THE SILKSONG IS REAL

[autumn kettle]

you were on the right track

[hot mango]

Very happy Silksong has so many random key items ||except the grey baby it’s so loud and gave me a parasite fuck that guy||

[umbral canyon]

left, up

[hot mango]

Aw dang it ||I was hoping I wouldn’t need to ascend the clocktower again||

[umbral canyon]

it's not too far in to the path of pain shit either

[hot mango]

The rough part is the lack of silk for healing

[autumn kettle]

||imo that's super misleading, it's not into the dangerous traversal at all||

[hot mango]

Unlike Hollow Knight, the Grubsong equivalent doesn’t really cut it, and you need to spend silk as part of the platforming so getting enough Silk to bind is near impossible

[umbral canyon]

yeah fair

[hot mango]

The platforming is probably easier than White Palace, but it’s way less forgiving thanks to the way Silk works vs Soul

[lapis siren]

i keep dying to poop

[hot mango]

THERE’S A POOP BOSS? FUCK YEAH

[umbral canyon]

i've reached the point in act 3 where i've started looking up spoilers for secondary stuff tbh

cause it's all obscure enough that there's no way i'm finding it and idk how close to the end of the game i actually am

[hot mango]

I haven’t even got to act 3 yet lol

[lapis siren]

poopmother

[autumn kettle]

||oh, the fly broodmother?||

[lapis siren]

ue

ye

[wanton bone]

Yeah, they really cut out the ways to sustain attempts at parkour without ways to restock on soul/silk. Grubsong is worse, Deep Focus is worse, ect.

[autumn kettle]

deep focus is so much better wh

[wanton bone]

Or well the silksong equivalents to those are. At least for sheer silk economy.

[autumn kettle]

no.

i know what you meant

multibinder is

drastically superior to deep focus

because it is a tool that you can actually use

and doesn't cost more resources than every other tool/charm in the game

as opposed to being both exhorbitantly expensive and unusable

[green bone]

man I think the ||Cogfly|| tool is just plain not that good

which is sad I love the vibes ||of having your very own attack drone||

[lapis siren]

it is!

its super good

you can have more than one

[inner fog]

You can actually ||upgrade the druid’s tool if you didn’t know. Just give the 3 extra berries to the druid||

[green bone]

I do know that

its dmg output just seems to suck

[elfin ravine]

their damage is middling, but they are also basically impossible to waste

[inner fog]

But it is passive, and goes up drastically with a certain tool

[elfin ravine]

it's just very reliable damage

also the poison yeah

[green bone]

yeah im comboing them with the poison

I think they are nice for exploration Im just doing a combat arena(idk why I said boss) rn

[lapis siren]

theyre very good on single target damage just cause they stack up

you may just be facing a difficult boss, some have massive h ealth pools

[inner fog]

Or missing a tool damage upgrade

[green bone]

Im trying to use them to burst down the ||two Choir Clappers in the High Hall arena||

[lapis siren]

ahhh

[hoary tulip]

you need to weigh the damage vs window size / positioning requirement for tools right

[lapis siren]

try using sharpdart

[hoary tulip]

cogflies are literally impossible to miss with and will hit bosses in the middle of their attack strings, it's the least demanding tool in the game in terms of positioning, timing, and aiming

[lapis siren]

oh luna

i need help

[hoary tulip]

go ahead

[green bone]

dont have that one

[lapis siren]

im not sure what to do rn, i have done every quest except ||second sentinel||

[lapis siren]

go to wormways girlie

[inner fog]

If you’re struggling, I believe there’s actually two ways to get help for it

[lapis siren]

||i dont have silk and soul yet, thjough||

so im not sure how to advance

[elfin ravine]

any wishes left to do still?

[green bone]

already been there

[lapis siren]

just one

[hoary tulip]

you should do that wish

[lapis siren]

theres a weavernest

alr

[green bone]

||are they behind the spider door||

aaah yeah

[lapis siren]

ill go do it

[elfin ravine]

otherwise just general completion stuff might tip you over

[hoary tulip]

I assume you've checked every Wishboard

[elfin ravine]

fleas, missing tools, etc

[hoary tulip]

you may need to check in with Beavis and Butthead over in the Sinner's Road too

[lapis siren]

i gave them their meal

i have 20 fleas

[hoary tulip]

did you oblige the simp

[lapis siren]

and i dont know any tools im missing

uhhh not yet

i need to deliver the Egg

[umbral canyon]

think you need 25 total. have they ||moved out of the citadel entrance?||

[lapis siren]

no

[hoary tulip]

deliveries don't count as completion but they may count towards making Hornet a better person

[umbral canyon]

yeah you need a few more, and i think you need to ||finish shakra's quest|| as well?

[lapis siren]

so i suppose i should get those

[inner fog]

1: ||Complete Shakra’s wish after getting all her maps and you can request her aid outside the arena||

2?: ||I’ve heard you can get Garmond and Zaza to help if you dueled them in the vaults||

[lapis siren]

i have

[hoary tulip]

poshanka

[lapis siren]

poshanka

eeeee lai lai lai

i suppose ill go help the simp and look for fleas

||where cna i get a grub map?||

i acquired BigManFlear

[hoary tulip]

||Pale Lake||

[lapis siren]

wtf how i thought that shit was empty

am i dumb

[green bone]

finally done

[hoary tulip]

if it still is empty you need the Fleas to move :\

[green bone]

they fell to the highest peak of martial arts

[lapis siren]

damn ok

[green bone]

||a fucking gun||

[lapis siren]

ill check on my fleas

[hoary tulip]

which one did you get

[lapis siren]

in the meantime ill help simp

[green bone]

||Silkshot||

[hoary tulip]

WHICH one

I know it's ||Silkshot||, but where did you get it ||repaired||

[lapis siren]

also

i am #nooticing

[inner fog]

Looks like the ||Cogwork|| one from the screenshot

[lapis siren]

||verdania was excised....||

[green bone]

oh nvm

[hoary tulip]

ah yeah

Architect one

[green bone]

||from Architect yeah||

[lapis siren]

im noticing....

[hoary tulip]

yea

re: which

[green bone]

||I assumed Forge Girl was too unskilled to repair it||

[hoary tulip]

||Silkshot is a Cave Story ref, there's multiple guns you can trade it for||

||Forge Daughter can repair it, Architect can repair it, and there's a third secret one you can get||

[lapis siren]

i got the secret one

[green bone]

I should check out Cave Story

[lapis siren]

hahah

[inner fog]

||Only a scant few even remember old Verdania||

[hoary tulip]

Pole Star moment for sure

[rose granite]

It's a good game

[lapis siren]

im noticing

i also realised ||putrified ducts existed cause of memorium||

best subarea in the game ngl

[hoary tulip]

yeah you're putting it together lol

[lapis siren]

not only is it amazing for the world and gameplay but also for the integration of themes and lore

[hoary tulip]

do you know why the bugs of Bilewater are so insanely fucking mad

[lapis siren]

||i know that coral tower must have some way to enter the dead||

yeah i do

[hoary tulip]

I'd be fucking ticked too

[lapis siren]

i found their ragebait tablet

[hoary tulip]

it's not ragebait

[lapis siren]

i also know why mosshome is collapsing and karak is dying i think

[hoary tulip]

They're furious and with good reason

[lapis siren]

no, i mean the tablet that talks about how theyre going to kill you before the groal walkback

[hoary tulip]

oh yeah

[lapis siren]

its ragebait for me

[hoary tulip]

it's kinda fair though

I'd be mad too

[lapis siren]

i also found the dead pinstress

[hoary tulip]

if I was from Bilewater

[lapis siren]

and the enslaved ants

i was actually talking to my friend at the start of skong

[hoary tulip]

I didn't see enslaved ants but I did find the dead pinstress

[inner fog]

Honestly, I think ||whiteward|| was my favorite Citadel sub area (besides ||the core||, of course)

[inner fog]

wait what!!

