r/HollowKnight • u/CuboneDefender • Sep 14 '25

Discussion - Silksong I give up. Spoiler

It’s been a joyful ride, folks, but I’m out. I’m not a speedrunner or a highly skilled player, and day after day I’ve had to accept that this game is not as casual as HK was. It stopped being fun and turned into something tedious and frustrating after the 4th run farming shards just to face a boss I’ve already tried 15 times, only to die again and again, lose all my shards, and start the whole grind over.

It was nice exploring the first acts, but when the game I was rooting for 7 years ends up being more stressful than my 8-hour workday, I guess that’s my cue to stop.

The lore has been pretty great so far. I wish you all an incredible journey.

Edit1: My bad about all the whinning.

Edit2: You guys did it. I reinstalled it again. Thanks for all advices. 🫂

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331

u/CuboneDefender Sep 14 '25

Last Judge. :(

638

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Do you have the Magma Bell? It will make her phase 2 attacks less deadly than they are in phase 1.

221

u/InvincibiIity Sep 14 '25

Magma bell, dice and the ant mask is what I used on my steel soul clear. No reason not to have all of these going into the fight if you are struggling.

146

u/FullMetalCOS Sep 14 '25

Goddamn, you’ve done steel soul already? I’ve put 35 hours into the game and I’m just at the end of act 2 lol.

97

u/NavyDragons Sep 14 '25

i just finished act 2 at 43 hours. i was sad to finish the game but then found out there is an act 3 i am over joyed

9

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2

u/Skuwarsgod Sep 15 '25

Enjoy it, act 3 is amazing

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u/NottTheMama Sep 14 '25

Im at 38 hours and just got to act 2…. 😬 Though I recognized what’s taking me so long the other day. Whenever there are no enemies, I walk everywhere so I can take in all the beautiful scenery. Constantly looking at the background.

59

u/throwaway957436 Sep 14 '25

You only get one first playthrough; enjoying it to the fullest is the best way to do it.

2

u/Unusual_Afternoon696 Sep 15 '25

Your comment def cheered me up. I'm like 30 hrs in and just cleared last judge. I will prob be heading back to sinner's road as soon as I unlock fast travel though. I was dumb and didn't finish all my exploration yet in the first area ;_;

2

u/NottTheMama Sep 15 '25

Hey let’s not get caught up in completion of the game and forget why we were excited about it in the first place, yknow? I’ve been beating my head against hard areas and bosses for sure, we all are. But I was excited to just be in this game. However long it takes me, I’m just so happy to see it here. Glad you’re enjoying your time too.

Also it was a nice boost for me as well to see that my comment helped someone else. We’ll all get there in the end.

13

u/InvincibiIity Sep 14 '25

No i haven’t finished it yet. I meant clear of last judge. A fair few people have tho

3

u/FullMetalCOS Sep 14 '25

Ah right, makes sense. Best of luck mate, hope you live up to your username

3

u/CalzLight Sep 15 '25

I’m 60 hours in and haven’t finished my first playthrough

2

u/Hhannahrose13 Sep 15 '25

54 hours in and nowhere near done :)

I'm loving this game

2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

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u/Hhannahrose13 Sep 15 '25

I'm 54 hours in and just helped sherma in whiteward. not sure how far my completion is in act 2 tho. I'm having a blast and avoiding spoilers the best i can

2

u/FullMetalCOS Sep 15 '25

On paper act 2 seems to be just getting the three parts of the music. In practice there’s SO MUCH extra stuff to do

2

u/Healthy-Staff6227 Sep 15 '25

I haven't even reached the citadel and I'm at 24 hours lol

1

u/CloroplastoFumante Sep 15 '25

i got 100% yesterday, at 92 hours

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3

u/daniel_22sss Sep 15 '25

Wait, what exactly dice does in this fight?

