THE SILKSONG IS REAL

[spark ether]

I'm only partway into act 2 and don't know what's under the spoiler, but I did feel a little meh after I beat cogwork and realized just how similar the structure was

Like it's really not at all a big deal, but I feel like they could have varied it up a little, y'know?

[autumn kettle]

that's too bad

i think the micro is pretty distinct enough to not be a problem

[thorny bear]

i get that the progression of movement abilities is fairly standard for how to expand movement in a 2 platformer

but they didn't have to do 3 dreamers again

[spark ether]

For me it's mostly the "dreamers", but again this isn't really an issue

Not something that impacts my feelings on the game much, complex as they may be, but it feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity is all

[inland wave]

What should they have done, ythink?

[spark ether]

No idea, I'm not a game designer lol

In that capacity at least

[thorny bear]

a lot of the stuff between silksong and hollow knight has big titanite/blood shard/smithing stone and bonfire/lantern/grace energy

the terms mean the exact same thing and my brain will always use them interchangably even if the names are different

[inland wave]

I feel like separating resources made them feel p unique and the things they ask of each.. idk, it's enough difference

But also like

The game has to function

Yeah there's gonna be stuff to collect and places to save

[open stratus]

The game feels very distinct to me in the minute by minute.

[inland wave]

Exactly, we're tall now, which makes everyone calling her short v. Good

[brave flower]

alr now im ACTUALLY ready to go fight ||last judge||

wish me luck

[open stratus]

In Hollow Knight I was always just effectively going somewhere and bosses would happen at me.

In Silksong Hornet is constantly doing things for people and towns. There's always some Wish you could be working to grant along your pilgrimage.

[open stratus]

Stay calm, don't rush, let them dictate the fight. Watch, react, and punish.

[inland wave]

Also: look out

[open stratus]

||I survived getting caught in that. :)||

[umbral canyon]

i think metroidvanias (at least classic ones) are a bit of a comfort food genre and they tend towards the formulaic, which is not something i have a problem with

[wanton bone]

Could have maybe tinkered a bit with like... double jump vs. wall cling, though double jump tends to do stupid things in terms of skips, at least from my experience in HK randomizer. (Fuck the wings+isma route to deepnest, miserable experience with nail 0)

[brave flower]

thats a COOL fight hooly

[autumn kettle]

YE

[spark ether]

Yeah it's a lot of fun, I'm so glad I went back for it

[spark ether]

That's very fair and a good thing for me to keep in mind

[gusty storm]

yeah i do love the contrast of like. how in hindsight pale king seems like ultimately a flawed but decently-intentioned ruler

[open stratus]

Right?!

Best fight so far.

Cause it's a fight between equals, a trial of sacred combat!

Those pilgrims who fall where not worthy to cross the Grand Gate! GLORY TO THE ETERNAL CITADEL!!

[dreamy scarab]

oh boy, I found ||Sister Splinter||. I see why she's contentious -- first impressions are this is mostly a tough but interesting fight...except that 1) the lack of i-frames means the minions can double tap you (also true of some of the regular enemies elsewhere in the zone) and 2) the 2 heart contact damage during her stagger. Those almost feel like accidents rather than deliberate game design

[autumn kettle]

i think the thing i'm hoping gets nerfed about the two bosses

is that they lose their damaging hitboxes while they're staggered

[open stratus]

I just assume that touching an enemy gets you hurt.

[autumn kettle]

i don't actually know what they did, though

[inland wave]

i had such the opposite experience with Splinter from what seems to be public opinion

[autumn kettle]

yeah that's how metroidvanias work

[inland wave]

took me one try and like a minute

was very "???" ok

[primal cedar]

What's the best early game rosary farm?

[autumn kettle]

greymoor

[open stratus]

Then what's the problem with the stagger injuring?

[autumn kettle]

the screen to the east of the halfway home

three pilgrims, give 35-ish rosaries and die near instantly

[primal cedar]

Welp off to hunt some pilgrims for sport and profit

[open stratus]

Youll use their faith better than them

They're all heading the wrong way anyway

[inland wave]

Also; I feel like the dash being a sprint that Makes Your Jump Real Nice is enough distance from The Knight's little poot forward that it felt like a whole new deal

[autumn kettle]

it's a feelsbad, people aren't necessarily going to expect the abruptness of the drop, and also i don't think either of those bosses should have been nerfed

so it's the most innocuous thing to drop

[open stratus]

The place of judgement is to the left, not the right. Silly fellow pilgrims.

[open stratus]

Much like the Greymoor combat gauntlet, I think that people have a tendancy to not treat choreographed fights as fights.

Every enemy has discrete patterns and moves that one can take advantage of with a little patience and space control

[inland wave]

/||Savage Beastfly windup does look exactly like him just sitting idly though||

but that's probably fine-ish for a boss with a grand total of Two Moves

[wanton bone]

At least for ||Moorwing|| there was an attack where the safe spot was directly underneath.

[open stratus]

Entirely optional as well, in a relatively mid game area

[open stratus]

Hornet feels so fast and graceful. You can really get into a flow.

[inland wave]

And then sprint directly into lava /sagely nod

some screen transitions have real sudden pits

this is the part of Hornet the lil ghost never saw

[wanton bone]

Or kindly positioned enemies.

[brave flower]

made it to the last phase

[hollow elm]

I've sorta considered pins for "part with spike pit", but that's way too many

[brave flower]

i think

the one where ||she yells a second time and does the flame whirl attack but a lot||

think i did phase 2 hitless???

[autumn kettle]

nice

[open stratus]

Yup

[brave flower]

ran out of tools :(

[open stratus]

Kickass. 🙂

No tools necessary

Just use your needle

[brave flower]

not shards tho

[brave flower]

im a poison tools build rn

i have a lot of extra windows to hit her with tools

[open stratus]

Dodge her attacks, strike when she's vulerable, win.

[brave flower]

e.g. the ||flame whirl attack||

i won 😎

hitless phase 1 and 2

[autumn kettle]

hell yeah, congrats

[brave flower]

what a fantastic boss

[open stratus]

Best Boss

Thematically and aesthetically brilliant

Fair

[dreamy scarab]

okay, yeah. after dying a goodly number of times before dinner, first tried her after coming back. very little HP, healed once, threadstorm helped clear things out quickly.

reaper crest felt good, she's so hittable that I got back a ton of silk right after healing

[open stratus]

Only boss I felt the need to switch to Reaper for

[autumn kettle]

which boss?

oh, same one gravel is talking about?

[dreamy scarab]

||Sister Splinter|| in Shellwood

[autumn kettle]

ah

[dreamy scarab]

didn't realize how much chat had scrolled, whoops

[brave flower]

i am IN THE ||UNDERWORKS||

ACTUALLY IT HELLA SUCKS HERE!

[open stratus]

Welcome to the Citadel, pilgrim.

[inner fog]

welcome to the underground

[thorny bear]

welcome to mother russia

[open stratus]

||You're shift cycle starts now. Breaks will be for two beats off-cycle and cost 15 rosaries. Sustenance will be provided by those who fall.||

[tacit wadi]

Capitalism the Area

[proud cobalt]

Does ||The Beast Crest|| have shorter range? I swear watching it in action it looked like it did.

[autumn kettle]

a bit, compared to hunter

i think

more than wanderer, though

[inland wave]

I'm loving ||Witch|| but gahd that heal makes for complicated platforming sometimes

also the dive attack sometimes pulls me into a buzzsaw

especially if it's moving

fun in the ||wormways||

everything made of food

[open stratus]

||Hornet's Bellhome is great. "Oh, it's only temporary, I'm not here to stay." Proceeds to spend lots of hard earned rosaries furnishing it with a nice desk, stringing pretty lights over her bed, and painting it a pleasing color. Hornet, honey, warrior-princess of ages past. Benches are temporary. I don't see you spending hundreds of moneys on sprucing up benches now do I?||

[autumn kettle]

i mean

doesn't she

it's also the local, externally useless currency

[open stratus]

If I could spend rosaries on coloring each bench individual colors I would.

[autumn kettle]

lol

[wanton bone]

Hmm... what mtg colors do people think Hornet is. I feel like she's got a really, really deep black streak, between the "no time for games... unless I can win something" side of her and the just willingness to murder for her goals.

[autumn kettle]

hornet is probably mono black

[hoary tulip]

BW

she has a strict code of honor and outside of that she's here to win

[autumn kettle]

okay yeah actually she's a bit too nice to people and romantic

I'd agree with bw

[hoary tulip]

like

it costs nothing to be nice, but going further than that is exclusively about whether it benefits her or complies with her code of honor

[wanton bone]

Yeah, and she's got at least a little bit of that "anchor of a fading nation" vibe that feels white.