[lapis siren]

about how hunter's march explicit tells you what happens with the ants

[umbral canyon]

||because they've been living in the citadel's runoff for however many generations?||

[hoary tulip]

yeah

and it ruined their land's ecosystem

[lapis siren]

march being the vassalised kingdom forced to defend the citadel

[inland wave]

I don't know where people are finding more ant stuff

[lapis siren]

as a historical term

[hoary tulip]

the Citadel did NOT pass ecological review

[lapis siren]

karak is a certified rainworld moment

[hoary tulip]

I guess yeah

[inland wave]

When you get to the ducts there's a real "this is some solid aqueduct business to have worked so badly"

[hoary tulip]

if you think about how much water is needed to drive the Citadel's steam power and who's missing it

[lapis siren]

yeah its very good environmental storytelling, especially in ||which regions are missing from memorium||

||there's not any blasted steps region, there's only karak and coral and polyps||

[hoary tulip]

||And Verdania, but the ecological systems failed and that was lost||

[lapis siren]

true true

[umbral canyon]

oh huh i did not catch that tbh

[lapis siren]

its just the name of the area, yueah

and explains why the ants fiercely hunt intruders

theyre subjects of the citadel, the same as everyone else

forced to war

[umbral canyon]

ohhh right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_(territory)

i see what you mean

[inland wave]

like is this act 3 type stuff

[lapis siren]

no

[inner fog]

Really takes the themes of the ||Soul Sanctum|| and cranks them up to 11

[lapis siren]

this is act1

[inland wave]

No I know the March

[hot mango]

Tru but depending on the crest it does increase the bind duration. But at the very least it makes it so that if the Bind is interrupted you still get some healing out of it

[lapis siren]

nothing here is act 3 related, just acts 1-2 afaik

im not in act 3 yet

[inner fog]

the fact nothing about its nature is even hidden when compared to the ||Sanctum||

[lapis siren]

i have just been noticing

[hot mango]

Wait- I can do that!

[lapis siren]

now tbf this is semi-obscure lore from a region you have no reason to go to in most of act 2 i think

but is very much accessible the entire time

[hot mango]

||The High Hall arena is murderous- unfortunately I was out of craftmetal when I got there so I had to raw-dog it with Garbazo and Zaza||

[hoary tulip]

I remain unclear as to what the purpose of the ||Exhaust Organ|| actually is

[lapis siren]

also luna did you notice ||they intentionally left the slab and mount fay out of their memorium||

[lapis siren]

ventilation system and backdoor protection

[hot mango]

There’s more stuff in Wormways?

[inland wave]

The slab isn't for remembering it's the opposite, seems

[lapis siren]

its. an exhaust organ its a pun

[umbral canyon]

i assume it's just what regulates the ||runoff from the citadel||

[hoary tulip]

I mean yeah, every region excluded from the ||Memorium|| is done so on purpose

[lapis siren]

it pumps out soot and runoff

[hoary tulip]

hmm

that and also excess steam pressure

[lapis siren]

its a multi-layered pun

[umbral canyon]

what i don't get is why ||sinner's road, which is presumably for capturing and transporting prisoners|| is so far away from ||the slab|| or really anything

[hoary tulip]

It's not

Sinner's Road is a farming region actually

[umbral canyon]

hm, the name and the cages made me think otherwise but if it's just where people farm their roachslop that would make sense

[lapis siren]

||exhaust as in the word for smoke and steam from the operation of a combustion furnace, exhaust as in exhausting pilgrims who seek to take an unworthy path, organ as in literally being a pipe organ, and organ as in working like the liver or bladder of pharloom||

[hoary tulip]

presumably the breadbasket of Pharloom before the Citadel ruined everything upstream

[lapis siren]

racism

||it used to be part of verdania and greymoor i think but the citadel fucked them over and sent their guys in and just completely fucked the hell out of it||

[hot mango]

||The Roaches, due to breeding really fast and being resistant to disease, are used as livestock. They’re terrible livestock due to being really rancid meat and being extremely vicious but they’re plentiful which is all the Elite really care about||

[lapis siren]

prior to Roach time it was described as being rather pleasant

[rose granite]

||I don't think the slab itself is surprising, especially since they don't seem to include any form of concrete civilisation. Whilst one can make an argument for whatever the purported original sin of the flies is to play a bigger role, I'd say Shellwood or Far Fields are more notable for their absence.||

[lapis siren]

the cages are for transporting live food

[rose granite]

At least I didn't see those two areas there.

[lapis siren]

they include both of those regions orange

[rose granite]

In which rooms?

[hoary tulip]

lower right

[lapis siren]

lower right and lower left

||shellwood holds a piece of the cogwork heart and a spool, far field is just a traversal section||

[umbral canyon]

||mount fay|| also strikes me as a place that would have been marked 'here be dragons' on pharloom's maps, given that the ||fayforn|| is warned to be very mercurial

[rose granite]

Oh yeah for the former, though the latter I read as ||moss grotto|| instead.

Ah well

[lapis siren]

||the rhinoguard is from far fields||

[hoary tulip]

nah Moss Grotto has its own segment

[lapis siren]

deep docks isnt included

[inland wave]

Deep Docks is industry, not a culture

[lapis siren]

they include no culture

[inland wave]

That wouldn't and shouldn't exist without Pharloom

[hoary tulip]

Deep Docks has no wildlife that the Citadel cares about or even knows exists

[inner fog]

Understandable, since it’d basically be part of the marrow without the citadel

[lapis siren]

yeh

[hoary tulip]

Lavalugs are like

[lapis siren]

you can actually see where it WOULD be though

[hoary tulip]

weird and deep-dwelling extremophiles

[rose granite]

||Yeah but that section is to the lower left, since that's where you enter and the jumping puzzle, so assumed that was the area referred to. The rhino is more in the middle I believed.||

[lapis siren]

||the deep red flooring in the marrow and far fields room represents lava||

[hoary tulip]

lmao real

they planned it

[inland wave]

I am shocked they care enough to build a weird zoo about it

[umbral canyon]

there's also that section with the.... ||anemone? looking things in the memorium that doesn't exist in modern pharloom||

[lapis siren]

spoilrs

[hoary tulip]

||Incorrect||

[umbral canyon]

hm

[lapis siren]

||the memorium is designed to replace reality||

||its not an accurate depiction of the real world, its curated and bred to inspire wonder and reticence to leave the citadel by emphasising the dangers and mystery of the natural world, while also cutting out the parts they dont like||

[hoary tulip]

I'm unclear on this, the Memorium doesn't seem to exist to REPLACE reality so much as like... act as a symbol of both it and the Citadel's triumph over nature and death

[inland wave]

||'in danger of being forgot'|| just has me like hmmh

[hoary tulip]

the Citadel kinda projects its imperialism in the form of categorizing and remembering stuff so that it never changes or is forgotten

[inner fog]

||Also, the irony of trying to preserve these environments that wouldn’t be at risk if not for the citadel is palpable||

[autumn kettle]

oh? i missed her, where's she?

[rose granite]

It's if anything reminiscent of Victorian conservatories I'd say.

[hoary tulip]

||You get the pure wreath off her, use Needolin to speak with her shade||

[inland wave]

Needolin should still cost no silk

It is so goddamn annoying

[hoary tulip]

Have you used it in combat

[inland wave]

Yes

I don't care

[lapis siren]

ducts

[umbral canyon]

oh yeah that reminds me, i just got the ||elegy of the deep|| - this really is dark souls 2 huh

[hoary tulip]

lil bit

[inland wave]

It's not gamebreaking to be able to stun folks, just make it make the ||clockwork summon buggies also sing|| or whatever

[inner fog]

if the ||Dream Nail|| is so cool, why isn’t there a ||Dream Nail|| tw-

[inland wave]

It's fuckin stupid that it lasts long enough for like two lines of dialog

[autumn kettle]

areyousureaboutthat ;)

[autumn kettle]

ohhhh, right

[hoary tulip]

https://tenor.com/vijTYfViArL.gif

[autumn kettle]

totally forgot that, thanks

[autumn kettle]

time to go back to wreathezone once i have some more time...