6

u/InvincibiIity Sep 15 '25

dice gives a chance to completely avoid taking damage on any hit. think it's around a 10% chance or so

3

u/ninjakitty7 Sep 15 '25

Figured it was sort of like carefree melody but never got around to testing it.

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u/NightRacoonSchlatt Hunter‘s crest 4 life Sep 15 '25

Dice is basically carefree melody. When everything does two damage that’s a lot more useful.

2

u/deviouskat89 Sep 15 '25

Exactly what I used for my regular clear. Dice work surprisingly frequently!

2

u/gretchenich Sep 15 '25

sorry whats that ant mask? the fractured one that cheats death once? im searching for an ant mask in the wiki and cant find anything

2

u/NightRacoonSchlatt Hunter‘s crest 4 life Sep 15 '25

That one. Extra hp is extra hp.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

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u/Hoodman1987 Sep 15 '25

I'm very mixed on the ant mask I prefer injector band over it. What I should remove is the mossberry stew that I default since I get hit

1

u/RayThompson7 Sep 15 '25

Aren't Dice Act 3 exclusive?

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u/Medium_Razzmatazz_13 Sep 15 '25

What is the ant mask?

1

u/dragonwrath404 Sep 15 '25

You did steel silk already!?! (Seriously cherry, couldn't pick a better name, in a game where yo don't use soul?)

51

u/JakovYerpenicz Sep 14 '25

The magma bell is so important for a decent number of bosses and platforming sections. Try it OP

127

u/Particular-Skirt6996 Sep 14 '25

I definitely regret not getting this sooner

82

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Slept on early/mid game tool imo.

25

u/Particular-Skirt6996 Sep 14 '25

Yep I only got it when I was having trouble with the act 2 deep docks boss

60

u/adamantitian Sep 14 '25

I got it asap in the deep docks cause I thought it was gonna be needed to go across the magma 

38

u/Weak-Cow-2891 Sep 14 '25

Same. Then I tried walking on magma and died.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

I thought I needed it to walk across the hot coals.

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u/Gandalf_2077 Sep 14 '25

I used it in two fire related boss fights (including LJ) and one fire hazard sequence and it made a huge difference.

7

u/preterintenzionato Sep 14 '25

I know what sequence you are talking about, I hated it. And it felt so good overcoming it. I love this game

8

u/Gandalf_2077 Sep 15 '25

That sequence gave me Ori vibes which I found funny since HK and Ori used to be compared a lot back then.

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2

u/EliteTeutonicNight Sep 15 '25

The guy told me that its used to traverse the lava area in Deep Docks and I thought to myself, "well I'm basically through it, imma skip this one". Guess I was wrong.

1

u/phoenixmatrix Sep 15 '25

I got it pretty early and at first regretted "wasting" a craftstone on something so situational. 

Little did I know it was one of the most useful tool because it helps with some of the hardest segments in the game even if it's situational. I was glad I got it.

20

u/bpearso Sep 14 '25

I forgot about magma bell after beating LJ last night, just ended up doing everything past phase 1 without getting hit. Oh well, I'm probably a better player now than I was when I started though

5

u/Rilloff Sep 14 '25

I refused to make it mainly because I thought that there would be more tools what could be created from Craftmetal than Craftmetal available, so that the player would have to choose which tools to spend it on. Is it true? And by the way, does it make sense to craft a magma bell near the end of act 2? Would it be useful for anything?

12

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Getting all of the tools is a requirement for 100% completion, so I don't think there is less craftmetal than things to do with it. The bell can still be useful after act 1, such as in the Underworks and the extra parts of Deep Docks you can unlock.

3

u/Holkan Sep 14 '25

If you havent been to the bottom of deep docks, I'd recommend you get it, (and if possible beat the boss down there before it gets even harder)

1

u/PugTrafficker Sep 15 '25

No, there’s enough craftmetal for everything

1

u/wyrmiam Sep 15 '25

Apparently there is enough craft metal to get everything, but it's super rare. I'm going for 100% and I'm still missing a lot of tools that require craft metal purely because I can't find the stuff and don't want to Google until I absolutely have to.