[autumn kettle]

yeah, she's all in in a specific ideal of chivalry

and her magical specialization is like

[open stratus]

Hornet's a gambler.

[elfin ravine]

BW seems fitting yeah

[autumn kettle]

seals, binding, and personal recovery

very white

and 50% pale god

[elfin ravine]

maybe a bit of blue for her tinkering?

definitely not Red or Green though

[open stratus]

She says that. Hornet also constantly lies to herself despite her external unshakable confidence

[hoary tulip]

ehhh

she's genuinely kind but her kindness extends roughly as far as her chivalry does

once someone gets on the wrong side of that she's pretty merciless too, she doesn't really have rules about how dirty she's going to do people who cross her

[wanton bone]

I'd say she's generally polite, and willing to just let stuff slide if it's not a big deal for her.

[hoary tulip]

like

the whole ||Slab incident|| leads to her not just getting mad enough to ||snap necks barehanded||, but write off an entire species and say "yeah I hope they go extinct"

[open stratus]

More than a few of the town quests involve gathering lots of resources for no reward other than doing it and people being happier. ||She doesn't just do it for chivalry and honor, that's the lie. She likes helping people, but only starts admitting so after doing it for a bit and opening up to those around her who she's helping.||

[hoary tulip]

She's got a mean streak in her, doesn't give a shit about people who do nothing to endear themselves to her, and her main reason for not just telling the people of Pharloom to get fucked ||at first|| is that she doesn't want to get jumped a second time

[hoary tulip]

||Eh, I'd say that her enjoyment of helping people is real but it kinda operates on her finding a sense of responsibility for the people of the towns she saves on a whim / because they're there and need help and she's a knight||

||She's not amoral, but neither is she so selfless that she'd help someone For No Reason who isn't actively in distress||

||As we repeatedly see with her going "ok whatever Sherma"||

[open stratus]

||And I think she'd do it anyway, and talk herself into it.||

[hoary tulip]

I mean that's nice but it's not really in the text

She doesn't give a fuck about anyone outside of those incidents

[open stratus]

||She doesn't though?

She's constantly warning him off of things and trying to keep him as safe as she's able. She just realizes she can't make him stop. He is dedicated||

[hoary tulip]

||After Act II it’s different, she’s fully talked herself into doing the hero thing because she feels partly responsible for the fall of Pharloom and at that point in the plot she’s developed as a person and actually does care even when it no longer actively benefits her||

||And even goes back to save Lace for no reason beyond empathizing with her family problems||

But definitely at the beginning of Silksong, Hornet is pretty unapologetically mercenary and really does not care about shit that doesn’t affect her personally

[rose granite]

Finished ||The forum on the second try after returning, and much as it could be said to be skill it was tbh just damage upgrades that meant NPCs could be killed quicker and thus not overwhelm me ;p.||

Still not a big fan of the encounter, but at least the final wave was neat.

[hoary tulip]

That encounter is wack if you don’t have ||Shakra there to whoop some ass for you||

[rose granite]

The one I was talking about or a different one?

But yeah, I contend still that the difficulty of the fight comes down to whether or not you can burst this specific wave. If you can, you're gold for everything else.

[brave flower]

i am loving act 2 so far

[hoary tulip]

This very one

[rose granite]

Yeah didn't know you could get help there, which I'm sure would assist, but tbh it still largely felt fine if you have decent damage.

Which is what encounters like this in most games come down to.

[autumn kettle]

how do you get ||shakra to help you with the forum fight?||

||i didn't think she could even show up in the citadel||

[hoary tulip]

||Finish her quest||

[rose granite]

So tbh don't think my opinion of the fight or surrounding structure really changed at all.

[autumn kettle]

bwuh

but doesn't she shack up ||outside bellhart once you finish her quest?||

[open stratus]

Building up the settlements of Pharloom doesn't directly benefit her though. She doesn't gain anything from making Bone Bottem better, ||Or going to the funeral of an acquaintance she made at the very beginning of her journey, well enough that she learns his name and make sure the rest of the settlement knows it while playing a durge on her needolin. And that's Act 1.||

[hoary tulip]

||Yeah and she’ll just Appear at the chorus fight to assist you||

[autumn kettle]

...huh

wild

[hoary tulip]

How wild?

[rose granite]

Oh yeah, is there anything that ||starting act 3|| locks you out of btw? Since I'm about there.

[hoary tulip]

Pin throwing contest

[autumn kettle]

a few things i think, ||but nothing i can think of regarding like, % progress||

oh wait shit that

[rose granite]

Oh no, what a tragedy

[autumn kettle]

the first reward there is important, innit

like a mask shard or spool piece?

[rose granite]

Have done the first 15, but not past that.

[hoary tulip]

Don’t think so

Pretty sure the first 15 is for shards and then 25 is for rosaries

[autumn kettle]

huh

i could've sworn reward #1 had an actual item

[rose granite]

But yeah if there's nothing major I'll continue past. Largely wondering if it'd cause a questline to end early with an NPC death or something.

[autumn kettle]

well

||huntress dies, but you can finish her quest anyway||

[hoary tulip]

I can’t think of any

[brave flower]

act 2 started out miserable bc i found the progression and did not notice the path forwards

[rose granite]

Already finished it

[brave flower]

so i just spent half an hour wandering around the ||underworks||

and then realized where to go and now everything is gorgeous

[rose granite]

I do think the progression smoothed out a ton once I got to ||Whispering Vault|| and later ||the double jump||

Damage and mobility turns out did do a lot.

[inland wave]

||Double Air Dash|| did a lot for me tbh

L2 powaful

[brave flower]

i just wanna grab ||hookshot and architect||

[open stratus]

||Did you find the worker running on a treadmill for 1 rosary every minute?||

[rose granite]

If you haven't gotten the ||double jump|| I recommend going to ||Mount Fey and climbing it||

[autumn kettle]

it makes me extremely sad

[rose granite]

Here's to hoping ||she doesn't get eaten||

[autumn kettle]

||i think she won't||

[brave flower]

i need the ||hookshot|| for that

[rose granite]

Yay!

||This is my penance for never playing dice with the dice guy whilst they were alive.||

[rose granite]

Oh haven't, where's that?

[open stratus]

||In the Underworks||

[rose granite]

Oh I assumed as much, just don't know where down there.

[open stratus]

Easy to miss as it's a bit off the critical path

[brave flower]

i got a net total of ||8 rosaries|| from that guy!

[rose granite]

||Though the automated confession booth is still my favourite miserable bit there||

[rose granite]

||You should go talk with them again, they appreciate it.||

[open stratus]

||Listen for labored breathing and whirling yellow fanblades||

[severe swift]

I'm at the ||High Halls arena|| How in the f do I get past this? I am losing my mind

[open stratus]

||I enjoy putting on the sprint boost tool and vrooming the treadmill. I like to think it impresses my fellow worker||

[inner fog]

||Is there a special interaction for doing this with both the tool and soup, like in that one weavernest?||

[open stratus]

||...You go faster and get your pay sooner.||

🙂

[rose granite]

||I wonder how long you'd have to work for to earn the 80 rosaries to escape; not that I think that route necessarily connects to Choral without unlocking Choral first.||

[autumn kettle]

||it's such a fucking heartbreaking end though||

||i really hope we can do some golden route shit and save some of these npcs||

act 3 spoilers

[foggy cipher]

the damn ||last judge|| is wiping the floor with me ran

[open stratus]

||A long while. And remember that Hornet is part Weaver and Wyrm, and has the sheer stamina and sprinting ability of both. What Hornet can do in seconda would take weeks to do for the average bug, not including sleep and sustenance||

[foggy cipher]

i have her moveset basically downloaded but the second phase hurts

[rose granite]

One small thing, but try sticking to the right rather than left side of the arena.

[open stratus]

It's effectively the same thing. Just stay patient.

[rose granite]

The wall is higher on that side, so if you do get caught it's easier to escape.

Still, it's a toughie.

[open stratus]

Keep her in the center of the arena. Gives you space to avoid things

[rose granite]

||considering that the highest amount of wealth we see accrued there is some frayed prayer bead necklaces, I'd wager however much is earned is quickly lost to various means.||

[open stratus]

Mhm

[rose granite]

Yeah, tbh the dash was the only attack of hers I struggled with.

[autumn kettle]

it's so evil

[open stratus]

It's uncaring. Those above have paradise, and have already been chosen above all others. They are Worthy. Those below obviously work their way up. /s

[rose granite]

Good work makes for good silk.