[umbral canyon]

also act 3 question : ||was there a way to save bone bottom that i missed? Bellhart and songclave survived the abyss but bone bottom is gone||

[elfin ravine]

don't think so

[inner fog]

OH! I never put the pieces together that the ||Pinstress/Seamstress were Stiltkin||

[elfin ravine]

||the survivors move to a camp in the Marrow, where the flea caravan is at first ||

[inner fog]

The way the ||Pinstress|| fights makes so much more sense now

[rose granite]

||Bone Bottom seems to exist to be a starter town that gets increasingly fucked over as you progress.||

||Bittersweet little place, as they still persevere.||

[umbral canyon]

||Yeah it was always kinda fucked|| I think

What species is ||groal|| meant to be? Presumably the same as the ||soul tyrant|| I assume, but idk what kind of bug ||resembles a frog like that||

[rose granite]

||I just assumed they were the same as the rest, but bloated with souls.||

[umbral canyon]

I mean if I had to guess what the deal there is, he presumably ||killed the snail shaman of the swamps and claimed their soul, which is why he can use soul magic||

[inland wave]

Still not sure what to do with that

Got a few npc comments but they've mostly been like "that's weird"

[umbral canyon]

Act 3, you'll know when you need it

[brave flower]

frug

(frog bug)

[rose granite]

Bog

[autumn kettle]

||yeah, this is explicit once you hit the act 3 quest prog||

[hot mango]

Very pleased by the experience of seeing other people get to parts of Silksong I wrapped up hours ago with equipment I’ve never seen before in my life

[autumn kettle]

lol

[brave flower]

i tend to do a bunch of research on what options games give me and then get tunnel vision on the stuff that looks the coolest

e.g. architect

[inland wave]

see the exploration is a big part of it for me

the genre in general but HK really hits

[umbral canyon]

yeah i've bounced off other metroidvanias or like, finished them and just went 'well that was pretty cool!' but team cherry have the secret sauce

(the secret sauce might just be taking the better part of a decade to make your game, idk)

[inland wave]

still can't get over them giving her the Alucard Turn

so style

[hoary tulip]

she is alucard

[green bone]

niche question

||is the bilewater map accessible without double jump?||

[elfin ravine]

no

unless you do some really good pogos maybe

[green bone]

I have nothng to pogo off in the room

[rose granite]

Like the room? Hm, could go check later but probably easiest not to.

[fathom willow]

(Late act 3 spoilers) ||Once I go to The Abyss for the second time for "Last Dive", is that a point of no return, or will I be able to come back from the Abyss to hunt down collectibles and the journal and stuff?||

[autumn kettle]

||you can come back, clearing the game just spits you out right before the final boss||

[elfin ravine]

you can still come back i believe

[fathom willow]

Awesome

[thorny bear]

it's kinda crazy that this percent is this high this soon after release

[brave flower]

awoo!

[thorny bear]

damn, some madman has already done it

[lapis siren]

i just gunned down innocent choristers

[inland wave]

Taking breaks from the game is wrong, it makes you do things like forget ||You already unlocked the shortcut for Karak||

but also playing the game is wrong, because it makes you do things like ||be in the sands of Karak||

i wish all conchflies a very drown in a lake

[hollow elm]

They've been significantly easier to deal with after ||realizing their shots are limited to 45 degree angles||. Also bringing ranged Tools like ||Straight Pin/Threefold Pin||.

[inland wave]

They simply ||know the geometries|| i dodge the first but not the third

also just slightly too small for threefold pin to Not Be Annoying

[inland wave]

god

i'd rather do another ||Bilewater||

i hate this platforming so goddamn much

And everyone's favorite boss, ||a shittier version of the boring boss from before||

'it never stops moving or spamming attacks' fascinating

[hot mango]

Ya know my mood with most of the Silksong bosses thus far has been
beats boss
“Wait no I just figured you out come back-“

[rose granite]

Hey, whilst the game is hard and I can understand frustrations, have had my own too whilst playing, we can limit the venting. Tends to just bring down the mood in the whole channel.

[lapis siren]

ok im scared

everyone i know is telling em to farm rosaries

[dreamy scarab]

Act 1 done! Tough boss but a fun boss. Got a lot easier when I stopped panicking and just ||hopped straight over the charge attack||

[hot mango]

Just beat ||Phantom|| w/ my weak Exploration Kit and incomplete silk meter. Thoughts… ‘salright fight.

After accidentally seeing so many spoilers hyping it up I’m a little disappointed tbh

Still fun and tense but did it on my first try

||Didn’t explore The Mist at all, just beelined for the exit using the Lumaflies. I feel like I missed something important there but I could not tell you what.||

||The Mist|| doesn’t have its own map, correct?

I keep winning boss fights with Wanderers crest and it doesn’t feel as good

Like it feels way better to win with a true combat crest, like ||Beast, Witch, or Architect||

[lapis siren]

i got every flea

[lapis siren]

you could solve this by taking off wandersrs crest tbf

[hot mango]

Fair

[autumn kettle]

correct

[hot mango]

It just keeps working well and I keep stumbling into fights with it

[autumn kettle]

wanderer also is a combat crest, like all the others

[hot mango]

Not the point but yeah

[lapis siren]

i do feel like the main use of wanderer is just the pogos

[autumn kettle]

its "specialty" is just having the best sustained dps and ignoring complex gimmicks

[lapis siren]

it otherwise feels very underwhelming though

[hot mango]

It attacks really fast- it’s dash attack especially

[lapis siren]

best sustained dps is ehhh idk questionable, depends on fight

[autumn kettle]

quick slash will always be strong

[lapis siren]

i just find it kinda boring to play with in comparison to the others

especially since it doesnt really get any unique mechanic

[autumn kettle]

it's the best sustained dps [within nail combat] because it attacks faster and has crits

but yeah, it's pretty boring because of that

[hot mango]

It also has a normal bind + a silk skill, which is helpful compared to the others

Only, thus far, Reaper and Hunter have that

[lapis siren]

i tend to use reaper or ||witch||

[hot mango]

||Witch feels fun as hell when it works, but as soon as you miss a Bind it feels like it’s conspiring against you||

||Plus it’s vertical slashes have weird angles||

[sinful stirrup]

I'm pretty sure wanderer gets iframes on some moves

[lapis siren]

yeah but the dps though

[lapis siren]

everyone can parry attacks so its not super valuable though

[tall night]

honestly doing platforming with reaper i felt ignorant, it was so easy like wanderer was speaking to me like the goblin mask learn my dive boy

[lapis siren]

if you know the timings you can deflect any blade swing

[sinful stirrup]

But not all attacks can be parried, like bodycharges

[lapis siren]

this is why we have the jump button

i am but a humble student of the blade

[hot mango]

||There’s also the literal parry||

[sinful stirrup]

Where the wandere jump down attack has frames, you dont seem to need to actually clear the box

[lapis siren]

ironically i feel like thats worse than just parrying them regularly

[tall night]

first precept of not getting hit, no be there

[lapis siren]

id rather take sharpdart

[hot mango]

||I haven’t used the literal parry yet,|| nor found Sharpdart

[tall night]

btw i havent seen it how is the poison dps stats? is it good i like it so far

[lapis siren]

yes, i use sharp dart and reaper

[hot mango]

I heard it was in Wormways but I could not find it

[lapis siren]

i like bouncing on heads

[hot mango]

||The Drill is pretty good tho. Still haven’t found Pimpillo tho||

[lapis siren]

its pretty good, it modifies every tool thogh

so seeing how it changes things is really fun

[hot mango]

It doesn’t change their AOE pattern or anything tho

Just gives them a new coat of paint

[lapis siren]

actually,

it does......

[hot mango]

Really? I haven’t noticed

[lapis siren]

yeah

[hot mango]

Speaking of tools, ||the electric stake is like… crazy good.||

[lapis siren]

you can see it more clearly in combat

[autumn kettle]

lightning is very cool

[hot mango]

I’ve been using it with the Threefold Pin, Spine Shards, and Beetles. Haven’t noticed any behavior changes

[autumn kettle]

we should get more lightning-based tools

[hot mango]

Maybe it just doesn’t affect those ones

[autumn kettle]

beetles?

do you mean the cogflies?

[hot mango]

Yeah

[lapis siren]

for those it just causes all their attacks to apply stacks of poison

[tall night]

ii want to like the longpin more it is fun looking

[hot mango]

It has an arc so it has some spacing issues

[hot mango]

Are there any easy examples of ones it changes the behavior of? Like a Tool from the trailers?

[lapis siren]

flea brew

[hot mango]

Oh huh- yeah I suppose the Weapon Augment tools would behave weirder

[lapis siren]

or plasmium injector

[hot mango]

that I haven’t found yet

[lapis siren]

its really funny

[hot mango]

Man I feel like I’ve been thorough in combing over the map with the ||double jump|| and from before then but just finding less areas than I expected

Folks have found so many things I haven’t without making nearly as much progress

It’s not a bad thing but it’s funky

Like the Coral Area from the trailers, or the Ant Colosseum- no idea where those could be hiding

[proud cobalt]

If they still exist.

The Hollow Knight Trailers had things cut from the game still in them.

[hot mango]

I’ve been seeing hints about the existence of both is the issue

[proud cobalt]

Fair, I mean there are some insanely hidden areas.

Like I saw one today that I never would've even noticed, and the person I watched only knew of it because they read about it online.

