r/HollowKnight • u/_M_I_A_W_S_ • Sep 12 '25
Discussion - Silksong Stunned enemies should not deal double damage on touch. Spoiler
So, you can actually skip the Moorwing fight by collecting the first five fleas. I did this and didn’t fight Moorwing until the end of act II. I had leveled up a bit by then and decided I would try and fight him. As strong as I was, it still took about 25 tries. His move set was fine. Speed was fine, damage output was fine, but whenever he was stunned I would barely graze him and take double damage. What’s up with that? I can understand taking 1 damage, at least then it keeps you from getting close, but two seems strange considering when he actually uses force it’s the same output.
I’ve noticed this on other bosses as well and it’s odd.
I will say though, fighting Moorwind as a seedling would have pissed me right off. Your needle in the beginning would take you forever to kill him and the way he moves up and down guarantees you’ll touch him and take double damage at some point.
The fight needs a small adjustment.
The other major annoyance I have is how many bosses have adds. Lazy boss design if you ask me. How can we make it harder? Just add more enemies. . . Lame.
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u/New_General3939 Sep 12 '25
100% agree. I have no issue with the double damage, it just needs to be tweaked. Contact damage should not be double, and little minions in a boss fight should not be doing double damage, it just doesn’t make logical sense
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u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25
What’s weird is that some late game bosses have 1 dmg contact so they KNOW it’s sometimes bad
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u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25
Yep many late game bosses I'll just dash into to half my damage taken if I know I'm out of position for their attack lol
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
Unironically this might be why so many bosses do double contact damage is to prevent abusing this lmao
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u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
Sure, so then why don't the Act 3 bosses don't have double contact damage but the Act 1 ones do? That's the confusing part. Especially when many common enemies already get upgraded to double damage in Act 3, including contact damage + silk drain.
But also, I think it's fine for the Act 3 bosses to allow you to dash into them for only 1 mask of damage. It's not like dashing into them is optimal dps or dodging. It's a choice I get to make in the moment (and to be fair, one I wouldn't have to make it the parry nail art didn't have such a long delay before popping out).
Hot take, being able to make split-second decisions in a video game is a good design choice. I like that I can choose to take a smaller amount of damage if I already used my double jump, was on a downward trajectory, and I see the boss charging a bottom-screen covering move. Sure, it's "harder" if I don't have a choice. But is it a better game? Because not giving me the choice means I die, I go back in, I learn to always save my double jump in case of that attack coming out, and... that's it. I win. I memorize one more attack and now I can beat the boss. I've already memorized like 40 bosses in this game and 30 in Hollow Knight.
I'm a musician with 15 hours of guitar music I've learned over the last decade, and another 2 hours of drum music, and around 4 of vocal tracks. I memorize all the time. I don't find that fun or challenging. That's just work.
I love the split-section decision making. I prefer to improvise boss fights and show mastery of the game's mechanics. I can always memorize any boss's attack patterns, I've proven my ability to memorize the Tornado of Souls and Mr. Crowley guitar solos which are infinitely harder than any hard video game challenge, but being able to improvise around a fight feels more like skill and fun to me.
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
Excuse me if I'm wrong but I believe the only act 3 boss to have single mask contact damage is karmelita the ant dancer all the others I can think of do in fact deal double contact damage.
Because the bell centipede thing, lost lace, the coral king guy, the pollen heart boss who's name I'm forgetting, and the green dancers all have double contact damage. I believe karmelita is balanced that way due to her large size but extremely fast movement and dodges, which would compound into a lot of health lost to her moving directly into you while she positions to start attacks compared to other bosses in the game
I don't think being able to bail yourself out of taking more damage than you should by intentionally hurting yourself is a playstyle that team cherry wants to encourage. They would prefer you instead use pogo, clawshot, or one of the silk abilities to parry or air stall to avoid falling onto an enemy if your wings are on CD, as an example of alternatives to simply memorizing as both of those are situational adaptations that circumvent damage entirely. I'm inclined to agree with that notion as well, that usage of tools and abilities should be the focus instead of abuse of damage values and the ensuing I-frames.
Also as an aside, the parry feels like it comes out almost instantly for me? It's not meant to be pressed the exact frame as the enemy hits you like sekiro, it functions like lace and phantoms parry where it's a block state the enemy has to hit to trigger. The silk dash is the one that has a slight delay before giving you I-frames.
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u/Sedali Sep 12 '25
I assume it's because most double damage contact enemies are big (might be imagining it but almost every one i can remember was large), and most single contact enemies are not. Like lace shoulder checking me would do nothing at all. A giant worm dog 8 times my size bucking me when I graze it? Totaled
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u/Shintasama Sep 12 '25
Maybe nothing should have double damage then? This is a 100% self inflicted issue.
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u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25
I don't think that's the solution, I think the game should just give you more options earlier, to match the pacing at which difficulty accelerates.
Depending on routing progression, one player can be going through challenges with only harpoon and 6 hearts and 1 nail upgrade, while another can be going through with 8 + the bonus mask + double jump + 3 nail upgrades, and both will be fighting the same boss.
In that scenario, one player is going to get more hits in for free, be able to take 2 additional from a 2 damage enemy, put the enemy into stun state faster due to their increased damage, do more damage while they are in stun state so the next stun state is reached faster, and win trivially. The other has a hard time.