[inner fog]

beats ending up in the Whiteward I suppose

[brave flower]

its gonna take me so long to get the ||20 tools|| i need to unlock the ||architect key||

im at like

12

[inner fog]

||Mother Silk|| and the Citadel makes the Pale King look like a saint in comparison

[thorny bear]

LET'S GO BABEY

[rose granite]

Congrats!

[thorny bear]

Final boss was overall very good. My one note is there could really be less visual clutter. I lost multiple attempts in phase 4 from the boss spawning on me after the enormous buzz saw since i couldn't see the spawn animation among all the effects on screen

[autumn kettle]

the pale king tried

he was, as hornet says, a fool

for trying to use the void to his advantage

and for many other things

but he wanted his kingdom to be good

[thorny bear]

||and surely there couldn't possibly be a THIRD ending as indicated by some of the spoilers i've glanced here ||

[autumn kettle]

(he was still a shitheel for a number of reasons, however)

[brave flower]

is the void actively evil? it mostly seems just

really dangerous

to me

[autumn kettle]

phase 4?

which part do you count as phase 4?

[thorny bear]

counting pre-scream and post-scream of both halves as different phases

[autumn kettle]

||i only count 3 phases||

ahh

[thorny bear]

since they each have different possible attacks

[autumn kettle]

i don't think i noticed a scream in "part 2"

[thorny bear]

we're talking about ||lost lace|| right?

it's when ||she starts doing the white circles into the big ground slam||

[autumn kettle]

yeah

ahhh

i might've skipped the scream for that one

or just uh

locked in too hard and not noticed it

because i wasn't primed to notice it, unlike the first scream

[thorny bear]

it's not sentient, but it has some amount of "thought" and from everything we've seen it's usually intent on killing whatever it can

[autumn kettle]

what was your victorious setup?

killing or at least assimilating

[inner fog]

The void simply subsumes all it comes into contact with

[thorny bear]

Hunter crest with injector band, reserve spool, longclaw, and dice

and drones and spikes for carpet bombing the second half

[autumn kettle]

ah, nice

[inner fog]

but as we’ve seen, it can be imprinted on as a result

[brave flower]

ah so its just hungry*

[autumn kettle]

it's also that

[brave flower]

*still really fuckin dangerous

[thorny bear]

i'm going to guess ||the super duper extra secret truer ending|| is from ||examining the hearts or flower with the memorium thing||?

unless there's just the two, but my gut says that's unlikely

[autumn kettle]

||i didn't think there was a super secret extra true ending, other than|| ||mister mushroom||

[brave flower]

is it possible to do ||lost lace while witch cursed||

[thorny bear]

huh, ok 👍

[autumn kettle]

i could be wrong!

[autumn kettle]

possible? yeah

fun? probably not

[brave flower]

that tracks

[autumn kettle]

would it give anything? don't think so

[thorny bear]

i just remembered when ||i mentioned the memorium and you said it's for later, but it never really came up, aside from the ducts entrance||

[autumn kettle]

ohhh

what was that in context of?

[inner fog]

Speaking of ||the curse||, what the hell is up with the ||witch|| anyway?

[brave flower]

||evil tree||

[autumn kettle]

||because i might've just been thinking of the house tracker thing you get at the end of it||

||or i might've been thinking of some other bullshit, like the ducts||

not sure

[thorny bear]

yeah, probably just a misunderstanding on my end

[autumn kettle]

||dunno! seems to be a theoretically very powerful entitiy who was currently rather weak||

[hollow elm]

Trying to use Hunter/Reaper more often, but often gravitating back to Wanderer as I get better at spacing/mobility, and learn more about of enemy movesets. Still, Hunter feels good to use with practice, diagonal pogo can be a really good gapcloser/poke option.

Also figured out Wanderer's passive ability(/special effect): ||Random crits at 9+ silk held, which is why it expands at full base spool.||

[brave flower]

do they ||all have passive abilities?||

[autumn kettle]

||since her power successfully destroyed and fed off of both hornet (a demigod and accomplished mage herself) and silk (a higher being)||

[thorny bear]

that's where the crits are from

[autumn kettle]

ohhhh, it's only at 9+ silk?

huh

[thorny bear]

i always thought it was something like a frame perfect parry

[autumn kettle]

i just thought they were entirely random

with no qualifier

[brave flower]

ik about ||hunter focus and shaman being Also Literally Just Shaman Stone||

what are the other ||crest passives||?

[autumn kettle]

i don't think most of them have passives

[inner fog]

I haven’t seen a solid consensus yet. It seems random, but sometimes I find myself getting multiple in a short period or in a row

[brave flower]

oh wait yeah bc most of them Do Something Specific thats interesting

[thorny bear]

define "passive"

[autumn kettle]

i mean in fairness that's just how randomness works

[thorny bear]

because they all have some mechanic on top of their slots and attacks

[brave flower]

e.g. ||architect spending silk to repair tools, reaper getting extra silk gain on hit after binding, beast having the worlds wackest pogo and a lifesteal install for a bind||

[inner fog]

My original assumption was that it was a “sweet spot” kind of deal, but I’m leaning more towards completely random

[brave flower]

is ||witch's just the bind being shitty||?

[hollow elm]

thinking about that more, "special effect" is more accurate.

[autumn kettle]

||witch's bind deals damage||

[inner fog]

||Extra damage too, not just lifesteal||

[autumn kettle]

||and it might just be that||

||aoe damage bind that needs to connect to heal||

||but it might have something else to it as well, dunno||

[brave flower]

oh wait ||witch|| also has what sounds like a really strong ||nail art||

[hollow elm]

||From what i've experienced: lifesteal, damage?, range boost, maybe swing speed too?||

[brave flower]

damn ||beast|| really just gets dragon install huh

[autumn kettle]

||well, to be clear||

||it's not exactly lifesteal||

[rose granite]

The crests have so far been one of the better implemented mechanics in the game, because they all seem viable. I've gravitated towards Reaper and ||Architect|| myself in large part because of my love of reach, but can get the appeal of Wanderer.

[autumn kettle]

||it only heals you the normal amount of a bind||

||you just only get that heal in one-mask parcels when you hit||

[inner fog]

||oh also Architect can charge their pogo and dash attack!||

[brave flower]

fellow ||architect|| gamer... (i dont have it yet, im trying to get it as fast as i can)

[brave flower]

OH SHIT

[inner fog]

the pogo is sooo much better that way

[autumn kettle]

for the same reach-based reason as you, i kind of ended up with ||shaman|| lmao

||ignoring spells entirely||

||and just using it as a nail machine||

[rose granite]

I do feel like a Marth-main in Super Smash Bros Melee lol

[brave flower]

does ||shaman|| get 2 ||silk skill slots||?

feels like it should

[autumn kettle]

3

[hollow elm]

I'm apparently a spacing demon, so Wanderer's range isn't too bad to adjust for. The incredibly fast windup/short endlag stands out massively in tight situations.

[brave flower]

oh so its literally ||architect but for silk||

thats awesome

[autumn kettle]

||architect gets 3 reds and no silk skill||

[rose granite]

Like sure a faster swing is nice, as are other things, but what about even more reach to punish with?

[autumn kettle]

||shaman gets 3 silk skills and no red||

[brave flower]

that much i knew

[rose granite]

The Fox Vs Marth matchup.

[autumn kettle]

yeah i'm just saying it so i can say the other one as a mirror

[brave flower]

...by that logic, itd make sense for ||architect to boost tool damage||

[rose granite]

Though I suspect ||Architect|| is technically the strongest against bosses due to tool spam.

[autumn kettle]

||it does...by boosting tool count||

[rose granite]

I just don't feel like learning that ;p.

[autumn kettle]

||its equivalent is probably the "you can spend silk for tools" bit||

[brave flower]

though it REALLY doesnt need it

[autumn kettle]

||can't exactly spend shell shards to get silk on shaman||

[brave flower]

theres a video of someone killing an act 3 boss in 30 seconds with poison tool spam

[autumn kettle]

yeah it's probably going to be the super silly broken bullshit one

[rose granite]

Poison tools are funny

[brave flower]

im literally never unequipping polyp pouch

[rose granite]

Especially a few ||poison cogflies|| just feels stupid when you're exploring.