[hot mango]

I am trying my best to avoid looking stuff up but I’m slowly running out of things to check. A lot of the ||double jump|| areas are smaller than expected

[brave flower]

to my knowledge ||those are both act 3||

[proud cobalt]

Person I watch hasn't even gotten it yet, but yeah I assume the maps are simply getting filled out already.

[hot mango]

||I have no idea if Act 3 is triggered by making progress somewhere else or beating Grandmother Silk after making some check. I suppose it’ll be obvious when I get there. I did spoil myself on one thing to see what’s up with Second Sentinel, and apparently there’s a path between Cogwork Core and Cradle so maybe that’s something idk||

[brave flower]

||act 3 is triggered by a wish that i believe the appearance condition for is tied to completion percent||

literally Just Do More Stuff

[hot mango]

Huh… okay…

Also does donating Rosaries to the towns do anything? It doesn’t seem to do anything

[brave flower]

theyre wishes, so ||theyre part of completion%||

also they make the people there happier :D

[hot mango]

Yeah I’m still gonna do them ofc I was just wondering

I’ve lost a. Lot of rosaries to deaths so I’m a little lighter on them than other folks would normally be

[brave flower]

thats normal

[thorny bear]

the rosary necklaces aren't bad options to buy

14% fee to make your money deathproof

[severe swift]

Do you guys think a patch is coming soon for ||Groal|| or should I tough it out?

[thorny bear]

if you really don't want to deal with him, you can just ||swim in the maggot water and hit him when he pops up, and none of his attacks can hit you||

[hot mango]

I always lose my rosaries when I hit a money stash and am 6 billion miles from the nearest shop :/

[tall night]

the pilgrim purse also exists but like, who is using that slot for that

[hot mango]

I do need to unequip my shard necklace after rebuilding a surplus

[tall night]

honestly do you need to farm shards as much as rosaries since you can buy one with the other

[severe swift]

But then I cant heal and his buddies can still hurt me.

[hot mango]

I wasn’t actively farming them to be fair- I just had it equipped while exploring in hopes I’d eventually reach the shard cap again

[sinful stirrup]

I have found the coral area, it is in act 2

[hot mango]

Well then I better up my game in exploration

[proud cobalt]

Ya' know what a ||Silkeater|| is?

[inland wave]

I've been looking for ||Verdania|| and feel like Hornet is somehow hallucinating the encounter

What walls have gone unsmacked

[hot mango]

The first few times it happened no, most recently I got reckless however

[thorny bear]

||did you free the prisoner||?

[inland wave]

Yus

And then met that other time

But not perhaps a third time

[thorny bear]

||Then head to craw lake||

[proud cobalt]

Just checking.

[severe swift]

The fact that ||Groal|| takes 3 minutes to actually fight is killing me lol

[inland wave]

ofh i haven't been back in that corner in ages of course

Also I found the ||Plasmium Health|| made ||Groal|| much less of a pain

Guy wants an endurance match and you can kind of say "yeah sure"

[umbral canyon]

that fight took forever for me but i was so tilted by the runback that i played him suuuuuper careful

which he actually punishes you for ||by summoning enemy waves inbetween|| so you gotta get used to getting aggressive

[hollow elm]

Me, reduces the stress of holding a ton of loose beads for a yellow slot, lets me bank 1/2 if I don't want to runback for the rest.

[inland wave]

Thinking about it I basically fought him like Spiderman's wrestling debut in the Macquire film

[sinful stirrup]

Go to the sands, and ascend.

[severe swift]

I honestly think a health bar would cut down on my frustration a lot.

[safe yew]

there's a mod for that

[severe swift]

Switch 2 :/

[safe yew]

ah

[proud cobalt]

Who in the world is eating ||Pale Oil||?

[severe swift]

What does ||Groal|| actually drop anyway? Might just skip it

[autumn kettle]

||true ending progress||

[severe swift]

No sorry i mean what rewards does he lead to?

[autumn kettle]

||he's a mandatory fight for act 3, guarding an item related to the Wish to enter it||

||that's the only thing specifically locked behind him||

||he also leads to an "early"/non-secret access point for the apostate key and longnail||

[vagrant spruce]

||there is a quest marker once that item is necessary to progress, you don't need to do it until then if you don't want||

[autumn kettle]

||but you can get to those from the other side of the area they're on as well, and it doesn't lead to the rest of that area||

[severe swift]

I am definitely skipping it for now then. ||true ending|| stuff has never been that big a deal to me.

[hot mango]

I guess I picked the wrong points to do so from because I thought I already tried that

[brave flower]

a solid third of the game is locked behind ||starting the true ending||

just so you're aware

[severe swift]

I appreciate the heads up. What a bummer

[brave flower]

its ok you can do ||the normal ending and then load that save again, itll drop you right before what is usually the final boss, then you can start the true ending, do the "final boss" again and youll be in act 3||

[severe swift]

I appreciate the advice! For now I think Ill just wait for a patch.

[brave flower]

what do you want the patch to do?

[sinful stirrup]

Did you find thr needle strike upgrade?

[severe swift]

Make the runback shorter at the very least.

Failing that, make the arena beforehand shorter.

[brave flower]

i wouldnt bet on that happening

there is a secret bench much closer to the fight, have you found that?

[severe swift]

Yeah! Still a bit of a trek!

[brave flower]

damn

[severe swift]

If it never happens I just wont play it again, not the end of the world!

[brave flower]

the boss is not mandatory, you could just ignore it afaik

or come back when you're stronger

[severe swift]

Ive got the third needle upgrade and 7 masks, I think its just a skill issue

[brave flower]

alternatively...

you could get The Stupid Broken DPS Build online

and shred the boss

[severe swift]

The one with the ||flying robots?||

[brave flower]

that being ||architect crest + polyp pouch||

[brave flower]

nah those are fairly low damage

you want like

||buzzsaws||, mainly

[umbral canyon]

i got a lot of use out of the trap against that boss

[umbral canyon]

||against groal? he doesn't stay on the ground long enough surely||

[brave flower]

is it at all feasible to hit the boss with ||delver's drill||

[brave flower]

im pretty sure they slide up walls, does that help?

[umbral canyon]

well no, because he hovers in the middle of the arena and half the map is ||maggot water||

[severe swift]

I tried the architect crest but it made the runback actually impossible

[brave flower]

ah that tracks unfortunately

wack ass pogo

[hollow elm]

I mostly used ||Voltvessels (spear)||, and ||Plasmium Injector|| for that fight.

[umbral canyon]

like i said, the traps worked well for me, i'm sure poison cogbugs would do good too

[brave flower]

OH ||VOLTVESSELS||

GOOD CALL

[hollow elm]

If it helps, the uncharged pogo is just a diagonal swing, charged does a long dive.

[severe swift]

Diagonal pogos in general are just impossible for me

Im too spoiled with reaper

[hollow elm]

Mmm, very fair, especially on that runback

[inland wave]

deeply want to ask Team Cherry why they insisted both ___fly should be fought twice

we had to make sure the most tedious and boring bosses are frequent

the only 'trick' for the ||conchfly|| i can dredge up is 'he yells before spitting' but that gets me almost nothing

[umbral canyon]

i either back away or go under ||when he emerges from above and doesn't drill straight through||

but yes, the ||conchfly|| was one of the sillier bosses in the game i agree with you

first time around had a fun gimmick, second time around was just a reflex check rather than a pattern check like most other bosses

[inland wave]

Has there been a soulsborne in general where 'It's Again' has been like, a standout experience

[hot mango]

I found the Needle Arts + damage upgrades

[umbral canyon]

i mean, both central nemesis characters in both games have had good followup fights

||hornet|| and ||lace||

[inland wave]

That feels.. different-y

[umbral canyon]

i agree, i know what you mean

[brave flower]

you missed the ||charge attack|| it sounds like

[umbral canyon]

even the repeat bosses in sekiro were kinda boring

[inland wave]

Lies of P had an.. alright one?

fit like thematically

[autumn kettle]

||i fucking loved lace 2||

[vagrant spruce]

the 3 genichiro variants are fun, as are the owl variants

minibosses no real disagreement but the bosses are good

[autumn kettle]

oh yeah geni and double owls are fun

[inland wave]

genichiro being downgraded to Opening Act was a great way to show Sekiro growth

[umbral canyon]

good point yeah, i definitely think it's the same principle with HK as well

[inland wave]

but 'we filled this pit with apes' not.. quite as strong

||Clockwork Dancer|| had the decency to make its tragic loss simply a boss phase that made you terribly sad

[vagrant spruce]

its also a bit hard to treat sekiro repeat minibosses the same, considering they're very much just "we made the tougher enemies into minibosses" rather than "our minibosses are repeat enemies"

[inland wave]

and especially with you how can usually assassinate half or more of their HP bars off

Headless though..