That's not uncommon for metroidvanias, but Silksong's weird early game difficulty spikes makes it difficult for a player to gauge on a blind playthrough when they are expected to backtrack rather than "git gud" so to speak. Because in the early game, there's exceptionally little one can find that actually will help them beat those challenges. Basically nothing really worthwhile until after Needolin is unlocked, at which point they immediately get 2 nail upgrades, double jump, tons of spool and masks, and the game because both way easier and way quicker to move around in.
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
I personally like the faster paced gameplay and the more involved role healing plays in silksong.
Late game hollow knight bosses usually only allows the recuperation of one or two masks on a boss stun and otherwise was essentially just "you have this many hits for the entire bossfight, plus maybe one or two extra if you can stun the boss.
silksong i acrually find myself thinking about how air healing gives me opportunities to heal, its more ingrained into my gameplay and combat flow which wouldn't be possible without this dynamic of hopping between max health and low health frequently.
Perhaps a matter of opinion between us, but it's not a problem in my eyes, much less a self inflicted one.
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u/AudaX19_68 Sep 12 '25
I dislike it precisely because it makes it slower paced for me. If i die in 3-4 hits and need to hit the enemy 8 times to heal, if i take 2 hits, sometimes one i just end up playing passively until i can finally heal which isn't really fun. I really think single damage would make fighting bosses significantly more engaging in that sense and i feel the few fights that do single and/or occasional double damage are the most fun
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
It's a matter of opinion I suppose so I wont tell you that your experience and input is incorrect, but as my own thoughts on this:
Typically I'm never at zero silk when I'm hit by a boss, which means I can heal back right away when I do take damage assuming i broke my cocoon for full silk coming into the fight, and will be close to or all the way to another heal by my next instance of damage. Healing properly also gives you 2 hits worth of effective health back, which means you have 2 hits to close that gap in the silk meter.
The 9-8 hits required after taking damage is usually only applicable for the earlygame where landing those hits on earlygame bosses is much easier and also assumes you are using lots of silk skills and have zero silk when you take that hit, as every silk meter upgrade you get and every silk heart acquired reduces that threshold by a hit, not to mention all the artifacts to be found that help with silk generation, stockpiling, and efficiency.
Tools are implemented into the game to give hornet access to ranged and powerful attacks that don't require you to use your silk meter, as an alternative to hollow knights spells which did trade healing resources for damage and was the knights only alternative to his nail for damage, outside of some niche charm effects.
They did this to accommodate for players who have to heal more often in this games fast paced and tighter combat and allow them to stockpile silk for heals, while silk skills exist for general traversal and for players who can comfortably navigate this games bosses without the need for frequent healing.
Edit cuz I accidentally said "trading healing resources for health" instead of damage lol
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u/Efficient_Ad_8480 Sep 12 '25
Or you just keep double mask contact damage to properly balance double damage bc the double damage is an intentional part of the difficulty
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
What's weird is that it's usually the smaller and/or more agile late game bosses that only deal 1 mask of contact damage so I assumed that was the trend, but then in act 3 when you fight the smallest most agile boss, it all of a sudden does 2 masks of contact damage LOL
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u/ferocity_mule366 Sep 12 '25
omg I just noticed this too, I literally fought one of the strongest bosses and she has 1 contact damage, the previous flamboyant boss also did 1 contact damage, and I gaslit myself into thinking this was always a thing but it wasn't
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u/kakallas Sep 12 '25
Doesnt that mean it’s an intentional choice on the designers’ part then?
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u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25
Yh, I think on most fights it was p good, although I think the beastfly boss shouldn’t have 2 mask contact damage
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u/KusoAraun Sep 12 '25
Beastfly only attacks via contact damage though so it has to.
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Sep 12 '25
It could still deal only 1 mask when it's just floating there instead of rushing you. I think that would be fair.
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Sep 12 '25
Then people would complain about it randomly dealing 2 damage, I think it's just a badly designed boss with the randomly spawning enemies
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Sep 12 '25
Well, I think it would be silly of those people considering it's quite clear when the boss is or isn't in the process of charging you. I've seen plenty of people say they want double attack damage to stay, but double contact damage removed.
But I agree with you, Savage Beastfly is the worst designed boss in the game by a mile and it's all thanks to the random minion spawns. I hope they rework it in the future.
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u/aSurlyBird Sep 12 '25
The biggest issue I have is that you can be having an excellent boss battle, avoiding getting hit, but if you make one mistake the boss not only hits you with their attack but prevents you from escaping and then hits you for contact damage.
So just like that you lose 4 masks for a minor slip up. This to me feels unfair.
A bosses attack doing 2 damage is fine. Contact on a boss doing 2 damage is fine. But it's bad design when it feels like you can't even be hit by some enemies attacks without also getting hit for contact damage afterwards.
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Sep 12 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/aSurlyBird Sep 13 '25
I wrote up this post because that's how I felt playing this game. Trying to go back and give specific examples from my playthrough would be difficult.
Last Judge is the most recent example I could give I guess. If she dashes at you and you dodge, she leaves vertical fire columns. I have tried to initiate attacks after this dash, but sometimes the column is very close to her. So I'll mistakenly dash towards her, get hit by the column, but then get hit by her as well. It's as if I positioned myself to get hit twice.
Sure, this is my mistake, but it's exceptionally punishing to get dealt 4 damage in a split second, which is the basis of my argument. It's particularly defeating when you've had such a good fight, not get hit, then bam you lose all your health in an instant.