[brave flower]

that shit is so strong

[autumn kettle]

it...probably needs a nerf yeah lmfao

it's really cracked

much like they nerfed the egregious charms in HK

[brave flower]

poison longpins also feel incredible

[autumn kettle]

i'm expecting a nerf to probably specifically pollyp pouch

[brave flower]

due to how many shielded enemies there are

[autumn kettle]

can't think of anything else that's problematic dps-wise

[brave flower]

that seems reasonable regrettably

[fathom shadow]

Do we know how this beats and measures system works?

I read it in the Docks but it confused me a bit.

[rose granite]

Could see the ||cogflies|| being hit, but I think their strength is just not needing to control them.

[inner fog]

Same with tacks

[autumn kettle]

i think they might take like, a capacity nerf?

[brave flower]

tacks might need a damage nerf

[autumn kettle]

or 3 out at a time

[rose granite]

Which you can't really nerf unless you make them worthless, and frankly I'd rather they be strong than worthless.

[autumn kettle]

not sure though

[brave flower]

tacks are deranged

altho they Do Not Work vs flying enemies

[autumn kettle]

tacks are a bit silly, but they're also very conditional

[inner fog]

though they’re still a lot more balanced by being stationary and grounded

[brave flower]

go my stealth rocks

[rose granite]

It was funny to see them include what's usually a spacing tool in most PvP games, against a set of enemies who can't deal with spacing tools.

[inner fog]

also, I kinda hope they let you ||change the model of the Silk shot, especially if they add boss replay stuff eventually||

[brave flower]

ive abandoned the sting shards in favor of longpins

bypassing shields is delightful and also theres more of them so i get more poison uptime

[autumn kettle]

i hope we get more wacky funtime modifier tools

based on some of the bosses with minimal reward behind em

like ||electrified spells go so incredibly hard visually||

[brave flower]

i just discovered something insane via browsing the shitty incomplete fextralife

[rose granite]

I should try out some other ranged tools, because poisonous threefold is a bit too easy to use.

[autumn kettle]

lmao

[inner fog]

Oh man I love threefold

[brave flower]

polyp pouch + ||plasmium phial||

[autumn kettle]

oh, does it do something unique?

[brave flower]

the ||lifeblood mask disappears after a bit and EXPLODES INTO TOXIC GAS||

[autumn kettle]

i kind of assumed it didn't do anything

oh that's really neat!

[brave flower]

i THINK this ||gives you iframes||

which is really funny

[autumn kettle]

what about with the yellow drank?

anything unique there?

[brave flower]

no idea

cant test rn unfort

[autumn kettle]

same lmao

[brave flower]

i hope ||flintslate|| works with it

[autumn kettle]

it does

[brave flower]

and puts both ||fire and poison|| on the nail

[autumn kettle]

i used it a bit

[brave flower]

YES

LETS GO

[inner fog]

Always had it on up until getting the silkshot. It does good damage on big targets of course, but also helps finish off fliers

[rose granite]

I did just realise ||you only get one of the three silkshot variants in a given game, though tbh I'd gone with my red one either way even if it turns out to be the worst.||

||I just like it as something to remember meeting the 12th by||

[autumn kettle]

||WAIT THERE ARE THREE VERSIONS?||

[brave flower]

||ive heard thats the mid tier||

[autumn kettle]

||OH FUCK THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE||

[brave flower]

yup! ||forge daughter, 12th architect, ...mount fay?||

[autumn kettle]

||FUCK, I CANNOT BELIEVE I DIDN'T THINK THAT THE CRAFTERS WOULD DO DIFFERENT THINGS||

[rose granite]

||Forge Daughter, 12th, and on th Mountain||

[autumn kettle]

||act 3 had hit by the time i found it, so the architect was dead for me||

||and i had (and still have!) no idea what the mountain one is||

||maskmaker? pinstress? taking it to the fucking bird altar?||

[rose granite]

||The Forge Daughter is a single shot, the 12th is a triple burst, and the Mountain one is basically a rail gun.||

[brave flower]

||workbench under bird altar apparently||

[autumn kettle]

oh fuck

[brave flower]

oh baby

[inner fog]

Yeah, ||Architect is burstfire, Forge Daughter is a big single shot, and Original (Repaired on Mount Fay) is a piercing beam||

[rose granite]

I'm sure most folk will want the last of the ones I mentioned, but I like the one I got :).

[autumn kettle]

||i am addicted to railguns||

||i like my vengeful spirit ngl||

[rose granite]

I like it as a lil keepsake

[autumn kettle]

||but i would be so down with either of the others||

[autumn kettle]

yeah that's super based

i will also say

[inner fog]

I dig the forge one even if it is kinda a boosted throwing knife

[autumn kettle]

i think that the electric tool should boost it

because it spends silk

what's that one called again?

volt filament?

[brave flower]

im gonna need so much craft metal

[hollow elm]

Trying to think of reasons why not, but the sheer damage I've seen against grounded enemies has been absurd, at the cost of low capacity + relatively high shard cost.
(I'm not even running venom tacks most of the time)

[rose granite]

Honestly though I thought ||you'd be upgrading it at different locations to upgrade it to its full potential, so I just misread that questline||

[autumn kettle]

rip

[rose granite]

Eh not much of a rip when I got the one I wanted anyway lol.

[autumn kettle]

fair

[inner fog]

Pairs nicely with ||Wanderer Crest for that Ronin With a Gun fantasy||

[foggy cipher]

what’s y’all’s opinion on the prevalence of 2-mask damage?

[autumn kettle]

correct, broadly

[brave flower]

its fine

[autumn kettle]

i think it's a bit egregious when it's on hazards, because it's two separate hits and they feel like absolute bullshit

but everywhere else, and frankly even on them, i think it's a correct decision to engage with the interplay of hornet's very, very, very strong heal

[brave flower]

blasted steps can suck it

thats it tho

[inner fog]

They are nerfing the Sandcarvers in that regard, which is nice

[hollow elm]

The double hit factor feels bad yea, though gives you more time to think of an escape plan.

[foggy cipher]

https://tenor.com/view/true-truth-nuke-super-truth-nova-truth-meme-gif-16889273424352737553

fuck those stupid floors

[autumn kettle]

i don't think i ever got hit once by them outside of return trips

so that's a nonentity in my mind

i'm thinking exclusively of the gears in the citadel when i say that

[foggy cipher]

i think my least favorite double damage instance so far is the lava bugs

[inner fog]

And still having it on the ||GIANT SPINNING BLADEWHEELS|| feels fair

[autumn kettle]

i mean

it's lava

[foggy cipher]

i’ve crashed out only once and it was because of them

[autumn kettle]

if anything was going to deal 2

it should be lava

[hollow elm]

I think the gears got nerfed too in the beta branch, since I only took 1 mask recently through there.

[rose granite]

Of all the double damage environmental effects, they're amongst the least threatening yeah.

[autumn kettle]

huh, interesting

[autumn kettle]

were you in act 3?

[hollow elm]

Act 2: ||Cogwork core gears||

[foggy cipher]

truke yeah

[autumn kettle]

||some of the gears are broken and slow down in act 3||

||only dealing 1 mask||

[inner fog]

After getting the magma bell, I was expecting there to be more damage resistance charms tbh

[wanton bone]

I think it’s just units of time drawn from music, fitting with Pharloom’s whole… thing.

[rose granite]

Mm, if I do a second playthrough I'll try out the last one, but seems like they're all solid.

[brave flower]

oh right what the fuck is up with that book in the docks

[hollow elm]

Kinda thankful there isn't, because the fire/explosions feel especially brutal without them

[brave flower]

its such an ominous room

[autumn kettle]

i'll definitely be picking ||the railgun|| for my steel soul 100% run

[rose granite]

Though could prolly have done with a clearer indication that it's a permanent choice

[foggy cipher]

the WHAT????

[autumn kettle]

see above

[hollow elm]

lmao

[foggy cipher]

there’s a whole world of horrors i have clearly not been exposed to

[inner fog]

Oh also didn’t realize but I couldn’t find this because it’s steel soul exclusive 👁️

[thorny bear]

the concept of steel soul in silksong is horrifying

[foggy cipher]

i’d cry

[hollow elm]

I guess it's possible, but some Act 2 adds are already blowing me away for not repsecting their abilities

*respecting

[autumn kettle]

ooohhh

is it where the jinn equivalent is?

[brave flower]

"fucked up sister splinter adds management, restart the game fucko"

[foggy cipher]

i do love how all the enemies feel like they have real move sets now

[autumn kettle]

for sure

[foggy cipher]

the scissor dudes are PEAK

[hollow elm]

Grapplers keep messing me up horribly because they don't care about clashing.