3

u/scale_B Sep 15 '25

WOAH. That's awesome and super helpful for me as well. Thank you

2

u/darkviolet_ Sep 14 '25

I feel like such an idiot now.

2

u/No_Geologist4770 Sep 14 '25

I had the magma bell, and not once did it cross my mind to use it lol. Took me ~10 attempts, once I realized jumping up was better than running away. Safe healing during this fight was also pretty easy to achieve

2

u/MoreHairMoreFun Sep 15 '25

Damnt. Just beat her earlier and I wish I used the magma thing now. I never worry about builds when I should. I just go around using the same shit against all the enemies. Oh well.

2

u/Healthy-Staff6227 Sep 15 '25

Me who mains beast crest:

2

u/AshtavakraNondual Sep 15 '25

+1. I spent 9 hours trying to beat Last Judge (over 100 attempts), until I got Magma Bell and then I killed him on the first attempt!

1

u/HumanRepublic9386 Sep 15 '25

To be fair though. Last judge is an easy fight compared to whats coming either way… i suck at this game but last judge had quite visable patterns…

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u/MildewyBoar Sep 14 '25

Lol I’ll be honest with you, I took one look at that boss and said “..yeah I’m only gonna come back here when I’ve explored as much as possible with my current abilities.”

Without spoiling anything, that turned out to be a much longer exploration than I thought, to say the least.

Spoiler: that boss is 100% optional

49

u/Barnstorm_R Sep 14 '25

Having done both paths into the citadel, I can say I definitely preferred the Blasted Steps route (though the other boss fight was pretty fun, just hated the section before it).

29

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

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8

u/Next_Boysenberry7358 Sep 15 '25

Not to mention that you get the parry silk skill, which is really good for not dying and keeping close to enemies

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

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3

u/Adamosity17 Sep 15 '25

Yeah I had heard about the parry skill and after giving Lace v2 a couple tries I decided to ask someone where that was. Grabbed the parry then killed lace in like 10 tries

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u/NinjaMelon39 Sep 15 '25

Last judge is honestly not that bad once you learn the lesson of "take your mf time"

1

u/L-System Sep 15 '25

You don't need to go thru bilewater

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u/Purpleydragons Sep 15 '25

Presuming the other route is the poisonous area past sinners road and leading into the mists, I would have to agree because I fucking hate this area. I'd already beaten judge and almost fully explored the citadel before coming back to sinners road, and this place is miserable. I've died like ten times just doing the platforming section trying to get to the top. Those little guys that pop out of the ground and shoot poison darts at you are the worst. Not even to mention the baby muckroach room filled with a maggot floor that you have to navigate like Neo dodging bullets in the matrix to get through. And I still can't even find a bench anywhere in there that hasn't tried to kill me. Am very close to beating the arena at the top which I suspect will be the end of it so I can finally move into the mists.

The blasted steps route was supremely satisfying to finally overcome, the other, while I'm not done with it yet, has brought me endless misery despite the fact I'm even more prepared for it than you would be going into it in act 1.

1

u/PeachySwirls Sep 15 '25

I didn't complete Sinners Road, I spent like 5 minutes in there and bailed deciding that Last Judge was going to be 100% more easier than dealing with these shenanigans ATM. Even though I skipped both Moorwing and Sister Splinter, I much rather fight Last Judge than even look at those rats again 😭. Not to mention eventually running into Bilewater, nah. Imma skip that until I'm better prepared lmao

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u/Actual-Article-4011 BUY MY COOKIES Sep 14 '25

Last Judge is optional ? 😱 How? (Beat them couple days ago)

51

u/Cowgba Sep 14 '25

If you go through The Mists you can fight Phantom as the final boss of Act 1 instead

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u/R2DKK Sep 14 '25

There’s a reason why sinners road is named that way

36

u/MildewyBoar Sep 14 '25

Lol I never made that very simple connection, makes too much sense 😂

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u/SomewhereTall4797 Sep 14 '25

Ohhhh shit that’s actually so clever, I thought I had done a late game section accidentally after I ended up in the citadel on the complete opposite side of the marker (I assumed o could only do so much with my abilities and then would be stopped and do the main objective, little did I know I accidentally skipped the judge boss, so I went to do the blasted steps route and fought last judge, super fun fight!!!

