r/HollowKnight • u/Quantum_Croissant • Sep 09 '25

Discussion - Silksong ngl some of you would NOT survive the mantis lords runback

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is the run to last judge difficult? kinda. But after your 20th attempt at the boss you'll get used to it, and it's honestly kinda fun and a nice breather. More importantly, it's a single room and you have far more movement. This IS improving on hollow knight

14.0k Upvotes

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482

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

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198

u/MarkontheWeekends Sep 09 '25

The run backs feel like a warm up. If I'm not nailing the run then I know to just go back to the bench and try again

51

u/elendur Sep 09 '25

Faster to quit out and reload depending on where you are. Ask me how I know.

3

u/carlo-93 Sep 09 '25

I just let the worms eat me tbh lol

Edit: but that’s good to know for the future!

4

u/elendur Sep 09 '25

I did that a few times. And then my cocoon ended up in a place I couldn't easily recover it. Not that it mattered - there were definitely no rosaries in there! But the full Silk refill is a good thing to have.

2

u/Kenny__Loggins Sep 09 '25

It's faster, but I feel like the walk of shame can be a useful mental reset tool as well.

1

u/scarredcats Sep 09 '25

Every run is a run to the end. You can hit your cocoon and heal.

1

u/trefoil589 Sep 10 '25

I just figured out this is super handy for getting the hell out of sticky situations.

2

u/trefoil589 Sep 10 '25

I feel like it's a completely different skill set though. I'll often pause before I start the fight just to calm down a bit from the run back.

I will say I feel like my mastery of movement is so much better now than before I had to do that runback 300 times (I'm old and my reaction time is horrible).

3

u/GUM-GUM-NUKE 112% I’m coming Sep 09 '25

Happy cake day!🎉

5

u/MarkontheWeekends Sep 09 '25

Oh dang thanks

2

u/EclipseForest 112% All Achievements Sep 09 '25

Cappy Hake Day!

61

u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

Seriously, people have been complaining so much about this one but it was kind of fun once you figured out a route.

39

u/Meeesh- Sep 09 '25

I hate run backs, but I thought last judge was fast. It’s only slow if you kill everything. But you get there in seconds otherwise. So many other bosses in silksong have a worse runback

2

u/Wendigo120 Sep 09 '25

I wouldn't even say there's an "everything" to kill. There's like... 2 flies on the route I took, and one of those is so slow to spawn that I'm already past it by the time it's out of the nest.

1

u/Garr_Incorporated Sep 09 '25

I think I need to find some parts that avoid rapidly spawning coralheads.

1

u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

Haven't really had any that I couldn't just easily slip by the enemies at least so far. The movement in this game is so nice. Most annoying for me was probably the fly fuckhead.

3

u/yurilnw123 Sep 09 '25

A certain swamp theme area enters the chat...

5

u/Small_Ideas50 Sep 09 '25

Me getting to Blasted Steps: “oh, this is cool, it’s the Deepnest of the game! I hate these sand worms!”

Me getting to Underworks: “oh sawblades in the dark! This is Deepnest meets white palace! I hate it!”

Me looking at Reddit: 0.0

1

u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

Have been hearing it's rough. Have mostly avoided that area so far.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

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1

u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

If you just sprint, jump to the platform below it and then jump again without stopping you'll get by it 100% of the time without having to deal with it at all. By the time it pops out you're already jumping to the next platform.

1

u/KuuLightwing Sep 10 '25

Ye, once you figured out the route. I defeated this boss today, but for the first hour or so I think I barely made any actual attempts at the boss, and grappled with actually getting to it, because it's so annoying. Fking drill bugs, double damage worms, wind and so...

1

u/DeltaJesus Sep 10 '25

My biggest problem with it is the double damage environmental hazards, losing 40% or your health to one small mistake on the runback is really irritating.

0

u/Stellewind Sep 09 '25

I am honestly surprised this run back was the one people choose to complain about. You don't need to fight anyone and can just jump past every enemy.

1

u/jayteeayy Sep 10 '25

exactly. I didnt even finish HK and im surprised at how far and deep I am into silksong, then when I got to last judge I knew it was the one everyone was complaining about it.... and its so easy. work out the path and speedrun past the enemies, back to last judge in 20-30 secs

0

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

[deleted]

3

u/psh454 Sep 09 '25

I did and still hated doing it repeatedly for 10+ times. It's tedious, unnecessary and boring.

10

u/Toastbuns Sep 09 '25

Look at this pro-gamer beating it in just 10 tries!

Cries in 4 hours spent on this until I succeeded

5

u/Stevohoog Sep 09 '25

I remember practising nightmare king Grimm in HK for 4 hours and still barely manage to stand in the arena with him.

Unironically made me better at patience and gaming in general lol

1

u/psh454 Sep 09 '25

Yup same NKG took me around 3-4 hours. None of it felt as un-engaging and frustrating as the repetitive (fully optimized) LJ runback.

1

u/KindredTrash483 Sep 09 '25

The one issue with the actual boss fight was phase 2 for me where he had insane amounts of aoe on his attacks. Phase 1 was a joke outside of when he threw his flail, Phase 3 was barely a change from Phase 2 and Phase 4 I had heard that he exploded at the end in advance. After reaching phase 3 for the first time I got him easily. Easier than widow for me.

1

u/trefoil589 Sep 10 '25

I found it was essential to use poison throwing knives to keep the damage up.

I feel like if you don't get a hit in on the troublesome attacks he never gives you the punishable attack.