[dreamy scarab]

are there bellways inside the Citadel, or do I have to hit da bricks and walk out if I want to go back to the old areas? (I've only found ||the steps, Underworks, and started the area after the Underworks||)

[autumn kettle]

yes

[inland wave]

Where's the 'Pet the Bell Beast' patch, Cherry

[thorny bear]

i can't decide if i should 100% now or wait until there's some DLC so i don't need to meticulously double check every room on the map with a wiki with zero tolerance for missing anything

[umbral canyon]

i just pulled out the map once i got far enough in act 3 tbh

at a certain point i accept that the remaining content in the game is too obscure for me

[thorny bear]

but even with a wiki, i haven't kept a log of where i've picked up everything

[umbral canyon]

for fleas at least, there's a save-based checking website

[thorny bear]

so it would still take a ton of time doubling back everywhere to check every location of a memory locket/spool fragment, etc.

i mean you can just ||see fleas on your map||

i got all of them without google due to that

[vagrant spruce]

100% doesn't require double checking to not miss most things

it's basically just tools that're the "hard to track down" things

[hollow elm]

Some of the fleas are stuck in wack spots tho

[vagrant spruce]

(considering there's a ||vendor to buy flea locations from||)

you don't need to complete hunter's journal or any side quests that don't reward you with a mask fragment/spool/tool/etc., and all non story bosses & minibosses aren't percentage points either

[thorny bear]

also spool fragments and memory lockets

[vagrant spruce]

you don't need all memory lockets, and yeah spools/masks/abilities etc. go without saying

i'm not sure if you need any, though i know ||eva|| is a check - but i don't have all of them on my 100% save

yeah, i'm missing 2 it seems (judging by unfilled out crest slots), so ||i think you only need 15/20 for eva. that's very achievable without scrounging considering how many are basically forced into progression/side quests||

[inland wave]

I am.. not seeing anything? ||Helped him outta prison, talked to him about his dead/robot bugsband|| .. am I missing a step

[vagrant spruce]

||you're in act 3, right? though i don't think you can trigger that in 2 anyway. if you've spoken to him and triggered it right, he'll be on the right wall of the rightmost edge of greymoor. there's a broken wall where they used to be a non-broken wall. he'll be chilling inside there||

[inland wave]

i am not

[vagrant spruce]

then lmao, you'll just have to come back later. ||you can't go past the first couple rooms w/o an act 3 ability anyway||

(which is i think why it's act locked)

[thorny bear]

so DLC will take place after the events of the game instead of during, right? I feel like ||the giant TO BE CONTINUED in the truer ending cutscene|| can't really be interpreted any other way

[brave flower]

sorry, ||truer ending?||

[vagrant spruce]

plausibly. it could just as likely be a separate area/questline/etc. kinda thing like godhome, the grimm troupe were for hollow knight

[brave flower]

is there a second ||true ending||

[vagrant spruce]

no

[hidden flame]

ACT 17 CONFIRMED!!!!!!

[vagrant spruce]

||there are 4 tracked endings total - act 2 default ending, act 2 cursed ending, act 2 -> act 3 (the game considers it an ending, even though it's strictly a requirement for the true ending), and the act 3 true ending||

[brave flower]

ahh i see

[vagrant spruce]

||if you count mushroom as distinct from the act 3 true ending, then i guess there's a 5th ending. steam tracks it as a separate achievement but i think you get both the true ending + mushroom achievement at once if you beat lost lace for the first time while having done mushroom man||

i would probably expect the silksong DLC to be closer to godmaster than i would another game's DLC, to be honest - team cherry seems to have historically preferred their "DLC" being just "we added a new relatively involved questline" rather than being a mini campaign

[hidden flame]

Watch them just... add grimm

Again

[brave flower]

id be here for it

grimm is fucking awesome

[hidden flame]

Oh, I'm down too

[vagrant spruce]

that would be hilarious

i don't know how i'd feel if they just straight up added godhome

[hidden flame]

Not as the first DLC

[vagrant spruce]

because on one hand i like the idea of getting the pantheons back (they're a cool mode), but otoh i kinda feel like repeating "godhome 2.0" would be a little boring

[hidden flame]

As like the 3rd, though?

[vagrant spruce]

yeah, that'd likely just be the last DLC they plan on doing if they ever do it

[thorny bear]

you forget the most important character in the game, ||mushroom man||

[vagrant spruce]

see next msg

[thorny bear]

||if you do his whole thing, there's another scene added to the end of him flying away on the surface, and then it zooms in very close to his face and says TO BE CONTINUED||

ah, my b

[thorny bear]

well

he is dead

we don't know how long grimmchild takes to grow, it could be the next troupe master by silksong

[hidden flame]

The Troupe Lives, though

Exactly

[dreamy scarab]

Grimm shows up again with a fake mustache and a new name

[brave flower]

he already did

hes way shorter now tho

and much more jovial

[dreamy scarab]

"Dead? Oho, no, I'm Grinn, you must have me mistaken for someone devilishly handsome"

[brave flower]

(||trobbio||)

[dreamy scarab]

Is that a HK spoiler or a Silksong spoiler?

[brave flower]

he even has a nightmare version!

[brave flower]

skong

[thorny bear]

i think at this point everything from hollow knight is fair game

it would be nice if DLC would let you keep going after the final boss so I could do stuff without ||grandma always yelling at me||

[inland wave]

||why would they make nail upgrades cost rosaries||

'You just did a really long quest! Completed a neat thing from around every area!'

'Turn around and farm'

[dreamy scarab]

Crest of the Farmer. Swaps out the needle for a teeny tiny hoe

Gives hornet a straw hat

[brave flower]

im expecting crests of the ||vaultkeeper and conductor||

[lost brook]

||oh i didnt know the fucking pale king made the grand citadel apparently||

[hot mango]

||is that… not the Needle Arts? From training with the pin master?||

[autumn kettle]

no it is

they must've misread something

[hot mango]

Nah every message in that reply chain used a different name for the thing

[autumn kettle]

lmao

[hot mango]

So I can see the confusion

[sinful stirrup]

Yeah sorry I was being cagey to avoid spoilers

||if you go to the pinstress, above her hut are rings you can use to clawl8ne up to the coral zone||

[brave flower]

yeah sorry abt that lmfao

the game calls it "||needle strike||" but the ||hollow knight equivalent was "nail arts" and functionally it is a charged attack so its very easy to get turned around||

i did misread though

i somehow thought "||needle arts||" was referring to crests

[proud cobalt]

Ouch, the person I'm watching play Silksong got so frustrated with the advanced parkour sections in ||Deep Docks|| and honestly I understand from watching them struggle for so long.

[hollow elm]

Hmm, (Act 2) ||Witch Crest|| is making a very interesting trade in slots (||2x Red, 3x blue, no yellow||).

[thorny bear]

yeah i really really wish it was capable of healing

[hollow elm]

I think I'll give it a shot regardless, but definitely not for platforming sections.

[lapis siren]

it is

[south marten]

It is?

Your heal does the thingy, and it deals damage, and the damage does lifesteal

Which is how it heals

You do, however, have to hit with it

[thorny bear]

needing to be within an inch of enemies while healing is really really not viable with how aggressive every enemy is after act 1

[south marten]

Injector Band, Warding Bell

¯_(ツ)_/¯

||Beast|| is good too, and it requires you to be within an inch of enemies to heal too

[brave flower]

throw the trobbio mirror on for good measure

turn your bind into "threadstorm but it heals you"

[south marten]

Unfortunately for me, I haven't killed the theater twink yet

[thorny bear]

getting hit out of a heal is EXTREMELY punishing in silksong compared to hollow knight

since it's essentially five damage for getting hit once

[south marten]

Currently working on ||First Sinner||

Fight goes hard

[thorny bear]

even if you can safely get in a boss's face to heal 75% of the time, that other 25% is devastating

[hollow elm]

Getting above has been my main solution.

The reach on the bind is pretty big

[south marten]

Look, until the first patch, hazard spikes did 2 masks. Everything in this game hits like a truck, and I don't hold that against it.