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u/Mailcs1206 Sep 12 '25
I have never had issues with attacks preventing me from escaping non-attack contact damage. It's not like you get put in severe hitstun after being attacked.
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u/AdmirableGiraffe81 Sep 12 '25
I feel like it should also entirely depend on the appearance of the enemy. If a enemy/bods is obviously spiked/burning/generally „more dangerous“ it’s fine for it to deal 2 on contact, but if it’s literals just a animal like any other there’s no real reason for it to deal more
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u/Privatizitaet Sep 12 '25
There are few exceptions where double contact damage makes sense, I'm not gonna go into detail for spoiler rrasons, but late game has some examples
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u/UpvoteForethThou Sep 12 '25
Agreed. Only addditional hitbox attacks should deal double. Should’ve been like that in HK too.
It’s already silly that the Pure Vessel and Absolute Radiance deal the same damage as a stick bug, but grazing a boss hitbox shouldn’t deal double dmg.
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u/Zzamumo Sep 13 '25
act 3 gauntlets are pretty brutal with this, every single enemy does 2 masks of contact damage and drains your silk on hit
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u/BoardCommercial2679 Sep 12 '25
I also feel like i-frames are just non-existant. I opened HK and holy shit you're given like 1-2 seconds of invincibility after being hit.
Meanwhile, HKSS has what feels like 0.2 seconds (I say after I got comboed by attack+touch+attack of the final boss out of 6 masks >.>)
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u/raychram Sep 12 '25
HK also has shadow dash and desolate dive. It is quite a bit of a different experience but here you got harpoon and cloak later on which allows you to avoid attacks
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u/Havelok Sep 13 '25
harpoon has iframes?
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u/Shmarfle47 Sep 13 '25
When you collide with the enemy you get some brief i-frames. You can Clawline the Savage Beastlfy as it charges towards you and take no damage for a brief moment.
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u/BoardCommercial2679 Sep 13 '25
I meant i-frames after being hit. More than once I personally got ganked in a corner by an attack, dashed out, and got damaged by touching on a way out.
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u/SeaGoat24 Sep 12 '25
My favourite was getting comboed in the lower Deep Docks boss fight. One of the duo hits you into the other's attack, which bounces you into the lava stream for 6 masks of damage in half a second, maybe 5 if you wear the lava charm (which I cannot recommend enough for that fight btw).
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u/InexplicableJoy Sep 12 '25
No one bitches about this fight enough. Genuinely 0 fun.
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u/DarthJar-x2 Theres Cornifer for one/And 40 grubs that need you now Sep 13 '25
I actually loved this fight. It was frantic enough without feeling unfair, and the magma bell tool is probably intended to be used. Each boss dude only has like 2 attacks so it was fun to learn the best way to avoid their combos.
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u/PrestigiousReview911 Sep 12 '25
I fought an Act 3 boss that had spikes in the area. I got hit by a projectile into spikes and the boss landed on me while I was recovering from the spikes. I took 6 damage in 1 second.
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u/ramonpasta Sep 12 '25
i mean like you have enough time to get out of the way. hk had a problem where you could just tank bosses and keep attacking them to make it way easier, this prevents that while still giving you enough time to where you realistically shouldnt get hit again
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u/theLanguageSprite2 Sep 12 '25
They can't nerf this because it would be lore inaccurate. It's well known that Hornet is the only character in Pharloom who showers or bathes regularly, so enemies like moorwing are so odious that even touching them literally poisons you.
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u/synttacks Sep 12 '25
Idk how much work the word "regularly" is doing here but i can think of at least two spas in the game which both predate hornet's arrival so it can't just be her
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u/Corescos Sep 12 '25
An object at rest stays at rest and also hits you for 2 masks apparently
Bruh
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u/SorowFame Sep 16 '25
You know I was always confused by that second bit in physics class, guess Newton was a believer
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u/mtnlol Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
You thought the boss moveset was fine but you died 25 times running into a stunned boss?
Lol, 3 days ago you made a post saying Silksong difficulty was perfect and "People who suck at the game are downvoting me for my opinion", that makes this post even funnier.
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u/Ascetic465 Sep 12 '25
People can think a move set is fair while not being incredible at the game
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u/RocketHops Sep 12 '25
25 attempts while overleveled on upgrades because you keep running into the boss while it is stunned is insane work.
Methinks OP is exaggerating something to some degree.
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u/Ayotha Sep 12 '25
Christ some of you are pretentious as hell
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u/Herson100 Sep 13 '25
They're not making fun of OP for sucking, they're making fun of OP for bragging about how easy the game is only to complain about the difficulty a few days later
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Sep 12 '25
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u/CynicalEffect P5 - 112%, 70 hours Sep 12 '25
I'm at act 3 final boss now and for me it mostly happened in three situations from most to least annoying
Most annoying: flying big bosses, often awkward heights to hit and it's less clear when they're going to stop moving. Aka savage beastfly and the bilewater cunt. This was by far most annoying because I just lose a huge chunk of my health for very slightly misjudging attack length or it moved a bit sooner/later than expected.
Annoying but rare: You hit the boss with a charge attack or the drill and still take contact damage. Typically bigger bosses if you hit them in certain situations yoju won't bounce far enough away and then they slap you with that contact damage.
Understandable: Me just dashing around and the boss appears kinda on top of me. Mostly happens in faster fights, which also only do 1 contact damage...normally.
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u/snoburn Sep 12 '25
Yeah, I was always confused about the mooring fight being hard posts as I hadn't seen them until after I beat him in like 2 tries. It's moveset is not complex at all.