[inner fog]

Yeah, but there’s actually a ||quest and boss|| instead of just egg cash-in

[foggy cipher]

i’m getting filtered hard by the stupid cone headed bouncing bastards in the steps

[autumn kettle]

OOOH

THAT'S REALLY NEAT

i really hope we see steel assassin sharpe soon

[brave flower]

i bet sharpe is in steel soul

[autumn kettle]

and i'm wondering what the backer that paid for them will get if we don't

[brave flower]

"steel" is literally in the name

[autumn kettle]

they were intended to be

along with a host of other steel city enemies

but afaik they were cut, at least for now

[umbral canyon]

ok, so i do actually have some idea how big the map is

[inner fog]

Getting out the corkboard

[brave flower]

sharpe is the silksong equivalent of gaster

[inner fog]

“WHERE IS SHARPE” etched in red marker across the ramblings of a madman

[hoary tulip]

Re: the Void

It’s liquid regret and hunger

Congealed memories of the dead and unfulfilled dreams that sink to the bottom of the world and become abyssal hunger without reason or purpose

It’s not evil or particularly anything other than supremely dangerous to fuck with

[inner fog]

Team Cherry I know what you’re planning

He’s out there somewhere 👁️
you can’t hide the truth

[autumn kettle]

||"vassal"||

||bitch, hornet is a: not an It, and b: vassal to no one and nothing||

[hoary tulip]

||The vassal is an NPC you’re tasked with hunting in Steel Soul mode||

[autumn kettle]

ahh

intermesting

||god i hope one of our dlcs is the Steel City||

||which they've talked about being a fucking giant spear, iirc||

[hoary tulip]

||I just hope we don’t have to be in Steel Soul mode to get there lmao||

[autumn kettle]

i kinda hope we do, or at least that steel soul mode does new and wacky things to it

because it would be such a fascinating narrative thing

[hoary tulip]

Okay but I don’t want to play Steel Soul

[autumn kettle]

and i want them to poke at the meta-narrative

[hoary tulip]

Permadeath in metroidvanias is not my jam

I hate being forced not to take risks

[autumn kettle]

fair

but consider

it would be really cool

[hoary tulip]

If they do that I hope they also package it with a mercy mode where you can count as being in Steel Soul but instead of dying permanently, death is just more punishing, or the difficulty overall is increased

Like

Medium Core where you have no cocoon and just die and lose all your money if you die? I’d be fine

[formal zenith]

just got to ||last judge||
jesus christ they were not kidding about the runback -_-

[thorny bear]

kinda messing me up that i still don't have the ||claim all silk hearts|| achievement

[autumn kettle]

oh, you're probably missing the one from ||whiteward||

or

not probably

definitely

||it's from the whiteward boss, which requires a key in its ducts through the incinerators||

[tacit wadi]

any advicve for the ||Bell Eater?||

[autumn kettle]

unfortunately no

my advice is just lock in

[hoary tulip]

be very patient

[brave flower]

Do It For Them

[inner fog]

Personally, I think a lives system could work

[brave flower]

alr so i Just Did That One so i have a few tips!

[inner fog]

Start with a couple, get more after certain milestones.

[brave flower]

• you can just ignore the majority of drillflies

they arent fast enough to be a problem

[wanton bone]

Hornet's ability to just go "fuck it, not dealing with you" is very cool, yeah.

[brave flower]

• you can pogo off one of the judges to skip a platform :)

[wanton bone]

I got very good at jumping over ||the trident guy on the way to moorwing.||

[brave flower]

only saves a little time and is kinda risky but damn if it isnt one hell of a confidence boost to pull off

[formal zenith]

is it the one immediately left of a drillfly?

[brave flower]

i learned if you max height jump off the cliff and float down you can just float over him entirely

ive reached the conclusion that the runbacks are good and awesome, actually

[wanton bone]

Oh, huh. Neat.

[brave flower]

they encourage you to get consistent and creative with hornet's movement

and doing that feels incredible

[wanton bone]

Feels more stylish to clear him by inches while still sprinting.

[brave flower]

hornet is maybe the most fun character to control in any video game ive ever played

[brave flower]

real

[brave flower]

god i just cant get over how good this game feels to play

every time i get tilted i go do something else and end up feeling awesome within a minute because i did something sick to bypass an enemy or something

[hollow elm]

flipping with ledge grabs whenever I can moving between areas, it just feels right.

[autumn kettle]

hornet feels truly pristine

[wanton bone]

Hornet would have an amazing time with parkour clubs.

[brave flower]

how did they make hornet feel this much better than the knight

i dont even have anything i didnt have in hollow-- the sprint.

i have the sprint jump.

[wanton bone]

Ledge grab as well is high key amazing tech. Particularly since jumping immediately turns it into a roll.

[hollow elm]

I don't have much reference points, but I feel by pulling movement ideas from later Metroid games/Ninja Gaiden?

[brave flower]

OH ALSO

just the ability to choose what your pogo is

is HUGE

bc anyone can find a pogo they really like

[hollow elm]

classic 180 is my safe pick, but Hornet's dive has been very helpful in combat/for moving around faster.

[wanton bone]

I ended up swapping off of ||reaper|| because I couldn't stand the slowness.

Also the up air was not great vs. ||moorwing||, a boss with a lot of nasty ways to fuck you up for being underneath it.

[brave flower]

im sticking with reaper until i get ||architect||

[formal zenith]

is ||reaper|| actually slower? i guess i didn't really notice

[hollow elm]

I've used jumping neutral a lot for that reason, but especially ||Reaper||.

[hollow elm]

Slower windup/more endlag, but mega reach.

[autumn kettle]

yes

quite a bit

[hollow elm]

It gets more apparent when pushing the limits of attack windows or parry timing

[formal zenith]

hmm, interesting
maybe i should try ||swapping back to hunter|| for a bit
i do really like the ||bonus silk after healing and the big pogo|| though

[autumn kettle]

you really notice the difference between reaper and wanderer

[wanton bone]

||Reaper||'s definently not bad, but yeah, it's got notable downsides.

[brave flower]

reaper's very very good

takes adjusting to but its exceptionally strong

[hollow elm]

I've bounced around a lot for different situations, like Tools.

[wanton bone]

TBF, wanderer does have quick slash basically, and the world's shortest reach.

[autumn kettle]

yeah

i really love the crest system

[hoary tulip]

Reaper is slow as hell but very very powerful for platforming and just holding control over space

[wanton bone]

Polar opposite of reaper. Makes sense, as the two easiest in the early game. Both are also pretty balanced in notches unlike the later options.

[hollow elm]

I've had to really learn to dash well with Wanderer.

[hoary tulip]

I swap to Reaper Crest whenever there’s a difficult platforming challenge tbh

But it’s slow.

[autumn kettle]

i also beat karmelita with reaper

it's great as a fencing tool for zoner bosses

[wanton bone]

I wonder if anyone will find crest-specific skips. Will probably make randos super interesting.

[brave flower]

does ||30 second karmelita kill with architect|| count?

[hollow elm]

I think the divekick ones potentially get extra distance, but gl trying to land them consistently.

[hoary tulip]

Can’t wait for the DLC for this game to have nutty new Crests

[sinful stirrup]

Now that I have two needle upgrades, I can actually see the dmg differences between reaper and wanderer!

It's nice

[hoary tulip]

Which I say not because I already need more content

But because I can see how they left the door open

[autumn kettle]

yeah it's gonna be so fucking sick

[brave flower]

priest crest

spends rosaries to gain silk

[formal zenith]

oh wait instead of grinding ||last judge|| i could just go back and actually explore ||hunter's march||

[brave flower]

i had that thought

[formal zenith]

somehow i completely avoided it until now

[brave flower]

hunters march is somehow more enraging

[hoary tulip]

I do sincerely hope that ||Beast|| gets some kind of rebalance or touch-up though

[formal zenith]

oh..... hmm...

[hollow elm]

It's got a very cool concept, but good lord it needs something to hit.

[hoary tulip]

Having that moveset with that Bind is just brutal

[hollow elm]

I can manage the moveset, but the unique bind is demanding.

[autumn kettle]

it does not need to be the best crest in the game

it's not an exploration crest

it's a bossing one

and it's a very, very, very good bossing crest

[hoary tulip]

hmm

[autumn kettle]

buffs to it would be a horrid idea

[hoary tulip]

I guess I should give it a shot to see how good its Bind works outside of exploration

[brave flower]

i should make a white palace themed build when i get ||architect||

[hoary tulip]

I also said a rebalance tbh

[hollow elm]

At my current skill, I'd maybe take it for fights I know I don't get hit much in.

