the fight doesn't overstay its welcome but given that the player has access to spells and the boss does not your ranged options such as vengeful spirit may make the fight feel a bit one-sided at times number 29 enraged guardian difficulty three fun factor two coming in at number 29 is the first of hollow knight's many supercharged bosses the enraged guardian takes the same basic gameplay loop as the crystal guardian and ups the ante with a smaller arena faster movements and double damage lasers otherwise the fight stays largely the same this includes the unfortunate fact that the boss has a very minimal amount of health and can be easily broken with the shade cloak however other than those complaints this guardian fight does a decent job of patching up the difficulty where the original was lacking the smaller room size and increased fight tempo leave a lot less room for error and mistakes can be very fatal in double damage fights like this one the boss's speed and power make playing defensively extremely dangerous as healing opportunities are not plentiful and a single hit from the boss will require two heals to recover from keeping the pressure on the guardian and ending the fight as fast as possible therefore becomes the name of the game which is again somewhat unfortunate given how quickly this skirmish subsides when you're slashing through a small stamina supply number 28 nosk difficulty three fun factor two nosk is a much worse boss in the basic campaign leagues worse we're talking winged gnosk levels of build up versus execution the deep nest variant of this creepy creature takes you on a short and spooky journey through dark tunnels before locking you in a room with a doppelganger of yourself which turns into a giant feral monstrosity this monstrosity then runs at you and that's about it nosk's move pool is painfully shallow for when he's fought as this boss will either run at you jump around the arena or stand in the middle and spew infection multiple arcs across the room after taking out enough health he'll occasionally jump onto the ceiling and chase you with dropping blobs of infection before jumping back down to where you were standing this attack is easily dodged by scooting yourself forward slowly although you'll need to time a dash if you end up cornered and need to change directions otherwise everything this feral foe does can be safely avoided from the left corner of the center platform in the normal arena the ascended version of nask however takes things to a new level by somewhat ironically leveling the playing field without any safe alcoves to cheese the creep from you're forced to constantly run from the relentless rogue if you want to avoid being mowed down this version of the fight also makes nox sudden stops in the middle of the arena for his eruption attack more dangerous as it can halt without warning making it very easy to take contact damage the removal of the ledges means the pressure is constantly on the player if they want any chance of putting some distance between themselves in the doppelganger for healing opportunities or extra time to evade attacks i simply wish the deep nest version of the fight lived up to the oppressive opening act number 27 elder who difficulty two fun factor two among the fights in this section the elder provides less of a challenge than most and by virtue of being a warrior dream has a very shallow move pool however the attacks that elder who does have are quite enjoyable to play against this floating foe will either spawn many columns of rings in the air to slam down into the ground after a short delay or will disappear and send a cascade of these rings traveling across the length of the arena positioning is key and finding the sweet safe spots between slams gets your blood pumping in the best of ways the simplicity of the attacks is complemented by their quick execution giving you just enough time to analyze the arena and dash to safety the cascade attack is identical every time which makes it less interesting i wish elder who would randomly choose a starting side and cascade across the map in the opposite direction as it would introduce some variants to the attack unfortunately reaching elder who in the pantheons will bring upon the painful realization that the shade cloak completely removes your prerogative for perfect positioning if you time your dashes accordingly this ability trivializes the fight and makes it feel lackluster when you're fully decked out it's a huge shame too because elder who pre-shade cloak is a ton of fun but is a version of the fight that many players understandably never get to face number 26 oblobles difficulty three fun factor two hollow knight has its fair share of bosses that use bullet hell ask attacks but the ob levels take that concept and roll with it to its natural conclusion the fight is incredibly simplistic as there's only one move to watch out for the two ob levels will fly around the map periodically stop and shoot infection bullets in random directions for a few seconds having two points of origin for the bullets actually makes them quite difficult to keep track of and dodge successfully you'll be encountering the ab lobbles either at the end of the trial of the conqueror or in the second pantheon so both versions of the fight take place amongst other combat challenges meaning you may not be entering in tip-top shape small mistakes can easily throw off your rhythm for the whole fight and the fact that the two points of origin are constantly on the move makes this the best bullet hell hollow knight has to offer once one of the up levels goes down the second will get a boost to its health and speed the increased bullet velocity makes up for the loss of the second attacker and works well in a manner not unlike the mantas lords in which attacks must be dodged at a faster pace after having learned them in the first phase of the fight you can either choose to focus down one of level to get to the second phase asap or try to equally damage them throughout the first phase to shorten the second the fight allows you to lengthen and shorten the phases depending on which you feel more comfortable with which is an interesting and unique manner of letting the player set their own difficulty number 25 zero difficulty two fun factor two much like the other warrior dreams zero takes a very simple concept and moveset and executes it with varying levels of success despite being one of the simpler fights and potentially the introduction to the warrior dreams due to its proximity to the dream now the zero fight ends up being one of the more engaging ones he hovers back and forth above the arena with a nail on the other side which he will alternate throwing at your position the attack is quite easy to dodge but what makes this attack interesting is that these nails will then boomerang back to their position next to zero as such you need to take into account not only where he throws the weapon but his position at the end of the attack and how it will affect the nail's return trip the nails will track pretty closely to your position so if you're keeping the offensive presence up the nails will have a pretty straight shot at smacking the back of your head on the return trip partway into the fight zetta will summon an extra two nails which both increases the danger hitbox on either side of him as well as increasing the tempo which you'll need to dodge his throws the resting grounds version of the fight has a very accessible safe spot as the ground below the battle platform is too low for any of zero's attacks to consistently reach if you're ever in need of healing you can jump off regain your bearings and enter the fight at your leisure the godhome variant of the fight turns the ground into a single platform removing the save spot and the ascended variant splits up the platform into three smaller ones making your orientation options all the more onerous number 24 soul master difficulty two fun factor three the sizable sovereign of the soul sanctum is usually fought by most players after obtaining the mantis claw and maybe a nail upgrade or two and at this power level i hear a lot of complaints about his difficulty for first timers part of this difficulty does indeed come from the boss's mechanics although a lot of it is admittedly due to the long trek back to the arena through the dangerous sanctum proper not having a bench very close nearby can be something of a pain point for the boss which is why it can sometimes feel more difficult than it actually is for newer players soul master's attacks boil down to two variants of shooting soul spheres and a ground slam most of the time the master will be floating in one spot shoot a