[lapis siren]

ok

i got to act 3

we're cooked

[south marten]

And a big part of the boss design is, like

Knowing when and where it's safe to heal

Because a lot of the time it isn't

And then the boss FUCKING TELEPORTS ON TOP OF YOU ON GOD THIS GAME IS GARBAGE

Anyway time to run it back again

[hollow elm]

dumps all your silk too without warding bell

[thorny bear]

that is a constant issue with hollow knight, and i have struggled a lot in this game, but i have genuinely never had much issue healing safely

since you can just go into an upper corner away from the action for a second to heal

only when healing has to be next to a boss is it much more of an issue than it was even in hollow knight

[south marten]

Yeah that's fair

Unrelated to the game design, it is my headcanon that the Weavers are the in-world analogue for aliens

We already have "higher beings" (White Lady, Pale King) and outer gods (the Radiance, the Void)

Why not have aliens?

My evidence, of course, hinges on the idea that Hornet Skong is analogous to Samus Metroid from Metroidvania

[thorny bear]

what do you mean by analogue?

just in that they're technologically advanced?

[south marten]

Okay so

[torn sky]

A big part of how I heal is 'Wait, you hover in mid-air while healing. Just go To The Sky and you'll have a chance'

[light star]

they are chozos from metroid

i will noot elaborate

(i will upon request)

[south marten]

My evidence for "Weavers are the in-universe Chozo analogue":

1. Hornet is half Weaver. Samus is, in at least one version, half-Chozo.
2. Hornet acquires a decent number of the skills in the game from Weaver grave markers ||(and also at least two skills that I know of that you get directly from Weavers/their creations)||. Samus acquires her upgrades from Chozo grave markers
3. The general vibe of the ||Weavenests and Mount Fay|| feels very alien

This is a crackpot theory

And I am aware

But it's my theory

And @light star I will fight you, I brought this up first and then we started making the Chozo connections

[light star]

i said the weavers felt distinctly alien, then said metroid! i fight you!

[south marten]

[light star]

[solar elbow]

very, very late game
||THE FUCKING KNIGHT????????? FROM HOLLOW KNIGHT???????????||

[autumn kettle]

final cutscene of the game spoilers, even

||yep :) little buddy is back||

[solar elbow]

||i. did not realise that was the final cutscene||

[autumn kettle]

||here to watch over its sister||

[brave flower]

||lil ghosg||

:D

[autumn kettle]

||the one after you beat lost lace?||

[solar elbow]

||yeah||

[autumn kettle]

||yeah, lost lace is the final boss||

||i really wish there was another phase to her ngl, some fuckass nightmare mode where she fuses with mom||

[vagrant spruce]

its more obvious if you wait like until the credits roll and you get the achievement LOL

[solar elbow]

very true

[solar elbow]

i agree, but the whole thing was still very cool

[vagrant spruce]

||yeah it didn't feel like she had a ton of health, to me. i don't think a third/fourth phase (depending on if that's a phase 2 or a phase 1.5, when she screams) woudl have gone amiss||

[solar elbow]

19% left to go

[autumn kettle]

||each phase has a scream, so it's uhh...either a phase 3 or a phase 5||

||but i want one||

||i want her to fucking hurt||

[solar elbow]

||i want her||

[autumn kettle]

||i want her to beat my ass and put me in my place, so i can crawl out of the mud and drag her lower||

[vagrant spruce]

||wait, does she scream twice post void waves attacks? or is it a scream before the 'phase transition' double waves & then one after to resume the fight||

[autumn kettle]

||i want to learn how to be perfect...||

[autumn kettle]

||she screams once during phase 1, signaling new attacks (the corrupted attacks), then once during phase 2 (the post-wave phase) signaling that she's doing her juiced corrupted attacks again||

[brave flower]

just wait for ||Loster Lace||

you find the fight in ||the mist, because she got lost in there||

[vagrant spruce]

||ah, so phase 1 -> phase 2 (corrupted attacks) -> phase 3 -> phase 4 (adds balls attacks). i missed that she only started doing balls after a scream, since i feel like it's a rare enough move anyway its hard to notice||

[autumn kettle]

yeah

[solar elbow]

||she starts screaming during the fight bc she really does not know where she is||

[vagrant spruce]

||i liked the balls, i thought it's a pretty easy attack to dodge but a fun one - one of the attacks that forces you to instantly react with your preferred mobility tools to not get caught in an orb||

||much more interesting, to me, than pure vessel or trobbio balls||

[autumn kettle]

||i fucking adored her fight||

||but i also really liked punished!trobbio a lot||

[solar elbow]

i did not. ||fuck trobbio||

[autumn kettle]

boo

[brave flower]

thats the new ||nightmare king|| right there put some fuckin respect on his name

[autumn kettle]

bad taste in ||flambouyant pokemon||

[solar elbow]

||Grimm's disowned younger cousin does not get a thumbs up from me||

[autumn kettle]

||KING is right, my man is the goat||

[brave flower]

whats the deal with ||punished trobbio|| anyhow

[vagrant spruce]

||yeah i also fucked with that one a lot. was pretty short but the attacks were all fun. another one for "i wish there was a slightly more clear visual cue, even if it was the same timing, for the floor beams - but they weren't too bad||

[solar elbow]

||emo phase||

[brave flower]

does he just ||decide to be a tragic actor||

[hoary tulip]

yes

he's just having an abnormal one

[autumn kettle]

||yeah he just fucking loses it when the kingdom explodes and puts on purple clothes||

[brave flower]

||trobbio|| has reportedly equipped the polyp pouch

run

[autumn kettle]

LOL

[vagrant spruce]

||yeah, it's a response to the world ending -> time to ham it up but in emo colors this time. if you read his journal entry, he was trying to kinda sorta bring about a renaissance with spectacle and performance, and clearly uh. it didn't work. so time to be purple now||

[autumn kettle]

||that's his godhome +1||

||he just gets a silkbind and the polyp pouch||

[hoary tulip]

nah nah

He'll ||recruit backup dancers||

[solar elbow]

||radiant trobbio is when trobbio gets over his emo phase and starts dressing like elton john||

[hoary tulip]

||I'm still standing ahh bossfight||

[brave flower]

btw does polyp pouch flea brew do anything

[autumn kettle]

||trobbio in KISS makeup||

[vagrant spruce]

thinking about potential godhome variant bosses (like pantheon 5 versions) -- ||would be really interesting to see a pinstress fight with crest swapping involved, or something. like how oro/mato/sheo/sly use the various nail arts. but i want to see somebody flipping between at least hunter/reaper/wanderer/beast||

[vagrant spruce]

||poison AOE around you ala defender crest||

[brave flower]

YOOOOOOOO

god i love the fuckass synergies the polyp pouch has

[vagrant spruce]

||it's very small, like defenders crest, fair warning - but it's kinda fun||

[brave flower]

theyre so cool

[vagrant spruce]

the only tool i don't know how it interacts with is ||the needle phial||, but i'd assume its just ||poison when you hit something??? idk lol maybe there's a cool secret hidden there||

[brave flower]

the ||flintslate||? yeah i think it makes your ||needle attacks poison||

which seems fuckin nuts, btw

[hoary tulip]

it is

[vagrant spruce]

the other unusual interactions - ||flintslate poisons + burns, phasmium phial has the temp hp turn purple and explode into a large cloud of poison, and then voltvessels where it only affects the projectile, not the lightning effects||

[brave flower]

at this rate the polyp pouch will be mandatory in every possible build

[autumn kettle]

only if you use tools

which i don't really

[brave flower]

ur missing out on damage

[vagrant spruce]

||everything else is just poison on contact like you'd expect. i tested it and idr if grenade explosion also poisons||

[hoary tulip]

not if you run The Funny Crest

[autumn kettle]

i don't want optimal damage

[brave flower]

ig its completely useless w/ ||shaman|| tho

[vagrant spruce]

the pollip pouch is good but it's also not crazy damage depending on the tools you're using

[autumn kettle]

i want to learn the moveset and win purely off of nail skill

otherwise i don't feel like i accomplished anything

[hoary tulip]

conchcutter doesn't get insane pollip pouch value tbh

[vagrant spruce]

considering the poison can't be stacked with itself, and because it's flat and not scaled by the tool damage i think

[autumn kettle]

tools and spells are for clearing adds and exploring the world

[hoary tulip]

tools are also for exploiting specific weaknesses in bosses tbh

[autumn kettle]

this is why i always play a caster build in fromsoft games and then end up beating the shit out of every boss with a glowing stick

[brave flower]

i think it ticks once immediately

[autumn kettle]

well, no, objectively tools and spells are extraordinarily powerful against bosses

i'm saying [with regards to my playstyle and opinions]

[brave flower]

but consider:
flintslate makes those nail hits look fuckin awesome

[autumn kettle]

tools and spells are to be neglected in boss fights

[torn sky]

I really like the boomerang. I'm not sure how much damage it deals but the multi-hits feel good

[vagrant spruce]

notably this makes ||poison flintslate|| actually kinda not amazing? ||it's more damage over time, but less damage up front, including the immediate poison tick - so if you hit the enemy 3 times in quick succession you only get like +10 damage (half a nail swing) over a normal flintslate||

[hoary tulip]

I have a similarish playstyle except that I use tools where there are hardcoded weaknesses

[autumn kettle]

until i can do them cleanly with nothing

[hoary tulip]

and spells when I want extra damage

[brave flower]

did you beat sister splinter without spells

[hoary tulip]

like you're gonna catch me throwing bombs down ||Groal's|| gullet every time

[brave flower]

that sounds unfeasible

[autumn kettle]

why?