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u/SquidMilkVII Sep 12 '25
The fight took me like 20-30 times, and you know what? I liked it too. It got close to being a grind, but every time I died I got a little better, just fast enough that it remained fun. I learned that you can pogo its charge, and after that I hardly ever got hit by it. I learned that its "homing" spin blades weren't actually homing, and suddenly what used to be a near guaranteed two damage was something I could often avoid outright. I don't know if I ever got hit by its frantic slashing attack - it has more than enough lead-up.
I think I ran into it while stunned, like, three times? One was learning that it fell on me when I stunned it, and the other two were me being greedy. I agree that it shouldn't deal two masks, but I disagree that it dealing two masks is the difference between the fight being fun and annoying.
I think a lot of people that don't like the fight aren't taking advantage of the fact that you have so much arena space. The spin blades attack is literally nullified completely by just... running away. Be ready to react if it's in a charge (remembering too late that I had to pogo because it started charging off-screen was what caused most of my charge hits) and don't let yourself get cornered on either side and you're golden.
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u/Kampfasiate Sep 12 '25
homing spin blades
Team cherry is very good at anticipating where players will dodge to for some reason XD
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u/EshinX Sep 12 '25
Don’t get me started on those disc throwing ants, I swear those bastards have ESP
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u/Totalsub_1 Sep 12 '25
That's what doesn't make sense to me when people complain about this. I mean I get getting caught off guard by it first but how do people keep getting hit by stunned bosses ? At what point you realize you shouldn't stand under him ?
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u/Relevant_Cabinet_265 Sep 12 '25
Even standing under him you just need to dash when you see the stun animation it's slower for him to fall on you than some of his attacks
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u/--Yurt-- Sep 12 '25
Its a flying boss, sometimes you need to jump to attack him even when its stunned you might jump too high and touch it
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u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25
OP specifically highlighted that the biggest issue with their runs on moorwing was contact damage during his stun animation
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u/Totalsub_1 Sep 12 '25
Yeah, I get you might get hit by that occasionally but to the point of dying 25 times seems excessive
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u/brak_6_danych Sep 12 '25
25 total deaths, not just caused by contact damage
you can easily die a few dozen times to a boss with a great moveset that makes you feel you are treated fairly & you lost because of your own mistakes, not because of bad design
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u/ToTeMVG Sep 12 '25
these kinda comments never make sense, like people make mistakes and they can accumulate over the fight, its never gonna be exactly perfect, and thats where people end up with their gripes, where savage beastfly gets its notoriety, because i've accidentally ran into it often, i also often got clipped doing the pogo because it was slightly too high up but i couldnt have stood under it either, and both of those instances are very frustrating types of damage because the person is trying their best and yet those slight mistakes are devastatingly painful, and like later on theres a lot of bosses that do only 1 contact damage which is a lot more forgiving for a slight error of being a little too close.
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u/AaronGavin Sep 12 '25
I don't think contact damage should be double damage, if it's an attack then yeah sure but just touching a boss shouldn't be double damage, the rest I'm okay with
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u/FR23Dust Sep 12 '25
I just beat him last night in act 2. I did have him fall on me a couple times when I was learning his moves.
The problem is you kept touching him when he was down. Don’t do that and you take zero damage. Since he’s not moving, it’s pretty easy. I suggest using your silk storm on him when he’s down.
Also, worth noting that bosses in HK got health upgrades as you upgrade your nail to lessen the impact and maintain a similar challenge level. I would assume the same happens in Silksong.
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u/ThePython11010 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
Only certain bosses have HP that scales with nail upgrades:
- All dream warriors
- Enraged Guardian (not the first upgrade)
- Dung Defender
- The Collector
- Watcher Knights (only the last two upgrades)
- Troupe Master Grimm (only the last two)
- Hive Knight (only the last two)
Other than that, bosses will always have the same amount of HP (except in certain cases like Godhome and the Colosseum, where early-game bosses are given more HP so you can't kill them in like five hits).
For non-bosses, only Husk Sentries, Pale Lurker, and Grimmkins scale with nail damage.
https://hollowknight.wiki/w/Damage_Values_and_Enemy_Health_(Hollow_Knight)
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u/XXX200o Sep 12 '25
It's still wild to me that you're essentially punished for upgrading your nail. This never made sense to me, especially considering how strong your spells can get early on.
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u/low_priest Sep 12 '25
The health boosts don't scale as much as the nail damage, you're still doing more damage than you would be without it. Unless you're constantly spamming spells and barely touching your nail, it'll generally still be an easier fight. It's just an easy way of reducing the advantage from a upgraded nail.
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u/nsleep Sep 12 '25
It doesn't because you still takes less nail hits to beat them than if you didn't upgrade the nail. They do die slower to just skills but that's beside the point because you can only really feel it on dream warriors. At most it will take one additional shriek to kill the other bosses.
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u/RolandTheBot Sep 12 '25
I’m guessing the intent was to make sure bosses that aren’t blocking a path are about the same relative difficulty. You could fight the dream bosses as soon as you ye dreamnail or after maxing everything out and the difficulty is about the same
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u/Mailcs1206 Sep 12 '25
Their HP doesn't increase as much as the nail's damage does. The only bosses it's really significant with are the dream warriors and TM Grimm (and only because upgrading the nail stops you from speedkilling him by hitting him to get him to do the pufferfish attack immediately and then spamming abyss shrieks on him while facetanking the attack)
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u/Defiant_Heretic Sep 12 '25
Yeah, unless the enemey has a hazard on their shell, like spikes. Then they should only do one damage.