tracking soul orb and then teleport there's not too much time to catch him before he zips out so playing aggressively with some form of nail lengthening charm can go a long way he might also spawn halfway up either side of the arena creating four orbs that rotate around him with a fixed radius after traveling the length of the arena with this merry-go-round of death he'll pour it away and send the spinning shield back in the direction he came from a la mega man's leaf shield if he spawns in a corner near the ground he'll instead float across the map trying to ram you and if he appears overhead he'll be coming down for a ground slam which sends shockwaves in either direction this attack can even be faked out into a second ground slam needless to say soulmaster has a pretty large variety of attacks which adds to the terror of taking him on despite this the boss is rather slow after getting a handle on his full moveset you'll realize you have ample time to prepare for any move and get some counter attacks if you're clever staying aggressive within your means should result in a steady stream of damage without putting yourself in harm's way making this an enjoyable encounter once you've locked down the mechanics the boss also has a wild fake out after beating his first phase which sends you into a very quick pace second phase of constant ground slams that require proper use of your dash to escape unscathed if you can survive his onslaught of dives you'll get a chance to attack him for a few seconds as he floats in mid-air summoning more spheres to follow you finally you can take down the bloated bastard for good in repeat trials this second phase tends to be more of a chore than anything but it successfully keeps the pressure on in this high octane fight and changes things up just enough to keep newer players on their toes number 23 brothers oro and motto difficulty 3 fun factor three a boss originally added in the god home expansion your first encounter with nail master oro awaits atop the first pantheon this nail master is quite a large foe with an even larger nail so you'll either need to meet his range with nail lengthening charms or use your movement options wisely to stay out of his attack range oro can do two slashes in front of him to cover a lot of ground much like the watcher knights or jump into the air and slam down with his nail in front of him getting behind oro is the name of the game here as he'll be unable to attack in the other direction for a few seconds after starting a move oro is of course able to use his patented dash slash in which he will start in the corner of the room charge up and perform a screen wide attack that can be jumped over overall he can be compared to a slightly more complex watcher knight with less rolly action however once knocking down oro nail master motto comes in for the assist in the real battle against the temporarily reconciled brothers ensues mata will perform all the same moves as oro but switches up the dash slash for the cyclone slash a move which will send him spinning into the air before following up with the normal aerial attack getting a chance to fight these two teachers is a terrific trial as they work in tandem to corner you and deal the finishing blow the brothers will usually attack one at a time while the other stands back so attacking the foremost foe is favorable they'll protect each other during their nail art wind-ups and occasionally do a combo attack so trying to go for the brother in the back is often more trouble than it's worth unless you're using shade soul the fight's second stage really picks up the action as mata joins the fray and this pair do a great job of covering each other's down time making for a fun fracas to end the pantheon of the master number 22 hive night difficulty 3 fun factor 3. anyone who has watched my top 5 hollow knight areas list knows that i absolutely adore the hive it was a pretty big letdown for me that the area didn't have any sort of final skirmish to prove your worthiness to queen vespa and obtain the high blood charm well the boys over at team cherry have got me because adding a boss to the hive is exactly what they did in the lifeblood update an originally unplanned expansion that got added due to the structural changes the nintendo switch hardware required and oh boy does the fight deliver the hive knights move set is pretty similar to hornet's second fight which is quite fitting considering they probably trained together under vespa alongside the hopping action you've gotten quite used to between the hornet and broken vessel battles hive knight also has quite a substantial forward slash and can teleport around the arena before performing a swipe he can also set up several honey traps in the arena which can be knocked around and explode into needles in a gore-best fashion finally this buzzy body can vomit up a whole swarm of hivelings that rain down on the night in a manner quite similar to an inverse broken vessel infection attack this fast-paced fight has a really good difficulty level and lasts long enough to be engaging and while the boss only has a few primary ways of directly damaging you the tells are quick and the location's varied always keeping you on the edge of your seat this is another fight where you constantly need to keep track of every part of the screen while you go toe-to-toe with your foe shade cloak is invaluable here and sharp shadow puts in work as well so if you're a fan of that charm this is a great place to use it this fight honestly feels right at home with the rival bosses like hornet and broken vessel which was an unexpected but appreciated addition number 21 dung defender difficulty two fun factor three tomado everybody it's time to talk about one of my favorite bosses the dung defender everything about this character and his fight just ooze with positive and fun energy whether he's goading you on while you trek through the sewers throwing giant poo balls at you and then bouncing around with them or literally just swimming through fecal matter and bursting out in a big excrement explosion this guy is just fun dung defender was originally on my top 10 list but got kicked off on the grim troop update released because the harsh reality of this fight is that it's way too easy the defender's placement in the royal waterways means that players will be encountering him at very different points in their adventure based on the path round hallowness they take so dung defender did at some level need to be accessible enough for players who had just reached the city of tears for the first time but i still believe he's undertuned everything this boss does has a huge wind-up and none of the attacks move particularly fast even after the second phase speeds up the fight in addition the corners of the map are usually pretty safe places to go for a heal as very rarely will one of ocram's attacks connect in those locations so even if you're fighting him fresh out mantis village he's still very very doable and if you have any upgrades whatsoever be it damage charms or even the desolate dive spell which trivializes this fight the bout ends before it has a chance to begin to some degree i think the low difficulty may be part of this fight's appeal since there's not too much at stake the player gets a chance to mess around with poo boy and revel in his high energy vibes however with how simple and short the fight ends up being the duel ends in disappointment when you realize it's already over number 20 troop master grim difficulty 3 fun factor 3 the grim troop expansion was the first expansion added to the game after my playthrough so i was very excited to get back into the game when it rolled around the new characters looked really cool and some intense new boss battles had been promised and grim he did not disappoint with four primary attacks the fight is not too difficult to get your bearings in but still offers a lot of room for exploration of combat mechanics grimm's quite the slippery fellow both in his mannerisms and his fighting style he'll be off screen for most of the fight only teleporting onto the arena when performing an attack if he starts in the air he'll dive down towards the knight and then dash in a direction as soon as he hits the ground if teleporting in at your level he'll either dash forward into an uppercut attack bursting into flames send his cloak into the floor to send giant spikes across the stage or throw several flame bats your way grimm's fight is very fast paced and his ai is somewhat context-sensitive if you get too close to him before he can start his attack he'll skitter away before resuming his onslaught which is a very nice touch the master of the troop won't be