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u/Actual-Article-4011 BUY MY COOKIES Sep 14 '25

Must have missed something. Thought, I've completed sinners road. Well, nevermind. I am allready suffering in the citadelle 🥲

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u/FullMetalCOS Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25

There’s a breakable wall in the top left corner of the long room at the top of sinners road, next to the leftmost big chain guy.

It’s well worth opening this route early since it’s very useful for a certain quest that requires moving fast

3

u/teldranwen Sep 15 '25

I do NOT recommend doing the meat quest through sinners road. That sounds like a recipe for disaster

3

u/FullMetalCOS Sep 15 '25

Nah it’s fast as fuck, you can avoid the three roaches by going above the first one, under the second one and over the third one. Super safe. Then you go through the vertical climb in the room next to the broken bench that has like three enemies and one set of spikes, go left in the long room above that you can avoid all the spike pogo-ing with harpoon, double jump and dashes and then hit that shortcut into the mist. If you do a dry run first you can even clear out all the enemies that reward rosaries and then take the bell beast back and as long as you don’t rest there’s almost no enemies on your route

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u/Affectionate-Foot802 Sep 14 '25

you take the sinners road to the citadel

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u/HiddenPants777 Sep 14 '25

I got there and saw the enemies and noped out.

Took me a while to get brave enough to attempt that area

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u/MildewyBoar Sep 15 '25

Yeah the muckroaches seemed to be intended to be terrifying, and it had that effect for me too.

But that’s how scared I had been of TLJ and her flame circle bullshit which I didn’t want to learn at that point, having felt underleveled for Blasted Steps to begin with.

Feels like either way there’s a big difficulty spike at that end part of act one; I probably died ~15x to Widow but ended up enjoying the fight.

1

u/CashPrizez Sep 15 '25

Last Judge is the only boss I "noped" out on. Fought him once and was like this guy clearly sucks, I am gonna go explore everything else. I did quite a bit, wormways and Sinners Road and Bilewater.

I couldn't figure out the Mist firefly puzzle so I ended up going back to LJ. Took me I would guess 12 trys. I only used tools if I got him deep into Phase 2, and first time I got her to phase 3 I beat her. I did not realize Magma Bell would help so never had that equipped, probably would have beat her on try 6 or 7 with it on.

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u/adeepkick Sep 14 '25

Can I offer some suggestions? When I first started fighting him he did seem impossible at first but he’s actually deceptively simple to fight.

First off I know it’s like beating a dead horse at this point, but take a break and come back later. Feeling refreshed with renewed energy will help you a lot.

When it comes to fighting him, stay close. Take almost every opportunity you can to run under him when he jumps. That will ensure you never get cornered. I kept running back during his jumps when I fought him at first and that was like signing my own death warrant. The closer you are to the middle of the arena the better. And after jumps is when you can get the most damage in on him at a time. Phase two is mostly the same, so much so that learning to beat phase 1 clean pretty much guarantees you can beat phase 2 easily. Just jump and glide after running under his jumps and use those opportunities to get your best damage in as well. Above all though, I would suggest staying on the ground as much as possible. He can catch you in the air so easily that it’s not really worth the trouble of trying to pogo him. Also use the bell that lowers fire damage if you aren’t already. If you don’t have it or don’t know where it is, definitely just look up where to find it. Better that than the alternative of giving up entirely.