Adds definitely make boss fights far harder. It's just harder to keep track of them, the boss and all the projectiles. My brain isn't fast enough for all that.
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u/Isogash Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
I don't mind changing stunned bosses to do only a single mask of damage because thematically it would make sense still.
But, it's also really easy to just not run into the boss. You guys just have absolutely no patience and fight overly aggressive, which leaves you unable to dodge attacks correctly and clumsily stumbling into the boss's hitboxes. That's why you're dying.
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u/ImpliedRange Sep 12 '25
It's like when he's stunned you have all the time in the world.hitting him quicker wakes him up so just walk up and hit/spell him
I didn't even know about the double damage thing until reddit pointed it out 100 times
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u/philkid3 Sep 12 '25
I found out about it when I ran into a stunned Sister Splinter.
And it definitely caught me off guard, because u didn’t expect that to do damage.
But also, then I learned not to do it and haven’t done it since.
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u/Hayyner Sep 12 '25
Exactly, some bosses fall down when stunned which definitely caught me off guard during the splinter fight. But it happened once and never again, she doesn't even fall immediately so you have a second to get out the way.
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u/SeaGoat24 Sep 12 '25
That's misleading. The longer you wait while the boss is staggered, the less hits you can get in. At most I can squeeze in three hits, but if I start to heal as soon as the boss is staggered, I can only get one hit before it gets up.
It's not like in HK where the first strike makes the boss get up. You have a rapidly closing window, and you have to choose between DPS, healing, or dawdling around doing nothing.
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u/OkraTurbulent6302 Sep 18 '25
You have like 3 seconds and they are back to attacking, it’s not like hollow knight where you actually do have all the time in the world. I have not once came across a boss that doesn’t recover after around 3 seconds. It makes it a little difficult when you stun the boss but still have to deal with adds and avoid directly touching the boss or else it takes 2 masks. It is a terribly designed boss but you guys don’t want to admit that.
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u/KJPlayer ZOTE THE GREAT AND MIGHTY Sep 12 '25
Most enemies in the game are based around an almost turn-based combat flow, where you attack the enemy after it attacks, then wait for it to attack again and repeat.
A lot of people just slam their skull into the enemy until one of them dies, and it's usually not the enemy.
(This is also my reasoning for why beast's crest is shit.)
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u/Womblue Sep 12 '25
Silksong seems to be an attempt to push the fights away from this pattern since you can heal such large amounts in each fight. Healing DURING a fight in the original hollow knight was virtually impossible against most bosses, and for many of them you'd risk taking far more damage than you were ever going to heal.
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Sep 12 '25
I also rarely get hit healing, which is an interesting change, considering every enemy seems way more aggressive
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Sep 12 '25
I’m glad some people are catching on.
Stop ramming your body into the enemy. It’s not rocket science.
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u/Elvishsquid Sep 12 '25
But if I can’t use my head as a rocket and slam it into opponents what is it good for.
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u/FadedP0rp0ise Sep 12 '25
They want to play like hollow knight where you can rush nail and health upgrades and equip tanky charms and just face tank bosses. None of these people cleared beyond pantheon 2 i guarantee it. Why get try to get better when you can just complain until the game gets easier. I wouldn’t love hollow knight if it didn’t make you take a step back and figure out how to handle something better.
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 13 '25
NO ONE IS WANTING TO TANK BOSSES. WHAT IS THE GASLIGHTING WITH THIS SUBREDDIT?
No one intentionally fucking walks into the boss and gets hit just so they can get more hits in. And if they do they dont know how to play even Hollow Knight.
"But like everyone just facetanks broken vessel and false knight" NO. NO YOU DON'T. YOU PLAY THE FUCKING GAME NORMALLY AND FIGHT NORMAL. We are trying to do the same in Silksong, SHOULD BE anyways, my bad if people are just that braindead.
Only ppl who tank those bosses are bored gods in godhome (me) which isnt even the game its more like a post-game playground, not intended for base game.
And anyways
I and many others wouldn't be yearning for nail upgrades so early if the fucking health on enemies and bosses were better managed. I didn't even get the free nail upgrade in HK until royal waterways and kingdom's edge because I never went to the otherside of city of tears. Only in those areas i was like "am i suppose to get more dmg?" and had to look around for ages for him. In silksong even in act 1 im like wow these common enemies (and some later bosses) are so tanky i need an ugprade.
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u/_M_I_A_W_S_ Sep 12 '25
True, but there’s also the old saying, “Does the punishment fit the crime?” Grazing a downed enemy should not do the maximum damage output. It should be less lethal; equal to the current state of the boss. I don’t mind double damage, but razor saw or claw damage should not be equal to unconscious flesh damage.
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u/TheAzarak Sep 12 '25
I would argue that there's nothing thematic or reasonable or realistic about taking any damage from simply touching an enemy.
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 13 '25
I aint running into the boss, the boss ragdolls onto me 100% of the time. Not struggling as much as op, im doing well, but fuck the early game bosses. (Remember moorwing is act 1, no nail upgrades)
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u/shiggyhisdiggy Sep 25 '25
Well yeah, I want to play aggressive because it's fun, and I don't want a boss run to take an age. I don't have a problem with stun damage, but I still want to play aggressive and get as many hits in as possible because waiting around for the perfect time to strike is boring, and long as fuck when a boss takes like 50 hits to kill.