giving you a second to breathe unless you can stagger him so this entire fight is played in a very reactionary manner you need to immediately recognize what attack the glauring goth is going for and decide your plan to attack accordingly just dodging everything grim throws at you won't be enough to cinch victory as playing purely defensively will mean you never get a chance to deal any damage additionally when starting the fight grimm will bow to you to proceed with the performance if you're a trigger happy hooligan and smack grim during his curtsy he'll show his frustration by leading off with an attack i have yet to discuss the flame spawner grim puffs into a balloon in the center of the room and sends several waves of fireballs that you must dodge in a bit trip runner fashion grim is even vulnerable to spell damage during this attack if you're brave enough to chance the frames so no matter what this boss does there's always an opportunity for a counter-attack a very appreciated mechanic this flame spawner attack used to be a regular attack grim would use at random intervals throughout the fight but a more recent update has changed grimm to only use it when hitting 75 50 and 25 health another very welcome adjustment that lets you gauge how close you are to winning overall grimm's decently large move pull and constant onslaught of attacks force the player into a reactionary playstyle which doesn't get too old or easy no matter when in the game you fight him number 19 traitor lord difficulty four fun factor three back during hollow knight's first few patches the traitor lord was about as big of a dud as they get for late game boss he presented no threat at all he was but a bigger hitbox version of a mantis trader and made for one huge meme boss as far as anyone was concerned but the meme would not last as team cherry recognized their mistakes with the massive mantis and added a slew of changes in the lifeblood update to turn the traitor into a true terror alongside his original two attacks the vanilla dash and dive that all mantas traders are capable of the traitor lord learned a few new tricks to use when being fought from afar a set of oscillating blade boomerangs and a full screen shock wave that must be shadow dashed through oh yeah they also added double damage to all of his attacks besides the boomerangs so yeah a bit tougher while shade cloaking your way through the boss at close range is still the best way to dispose of him the extra punishment on mistakes makes a big difference fleeing from your foe is also no longer a safe option for healing as the big baddie's new range moves are arguably more dangerous than his melee motions the additions to the trade alert fight really upped the ante by forcing cleaner play and removing hard cheese opportunities the boss used to have turning the tussle into a fast and frenetic fray of frames in which managing the shade dash cooldown is absolutely vital to victory number 18 the collector difficulty three fun factor three at the top of the tower of love you'll get a pretty unique fight against the collector a boss who just jumps around and occasionally makes slashes at you but spends most of his time jumping into the ceiling and chucking jars at you which explode into minor enemies upon hitting the ground all while cackling maniacally as a slightly off-tuned version of the vanilla boss theme plays it's an interesting experience for sure but with a few nail upgrades the boulders aspen hunters and vengeflies will pose a non-threat to you and simply act as a soul generation mechanism as hitting the collector himself does not feel the soul gauge something of a fun lore integration to game mechanics which i quite enjoy but overall the fight doesn't pose a huge challenge if you've been keeping up with the nail smith then of course there's the ascended version in godhome and hoo boy the enemies he drops will switch from your standard forgotten crossroads fair into armored squirts sharp elders and of course the biggest jerks of them all primal aspects now things are getting interesting with a health of 26 these foes won't fall to even the pure nails damage unless strength is equipped and i don't think i need to tell you as to why getting close to a primal aspect is dangerous in the first place or like in the same room as a primal aspect really this change to the fight really has a huge effect on how it is best approached as getting overwhelmed by these foes is a very real danger especially in the double damage world of ascended difficulty dealing with the adds quickly and preferably from a distance forces the use of the soul mechanic quite well as you can't use spells to efficiently dispatch the enemies without first putting yourself in harm's way for some regular nail attacks the collector doesn't provide any solo on hit so strategizing and prioritizing enemies you go in on versus enemies you cast spells on leads to a very interesting and dynamic management of your soul gauge if you can time one of the collector's staggers at a point where there are no other threats in the room here's a little tip hitting the cackling creep with the dream nail will actually reward you with soul giving you some breathing room for when the next set of enemies arrive on the scene while the collector battle is by no means an incredibly difficult or mechanically deep encounter the substitution of adds to decently dangerous enemies adds a lot in the way of situational strategic soul supervision that you won't find into any other fights number 17 mark off difficulty five fun factor four hoo boy okay all right smart cop time this guy is well he's a dream warrior alright which means he'll be floating around the room while you get attacked by other entities this time it's nails that spawn randomly around the map and make a beeline for you roughly once every one or two seconds these nails pass through all terrain and have very few limits on where they can spawn so you'll need to be very careful throughout the entire fight if you don't want to get hit marcoth will also spend the entire battle with a dream shield that orbits him and will block attacks if it is between your nail slash and the moth himself every once in a while markoth will cease his nail barrage to perform shield cyclone a move in which the shield surrounding him will speed up and increase its radius before retracting once again after a few seconds once he hits half health markoth will increase the speed of his nail silence to roughly once every .75 to 1.25 seconds and he'll gain a second shield orbital which will stay close to him while performing the shield cyclone attack overall a pretty complex boss especially for a dream warrior which requires constant attention across the map then of course there's the ascended version of this fight in which it was decided that having a floor was for rubes and you could make do with five small platforms to survive this menacing moths myriad of missiles this is a really really hard fight and it can be super frustrating the constant threat of homing nails prevents you from ever getting a chance to heal and getting close to the boss is very dangerous due to his shields of course getting close to the wrong time is also completely ineffective if there is a shield between you and your target the lack of much solid ground in this fight gives you even less maneuverability and encourages you to go airborne which is by the way a bad idea given how much harder it is to move around and dodge the nails in the air patience is the name of the game here to get through marcoth unscathed you'll need to play primarily defensively while nail barrage is ongoing and go in for hits during the few seconds shield cyclone allows focusing too much on an offensive presence makes you very easy to punish when the second stage of the skirmish starts getting close to the boss becomes exponentially more dangerous so saving soul for this phase is ideal as you'll want to finish him off with some spells and keep yourself about as far away from any damage hitboxes as possible i am really torn about this fight on one hand it's a very good test of precision platforming and stage spacing playing safely makes the fight doable but it's still super frustrating the randomness of marcos movements and the places his nails spawn can just feel like bad luck sometimes and while having the perfect run is incredibly satisfying as you watch the rap bastard explode into essence after trials and tribulations the fight can feel so stacked against you during some segments that you feel helpless to do anything but try and outlast his onslaught losing the fight because a nail that spawned in the wall comes at you from off screen or watching as you