[vagrant spruce]

it's very doable, she kills her own ads and you can just hit them upwards

[hoary tulip]

it's pretty doable you just gotta jump-upswing those adds

[autumn kettle]

you literally just hit the minions three times or let her hit them

[brave flower]

fuckass area denial rng

[vagrant spruce]

anecdotally, 95% of the aoe attack RNG in this game is solved by being aware of your positioning in the arena

[brave flower]

seems like a recipe for unfortunate occurrences

[autumn kettle]

that's fair, i straight up just didn't think that one would be possible

[hoary tulip]

I was like

[autumn kettle]

i just did not anticipate a whole-ass king dodongo

[hoary tulip]

"it's gotta work right"

when I saw that move

[autumn kettle]

yeah and skong is goated for that

[solar elbow]

...you could do that?

[hoary tulip]

yup

[brave flower]

folks,

dodongo dislikes smoke

[vagrant spruce]

lmao, didn't try that, i'll have to look up a video on youtube later

[thorny bear]

smh topple you can't use spoiler tags to hide kink discussion from mods

[hoary tulip]

I remember being on this very thread

complaining about that boss's runback being a little ridiculous

and I was like "is there any possible weakness I'm missing here? other than king dodongo hating smoke"

[brave flower]

im gonna be using tools constantly

my build is White Palace Cosplay

[hoary tulip]

and then

king dodongo HATED smoke

[vagrant spruce]

dunno. i think pollip pouch & ||volt filament|| are in a weird spot where they're like - more damage, but they're not actually that much more damage, especially towarsd the end of the game when your damage scales (because they don't). so i'm not really sure how worth it they are

[brave flower]

tacks, buzzsaw, idk what the third tool is but its gonna be a reference to some shit in the white palace

[vagrant spruce]

i like em a lot, i'm just not sure if they belong in 'optimal' builds if that makes sense

[thorny bear]

i mean

[autumn kettle]

cogflies for the constructs

[thorny bear]

white palace has flying beetle things

[brave flower]

awesome

[autumn kettle]

i hope skong gets a white palace zone in updates or dlc

[thorny bear]

(also, just, literally the optimal loadout for most bosses)

(except maybe trap or silkshot over buzzsaw)

[autumn kettle]

and i hope its path of pain includes the giant fucktastic volt pillars

those are so goddamn cool

[brave flower]

buzzsaw's the second highest total damage tool tmk

after delver drill

that shits fuckin CRAZY

[thorny bear]

yeah but it's pretty awkward to get full damage against most lategame bosses

[vagrant spruce]

buzzsaw is a weird one

same with delver drill i think

[brave flower]

feels like even with just a couple hits it does stupid damage

[vagrant spruce]

the multihit on the saw is crazy against big guys but it's not great on small or mobile ones

[thorny bear]

it's obviously perfect for big slow moving hurtboxes

[brave flower]

also its non-negotiable for the goal of white palace cosplay

[vagrant spruce]

it's ||56|| damage per hit, roughly ||2x a nail upgrade||

[thorny bear]

what are the odds we get cosmetic options in dlc

[solar elbow]

i think it would be really funny if ||you could leave pharloom during act 3||

[brave flower]

god dAMN

[thorny bear]

at least cloak color change

[vagrant spruce]

i do think it's got a taper off on consecutive hits, though, almost everything in the game seems to have that

[brave flower]

ALSO

why is architect just

inexplicably in the top 3 options for Just Hitting Fuckers With The Nail

great range, only beaten out by ||reaper and shaman||

[vagrant spruce]

i think its literally worse damage than hunter if you play optimally lol

[brave flower]

multihits

[vagrant spruce]

still worse damage

[brave flower]

?????

how

[vagrant spruce]

||evolved hunter crest no-hit bonus is just 2x damage on all hits, i think||

[thorny bear]

if you include focus, sure

[vagrant spruce]

yeah

[brave flower]

OH

ok

[vagrant spruce]

it's just that it's super easy to use charged slashes on archi

[thorny bear]

if you never get hit why does it matter how much damage you do

[brave flower]

architect's probably still better for ||needle strike|| tho

holy shit that ||needle strike||

[vagrant spruce]

i mean, because if you kill em quick you are less likely to get hit

[brave flower]

i get hit constantly

ive learned that the best way for me to beat bosses is to play patiently

and archi's really good for that bc it gives me plenty of low commitment ranged options, has good range, and does really high damage in one attack

[autumn kettle]

i do wish hunter didn't have its down air

[brave flower]

that thing gives you iframes

[autumn kettle]

i actually like ||witch||, and ||shaman's|| is extremely generous

[thorny bear]

that's, like, hunter's entire identity

[vagrant spruce]

for damage values - ||architect base attack including the little extra hits is around 10% damage more than the hunter needle, but you need to be close enough for the multihits to land. its charged is 11x7 for 77, vs hunter's 42 in 2 slashes||

[thorny bear]

i hated it at first but it has really grown on me

[autumn kettle]

it's just specifically that version of the diagonal down air

that i don't super love

[brave flower]

what abt ||charged dash attack and down air||

[vagrant spruce]

||hunter is i think 5 hits, and once that's done it's just 50-100% extra damage, idk how much but its sizeable||

[brave flower]

also speaking of ||needing to be close enough to land extra hits||

i think weighted belt is just straight up a dps increase on architect

[vagrant spruce]

||still 10% more damage - it's less base damage but it's got 2 tiny multihit effects. they are NOT split evenly, they deal miniscule damage (2 each regardless of upgrade?) but can parry iirc||

[brave flower]

i see

[autumn kettle]

oh, how much does ||beast's|| do?

[brave flower]

so charged dash attack and down air are basically for winning clashes, interesting

[vagrant spruce]

don't know, didn't test / friends i was in call with didn't tell me what they tested lol

[autumn kettle]

ah gotcha

[vagrant spruce]

tempted to figure out how to mod silksong myself for HP bars tho

[autumn kettle]

there is an hp bar/damage number mod, but i dunno if it's uh

functional

because it mentions using AI

[vagrant spruce]

i think it is, as far as i know that's how people have been damage checking things

[autumn kettle]

and so i ignored it before i could discover whether it was just for tl or for anything else

[torn sky]

Does anyone know how much damage the boomerang does? It feels like a lot against big guys but I'm not sure.

[vagrant spruce]

||curveclaw||?

[torn sky]

Yeah

[vagrant spruce]

google says ||10 per hit at max tool damage upgrade||

||3/4/6/8/10 at various levels, but it can multihit soo||

haven't personally tested that one tho

[torn sky]

That seems solid.

[autumn kettle]

||do we know how the upgrade changes it?||

[vagrant spruce]

||more damage, apparently, lol - if you trust what that guy said. this grand reed is taking 16 per hit instead of 10, so||

[autumn kettle]

huh

[vagrant spruce]

(+-1, it multhits and im trying to do mental math rather than caring beyond that)

[autumn kettle]

that's quite impactful

[vagrant spruce]

and free lol

[autumn kettle]

yeah

[vagrant spruce]

its remarkably annoying to test on these grand reeds

||because 2nd sentinel decides he wants to help :/||

[autumn kettle]

buddy 💜

but understandable

[vagrant spruce]

ok, damage values on hunter -- ||focus bar 1 is 26 per hit (+5), focus bar 2 is 29 (another +3), for ~40% damage increase - but i'ts a LOT more on charged attacks, at full focus i'm deailng 38 per hit (!) when the non-focus mode is 21 per hit on this grand reed||

||i did not test focus #1 charged attacks, cope||

[brave flower]

so thats still lower damage on charged attack than architect, right?

by... 1

[vagrant spruce]

nope, higher

archi is doing less than that site claimed, for me

[brave flower]

oh

fair

[vagrant spruce]

unsure if i'm doing something wrong or not - i have max nail

[brave flower]

oh also

[vagrant spruce]

so i'm wondering if it's a hitbox thing

[brave flower]

is flintslate a flat damage increase per hit?