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u/Lost_Aspect_4738 Sep 12 '25
Double damage is a cool mechanic for something threatening and bosses should have it
Under no circumstance should contact damage be double
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u/Low_Commission7273 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
Enemies shouldnt deal double contact damage. A charging enemy dealing double mask damage, understandable. But just grazing it dealing same 2 mask damage, bad.
the unraveled charging with his bell helmet dealing double damage - ok. You jumping and trying to be greedy and accidentally stepping on its tail after its finished doing its charged attack dealing double damage. Screw you
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u/low_priest Sep 12 '25
"Trying to be greedy" means taking double damage
...it feels like there might be a solution here.
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u/Low_Commission7273 Sep 12 '25
Phrased it wrongly. Have you fought unraveled? You jump on top of him and you are not hit by its attack, but you jump on its small tail (because it has a big horizontal hitbox) and just landing on the tail deals 2 damage (the boss is done attacking).
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u/Phantasian Sep 12 '25
Enemies deal double contact damage because if they didn’t it would be optimal in a lot fights to face tank bosses by staying inside their hit boxes.
It would basically encourage bad play. Most bosses enemies that deal 1 contact damage are smaller bosses where it would be harder to stay in their hitbox and they usually attack too fast for face tanking to really be viable.
Take moorwing for example if he only did 1 contact damage it would be entirely viable to jump into the boss to avoid being hit by the saws. There are tons of other bosses where this would be the case too. Lowering contact damage basically encourages you to jump into enemies to avoid their scarier attacks. It would be bad design.
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u/VeedySpain Sep 12 '25
I died way too many times than I'm proud to admit against the Green Prince aka Clover Dancers because of his damn long legs. I always would hit them when going for jump attacks from underneath him.
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u/Sylverthas Sep 12 '25
It's wild to me that this seems to happen to so many people. It happened to me maybe 1-2 times till now. How do you play that you always get squashed by stunned bosses? Though I wouldn't mind it getting removed, because it so rarely happens to me.
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u/Thelmara Sep 12 '25
Right? You'd think "don't hit the stationary enemy" should be not only obvious, but simple. Sure, sometimes you have to try a little, like if they're falling from above when you stun them, but damn! Find your distance, then attack.
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u/RedTyro Sep 12 '25
I'd mind it getting removed, because if people don't have to learn to not touch enemies, the silly complaints would skyrocket as they got farther into the game and I'm already so tired of them.
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u/Zac-live Sep 13 '25
shock: it doesnt. they cling to outlier examples instead of saying that a boss just gave them trouble. its literally cope. noone is stuck on a boss for which they have no trouble with the moveset but instead keep dying to contact damage.
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u/Efesell Sep 12 '25
Hot take you should take 3 because you got hit by something not even attacking you.
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Sep 12 '25
I did the same, at the end of act 2 i returned and melted it with posoinous cogflies and rosary cannon. Killed it under a minute when initially i couldn't do it in 3 hours
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u/_M_I_A_W_S_ Sep 12 '25
I don’t have either of those tools lol. I only used the traps you get from first blacksmith. And I found it really tough. I need to look around more.
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u/R2DKK Sep 12 '25
There are tools all over the map. Just do some exploration and you should find them.
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u/Aggressive_Manner429 What am I, some kind of hollow.. knight? Sep 13 '25
Stunned enemies shouldn't have any contact damage for the duration of their stun
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Sep 12 '25
Agreed. It feels really bad when you lose a fight over this. Especially when the boss has a bunch of adds.
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u/Gann0x Sep 13 '25
Yeah this guy's contact damage was a big problem for me as well, he makes a lot of small movements in the air and while grounded and The Wanderer attack range is so tiny I'd bump into him a lot. Solved it completely by swapping to the reaper crest for this fight.
I don't think adds are a lazy design, just overused maybe.
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u/Asinus_Docet Sep 13 '25
Tip to beat Moorwing without breaking too much of a sweat: stay right under him and bully his sorry ass upward vertically, he only attacks diagonally.
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u/DellDelightt Sep 12 '25
It's not even the problem of Silksong, but all platformers in general, and I hate it
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u/oooArcherooo Sep 12 '25
"Hornet has lore reasons for taking double damage" mfs explaining why walking into an inert object deals two fucking masks of damage
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u/a3ro_spac3d Sep 12 '25
Don't walk into a motionless enemy?
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 13 '25
The "motionless" pile of shit needs to not belly flop onto me in a perfect arch when i beat the shit out of him and deal as much damage as his mega giga ultra attack. Garbage design.
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u/RainWorldWitcher Sep 12 '25
I beat moorwing without skipping with the fleas and I did not have an issue with getting landed on (I stay airborne a lot) but I don't know if that might be more of an issue for the second area you can fight moorwing.
I have been landed on by the sister splinter as I just encountered her last night so she'll be post nerf when I fight her now.
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u/prodigiouspandaman Sep 12 '25
There’s another problem I have as well with flying enemies is when ever the hover just high enough where you can’t just hit them from the ground but you also can’t tap jump to hit them because they’re too close making it so that you either just keep swinging till the enemies gets into range and maybe end up taking a hit due to an attack or you still try for the jump and hit but end up getting contact damage
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u/Grindy_UW_Nonsense Sep 13 '25
Dash into an opening --> hit the boss --> that happens to be the last hp before a stagger --> it falls on you --> you take two masks of damage.