helplessly fall into a newly spawned nail after having used all your air movement isn't that fun it just hurts it hurts deep when the markov fight goes well the difficulty enhances the experience immensely but those lows are just so damn low number 16 absolute radiance difficulty five fun factor four the literal pinnacle of hollow knight bosses by far the hardest longest and most epic fight in the entire game only accessible after ascending to the peak of the pantheon of hellenest after defeating every other boss one after another in a long and arduous climb and the fight it delivers i have some issues with this fight but let me start with the good stuff this is really about as intense and epic as it gets the atmosphere in this battle as you finally raise your nail against the god of gods ascending ever higher up golden spires chasing her above the clouds beyond the sight of the godseeker and all the enemies you've fought so far in a final showdown to become the ultimate being despite my issues with the fight's placement i have to acknowledge that the energy of this fight would not have packed nearly the same punch anywhere else i do wish these endings were more accessible to anyone besides elite hollow knight players but team cherry has made their stance clear on placing lore before gameplay and while i don't think the pantheon 5 is a good player experience and is a blemish on an otherwise perfect game first let's talk bosses abstract does not deal contact damage and will teleport around the arena occasionally she can launch two waves of swords outwards from her body that have a slight rotation to them or three waves of swords from either side of the map or four waves of sorts in the ceiling she can also spawn up to four light orbs that will track very closely to the player emit three bursts of radial light beams in quick succession or send a giant wave of light across the screen that must be dashed through there can be some frustrating issues with the orb and lightwave attacks in the airborne phase of the fight the orbs may sometimes travel through platforms if they had only recently spawned which can catch you unawares if you expect them to collide with the platforms which they normally would the other problem and one that many people take issue with is the radiance can start another attack once the wave of light has reached halfway across the screen if you let the wave chase you too long by the time you dash through it the boss will have started another attack putting you in a position where damage is literally unavoidable sometimes for this reason i highly recommend dashing through the wall as soon as possible so that you have time to recover and get your shadow dash back before the wall reaches the halfway point of the arena and the boss makes its next move after enough damage abstract will summon spikes along the ground on either side of the arena giving you less room for maneuverability she can still spawn over that side of the map and will periodically change the location of the spikes so playing defensively and not chasing the boss over spikes is safest after enough damage in this phase she'll spawn a few spikes on either side and start summoning an endless reign of swords from the sky until you deal enough damage to reach phase 4. once you've jumped up to the aerial segment which is the longest phase by a sizeable margin you'll need to dodge all the same attacks as before while maintaining your stability on the floating platforms moving out of this is the climb phase in which you'll need to climb up many platforms while the radiance shoots light beams at you that get more and more accurate the higher you get this would be the final phase of the fight normally but absolute radiance adds another phase at the top of the arena with two small platforms to stand on while the boss teleports between the left center and right sections of the screen while constantly spawning light orbs after dealing enough damage in this phase you've finally done it needless to say it is a long and arduous fight even more so if you spent the past 30 to 45 minutes battling your way through the pantheon of hallownest her attacks are much faster than those of the original radiance and she'll still be dealing 2 damage per hit i've heard complaints about this boss being legitimately unfair and i was once one of the people who said that however the claims about undodgeable damage are not true calling this fight absolute dice is still accurate and that which attacks she performs are random and some combos are harder to deal with than others but the fact stands that with enough practice and patience the fight is beatable without taking a hit playing defensively and only attacking when in a good position is vital for this fight there's no affording hits here so focusing on dodging all attacks is by far the best way to get through there will eventually be a chance to attack the boss safely so i'm begging you just wait the tension is high and the punishment for losing incredibly severe so this battle is about as high adrenaline as you can get and under the right circumstances it can be incredible expertly weaving through abstract attacks and showing complete mastery over the game is a wild and satisfying experience however i need to dock points and a lot of them because those lows we discussed with markoth try that but way lower mariana trench levels of awful feelings the fight is so long and while this may make it seem epic it can also feel like a slog by the time you get to the aerial section even if you're just fighting this boss in the hall of gods it's quite tiresome having to constantly be at peak performance for this long this problem is only made exponentially worse than pantheon 5 where not only has your endurance already been tested against every other boss in the game but losing does not mean you go back to phase 1. it means you go back to vengefly king i don't believe that anyone could reasonably go into this fight blind and win it on their first try without being some sort of actual god of gods if it's possible and you've done it i bow and respect but the fact is that encountering this boss naturally at the top of p5 is a terrible experience there's no way to train beforehand as her statue only unlocks after reaching her in p5 and the fight is way too intense to get on your first try this means at the very best you'll get through pantheon 5 on your first try which is also very unlikely unlock absrad train in the hall of gods until you perfect the boss and then do p5 a second time flawlessly and win unreasonable doesn't even begin to describe it there's no percentage tied to pantheon 5 but there is an achievement and two very lore important endings log behind it which somewhat baffles me the path of pain which is arguably a far far easier task has no achievement tied to it and only gives a 5 second lore tidbit and a journal entry why was this not done the same way why is arguably one of the coolest and most important cutscenes in the game locked behind toiling endlessly at a boss rush that takes the better part of an hour for a single attempt it's not respectful of the player's time and i think it's bad design as cool as the payoff may be while i disagree with those that say absolute radiance is an unfair fight i understand where they are coming from the fight can and does absolutely feel unwinnable under those conditions for that reason despite this being a truly amazing boss i am placing it at number 16. number 15 hornet sentinel difficulty 3 fun factor 4. hornet's second fight takes place after you've most likely obtained all the movement upgrades which really allowed team cherry to go all out on making a satisfying and mechanically intense rematch the only new attack hornet has going into this fight is a parry which can be tricky to plan for but can be safely countered if you're nail bouncing however with a much larger pool of health and an incredible speed boost from the first fight it feels like a totally new experience regardless the same tactics can be used as last time but the duel is really going to test if you've at all improved since the first encounter as attacks are now much quicker and flow together in a way that makes hornet protector look like a stationary punching bag once the fight progresses into its second stage hornet will introduce a new mechanic where she throws several floating spike traps into the playing field these can be knocked out of existence with a nail swipe but do force your attention away from the boss for a few seconds as they can be deadly if left unattended but you hardly need less space to maneuver yourself as hornet hops around like a rabbit on red bull she can be dispatched