HOLLOW KNIGHT - Blessings

[Stink Terios]

As someone who got to the final part of the challenge of the fool with an unupgraded nail, I feel you. I feel you deeply. Your feeling I feel deeply.

Still got 100% without beating it though! I kinda forgot it existed after fully upgrading my nail.
It was very manageable on my second playthrough, after beelining for Pale Ore.

BY THE WAY: There was a neat event that raocow might have missed after killing Herrah. Is that attainable or should I just tell all about it here?
Or maybe wait until it's would-be trigger is met.

[bbbrrr_it_cold]

BY THE WAY: There was a neat event that raocow might have missed after killing Herrah. Is that attainable or should I just tell all about it here?
Or maybe wait until it's would-be trigger is met.

I can only think of one possible thing to which you could be referring, and I'd say to wait until he trigger is met.

SPEAKING OF WHICH
Ignoring file completion for a moment, completing Hollow Knight THE GAME 100% and not just a file requires multiple play-throughs. Also ignoring any stuff that would be spoilery to talk about, there are three points in the game where you have a binary choice and each choice leads to an achievement. I will be pointing out all three of these when raocow gets whichever achievement he chooses.

Zote is one of those choices, since both instances where you saved Zote could also see you leaving him to die. If you do that in either instance and come back to that area (I think the trigger is resting on some number of benchs after seeing and not saving him but that used to be buggy in Deepnest), all that will be left is his skull. Smack it with your nail to get the Neglect achievement. He obviously won't show up in the arena if you leave him to die, hence why the choice is binary.

Since the first DLC added a dream fight with him, that fight is also inaccessible...at least until you get to Godhome, since apparently it is in the final Pantheon regardless.

Also, the third DLC added a lot of tweaks and balancing and one of those tweaks was making enemies in the Colosseum much less likely to kill themselves on the spikes - specifically the flying guys who shoot in all diagonals.

[Crow]

@bbbrrr

from what i have heard zote cannot die in deepnest, only greenpath?

[Joseph Staleknight]

He runs and flails at you in a straight line, and if he misses you he'll bump into the wall and fall over. I'm kind of sad raocow didn't get to see it since

he doesn't even do any damage if you let him hit you, it just bounces off

.

That also reminds me. I didn't bring it up before, but I found a rather hilarious tactic for defeating Zote in the Colosseum.

Basically, save one of your charm slots for Defender's Crest and fart him to death.

[Kshaard]

Guess who just aped GenericCAW.

[RobinLSL]

at least it's unique content, unlike the friggin' godmaster stuff

I find it very strange that some people dislike that stuff, boss rush is basically the one thing I wanted that hollow knight did not have prior to that coming out

there are so many good bosses that I just want to do over and over!

One of the problems with the Pantheons is that, with endgame equipment, 95% of the fights are just easy and boring. Most of the bosses aren't designed with you having a double jump and the shadow dash, and you can mostly facesmash through them as you get tons and tons of free healing too. Pantheon of Hallownest is the biggest offender of course, as you go through 40 minutes of easy and boring stuff before getting to the interesting fights.

[Grounder]

EDIT: Sure is a lot of work for a charm no one is going to use because of the cost.

[bbbrrr_it_cold]

Hive Queen Vespa's dialogue, straight from the wiki.

My Knight... At last you are freed.
Small thing. I know your kind.
If you attempt to resolve your past then I am not the queen you seek.
It is the pale beings that bear blame for your nature.
Though this hive exists within Hallownest, we play no part in its attempt at perpetuation.
To rail against nature is folly. All things must accept an end.

For those interested in DLC, Hive Knight was not originally in the game. He was added in the third DLC and was (pretty much) the only actual addition in that DLC, with the rest being lots of re-balancing and such.
Also, I am proud of you raocow for going through here right now. Yes, it obviously is easier later...but I did the same exact thing as you did on my first playthrough, with the only difference being no Hive Knight since it was before the DLC. So good on you for getting that "sequence break" to work.

[tirakai]

In case anyone's curious about before the dlc added Hive Knight, from what i remember the room was just weird empty passage. So he's not doing post-game stuff way early, it's just a normal boss added to a room where it felt like there should be one.

I think it also has the most health of any bosses raocow has fought so far (with Dung Defender in second?).

[Shard1697]

EDIT: Sure is a lot of work for a charm no one is going to use because of the cost.