[vagrant spruce]

yes

[brave flower]

OH try weighted belt on archi

[vagrant spruce]

tried it earlier, no meaningful damage bonus since the nail hitbox seems to be irrespective of your own hit-knock-back

[brave flower]

damn

[autumn kettle]

how much is it per hit?

also, i appreciate you testing and reporting

it's quite handy

[vagrant spruce]

hm, wait - all of a sudden architect charge is doing WAYY more. i think it's multhitting on larger hitboxes?

[autumn kettle]

huh

[brave flower]

janky ass crest

[vagrant spruce]

it seems to be semi consistent if i'm jumping and hitting the top of the grand reed -> less

[autumn kettle]

maybe it's bugged

in one direction or the other

[brave flower]

also can you test flintslate

[vagrant spruce]

but if i'm hitting the base while on the ground ->

yeah in a sec

[brave flower]

GOD DAMN

[autumn kettle]

oh! and how much does the barbed bracelet increase damage by?

[vagrant spruce]

on the head

[autumn kettle]

is it also flat?

[vagrant spruce]

sooooo

[inner fog]

Hey for those who’ve beaten the game uhh
||I realize I don’t actually know what happened to the Weavers 💀||

[brave flower]

oh i know whats happening

you arent getting any overkill procs

so you arent getting any extra d6

[vagrant spruce]

lol

i think i know what it actually is - the archi crest damage is just a REALLY wide aoe

[vagrant spruce]

seems to be larger than the pictured vfx

(not by much tho)

so if you're point blank on a smaller enemy (hard to test because most of them just don't have enough HP, so this would really just be a boss thing) they will only take like 50% of the damage

(from a charged attack, this is irrelevant for anything but)

if you're too close -> only the inside hitbox. if you're too far -> only the outside

[brave flower]

fortunately architect makes up for losing bosskilling potency against smaller enemies by eating parries for breakfast

[vagrant spruce]

my guess? this is probably really solid against bosses that are large and probably surprisingly bad (and you should likely use normals w/ longclaw instead) on smaller bosses, since it seems to be triggering before any aeriel knockback on this grand reed (when it's doing the jump attk)

[brave flower]

oh wild

[vagrant spruce]

||I think the implication is like - they bailed out of pharloom to try to find a way to deal with grand mother silk, and not everybody made it out/back/etc. it seems they were like the "ruling caste" for a while in pharloom, but they either went or were driven to extinction everywhere else? it's unclear how much control grand mother silk actually has over the silk itself, though clearly quite a bit, if she's really puppeting/loosely mind controlling anybody with silk in em||

ok, gonna go test barbed bracelet on non-archi. the main takeaway from the archi thing - ||i think it's much better (compared to other crests) at lower nail, since i'm assuming the multihits are a flat 2 per. since they obviously aren't going below 1, and the base damage seems to be <nail damage> + 2 + 2 in 3 hits total, according to these damage numbers||

[brave flower]

what abt The Slate

[vagrant spruce]

||at upgrade 0, it's like 3 + 2 + 2 -> 7 damage, which is +60% damage over hunter. but it falls to around 10% later, which while good, isn't necessarily good enough to make up for no skills / the lack of the other crest-specific bonuses. it's still very strong, but it's not "crazy good" the way it is at nail 0||

testing barbed first bc i want to see if it works on skills

[brave flower]

tools imo r better than silk skills anyway

[vagrant spruce]

silk skill builds are actually way better once you hit act 3, i think, and its not close lol

[inner fog]

Makes sense, though there’s also still the question of ||Grandmother Silk’s motivations, and why the Citadel needs so much silk anyway.|| I got some ideas, and’ve been piecing more together talkin with a friend playing which has been quite fun

[thorny bear]

if you are spending your silk on skills you cannot spend it on healing

[vagrant spruce]

considering ||you can mag dump 6 pale nails at the start of a fight, and you always have enough soul wandering around to obliterate any random enemies in 1 cast. 2 casts for bulky guys like the weird creepy spitter guys in the abyss, or the big zoomy guys||

[thorny bear]

skills can do more damage, but are generally harder to hit and use your biggest resource

[vagrant spruce]

act 3 ||charms make that less of an issue - reserve bind, mostly. but also weavelight + flealia means you can get a cast for free every ~5 seconds, and also regens basically half of your way to a heal||

[thorny bear]

in hollow knight spells are pretty useful since you usually can't spend all your soul anyway, so there's little cost to using it on attacks

[vagrant spruce]

and ||pale nails have cracked out tracking and much higher damage than all of the tools besides delver||

[brave flower]

yeah but skills are way more committal

[thorny bear]

in silksong it is very easy to heal as soon as possible, so every time you use a silk skill you're effectively spending a mask

[brave flower]

they lock you in place for a while

[vagrant spruce]

not really? ||pale nails has basically no lock-in place, neither do silk spear or sharpdart. it's really just rune rage, thread storm that do that||

act 3 spoilers, still

[brave flower]

so all of this is to say

[vagrant spruce]

trust me, try out ||shaman crest pale nails and you'll see what i mean||

[thorny bear]

silk spear absolutely has more cast time than almost any tool

[brave flower]

that i dont have to feel like im ruining the difficulty by using tools

because actually skills are better?

awesome

[thorny bear]

also, big news: first steel soul run down!

[vagrant spruce]

in act 3, i think skills are better once you've gotten the way to make them good. i think in act 2, tools are better if your'e willing to just farm shell shards lol

[thorny bear]

i figured it wouldn't be bad if i just cheesed it by quitting out every time i get to two masks

[brave flower]

based

[thorny bear]

but then bell beast combod one falling bell knocking me directly into another with no time to pause

[vagrant spruce]

@autumn kettle barbed bracelet is ||25%, it seems? - and it does NOT affect skills, but it does affect needle strike. has an unusual interaction with archi - it goes from 19/2/2, to 23/3/3? so it seems like it's 25% rounded... down? min 1?||

[autumn kettle]

huh

fascinating, thank you

||does it function similarly with beast's double hit strikes or witch's down air?||

[vagrant spruce]

haven't tested, double checking flint

[autumn kettle]

gotcha

thanks again

[vagrant spruce]

which seems to be ||50% - same rules, so it's 31 etc. stacks additively with barbed bracelet||

[autumn kettle]

surprised it's not flat as well tbh

[brave flower]

can you oneshot the grand reeds with flintslate archi needle strike

[vagrant spruce]

yes as long as they don't ||void out||

in which case no lmao not even close, ||that doubles their HP flat (if you were curious)||

i think what a lot of people thought were "flat" are actually percentage based scaling on base needle damage / tool damage

for flintslate, i have zero idea how that interacts with tool scaling, since i'm HP bar modding it rather than debug menu'ing this

but i'd assume it's like ||10/15/20/25%, if anything||

oh shit, beast is ||a cracked damage buff from activating ripper mode - i think it's +25% damage, since i'm hitting for 26, and i'ts a double hit so it's 52 total. WAY better than i thought, i take a lot of things ive said about this crest back||

[brave flower]

wow ok

[vagrant spruce]

beast bonuses in total are ||21 base -> 26 ripper -> 32 ripper + barbed -> 42 (!) with flintslate. so flint is 100% additive, but it seems like barbed considers the damage bonus from ripper mode as part of its innate damage? because it's getting +6, rather than +5, consistently. flintslate doesn't, though. and this is all on a single hit, so doubled in practice because ripper mode hits twice ofc||

which is a crazy good buff @autumn kettle, thanks, i would not have tested that

[autumn kettle]

👍

[brave flower]

so beast is in fact The Best Nail DPS Crest?

[vagrant spruce]

yes, and it's not close, holy hell

[brave flower]

god damn

OH

CAN YOU TEST POLYP POUCH

[autumn kettle]

polyp pouch has documented numbers

[brave flower]

damn

[autumn kettle]

and it varies wildly, as does ||shaman crest||