[hoary tulip]

I think that uh

[autumn kettle]

i also absolutely do not want a rebalance to it

it's a specific crest for specific scenarios

[hoary tulip]

crests that can't explore have it rough

[brave flower]

||buzzsaws|| from 12th architect, tacks, ||cogflies||

[hoary tulip]

because most of the content in a metroidvania is exploration

[autumn kettle]

it's okay to be niche

and not your main tool

[hoary tulip]

mm

[hollow elm]

Well, they can, but the skill floor is high.

[autumn kettle]

i think witch is the one that would need a touch-up

[brave flower]

||architect||'s not great at exploring and its NUTS

[autumn kettle]

because its upsides are, in practice, not a sufficient counterbalance for its downsides

[hoary tulip]

ehh, ||Architect|| is fine for exploring

[autumn kettle]

but beast is a crazy good bossing tool

[hollow elm]

Reaper is a very safe option for bosses that don't rush it down.

[hoary tulip]

in fact, ||quick craft|| is a really good exploration tool

[wanton bone]

Hollow Knight there's charm builds I'd never take into a boss fight, and builds I'd never run in general exploring.

[brave flower]

reaper's a safe option for every boss

[autumn kettle]

reaper's best for bosses that do rush it down imo

only some, though

[hoary tulip]

Reaper actually has a harder time approaching than defending imo

[brave flower]

silk refund crazy good

yeah its very defensive

[autumn kettle]

because some of the rundown bosses have decent range that reaper's own reach is great at dealing with

[brave flower]

its burst movement attack is a burst of movement upwards

[autumn kettle]

and making less of a problem

[brave flower]

which changes its playstyle dramatically

[hollow elm]

That's a factor I haven't used as much, very true

It's just the "I could be parrying this" that sticks out to me sometimes with Reaper.

[brave flower]

there are so many weird ass free hits you can get with that thing

my parries are never intentional

[hollow elm]

Downright bulldozing (Act 1) ||Widow's melee atacks (with Wanderer)|| like it was 3rd strike.

[inland wave]

God I love the differing reactions to the ||Witch|| quest

[brave flower]

LETS GO JUSTINNNNNN

[hoary tulip]

💀

[hollow elm]

*Sometimes clashing too much with Reaper massive down arc.

[brave flower]

yeah lol\

i could never get hits in by pogoing their dash flurry bc i just kept getting parries

[sinful stirrup]

Get to the fey mountain bench and I dont have 90 rosaries ;.;

[hoary tulip]

same hat.

[sinful stirrup]

I get to the sinners road bench, open the rosaries to unlock it. Borken

Game is mean

[wanton bone]

... I think Team Cherry missed a great opportunity to have a boss that you can pay off with a truely stupid number of rosaries.

[brave flower]

maybe they did

maybe nobody was insane enough to bring that many rosaries into a boss

would be insane if it was ||last judge||

[sinful stirrup]

Worse idea, boss that scales with rosaries spent

[open stratus]

||Everyone run, Hornet invented an autocannon, the Weaver has a gun!||

[inner fog]

It might be nice if you could hold bind for a longer one-mask heal just for particularly dire straits

but eh, I’m no game designer

[thorny bear]

i wonder what the odds are of a boss rush mode showing up

[inner fog]

I say pretty likely

[thorny bear]

godhome was an excellent addition that was universally loved

[inner fog]

I imagine at the very least they’ll have a boss replay feature

[thorny bear]

but i really doubt there would be Godseekers in pharloom, and it would feel rather contrived if there was another way to have dream rematches with every great enemy in a kingdom

[inner fog]

I mean, ||you kinda already do that as part of the story||

[thorny bear]

...huh

yeah now i feel dumb lol

[inland wave]

I love the little noise of the ||sprint charm||

but also this may be too fast

[thorny bear]

so i would suppose something like ||needing even more power for some even bigger ritual for a better outcome so you have to gather power from memories by fighting them in a row or with extra conditions||

[hollow elm]

(Act 1) ||Has anyone tried breaking the door mechanism in Pilgrim's Rest to keep it open?||

[autumn kettle]

yep

[inner fog]

Maybe the pantheon equivalent will come from ||a bellhome addition (Dreamcatcher?) or the ruined chapel, where you can enter a “Pale Memory” or something of sorts||

[thorny bear]

in a similar vein you can ||break the bridge you build in bone bottom and an event will happen||

[brave flower]

oh fuck i did that

by complete accident

[hollow elm]

It crossed my mind after heading through there mutiple times

[inner fog]

wait, what event?

||The Tyrant?||

or just dialog

[thorny bear]

||A while after i broke the bridge, when I went back to Bone Bottom, the first pilgrim you talked to there had fallen down the pit and died, and they were having a funeral||

[inner fog]

oh my god

||I never realized why I didn’t see them again||

[autumn kettle]

yeah team cherry got a little bit fucked up for silksong

[thorny bear]

also something i've been thinking about; [MAJOR TRUE ENDING SPOILERS, I FLIPPED IT UPSIDEDOWN TO BE EXTRA SAFE]

[brave flower]

yeah i think so

[hollow elm]

The bells at rest stops are suprisingly nice for pogo practice, especially with more unusual styles

[inner fog]

||Well, seeing them flashing briefly doesn’t necessarily confirm godhome to be the “true canon”||

||though it does pretty definitively deconfirm the “Hollow Knight” and “Sealed siblings” (obviously) endings I believe||

[safe yew]

(early-mid act 2, non-plot) ||i want to try to climb mount fay, but it seems like the cold starts draining hornet's hp very quickly; i can't seem to get between sections without losing a mask or two. do i need to get good, or am i missing something to slow down the freeze?||

[thorny bear]

you're able to do it now

[inner fog]

||Yeah, some of the sections scraped a mask or two from me as well, and that’s totally normal||

[thorny bear]

I don't think it's possible damageless, but it's always possible to complete if you're able to reach it

[hollow elm]

||With especially good flow, it may be possible to avoid damage, but expect to get chipped.||

[thorny bear]

and I would recommend doing so immediately

[inner fog]

there’s silk spools and benches across the area, and I’m sure some speed demons will prove it’s possible to avoid damage entirely

[autumn kettle]

you just need to get good

you can do it hitless

i did, it just takes decisiveness and a couple noncommital attempts per section to see where you need to go

[thorny bear]

alright who wants to be the first person to do one of these

[autumn kettle]

oh right i need to do my steel soul run

...maybe i'll delay it so i don't burn out

and just do the 5h speedrun first

[hollow elm]

(Act 1) ||I was starting to wonder if they took out the Nail Arts equivalent, I'm glad to have checked this route.||

[sinful stirrup]

Oh yeah

The first any% speed runs are coming in. And approaching 1 hour 15 min

[autumn kettle]

that's with deaths and unoptimized routes, too

[thorny bear]

i'm excited to see the "Speedrunners vs Hunters" videos

[autumn kettle]

people aren't locked the fuck in on all of the mean parts yet

[thorny bear]

the game itself being much harder makes it better for the hunters, but tools would probably be insane for the speedrunner in pvp

[autumn kettle]

i think we'll see sub-1h on nmg within the year

possibly within the season

i think it'll take a bit, though

[thorny bear]

In 12 months, what do you think the any% and 100% world records will be?
i want to say 45 minutes and 4.5 hours

[granite hedge]

godddd the speedruns in this game are gonna be insane

[thorny bear]

that's maybe optimistic, but i feel like this game has so so much crazy tech and routing to uncover

[autumn kettle]

i think 45min is highly improbable unless you're including major glitches

[granite hedge]

||makes me wonder if the silkspeed anklets are gonna be a requirement||

[autumn kettle]

in which case I'm not even going to try to guess

[brave flower]

what are major glitches.

[autumn kettle]

cutting 20 minutes? difficult but doable

[granite hedge]

https://www.tumblr.com/mysillyium/794228726600794112/you-should-open-the-door

fleshy algae

you should open the door

-# #silksong #hk silksong #silksong sherma #hollow knight #animation #my illustration

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Tumblr · Sep 9, 2025, 4:32 PM

anyway

[autumn kettle]

cutting 30 minutes? way tighter and gonna take a lot more precise routing and iteration

[autumn kettle]

depends on what glitches get discovered

major shit

[thorny bear]

in hollow knight you could break the entire game in half by loading multiple copies of a room at the same time to warp right to wherever you want

[brave flower]

i love sherma an unreasonable amount

what a silly lil guy

[thorny bear]

i doubt something like that could happen for silksong, but i do think the freedom in movement and routing, plus the amount of dedicated speedrunners there will be for the game, will lead to insane levels of optimization

[autumn kettle]

and even without that loading bug, you've got wall cling storage as a, uh

very, very, very centralizing movement bug

[hollow elm]

Hmm, end of act 1 runback really does go wildly fast if you parkour route it

Cleared with act 2 upgrades ||that felt very dance-like to me, solid tells for everything, up to you to react in time||.