without too much trouble with enough damage upgrades but the process is incredibly fun and never feels out of your control even when fully decked out hornet still poses a decent challenge due to her speed and liveness that never feels overbearing and doesn't overstay its welcome number 14 lost kin difficulty 4 fun factor 4. just barely beating out hornet for the number 14 slot the lost kin fight is very similar in its strengths to the previous entry and wins out for me due to it being a more intense skill check lost kin functions identically to the broken vessel a fight i have previously lauded for its moveset balancing except happening at a much faster tempo notably the barrage of rising infection bubbles is missing from this fight likely because the attack was too long-winded and would mess with the pacing given that attack was never a favorite of mine as it is easily cheatable with descending dark so i don't miss it particularly when compared with the non-stop offensive presence lost kin brings to the table as mentioned before this fight feels like a really amazing rival duel with an infected twist and the infection balloons are some of the most effective adds in the game while in the original fight they would keep pressure on while bv was between attacks this fight has that constant pressure already so they serve to make managing your distance and positioning much more difficult as they relentlessly track you trying to find a spare moment to dispose of the balloons while the loss can ride your ass really keeps the pressure on while in the base fight the balloons will often act as a deterrent to healing during a boss stagger in this fight you'll be praying for a stagger just so that you can take care of the damn orange ghosts oh yeah and this boss has tons of staggers which i like because it gives you positive reinforcement throughout the fight that yes you are making progress a nice reminder when you start going against the hardest bosses in hollow knight number 13 watcher knights difficulty four fun factor four when it comes to required fights on hollow knight it doesn't get more intense than the watcher knights these rolly pollies provide the biggest non-optional skill check in the game which makes them quite a doozy in challenge runs while each of the knights has a very simplistic moveset consisting of a double forward slash and rolling or bouncing across the stage the death comes into play when managing multiple foes at once starting the fight you'll only be facing a single night giving you a chance to learn the move set as soon as you take it out or take too long a second watcher knight will appear and then a third and then a fourth and then more after that for the majority of the skirmish you'll be facing two baddies at once and the long arena can make keeping track of everything tough ideally you'll want to lead both bugs to one side of you so that you can manage them better but they'll do what they want to do and you're just gonna have to adapt normally the fight has six nights total but if you break the ceiling outside the arena you can actually drop a chandelier on one of them making things slightly simpler with five foes godhome does not offer you this privilege so you'll want to focus on using shade soul to hit them both when they're on the same side and descending dark for the iframes when you're in a pickle dream nailing the knights as they first get up is also possible but becomes harder once you've already got several on the screen of course i'm also a huge sucker for visible fight progression and it doesn't get more visible than leaving corpses in your wake as you carve through the knights ranks making sense of the madness and disposing of the crew one at a time is a lot of fun and really stands out as a test of skill even when you're avoiding battling all the optional bigger baddies this game's got in the bag number 12 white defender difficulty four fun factor four this bodacious beetle might have a rather unfortunate title that reminds us of the literal cesspool of opinions present on every social media network these days but despite that ogram is back in full force at the number 12 slot remember how i said i absolutely loved the dung defender fight but didn't place it higher because the fight ends too quickly well it seems like team cherry felt the same way because they took all that dung-flinging fun and turned up the heat to a new level this fight shares the exact same amazing atmosphere as the base version but turns up the speed to make sure that there are no lulls in the excitement whatsoever the fight also lasts a lot longer this time due to the extra health and the extra poo waves that white defender can create add a new dimension to the fight and encourage the use of the shade cloak descending dark also won't knock white defender out of the ground meaning you have no choice but to experience this encounter in all of its glory having an endgame version of the dumb defender is such a good idea and i'm glad team cherry decided to put it in the hidden dreams update in hallownest you can fight him up to 5 times with increasing damage on each attempt but radiant mode essentially offers you a greater challenge now that godmaster exists this is such an incredible and fun fight in every way if i had to name a single gripe it would be that no matter how fast you make the defender most of the attacks are still pretty basic and don't present much of a challenge yeah team cherry i'm asking you to make an even harder version of the dung defender i need more aggram in my life please number eleven soul tyrant difficulty four fun factor four the next dream variant on the list is soul tyrant the supercharged version of the soul master from the city of tears much like the other refights soul tyrant borrows a moveset and general fight progression from his predecessor with a few minor changes and a huge boost to health and speed the shockwaves from his slam are now more deadly as they are taller longer and travel faster it's still possible to jump over them normally but the monarch wings are recommended his merry-go-round of death attack also changes and now has six orbs in a formation similar to the face of a die this attack is still pretty easy to dodge and allows a healing opportunity if you stand at the center of the arena the soul tyrant is a really fantastic fight for a few reasons to start the base material it is working with is quite solid the soulmaster's move pool is deep and varied making for a difficult and interesting fight even without the drain boosts unlike the soulmaster however the trek back to the soul tyrant consists of dream nailing the master's corpse again bypassing the need for the long and dangerous trek back from a bench that soulmaster is infamous for finally as a late game boss team cherry once again assumes that you have all the abilities and upgrades you need and is happy to throw the kitchen sink at you most of your abilities have their chance to shine in this fight sans is must hear on mantis claw shade soul and abyss shriek are fantastic damaging options and descending dark allows you to avoid hits and heavily damage the boss during his side ramming attack this frantic fight against the bloated blob himself will have you fleeing in a frenzy as shock waves and soul orbs come bearing down on you from every direction while you desperately try and hit the tyrant before he disappears once more this is one seriously fulfilling fray and the lack of any punishment for death makes it all the sweeter number 10 mantis lords difficulty two fun factor five mantis lords what is there to say about this fight that hasn't already been said this is team cherry's mastery of boss battlecraft firing on all cylinders to do so much with so little how is it even possible this fight is available as early as obtaining the mantis claw which means it needs to be scaled down for new players and yet no matter how long one plays this game or how good one gets the mantis lords never fail to provide a rush equal to that of the game's toughest customers the fight starts out quite simply a single mantas lord begins to attack you either by slamming down from above dashing across the screen or hanging to a wall and throwing a boomerang the boss is only on screen during the duration of her attacks meaning you have to fight in a reactionary manner this phase is simple and the lord quite slow allowing this fight to act as something of a tutorial after defeating the first mantas lord the second and third begin their attack simultaneously and this is where the magic happens the difficulty curve so smoothly increases from an introductory fight to an accelerating apex as pieces fall into place and the