HOLLOW KNIGHT - Blessings

[Reverning]

Has raocow ever actually let Grimm bow without interrupting him? Jerkcow


I forgot to mention this earlier with Hornet, there's a few bosses that are aware of this scenario and have special Dream Nail Dialogue. I'll try to catch them all, but lmk if I miss one.

• ...Do they watch us struggle?..

• Do you haunt my dreams... Or I yours?

• Little Ghost... What dreams we share...

• How grand a stage!

• A charming ritual... a pleasure!

• An honour, Seeker, to attend your call!

Hornet's not such a fan, but Grimm is tickled pink (and apparently knows the exact details of what's going on).

[10204307]

God, it took me FIVE HOURS of attempts over the course of several days to beat the Pantheon of the Sage and of course raocow does it on his first try.

At this point I'd like to note that you only need to encounter a boss for it to appear in the Hall of Gods, meaning if you happen to die to the end boss of the next Pantheon, you could practice against it in the Hall of Gods without needing to do the whole Pantheon over again every single time, and then go do the Pantheon once you've learned its attack patterns. It'll save a lot of frustration, although maybe you'll also beat it on the first try just because Carefree Melody is too strong.

[SAJewers]

So, bets on how many attempts it'll take raocow to beat the 4th pantheon?

[Awoo]

Thank you, Melody!

[Zummorr]

So for those wondering how the melody works

I decided to track the hits in his fight against Nailsage Sly. he was hit 26 times and the melody activated 6 times over the course of the fight preventing death twice. he also parried 4 times in this fight but only stopped damage in 1 case

[He enters with 0 hits after melody procs against the previous boss, Hornet]
3 hits => proc 16:04
4 hits => proc 16:30
4 hits => proc 17:07
4 hits => proc 17:41 [Life saving activation]
3 hits => proc 18:14
2 hits => proc 18:25 [Life saving activation]

on average the melody will mitigate ~22% of damage, about 1 in 5 hits, which is the case here. Notably melody activated at a crictical moment when it only had a 20% chance to do so.

Regarding raocow luck, the melody blocked 6 out of 26 hits having 23% damage mitigation, an average performance this time. It's still good, if you weren't using it I'd suggest fragile strength which is also really good and 3 notches.

[kitikami]

This game has pretty good production values in general, but I'm really impressed that they got Frank Oz to do the voice work for Sly's fight.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Looks like Grimm finally got his revenge for all the times raocow stabbed him when he was simply trying to bow.

[tirakai]

Nightmare King Grimm is such a cool boss to watch a complete fight for, but I don't find him fun to fight myself at all. I dislike 'die over and over and over and over and over until you memorise it' fights in general (past the first few tries I just get bored of it), and NKG being able to kill you so fast with very few openings to attack him despite having a ton of health. I never bothered to attempt to beat him after a few tries.

I really hope the upcoming paid dlc (whenever it releases) is of reasonable difficulty and doesn't go the free dlc's route of putting in increasingly ridiculous boss fights. I really like the gameplay and exploration of Hollow Knight and find the normal bosses pretty fun, so I'll be pretty disappointed if it ends up being another stupid hard masochist challenge.

[Crow]

for the record, you can track how far you are in the nightmare king fight by the number of times he's done the cactus attack. he does it every 25% of his health bar you deplete, so at 25%, 50%, and 75%. helpful to keep track of where you are since the fight otherwise doesn't change

also yeah this fight isn't actually very fun. it's basically the same fight as the pre-final boss of guacamelee where you just have to learn how to dodge each attack and then hit once and get out and keep doing that to win, except it goes on like four times as long

[Shard1697]

nightmare grim rules

[Reverning]

• Master of the Grimm Troupe.

• "Through dream I travel, at lantern's call
  
  To consume the flames of a kingdom's fall"
  - Grimm

• Twisted spectre of scarlet flame.

• "The expanse of dream in past was split,
  
  One realm now must stay apart, Darkest reaches, beating red, Terror of sleep. The Nightmare's Heart."
  - Seer

Troupe master, king of nightmares, devourer of dreams (he's a vampiric moth), Heart of Grimm...and Final Boss, of the Grimm Troupe DLC. In many ways, a counterpart to Radiance, the goddess of dreams.

Despite the intimidating conceit of the Troupe, Grimm is a rather friendly fellow, treating you pleasantly throughout the course of the ritual. Even during a "dance", he's quite respectful, as he attempts to bow at the start of the battle. However, if you attack him while bowing, and raocow has done this every single time, he screams and immediately begins his Flame Spawner attack. Grimm, Wyrm, and Root all seem to be familiar with each other as well, based on Grimm's Dream Nail dialogue about the strength of Wyrm's discarded vessel, and Root's interaction with Grimmchild.

The troupe travels at the call of the lantern, harvesting the flames of nightmares from dying lands in an eternal cycle. A cycle of self-preservation, the endless song of the Grimm Troupe:

Shadows dream of endless fire

Flames devour and embers swoop

One will light the Nightmare Lantern

Call and serve in Grimm's dread Troupe

A spark of red lights darkest dream

Scarlet nightmares bright and wild

Visions dance and flames do speak

Burn the father, feed the child

Dance and die and live forever

Silent voices shout and sing

Stand before the Troupe's dark heart

Burn away the Nightmare King

Yes, it's literally a song, each verse is in a Grimmkin's journal entry.

Grimm gives you his child after instructing his kin to collect the flames of lost dreams, telling you to feed the child with the flame. Feed, then dance, then feed again. After collecting the last of the flames, you'll find the inside of the circus tent, extremely quiet, not a soul in sight. Exploring further inside lets you find Grimm asleep in his chamber (upside down like a bat), where you have to Dream Nail him to enter his Nightmare, where you eventually find the true form of Grimm, the Heart.