[thorny bear]

when fighting that boss i got hit several times by the end of the flail in the moment where it's lying still on the ground, and it felt so annoying

getting crushed by a False Knight ten times your size: 1 damage
touching a stationary bell: 2 damage

[hollow elm]

*I did watch a ton of streamers try tons on the boss, so I know all of the boss's attacks already.

(Act 2) ||The Citadel's Grand Reed sticks out to me as much worse to deal with, moveset-wise. They really don't give you much room to attack without risk of getting blown away.||

[thorny bear]

meme concept for when r/hollowknightmemes opens back up
Things that do 1 damage:
Getting hit by a mace as large as your body
Getting directly skewered by a mantis lord flying at high speed
Being crushed by a monster ten times your size jumping on top of you
Things that do 2 damage:
Brief contact with steam
Being kicked by an ostrich
Touching a sleeping guard

[thorny bear]

yeah, "when the heck am i able to hit this guy" is a very big theme with lategame bosses

[brave flower]

you forgot "the floor"

[safe yew]

that's what radicalized me into installing no double damage

[brave flower]

nah

double damage is fine imo

everything thats had double damage has been exceptionally well-telegraphed

[hollow elm]

I've adjusted to taking 2-mask damage, though it really sucks when it's a map hazard doing it.

[thorny bear]

tell me you haven't fought act 3 bosses without telling me you haven't fought act 3 bosses

[safe yew]

stationary thurible

[brave flower]

i am in early act 2 :D

[hollow elm]

I think the big difference is I'm downright facehugging bosses out of neccesity with Wanderer, and already used to fighting the boss's style.

[safe yew]

i'm still getting guaranteed-combo'd with the mod i have so the double damage isn't all gone but having it toned down helps my experience a lot

[hollow elm]

That's good to hear, the 2-mask damage does feel excessive when enemies get a combo running and you don't recover.

[thorny bear]

i stuck to wanderer through all of act 1 and 2, but it does really fall off act 3 imo

in a lot of bosses you just don't have enough time to attack multiple times even in their biggest openings, and they do 2 damage on contact, so it's more important to have enough range to consistently hit them

and having multiple tools is super nice for a lot of bosses

[hollow elm]

I can manage range fine if enemies aren't doing massive sweeps to keep me out.

Also getting Wanderer's explosive crits more often after learning how it works.

||Staying at/above 9 silk meter (crest expands when random crits are active). Having long/extended silk meter massively helps uptime.||

[hollow elm]

I did run into that problem partway into Act 2, though I still landed on Wanderer because it's the most likely to escape a situation after swinging (shortest windup/endlag).

[elfin ravine]

Act 3 it really does feel like everything does two masks

though you at least have more health

I'm at 9 masks myself currently

[hollow elm]

I've found (Act 1 Tool) ||Multibinder|| to be worth using, despite the supposed downside. ||Multibinder extends Bind time by giving 2 chunks of 2 masks, first chunk feels faster than 3-mask Bind, break-even if you get hit.||

[brave flower]

oh fascinating!

yeah that sounds really strong

[elfin ravine]

Still haven't bought that one

[thorny bear]

it's really not

[brave flower]

ig the windows prolly get way shorter huh

[hollow elm]

I've been buying most stuff as I see it to avoid carrying too many beads

[thorny bear]

approximately doubling your heal time for just a 33% increase is rough

[brave flower]

ah.

[elfin ravine]

Though the Injector is probably permanently in my loadout for me

[hollow elm]

It may be a gamble depending on the situation/fight, it's been incredibly good for exploration though.

[elfin ravine]

The decreased heal duration is very impactful

[thorny bear]

healing is definitely way easier than in hollow knight, but getting hit while healing pretty much always means death

it can be nice during exploration when you always have opportunity to heal in complete safety

[brave flower]

being able to heal in the air feels amazing

[hollow elm]

I've used it on Wanderer for silk conservation reasons.

[elfin ravine]

There's too many cool blue tools I want to use

But I only have three slots

[thorny bear]

yeah yellow is for QoL stuff and blue is for actually practical charms

[hollow elm]

(Act 1) ||The agony of Beast Crest having no blue slots ||

[elfin ravine]

Dice are at least kinda nice

[thorny bear]

with Dice being a notable outlier

yeah

[elfin ravine]

And sorta impactful if random

[hollow elm]

Does benefit from "what else are you putting in yellow slot"

[thorny bear]

i know the dodge chance charm in HK was 22% average chance to avoid damage

[elfin ravine]

Yeah

[thorny bear]

dice feel like maybe half of that?

[brave flower]

theres a speed boost in yellow

that one seems good

[elfin ravine]

It's not like it has any competition

[elfin ravine]

Only while sprinting

[brave flower]

i mean thats still prolly useful

[elfin ravine]

And it costs Silk, if small amounts

[thorny bear]

and very importantly at the cost of silk

[brave flower]

on like reaper

[hollow elm]

Eats silk if you run for too long with it

[brave flower]

oh yeah thats definitely best on reaper

[thorny bear]

silk is very very precious in this game

hence the name

[brave flower]

get in range for dash attack

reaper dash attack is really safe if you can get in range

[hollow elm]

I've mostly used it for travel, since I don't want to risk messing with dash distance. I'm already getting messed up by other speed buffs.

[hollow elm]

Reaper dash is disgustingly free damage.

[thorny bear]

the knockback reduction is the only other combat practical yellow charm i've found

[elfin ravine]

Yeah

I have a bunch of stuff still to buy

[brave flower]

what does ||scuttlebrace|| do

[elfin ravine]

You get a weird backdash

[brave flower]

what do ||spider strings|| do

[elfin ravine]

Don't remember that one

[brave flower]

"expands and strengthens the effects of the ||needolin||"

[elfin ravine]

Oh
I think it makes the charm effect it has on enemies more effective

[brave flower]

ah i see

oh

sherma build

excellent

[elfin ravine]

I should probably just equip the extra rosary yellow, and go farm a bit

And clean out some shops

[thorny bear]

Grand Bellway is a nice spot to farm

put on sprint shoes, extra rosary, and rosary magnet. sit on bench, kill enemies right outside the room, repeat.

[umbral canyon]

ok, ||architect|| is a cool crest in theory but the down attack is the worst shit i've ever seen

[brave flower]

try holding the button :)

[umbral canyon]

oh yeah the drill is basically necessary to make it useful

damage is ok but the windup is gonna kill you on any traversal section

nice thing about it is that it gives you ||shredded organs|| though, so that's something

[brave flower]

it also can kill certain act 3 bosses in 30 seconds

tools are broken

[umbral canyon]

um, i think i've found the place in ||deep docks|| where you get another crest btw, but can you get the key for it in act 2 or should i not bother for now?

[elfin ravine]

There are four Simple Keys in total

Two are accessible in act 1, the other two in act 2

[umbral canyon]

no, not that, sorry. there's ||a door with a keyhole shaped like the architect's vault||

[elfin ravine]

Do you mean the bell?

[umbral canyon]

yeah

[elfin ravine]

That's an act 3 thing

Don't worry about it for now

[hollow elm]

(Act 2) ||I just remembered, Multibinder may trigger two flashes of Claw Mirror.||

Will need to check

Yep, whoa

[thorny bear]

claw mirror seems so so bad to me

getting a tiny bit of damage is not worth the enormous risk that comes with being near enemies while you heal

[hollow elm]

It's a very oddball tool, I wouldn't use it normally without a plan of some sort, or bind speed boost

Seemed to deal chunky damage for Act 2 enemies.

[hollow elm]

Huh, I apparently (Act 2) ||had enough tools for the Architect Crest right away|| from exploring tons.

[granite hedge]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/DeadlockTheGame/s/MCLHsUwAMG

[torn sky]

Enjoying silksong a lot. I dunno...obviously I could be wrong but I'm not finding the bosses harder than the Hollow Knight ones.

Regular enemies have much shinier movesets though/I've gotten my ass kicked by some of the basic dude gauntlets a few times.

Feels like they really expect you to use the tools a lot against even basic enemies.

My biggest enemy so far: 45 degree angles. My muscle memory for pogoing has sent me off a lot of cliffs

[granite hedge]

🤔 are you having trouble with pogoing because of Hornet's diagonal downward dash?