instincts you learn from fighting one lore to go into overdrive as you find yourself weaving between the mantis's attacks the design of this duel is absolute genius as it introduces a completely natural way to double the tempo of the fight without taking you by surprise or taking away your tools of success its simplicity allows for even the newest of players to quickly understand and learn what they need to do without giving the player any easy outs or forcing veterans to waste their time with an underpowered foe no matter what your skill level or your upgrade level this battle will always be an absolute joy to go back to and that's just damn good design number nine paint master cheo difficulty three fun factor five atop the pantheon of the artist shay awaits you with a duel that completely blows the battle against his brothers away shayu is not particularly difficult but its fight is so complex and unique that i've absolutely fallen in love with it despite its one rather unfortunate fault as an artist shayo signals and performs attacks with various colors of paint a yellow tip signals a forward sphere that covers most of the arena blue will mean he will slam the ground causing three globs of paint to splash forward in arcs red paint means that cheo is about to jump forward sending six pink globules down at parabolic trajectories before landing and magenta is of course shayo's very own great slash a large hitbox swing that will send paint raining down from above throughout the arena alongside this the paint master can react in a similar manner to grim where he may roll away from you or jump forward depending on the duel's current status shayo certainly has a wide array of attacks but the use of various colors as a supplemental tell to his movements is such a novel idea that really pushes this fight above and beyond any fight with bosses that will contextually reposition themselves get points in my book and cheo uses this to astounding effect as each of his attacks have a unique pattern of paint globules that are sent flying having the boss move around in such a way that he maximizes the efficacy of his own attacks based on your positioning is just so great and the fight has the exact atmosphere you'd expect while fighting the kindly yet stern paint master this fight has in my opinion one major issue and that's shayo's hp for the point of the game you fight him in shayu's health is far too low for a one-on-one duel in the pantheons his hp is only slightly higher than that of oro in the first phase of the nail master duel and that whole section is meant to be an introduction to the auro and moto mechanics it's super sad to see people slash and damage boost through this fight because there's so much great stuff here the ascended version of the fight remedies this somewhat by increasing shadows hp by a decent amount but i still wish there were more fight here because what is here is just so damn good number eight the radiance difficulty four fun factor four coming in at the number eight spot is the original final boss of hollow knight the radiance this fight is in every way a less intense fight than the one in godhome her attacks are slower some attacks have fewer waves or track the player less harshly and the final phase of absolute radiance is completely missing as the fight ends with a single nail strike after the climb i would be lying if i said i enjoyed this fight more than the absolute radiance because as it stands the buff version is just what i'm used to fighting the downgraded version after hours of training myself on abstract just for that sweet radiant completion is just somewhat underwhelming however the battle is still epic and is a great way to round out the story and has the very notable bonus of being much more accessible sure you may need to rematch the hollow knight every time you want a shot of the boss in the credits but it's a hell of a lot more manageable than pantheon 5. remember when you thought reaching soulmaster after a death was bad yeah the lower barrier of entry and lower hp make this foe less frustrating at victory a lot more realistic and the shorter fight manages to maintain all the same high points as the absolute variant while also removing some of the lows and the slog of a drawn-out battle i mean i don't think anyone is really missing that phase six the fight ending after the climb is perfectly acceptable and this fight trades some difficulty and overly intense atmosphere for a much more reasonable win con without removing mechanics that would make the boss anything but a fantastic finale to this masterpiece number 7 failed champion difficulty four fun factor four hey remember how false night's at the bottom of this list for being an introductory boss without too many mechanics and being quite a pushover yeah well here's team cherry expertly showing you how to turn one of the most boring bosses into the most brutal of brawls zero new attacks are added to this version of the fight but everything else is turned up to 11. the bulky behemoth now zips across the screen with blinding speed that should be illegal and is no longer in the mood to telegraph his may swings for eternity what is left is a hyper speed david vs goliath fight in which your enemy has much greater speed and reach sending huge shockwaves at you and making barrels fall from the ceiling constantly forcing you to divert your attention away from the malicious mace that will make you cry oh and his damage has been doubled too this belt makes brilliant use of the shade cloak in the monarch wings as you act on pure instinct to knowing the false knight's attacks all the while you'll be wondering how the heck did this guy get so hard or rather you would be thinking that if you had time to think something to chew on during your death animation i suppose hitting the armor also does not give soul meaning the resource will be quite limited throughout the fight and you'll need to use each cast a full effect one tip i would offer the uninitiated that have trouble with this fight in the boss rushes is that when the boss staggers you can dream nail him for soul and then bounce on his armor to reset the stagger timer this way you can safely stock up on health and soul between each phase of the fight making things a lot more manageable this is certainly one of the hardest battles in the game and one that shows no signs of becoming boring just due to how fast each run ends up being and seriously how did team cherry turn the piddly false knight into this nightmare number 6 the hollow knight difficulty 3 fun factor 4. the game's namesake finally makes his appearance in my previous top 10 the hollow knight did not make it anywhere on the list because i had too recently been burned out on having to fight him again and again every time i wanted to attempt the radiance i have regretted that decision for so long so it's finally time for me to make things right the hollow knight is neither the most mechanically difficult nor the most interesting boss in fact if you only come at him after beating most or all of the game first he's very much a pushover but the hollow knight has a hidden depth to him as a challenger on boss i never truly appreciated how well this boss was designed until doing speed runs and low percent runs of this game it's what he was made for coming into this fight underprepared makes you acknowledge and appreciate every aspect of this battle because he can be quite hard and takes a while to beat it starts as a basic duel thk can either lunge at you parry or perform a triple slash as the fight continues he begins to add in a jump slam with double damage pillars of infection bursting from the ground all the while his body takes more physical damage and the infection begins to take control spewing itself from his chest the fight continues as the infection carries him around like a puppet hanging him from mid-air and spewing in every direction or throwing him across the arena like a ragdoll in an attempt to squash the player but the hollow knight he's fighting back now as the music swells in a deeply emotional chord he stabs himself over and over to purge himself of the radiance as he is nearing death thk loses all his other attacks and gets thrown around the arena over and over occasionally he will step up and attempt a triple slash but immediately falls to his knees in acne the impure vessel is doing everything he can to fight back against the radiance he knows his purpose and he knows why he has failed as the ultimate crescendo begins and the hollow knight falls to his knees you his sibling take on the burden he has carried for so long the infection seeps out of his cracked head and into yours as the music rises and rises