All members of the troupe are part of the Heart itself, connected to the ritual, and their lifeless masks can be found when the tent is quiet. Everyone is a slave to the ritual all the same, even the Troupe Master. As the Nightmare King dies in the ritual, the flames are fully absorbed by the Grimmchild, whose description changes to represent this:

• Symbol of a completed ritual.

• Contains a living, scarlet flame.

Similarly, Root also takes note, with different dialogue from when she observes an immature Grimmchild/Carefree Melody:

Your companion's eyes burn with a familiar flame... Success then for the scarlet heart, and irony, to use my spawn to grow its own.

I know you creature, and the form time shall bring. You may be all and one, clan and master, but this land shall never bear so foreign a king.

Root doesn't love him, but evidently she doesn't despise him either, as she allows Knight to participate in the ritual as long as he doesn't renege on his task for the kingdom.

The Heart of Grimm lives on in the child, and so does the troupe. You gain a powerful companion in the process.

Ultimately, that's it. No actual consequences result from the ritual, that we can observe at least. Grimm, by virtue of what we know, doesn't seem to be evil in any way.

Like his Troupe Master form, Nightmare King also has diverging Dream Nail dialogue between his initial appearance and Godhome.

• Heart of Flame...

• In dreams... Born anew...

• Power... Fear...

• Gods... bound by ritual...

• Deepest power... the Heart...

• Scattered lands... Nightmare binds all...

If I was asked to describe the fight in all of Hollow Knight that feels the most like a "duel", I'd answer Grimm. Attacking extremely fast with claw, kick, and fiery magic, Grimm feels very much like an opponent on the same playing field as I am, dodging and sneaking in hits the same way. The fight is entirely about observation and reaction, incredibly difficult, but entirely fair. Absolutely my favorite boss.

I hope this wasn't too much, but literally the entire DLC is lore for him, so I had a lot to cover.

[10204307]

I really liked the Nightmare King Grimm honestly. Learning how to dodge his attacks felt really good to me, and it only took me around seven or eight attempts to beat him, which was a breath of fresh air after the four or five hours I'd spent on the Pantheon of the Sage.

[raocow]

man
ah, I might have hit the limit of what I'm willing to go through

[Grounder]

man
ah, I might have hit the limit of what I'm willing to go through

godmaster was a mistake

pantheon of the hallownest was a much bigger one

[Reverning]

man
ah, I might have hit the limit of what I'm willing to go through

And it's the next one that scares people...

Quite a few people were saying I should just provide a completed Godmaster save file so you could fight the new bosses in the Hall.
I just realized I don't have one with Melody, but if you want I'll put that together?

I really disagree with all of the people who have been hating on Godmaster just because it doesn't lend itself to an LP format though. It's a wonderfully focused challenge that lets you experience both new bosses and old bosses in a new way. It's only setting out to do that one thing and does it well.

[raocow]

I mean it's fine, I don't want you to go through that kind of trouble. The reality is that whatever I do I kinda want to be part of my own file, which will make me forever hesitant to accept that kind of help unless I specifically ask for it.

with that said, after spending some time editing some footage, I'm feeling a bit better about at least keeping on trying, for now. I agree that I appreciate the challenge and everything that is presented here, it's the 'lp pressure' that tightens the screws.

[Crow]

Yeah I warned that you will almost certainly -not- be getting that last ending

Pantheons 1-4 are all basically just warmups

Godmaster more like garbagemaster
I didn't even beat the first pantheon myself I got to the last boss, died, and didn't feel like replaying stuff again so I called it there

So you got farther than I did at the very least

[tirakai]

I see it as 1-2 are warmups, 3 is the real challenge, 4 is for people who've done everything else and want an extra few hours of intense gameplay, and 5 is for people who enjoy being miserable and want to make themselves hate Hollow Knight and never play it again.

I wish you could just fight the new bosses individually and not be forced to go through the Pantheons to see the cool new stuff, if I wanted to replay old content I'd start a new game.

[10204307]

I think Godmaster is cool on its own but the later challenges really don't work for this type of recorded LP.

I do like the idea of using a savefile with everything completed so you can see the rest of the new bosses in the Hall of Gods, since there's some pretty cool stuff in there and it would be a shame to miss out on it. There's one boss in particular that I think you'd really like

(Sisters of Battle)

and another boss that would be a good note to end the LP on.

[tirakai]

Also a possible thing to do for tomorrow's video for raocow.

If you want a quick break from the bosses (or something new to do so that tomorrow isn't a video 0), there's actually a small pretty well hidden sub-area in the Resting Grounds you've never been to. You get to it from

The Spirit's Glade.

An extra hint,

you have to dream nail something.

Very specifically

you have to dream nail the big left statue in the room behind the waterfall, from a hard to see platform to the left of it.

[ano0maly]

I was thinking for the 5th pantheon that you get a clock and give yourself X amount of hours and minutes. If you go past that time and you die after that, you stop.

[RobinLSL]

man
ah, I might have hit the limit of what I'm willing to go through

I think you might have reached a point where you can't and shouldn't just go with the LP format. You might want to stop recording for a while and just practice on your own.

[Crow]

nice

[Grounder]

"for the sake of the story"

boy do i have some bad news for you

it's the next one and it's worse by a hundred times

[RobinLSL]

Honestly, you did a great job fighting PV here. It doesn't feel like he took you that long to beat at all (30 minutes to an hour?). But you're right that your current fighting style makes facing him at the end of a longish boss rush not a good idea. I recommend practicing some more before attempting the Pantheon again. Like, practicing enough that you can beat PV consistently.

Hint: you'll have more success jumping to dodge his attacks. Notably the void tendrils. I like to jump over the triple slash but I think some people don't.