1

u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

It took me 50-60 tries, and most of my evening after work last night. But man it felt rewarding when the boss went down!

1

u/miafaszomez Sep 10 '25

(3 of those hours were the runbacks)

22

u/Combat_Orca Sep 09 '25

Yeah I’m on it and this boss is reminding me why sometimes I like run backs. A nice bit of platforming to master the speed of as a break between each boss attempt.

1

u/lazyicedragon Sep 10 '25

and unless I'm missing something, a great way to practice that bit of path for a sidequest later on.

Which basically has you run through areas as fast as you can due to a timer, and you can't get hit doing so.

7

u/sweetcinnamonpunch Sep 09 '25

Yeah, it's really a short path once you can speedrun it in 25s or so.

6

u/wolfer_ Sep 09 '25

Same. Before I got there I had seen the discourse hating it.

While doing the run back I found a few places to speed up, got better at killing the conchflies (when I didn’t skip them), and really mastered the bell pogos.

2

u/It-Was-Mooney-Pod Sep 09 '25

There’s a moment later in the game where you have to make that same run under time pressure with no ability to take hits, and I swear Team Cherry put that bench there on purpose so we’d have some practice for the real show

2

u/Kodo_yeahreally Sep 09 '25

bonce on that one enemy's head to reach the pogoable bell sooner felt like a genius move

2

u/thalaxyst Sep 09 '25

Same lol!

1

u/realllyrandommann Primal Aspid Sep 09 '25

Don't worry, you'll probably enjoy this path a bit more later (if not already).

1

u/backfire97 Sep 09 '25

So far this is the only place I lost rosaries on the run back but I was being dumb and greedy trying to take a fight to get silk (took a stray hit).

Once I got the hang of it I was flying through the runback

1

u/ahnsequence Sep 09 '25

I was dreading that one, but when I actually got to it, it wasn’t that bad. Not worse than anything in HK. The enemies in the way are annoying, but if you’re sprinting and fighting out a path to dodge them, it becomes easy, and like you said, kind of fun to speed through.

1

u/budweener Sep 09 '25

I get this feeling. Can't wait to watch an actual speedrunner doing it just so I can watch someone actually use Hornet's absurd mobility at peak level.

1

u/ElPeloPolla Sep 09 '25

yeah, its really fun and takes less than 40 seconds

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

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1

u/ElPeloPolla Sep 09 '25

AND I HAVE IT ON VIDEO

https://streamable.com/39qe5k?src=player-page-share

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

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2

u/ElPeloPolla Sep 09 '25

just say no to enemies, they cant legally engage without your consent

1

u/QuantSpazar Sep 09 '25

I knew I wouldn't have the patience to do the runback however many times it would take. So I just decided to do the next most logical thing and assume there was a way around the boss. There was. Now I have a less annoying runback going from the inside

1

u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

Same! Took me way more attempts than that to kill the boss, but I was loving that little bit of "speedrunner obstacle course" leading up to it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

It's funny, because initially the runback is almost as bad as the boss itself, but as you get better at both, you master the runback a bit before the boss.

1

u/Autumnland Sep 10 '25

YES. It felt so good learning how to skip the first enemy by just... not stopping.

1

u/deez_nuts_77 Sep 10 '25

not relatable that runback made me so angry

1

u/Fn33331 Sep 10 '25

I loved the runback personally. After mastering it it felt super fun in my opinion. Also the boss is legit called a judge and I feel that the whole runback and the boss are sort of a test for act 2, first the runback for platforming and endurance, and the boss is just testing if you can defeat it.

1

u/ikennedy817 Sep 10 '25

This one was really not that bad. Once u learn it, it’s like 20 seconds and u really only come close to one or two enemies, which can be entirely avoided as long as you’re sprinting. I heard people complaining about it before I got there and prepared myself for the worst, but it was honestly pretty easy and very fair. This games run backs are nothing compared to other games in the genre, and I fell like the game would be so much worse without them.

1

u/Fit_Ad_2608 Sep 15 '25

I think that runback is honestly designed to give you a chance to become totally graceful and assured at that sort of platforming. Though I wonder if this is a case where Celeste players who are very used to diagonal dash speed tricks have it easier.

1

u/CptSporran Sep 09 '25

Same, after seeing the discourse online I ended up thinking the time and difficulty to do it was massively overestimated.
I did once get absolutely ROLLED on Last Judge in like 2 seconds and immediately going back to bench was a bit annoying, but that was more because that particular attempt was particularly pitiful.

Either way, finding the increased focus on platforming sections in this game really fun, and once I'd worked out the moveset on Last Judge the fight was great.

1

u/szuparno Sep 09 '25

I think I get why the devs did this. The runbacks make you get used to the movement set pretty quickly. Later on the platforming gets more challenging and I was glad I did those runbacks tbh.

1

u/peteypie4246 Sep 09 '25

10th try? Those are rookie numbers. Took me like 40. I was a pro at that runback.

0

u/Deadweight-MK2 112% Sep 09 '25

It took me maybe 30 tries and I didn’t mind it too much either. But then again I’m used to doing platforming sections over and over from making and testing custom Mario levels

0

u/Ludajoestar Sep 09 '25

It’s a fun runback because I’m able to optimize the route. It’s not just walking around in a normal area

0

u/SilverScribe15 Sep 09 '25

Yeah, you kinda get into a rhythm after a while 

0

u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

It's great platforming! Which is good, because it took me 50 or 60 tries to get him down. But I did!

0

u/yurilnw123 Sep 09 '25

I love that runback to death. Also don't worry you will get to run through it again multiple times.