and stops the fight is well brilliant it's art the sealed vessel track and every single action in this fight is used with the sole purpose of telling the story of two siblings transferring the burden of helena's perpetuation in such a deeply emotional manner this scene absolutely nails no pun intended the concept of show don't tell with the narrative being so masterfully interwoven into the fight's gameplay this is the kind of thing that sticks with you and it can honestly bring you to tears if you're an emotional sack like myself this fight provides enough difficulty gameplay-wise for challenge runs that i can't and won't dock points and you would be hard pressed to find another battle nearly as emotional as this one making it one i will never forget in all my years of gaming number five great nail sage sly difficulty four fun factor five i'll admit it i'm a real sucker for one-on-one duel scenarios whether it be lost kin hornet paint master shayo or any of the other nail-to-nail clashes i'm a big fan and great nail sage sly he might be the best of them all finally getting a chance to cross weapons with the diminutive nail sage turned shopkeep himself is something i knew i needed ever since his backstory was revealed to me sly speaks softly and carries a large nail which means that you'll need to keep track of how close you can get to the mighty might to reach his hitbox while simultaneously staying safely outside his enormous damage boxes which cover far more of the screen than should be legal sly is also another instance of a contact sensitive boss meaning he'll adapt his movements based on your current location however with slide this goes a lot deeper than just a backwards dodge roll many of sly's moves combo into one another and he won't perform certain parts of attacks unless you are within a specified range what ensues is the best dueling mechanic in hollow knight with you constantly weaving in and out of sly's nail range to bait out attacks in order to punish him while he does the same to you the nail sage may perform a double slash forwards with both attacks covering the entirety of his hitbox if you happen to be close enough at the end of the attack he'll immediately follow up with a jumping saw blade attack unlike most bosses he can also switch directions halfway through this attack meaning that just because you dashed over or through sly does not mean you're safe much like his pupils sly also has a jump and nail slam attack which he may follow up with the secondary overhead swipe depending on the knight's positioning finally slide will run around the arena as he sees fit in order to close distance between you or jump back into the corner of the room to perform the dash slash yeah that's right sly also has access to all three of the nail arts and unlike his students can charge up the moves much faster all three of the moves have slight differences from how moto oro and shayo perform them and it's a very nice touch to see how the masters ended up mimicking the sage's battle style after dealing enough damage to the diminutive doyon he'll jump into the air and start bouncing off the walls like he snarted a whole entire cocaine after every few jumps sly will dash towards you and turn himself into a saw blade which is relatively easy to dodge but will perform deep psychological damage to the player this phase is simple but can be overwhelming if you aren't prepared for it just stand in the center of the arena and take it slow when you see sly making a beeline for you get out of the way and hit back right as the attack ends he should go down pretty quick after a few rounds of hits this fight is honestly perfect sly's long range and tiny hitbox make it very hard to cheese and his reactionary movements make the fight feel alive in a way that so few bosses do this is a really great battle and would easily blow any other boss list out of the water but of course hollow knight manages to have even better fights it's nuts number four grey prince zot difficulty four fun factor five man i bet you're wishing you left zod to die back in green path aren't you i wouldn't blame you as the invincible fearless sensual mysterious enchanting vigorous diligent overwhelming gorgeous passionate terrifying beautiful powerful gray buffoon can be a wickedly difficult foe for the entire adventure you've been saving this grumbly and wholly unappreciative codger from death's door time and time again finally getting your chance to deliver comeuppance in the trial of the warrior after returning to dartmouth you will find that bretta the girl you saved in the funko wastes has completely forgotten about you and is now fangirling at this blowhard's baseless battle tales entering breta's basement will reveal that the obsession has taken maybe a few steps past healthy into utterly nutty as she now worships a statue of the grey prince the version of zote she imagines in her dreams and this guy is well he's really annoying ironically the grey prince is no better at fighting than zode himself as he'll run around the arena flailing his nail trip on his own feet and jump around sometimes directly through the floor and onto your face the danger behind this fight is that zote has become so powerful and brought his dreams that even his stupid mistakes generate giant shock waves in every direction he'll even spit out versions of himself that either hop or fly towards you or explode after a few seconds another instance of great ads that enhance the experience this fight is so frustratingly funny as you desperately try and match nail strikes with a holy talentless blob who has enough power to end you by simply falling over it's a damn hard fight too as most of the attacks have variations that have almost no tell is he getting ready to run around flailing life ender nope he immediately falls over and generates shock waves coming down on you from above oh he did an extra little pirouette in the air to adjust his positioning coming down for a big slam he'll sometimes go right through the floor and fall down from the ceiling on a stupid dumb ass these tiny variations are almost impossible to predict and result in an almost completely reaction time based boss as though it has minimal patterns to learn everything you do has to be done on the fly as anticipating an attack from the undisciplined dud is a dangerous game what results is an incredible fight against an unlikely threat that tests your ability to think on your feet rather than read the room and it manages to be utterly gut-busting throughout number three nightmare king grimm difficulty five fun factor five starting off the top 3 is the nightmare king himself this version of the grim fight takes things up to the next level as grim keeps his large swath of attacks and now moves fast enough to give you zero downtime alongside each attack having much quicker startup animation the uppercut now bursts into more flames the dive and dash leaves a damaging trail of fire behind and the firebat attack now spawns four bats instead of three in an alternating top and bottom pattern getting too close to the nightmare king before he can finish this attack will lead him to teleport away and throw out two extra bats at the top and bottom of the range the spike's attack now becomes dangerous much more quickly and grim gains the good sense to completely disappear from the arena and not leave himself open to attack finally the big bad gets one new attack which starts in an airborne position if grim teleports midair with his cloak billowing he'll spawn four pillars of flame one after another tracking your location and have a damage box that persists after the pillar fades the best way to tackle this boss is to find one or two attacks that you feel comfortable counter-attacking during and focus only on getting hits and during those segments with the non-stop aggression that nkg lays down as well as the double damage it's very important to stay in the rhythm of this fight and not lose your cool sharp shadow is a really helpful charm here as the extra dash length can keep you safe during several attacks and dashing through grim really adds up the damage much like the troop master he'll skid her back when needed and unleash the flame spawner attack at 75 50 and 25 percent health it is very hard to succeed in this fight without learning grim's dance falling into the rhythm with the cadence of its attacks and it works at both a gameplay and lore level each step grim takes has a counter step that keeps you safe and leaves him upward for a hit and it's up to the player to figure out and decide which of these chances they're comfortable taking what results is a thrilling tango as you meet each of grimm's moves with