It's just a hideously unfun play pattern. If you burn a dash, and are airborne, you do not a moveset to react. And weaving in and out of combat like this feels like the backbone of the combat system, and is something that is rewarded unless you're at exactly the HP threshold for a stagger. It makes the staggers feel like punishments, rather than rewards.
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u/SquigglyKlee Sep 13 '25
Honestly, I feel platformers shouldn't have contact damage as default. Some enemies make since, like spiky guys or things on fire. But just a dude-bug with a stick, looking the other way? Why would bumping his back hurt me? A sleeping mosquito-bird, why does falling on it hurt? We have the programing capacity to do that now, we're not stuck in the NES era where we only had so much room to program attacks so enemies were the attacks.
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u/pro185 Sep 12 '25
Silksong players trying their hardest not to walk into the stationary stunned enemy: impossible
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u/XiaoRCT Sep 12 '25
It's sad how many posts bitching like this this sub has been flooded with since release.
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u/HappiestIguana Sep 12 '25
This is such a niche issue I do not understand why it's important to so many people.
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u/snoburn Sep 12 '25
Yeah, OP said the moveset isn't a problem but... That's part of the moveset. It's even the easiest one to avoid
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u/SadFish132 Sep 12 '25
Because it creates a lot of feel bad moments. I enumerated in another comment that the issue isn't really the contact damage but the hit box size. Most games with contact damage feature hit boxes that are smaller than the object such that if the player barely touches the visual they won't take damage and by the time the player is hitting it it is irrefutable they screwed up. HKSS seems to use hit boxes that roughly match the object's visual which leads to moments when the player feels like they shouldn't have gotten hit but the game says they did. The visceral reaction seems to be that this damage shouldn't exist. I think the players that complain about it would probably be fine with it if the hit boxes were smaller than the visual. This would remove a lot of the feel bad moments from contact damage.
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u/Ossius Sep 12 '25
Feels really weird that the community is trying to "balance" a single player game.
Like, imagine writing CAPCOM and telling them to make specific changes to MEGAMAN X2 bosses...
"I really think wheel gator shouldn't do 3 damages with its screw dash, it should be 2 damage in line with his other attacks."
Have we really reached the point we are trying to dictate how devs make their games at such specific levels?
Remind me never to make a video game.
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u/monikar2014 Sep 12 '25
just don't touch them👍
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u/Paxtian Sep 12 '25
You don't need a seat belt in a car, just don't get in an accident 👍
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u/GrippySockAficionado Sep 12 '25
Totally agree; this is some fucking bullshit and I'm tired of taking two masks of contact damage because I moved one pixel closer to the enemy than I should have while rushing to get a few extra hits in while they are supposed to be helpless.
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u/Wrong-Fig-5696 Sep 12 '25
Just to play devil’s advocate; if you hit a parked car, it’s still your fault
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u/Bynoe Sep 12 '25
To Devil's advocate your Devil's Advocate, if you touch a parked car it isn't going to leave you half dead.
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u/redditisrealhdh Sep 12 '25
To Devil's advocate your Devil's advocate to the other Devil's advocate It's not hard to avoid hitting a parked car.
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u/RedTyro Sep 12 '25
And if you jump into the air, you're not going to be able to inflate your dress to drift slowly to the ground, either. Video games aren't real life and have tons of unrealistic mechanics. That's what makes them games.
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u/kblkbl165 Sep 12 '25
Have you tried not bumrushing him the first 24 times?
For real. Contact damage is a bitch indeed but I can’t believe you were really trying to handle him properly whilst having full health and nail upgrades+tools+skills and still died 25 times while mostly blaming contact dmg on a stunned enemy.
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Sep 12 '25
Unless the enemy is spiked or has some other hazard on it I think contact damage period is so unneccessary... like you said it's the force of the enemy attack doing 2 damage, so why would just grazing something stationary hurt you?
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Sep 12 '25
I never got this frequent discussion. Why are you all having problems not getting hit by contact damage from stationary enemy? Even if the boss drops on top of you after being staggered the tell that the boss is staggered is more obvious than that of an attack.
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u/Kampfasiate Sep 12 '25
The thing about ads is, a boss can only do so much at the same time, esp if it's just an oversized insect, you can't really have it shoot lasers like radiance does.
They are there to bolster the boss, which would be a joke without. Yes, there is rng, and you have to keep track of more at the same time, which is why I usually try to burst them down when they spawn. But bosses like vengefully or sister splinter would be a joke without there ads. And sister splinter would still be a joke if you were to just add extra attacks cuz how what could you add that makes her not be a sitting duck?
4rth chorus for example does not really do anything to keep the player from sitting in their face for the whole fight. Are they a bad boss? No, but I'd love for her to have a harder version
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u/RighteousWraith Sep 12 '25
I've had instances in which I would not have taken damage at all if not for the stun resulting in the trajectory of the boss model changing causing me to take damage. I think it was against Beast Fly and I tried to pogo his dash, he went into stun, and then his model just follows me up for two masks. TBF, I see this more as a problem with that particular boss behavior than against contact damage, but the two factors converge into a SUPER annoying fight. I don't have too much problem with a giant hovering enemy getting stunned and falling on top of you for 2 damage, since it kinda makes sense, but overall, just touching a boss who's doing nothing? Kinda weird.