[torn sky]

When I remember it exists, i'ts great.

When I forget briefly, I go flying over the enemy's head and then get slapped about. XD

[granite hedge]

ahh I see

||Well, you CAN find a special unlockable that gives her a more traditional downward attack||

[torn sky]

I've got ||Crest of the Reaper||, it's pretty cool.

Very Floaty

[hollow elm]

Huh, (Act 2) ||pogoing with Architect Crest is suprisingly easy, after having learned Hunter's 45 deg dive. Architect down attack uncharged is just the diagonal swing, while charged includes the dive.||

[torn sky]

||That's fun. I like the reaper one so far. It's not fast but it's graceful and it's very easy to stay in the air basicly indefinitely||

[open stratus]

Okay, ||I might actually Wanderer sometimes, entirely for its Needle Strike. Love me some hyperfast thrusts. :)||

[foggy cipher]

||YEAAAAH I JUST SLAPPED THE JUDGE’S SHIT||

[granite hedge]

WOOOOO

[fathom shadow]

I need help on that boss.
I’ve died so many times, and the runback is hell.

Any recommended builds?

[unreal spruce]

||Magma Bell|| reduces fire damage. Slapping it on ||Reaper's Crest|| isn't bad. You can also go for ||Beast Crest + Flea Brew|| for extreme damage like I did, but you need to still be careful with that build and not get too reckless/greedy. I like to try and use some tools during the fire circles when I can't get close easily. I still found it pretty tough though. If it's really too much ||there's another way to Act 2, through Sinner's Road and Bilewater. But the platforming their is quite annoying in it's own way.||

[open stratus]

Every attack is telegraphed and every attack but one can be punished.
Let them dictate the fight.

Also, ||look for the shortcut to the left of the second platform. Knocks travel time down to around 30 seconds if you're sprinting.||

[hollow elm]

Boss is effectively playing keep-away while you dive every chance you get

Severly grating with Silksong using direction inputs + skill for items

[fathom shadow]

How do you get to ||sinners road?|| I know it exists but have no idea how to get there.

[unreal spruce]

Oh yeah, that's really annoying. I've wasted silk more times than I cared for with that

[unreal spruce]

||It's through Greymoor, above the inn, but you have to go to the left and up around to reach it (though you can unlock a lift up there to make it easier when you have to run it back... and you will, the path is nasty).||

[fathom shadow]

Thank you, I’ll try that out.
I need a break from this damn boss.

[unreal spruce]

Np.
Yeah, that's fair

[fathom shadow]

I don’t know why this one of all of them is making me struggle.

Then again all of them have been challenging.

[severe swift]

||Mount Fay|| was awesome, fun challenge. Frustrating at points but always fair. ||High Halls|| Arena is the least fun I've had in this game so far.

[solar elbow]

so what's the deal with ||the mists? am i meant to find a way through it?||

[hollow elm]

Baffled by the number of hidden areas all over, accidentally found one just swinging into a "this looks like breakable wall texture" section.

[solar elbow]

||i'm kinda just following the glowing moth things and idk if i'm meant to be doing something else||

[unreal spruce]

If you want a hint ||play music near the butterflys||

[solar elbow]

ok will try

[fathom shadow]

I was very very surprised ay the sheer amount of secret areas in ||Weaver Nest Atla||.
Its much larger than the map initially suggests.

[solar elbow]

yeah this helped thanks

[unreal spruce]

Np

[solar elbow]

trying to figure out what you're missing is very hard when you don't know how much there is to miss

[umbral canyon]

the uh, ||spider scuttle|| is so funny

not sure if i'll be able to squeeze much use out of it since adding another movement tech is probably too much overhead for me but i appreciate it for what it is

[rose granite]

Yeah, I started crossing things off of the online map that exists of the game in areas I've been in.

[wanton bone]

I think it lets you do some weird dodges? Will probably end up being like Shape of Unn, where it opens up weird windows in boss attacks (I used Shape to beat Grimm, since it lets you heal underneath the firebats.)

[rose granite]

Though I try to limit it to not suffer too many spoilers, so it's primarily been mask shards and spools.

[umbral canyon]

yeah the extended dash it gives you is probably going to open up some weird sequence breaks too

[wanton bone]

Oh god. Yeah, that's going to lead to some fun skips for actually good rando players. (I play HK rando with skips off and feel good when I do manage to pull one off.)

[umbral canyon]

the game kinda floods you with spools once you hit act 2, i think i'm at....14 spool fragments and 11 mask shards heading into ||high halls||

trying to wrap up as much shit as i can before committing to it since the extended aerial duels you have to pull off there are a bit nuts

[wanton bone]

(I think item randomizer is probably the format where generic skips, particularly item-enabled skips, are most relevant.)

[umbral canyon]

btw, was ||green knight|| supposed to help you fight the ||cogwork dancers||? He just kinda showed up afterwards and went 'guess you did it without me oh well'

[autumn kettle]

yeah

pretty sure

[formal zenith]

why is the reward for beating ||last judge|| just ||blasted steps but even worse|| -_-

is every environmental hazard going to deal 2 damage from now on

[unreal spruce]

I don't know, especially since ||the secret boss/path to Act 2, Phantom, gives you a really cool Silk Skill and great starting area for act 2||

[elfin ravine]

A large amount of them, yes

[umbral canyon]

i think only generic spikes deal 1 damage for the most part, most of the other ones i've seen are 2s

[dreamy scarab]

Thought: the Path of Pain and Hornet's fascination with traps suggests a shared family interest.
Corollary: hornet would love a chainsaw

[umbral canyon]

||she does get a buzzsaw...|||

[brave flower]

hornet definitely takes after her father

[rose granite]

Yeah pretty much.

[brave flower]

realization: the pale king is fred from scooby doo

[rose granite]

If you're fine with spoilers, my recommendation would be to ||prioritise getting the harpoon, double jump, and needle upgrade. If you want specific directions, or hints, I can give them.||

The latter two of those things helped the game feel a lot better for me.

[brave flower]

i dont know how to get to the ||harpoon|| i would appreciate directions

[umbral canyon]

i still need to do the ||chef's quest|| for the second weapon upgrade

seems like a uhhhh pain

[brave flower]

thats the third one

[autumn kettle]

get through ||underworks||, then make your way over to and clear ||whiteward. you'll find a "secret" way through the incinerators, which leads you to another part of the underworks||

[brave flower]

its nightmarishly difficult

[autumn kettle]

it is not

[umbral canyon]

right you are, the ||second non-free one i guess||

[rose granite]

Have you gotten to ||First shrine|| yet?

[wanton bone]

This game's path of pain equivalent end scene is Hornet going "man, dad would have loved this place" /joke

[brave flower]

ah i see, i made it out of ||underworks and into choral chambers||

[rose granite]

I take the thumbs down as a no?

[brave flower]

correct

currently working on making my way thru ||choral chambers||

i did find the ||whiteward elevator|| but i need the ||key||

[rose granite]

Okay, once you ||beat the boss of the area, go to the west of it til you reach a shrine with a bell. Continue West and you'll find a key to pick up. This key unlocks whiteward, through a creepy white lift, which once you get through will lead you to a small sub area and then Underworks again. Complete this Underworks area and you get the harpoon.||

[brave flower]

gotcha!

ah damn theres a boss

i mean it makes sense but yknow

[rose granite]

||After that, I recommend doing a wish at the First Shrine to unlock the merchant there, and get a charm that lets you stick to walls without gliding. This will help you ascend Mount Fay, and once you ascend that mountain you get the double jump.||

[brave flower]

awesome, thanks!

first i will be visiting my GOAT thr ||12th architecf||

[rose granite]

Oh yeah, do you have the ||silkshot|| relic yet?

Specifically the thing you turn into it.

If not, here's a video showcasing the various options https://youtu.be/BY90R6D7FC0?si=4eEhtC_KiwufOJpj

Oh and for the main quest ||do whispering vault first, trust me ;p.||

[fathom willow]

I keep getting owned

[autumn kettle]

lmfao

on the one hand, i'm so sorry

on the other hand, you do have the barbed bracelet equipped

[fathom willow]

I can't resist

[autumn kettle]

based and correct

imo it's pretty impossible to run around with barbed bracelet and not also equip the fractured mask

since that can save you from exactly that kind of four (or eight)-mask hit

[fathom willow]

I would, but I also love Beast crest

So no blues

[autumn kettle]

zased

have you found eva?

[fathom willow]

Ye

[autumn kettle]

have you been back recently?

||you might have a blue vesticrest ready||