It's situationally useful. There's one part of the game in particular where it is actually very good(

white palace/path of pain, where you don't need combat capability but you do need survivability because there are long stretches of difficult platforming with little or no soul available. So you can use hiveblood instead of soul to regen infinitely and you'll never die and lose progress during those bits.

)

[10204307]

Yeah, I'd say Hiveblood is almost a requirement for White Palace unless you're really good at platforming.

I'm super glad raocow managed to find the Hive on its own. If he hadn't broken up the wall with his magic attack he probably would've just gone past it without investigating further... I actually had to use a guide to find this place on my first playthrough.

When the game originally came out, there was no boss in the Hive, meaning you could just walk in and take the Hiveblood. It did make the Hive feel kind of empty, like it was this whole subarea that only existed for one charm and some journal entries. Hive Knight was then added in the Lifeblood DLC, which also added some visual details to the Hive such as the bookshelves and the large honey prisms. It's such a cool area aesthetically.

Interestingly enough, beating Hive Knight adds 1% to your completion total, and it's required to get the Hiveblood charm, which also gives you 1%, meaning that even if you tried going out of your way to get 100% completion without doing any of the DLC content you'd still end up with 101% just by virtue of having to beat the Hive Knight.

[tirakai]

I had forgotten about the dlc also visually updating the Hive, no wonder I didn't remember the books.

Interestingly enough, beating Hive Knight adds 1% to your completion total, and it's required to get the Hiveblood charm, which also gives you 1%, meaning that even if you tried going out of your way to get 100% completion without doing any of the DLC content you'd still end up with 101% just by virtue of having to beat the Hive Knight.

I figured that was deliberate, so that you can get 100% without doing the Trial of the Fool (since it's a crazy post game challenge to do after you've completed everything else). So 100% would be the main game, and trial of the fool and the other dlc are part of the post game percentage, rather than it being split into base game percentage then dlc percentage.

[FPzero]

Didn't expect you to find The Hive and beat it in one video, so great job there!

[Awoo]

I love how every time you talk to Cornifer it sounds like he says "chocolate cake eat dis"

@0:20 sec

[CrispyMWHC]

I can't BEE-lieve we've done a one shot Hive and not found Howling Cliffs yet. This game is way more open than I first thought.

[RobinLSL]

I enjoyed watching him play the Hive early like that. Seemed to be a well-balanced challenge for his current skills! Also glad he found the mask shard... Would have been annoying if he hadn't.

[Alice]

It's situationally useful. There's one part of the game in particular where it is actually very good(

white palace/path of pain, where you don't need combat capability but you do need survivability because there are long stretches of difficult platforming with little or no soul available. So you can use hiveblood instead of soul to regen infinitely and you'll never die and lose progress during those bits.

)

It's also pretty useful in Deepnest if you're bad at fighting those big blade mask bugs like I am and are frequently low on soul because of it. Outside those specific instances though, it's better to just heal normally since, as raocow pointed out, you'll fairly rarely be low on soul and on top of that hiveblood is fairly slow compared to normal healing.

[10204307]

There's also the problem that Hiveblood

only heals the last mask that you lost, meaning if you get hit twice or more before it can regenerate, you'll only get 1 health back, so you'll still need to heal the rest up manually. That, and the fact that if you heal manually while it's regenerating, it stops the regeneration, so you'll have to get the rest back on your own...

It's just extremely situational but it's hard to call it useless because in the situations where it is useful it makes a world of difference.

[Shard1697]

Will he go left this time? We shall see...

[10204307]

Will he go left this time? We shall see...

He didn't go left last time because he didn't have the Super Dash yet.

I'm glad things worked out in such a way that you ended up getting Isma's Tear and going back to the Ancient Basin in the same episode.

Though I have to say watching raocow not throw his money into the fountain when he had enough to get the reward for it really pained me... I can easily see him going back here with like 100 geo, throwing it in, and then being confused when nothing happens because of it.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Tomorrow's video is gonna be epic but also sad when you think about it. That's all I can really say about it for now.

[freshtalk]

If you needa devil on your shoulder, I heartily request you dump all your Geo into that fountain without thinking twice about it. You can't regret something without doing it first!

[Crow]

tomorrow is the moment we've all been waiting for

btw @ raocow the sign from the dung defender is to imply that you have to beat him (and trigger the switch immediately after his boss room0 to enter the grove. if you haven't hit that switch there's a pool of acid you can't get through until you do.

the more you know!

[Grounder]

tomorrow is the moment we've all been waiting for

the finale?

[Crow]

haha you're a funny one :) :) :)