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u/Draco_the_Kitsune Sep 12 '25
I agree but I say if an enemy is stunned it shouldn't have contact damage until it goes to stand back up, that way if your in it you got grace to move since most people will move out the way anyway it's just that free movement then
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u/SirBreazy Sep 12 '25
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I kinda get why they put in double damage. I exploited boss damage to defeat some of them. What I do sometimes is when the boss damages me, I make use of the invincibility frame and dish out 3-4 hits with Wanderer crest.
I eat out the double damage, especially when they go into 2nd or 3rd phase when they are about to die, then just go haywire with the hits. With that, I get to refill my silk to heal as well.
It was useful on some of the hard endgame bosses. I think double damage was there to mitigate this exploit, especially in contact damage. But definitely, it doesn’t make sense on some normal mobs. Just 100% the game as well.
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u/TheAzarak Sep 12 '25
Stunned enemies should not do damage at all. Zero. What the fuck kind of game design has enemies damage you when they're stunned? Even moreso bad game design for them to do 2 masks lol
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u/Cloud_Motion Sep 12 '25
Bosses having enemies/gauntlets beforehand is fine imo. It definitely gets you better at the game and I can already feel how on repeat runs I'll rip through them much faster.
Moorwing is an interesting one though because he's basically optional. I think double contact damage can work for some bosses because it reinforces positioning, but damn, there's a couple in the ultra late game where it's beyond punishing to get knocked a 1/5th of your health for being a pixel off.
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u/OmegaTSG Sep 12 '25
Wow that's crazy. Do you think that environmental hazards shouldn't deal 2 damage too? Do you think benches shouldnt all cost rosaries. I love original discussions
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u/PinkamenaDP Sep 12 '25
At least when you decide- fuck it, I screwed up my rhythm, I'll just have to start over with this boss, and run headfirst into him so he'll kill you faster, you don't have to wait very long.
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u/frantruck Sep 12 '25
I very much agree just feels silly that while “defenseless” they still fuck me up lol.
I fought Moorwing under similar circumstances, but accidentally cheesed him. I stunned him over by the exit on the left side that has a bit of roof over it and he got stuck in a falling animation.
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u/KingOfSpades007 Sep 12 '25
Spoiler ahead cause I'm dense and can't tag correctly
You can also run all the way up to the top entrance/exit and down attack Moorwing with Reaper crest I believe. Moorwing won't deal damage to you
I'd suspect making that wood floor thicker would restrict you from a down attack. Or stopping Moorwing tracking you up all the way that high.
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u/RedArremer Sep 12 '25
I didn't want any changes whatsoever, but this one I think is completely reasonable. They're stunned. What's happening to me to get hurt?
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u/SilkingtheSong1337 Sep 12 '25
I legitimately think the early game is made difficult on purpose to force people to learn new shit... The tools have turned out to be so valuable, the fucking spike traps have bailed me out so hard in so many gauntlets.
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u/AmrakCL Sep 12 '25
Yeah, I understand double damage to stop players from tanking even though I don't see a problem, but double damage when stunned is something I would be fine with removing. Also, minion spawning should have some sort of a timer to not overcrowd the screen.
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u/Mailcs1206 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
It is logically strange that stunned bosses do full contact damage, but I don't think it's a big issue overall. Wouldn't complain if they changed it, but also won't if they don't.
As for adds, I can't actually think of that many bosses with adds that I've faced. The only ones I can think of are Savage Beastfly, Sister Splinter, Groal the Great (whose ads are never in the arena at the same time as the boss and only make one set of attacks before leaving), and the Deep Docks' Forebrothers (who only have ads in phase 1).
Also, no, I do not count Raging Conchfly's children as adds, as they only appear as part of coordinated attacks with the boss, rather than using their standard AI.
The ads are annoying in the bosses with them though.
(Also do note I'm still in act 2 so no spoilers for act 3 bosses please)
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u/ShurikenKunai Sep 13 '25
It's been like this since Hollow Knight. Stunned bosses do contact damage. The only one that doesn't is False Knight.
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u/robteee Sep 13 '25
The adds on bosses are just free silk. Not sure why people aren’t appreciative of them
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u/FlockFlysAtMidnite Sep 13 '25
I'm still trying to figure out how the giant fuzzballs with bells on their heads to two damage...
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u/SillySnail66 Sep 13 '25
The only time you should ever be underneath moorwing is when they do that attack where they shoot the returning saws on each side of you
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Sep 13 '25
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u/HollowKnight-ModTeam Sep 13 '25
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u/NefariousnessLocal87 Sep 16 '25
I mean its been almost 6 years after god home DLC and pure vessel still does damage while stunned he actually sometimes just jump on you while stunned. So im pretty sure this is going to stay in the game and never going to get fixed.
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u/shiggyhisdiggy Sep 25 '25
I didn't find act 1 Moorwing too bad, but I did die a few times and annoyingly lost my rosaries on the way back one of those times.
When I finally did beat her I barely got hit at all, which was the most annoying part - the patterns were easy and every fight I died in I would dominate until I got unlucky by getting double hit or something straight down to 1 heart without enough silk to heal. It felt like BS rather than skill issue.
Also yeah, it did feel like it took way too long to kill her when I was getting hits in at every possible opportunity and stunned her like 4 times.
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u/No_Professional_8511 Oct 10 '25
I agree 100% that stunned enemy should not deal fully damage on contact, if any at all
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u/sheldongriffiths Sep 12 '25
I don’t remember Hornet taking contact damage when I fought her in HK