your own slowly getting through the fight when you see him puff into a balloon the pressure has never been higher without any extra phases or attacks being added throughout the battle you know each time you see the flame spitter that you're one step closer to feeding your foe your nightmare heart will be racing every time guaranteed number two sisters of battle difficulty three fun factor five and here it is the fight that everyone has been waiting for since their introduction to the mantis lords everything i praised about the original fight is still true here although since this one won't be occurring in the natural storyline it doesn't need to be as accessible regardless it still is since the mantis is a very simple foes so if you've beaten two of them you can beat three for this reason the fight really isn't all that hard but it doesn't matter because it's still damn fun you'll be hard-pressed to find a fight that makes you feel like more of a badass than when you perform each movement perfectly for the chaotic minute or two that this battle ensues adding a third lord to the mix not only increases the tempo which you dodge attacks and adds a third health bar that you need to knock through but the added lord will also perform a slam attack while the other two throw the boomerangs which keeps the excitement coming whereas that is normally a pretty slow attack in the original fight there's absolutely no time to heal in this fight but everything is so quick and precise that the odds never feel stacked against you the player feels like they've been given all the tools to succeed and simply need to survive the chaotic clash for long enough to gain the chance for respite there is never a dull moment while the triage of threats is bearing down on you which very likely makes this the most fun fight in the game bar none without any chance to divert your attention this battle brings with it one long and pure rush of adrenaline that doesn't end until one of the lords goes down and that's where this fight kinda falls apart once one of the mantises gets taken down the fight starts feeling a bit disjointed as the speed decreases drastically with the two remaining mantises not returning the old version of the duo boomerang throw there can sometimes be awkwardly long pauses during attacks after one of the lords gets taken out and it's somewhat jarring it's unfortunate that the pacing of the fight gets wonky at this point because otherwise it's a perfect battle granted taking out one lord at a time it does give you a visible progression i usually like from bosses but in this case the boss just starts getting easier instead of getting harder as you deal more damage which feels odd especially since unlike the mantis lords fight the damage you're dealing to each lord has the potential to be very uneven making the second and third phase of the fight take way longer than they should also while i understand the reason for starting out with single mantis in the same way as the original fight and having all three of them stand up at once and shout is a super cool reveal i feel like that at this point in the game the player doesn't really need the introductory phase of the warm-up but i'm not too fussed about it the fight just takes a little bit to really get going in sort of an aura and motto manner i think this battle would have potentially had better pacing overall if the three mantasis shared one large health bar and once it was depleted each hit would be a killing blow on that mantis sure it would remove the positive feedback loop of the fight but i also think it would be a lot more gratifying to have a longer phase of pure intensity and ended off with three rapid fire killing blows to end the battle rather than the awkward cooldown phase where you stand and wonder where all the hype went either way this is still a godlike battle and i love it dearly despite it being rather easy compared to many of the foes at the top of this list number one pure vessel difficulty five fun factor five hitting the number one spot as my favorite boss in my favorite game full of my favorite bosses comes the one and only pure vessel this boss just has everything going for it this duel rivals nightmare king grimm for being the second hardest fight in the game after absolute radiance and the smooth and sleek animations make moving around the battlefield and dodging his attacks as satisfying as weaving through the sisters of battle and don't get me started on the lore the callback to no voice to cry suffering line with the pre-battle silent boss scream gives me literal chills while it's not technically in the game i do also want to make note of pv's cut dream nail dialogue which includes lines like do not think do not speak and do not hope i know that since the lines were cut they're technically not canon but they fit in perfectly with the lore we see at the end of the path of pain and in the black egg temple with the vessel being tarnished by an idea instilled the poor guy just wanted to make his dad proud and ended up bringing the whole kingdom down because of it as expected the pure vessel is the hollow knight in his prime which means he's got a lot of the same moves but is much more efficient instead of bursting with infection pv shoots out a wave of white daggers he can also teleport into the air and slam down to bring forth giant swords reminiscent of the infection pillars in the original fight and of course much deadlier versions of the triple slash lunge and parry are also here alongside three separate movement options a jump a backstep and a teleport this guy really does have it all much like with sly and the other high tier duels the battle feels alive as the pure vessel adjusts to your movement and positioning rather than just throwing out attacks at random and forcing you to play to their tempo every movement feels important every step vital as you throw down once more with your sibling the fight is still emotional but in a very different way from the hollow knight the battle is still telling a story but rather than it being a cry for help it's the tale of your big brother kicking your ass it's phenomenal there's just so much weight to every aspect of the atmosphere and it all comes together so perfectly as a standard for bosses i love the battle gets increasingly more intense while offering you that proof of progression once pv hits 50 health he'll start focusing up creating a giant orb around him that fills with soul energy and damages anything inside after a short wind-up the map will then fill up with six smaller circles that will also explode with soul energy after a short delay this attack works both in forcing you to play the distance game for a short time while also diverting your attention across the map for a second so you can get yourself out of harm's way from the smaller orbs finally once reaching a quarter of his health pv will start using the void inside of him to lash out at you from across the map this is actually a really smart design choice from team cherry as players who have been shade dashing through the boss up until this point which is otherwise a viable strategy will need to quickly recognize and reassess that their not being in the air is going to lead to pain every aspect of this fight the lore implications the heavy atmosphere the incredibly well implemented attack and spacing patterns the difficulty it all comes together in a manner that i can do nothing but vehemently respect team cherry for creating but of course this is all just my long-winded thoughts and opinions on the 46 strong armada of bosses in hollow knight i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on why you think a boss is better or worse than where i placed it and i'd like to finish up by saying that pretty much every fight in this game is still very well made just because your favorite ended up in the high 30s doesn't mean i'm saying i think the boss isn't good by any stretch of the imagination it just means that hollow knight is filled to the brim with top-notch battles and if you're still here after not having played the game i am once again going to highly recommend that you go do so if you enjoyed my ranting and raving consider hitting the like and subscribe buttons and click around the screen here and here for some more other hollow knight content i've created i've been technovoid and i'm gonna go back to my corner staring at the wall while i wait for more silk song news so long

Channel: Technovoid

Views: 537,934

Keywords: hollow knight, boss, boss ranking, technovoid, godmaster, tier list, boss list, team cherry, ranking

Id: iKq6AymfV_k

Length: 83min 11sec (4991 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020