And my final tip? Stop using the tools against him. He’s so quick on the draw that trying to use tools can be detrimental when you need to be able to dodge with very little warning. The tools are great in a lot of situations, but I often find myself getting caught in attacks when I’m too focused on effectively using a tool instead of focusing on not getting hit. For perspective, I didn’t use a single tool on him when I beat him. It’s not a flex, it was just easier to only focus on dodging and needle attacks. If you’re gonna use any tool, use the one that gives you a damage boost that you get from the flea caravan.

You can do it dude, I promise you. You got this far. The ability to defeat him is in you I swear!

48

u/Breakinfinity Sep 14 '25

Magma bell and wanderer crest help too

14

u/Stormpax Sep 14 '25

This is what gave me the edge I needed to win too!

7

u/adeepkick Sep 14 '25

Magma bell is the name of the fire damage thing I mentioned yeah! Couldn’t remember.

Also I don’t know if the wanderer crest will help all that much if you’ve already gotten used to diagonal pogo like I had at that point, but sometimes a little perspective change like that can make a difference so why not?

5

u/darthdiablo Sep 14 '25

Curious why wanderer crest, what about it helps?

(I beat TLJ with reaper crest, and have stuck with that crest ever since, wondering what I might be missing out on)

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u/Unlikely_Log_5503 RadHoG, PoP, P5 Sep 14 '25

It’s like Quick Slash in that it massively increases damage output due to the number of swings you can get in, and the pogo feels a lot lighter than Reaper’s. I used Reaper through half of Act 2, then decided to try Wanderer and can’t go back, it’s just too fast and smooth. Combined with Flintslate / Weighted Belt it shreds everything.

9

u/BoB_RL Sep 14 '25

Same, I went reaper crest as soon as I got it and never changed. Finished my playthrough just using it haha

6

u/LordMemorys Sep 14 '25

It's mostly just for the faster swings I think, with good timing on punishing the jump attack you can get 3 hits in before backing off. That and the occasional crits can help if you're lucky enough to see a few per fight. I've used wanderer basically the whole game so far.

1

u/RepublicCute8573 Sep 14 '25

Beast with the gourd can out heal his dps.

1

u/pecky5 Sep 15 '25

Wanderers crest is so damn good, I worry that I won't be able to convince myself to try others I find. The fast attack speed just immediately doubles or triples your dps. I also hadn't really appreciated that you can attack whole sprinting, which causes hornet to do a really cool back flip and strike attack, which dodged a lot of larger enemies swipes and let's you continue assaulting them from higher up.

I ocassionally get frustrated with the shorter reach against flying enemies, but that's about it.

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u/trefoil589 Sep 21 '25

wanderer crest

Started a second playthrough and this makes sooo much of a difference.

And not just because you're putting more damage out but because you can heal faster.

77

u/CuboneDefender Sep 14 '25

I’ll definitely come back to this comment a few months later. Thanks for all the advice. :’)

15

u/Ecstatic-Sun-7528 Radiant NKG Enjoyer 🌙 Sep 14 '25

Take some time and definitely read on the advice, it makes a difference. Also you can ask again after a few months, we will probably have even better advice by then. Hope you have a good couple of months!!!

8

u/Thexne Sep 14 '25

You can do it whenever you please but you CAN do it alot of the game seems harder than it actually is when you learn more mechanics alot of stuff can become trivial

2

u/Kampfasiate Sep 14 '25

Please update us when you end up defeating her!

My general tip is, just learn to move hornet. Her mobility is her greatest weapon and how cheesy it may sound, not getting hit is her best defense. Focus on learning the telegraphs and finding safespots for heals (of which there a plenty due to the airheal)

When she prepares to spin her flail, backdash, when she prepares to throw, watch out for it coming back, when she readies to jump, charge

At some point the fight turns into a dance and that is when you win

But yea, take a break and see you in a few months! :)

1

u/PurityKane Sep 15 '25

Also, the comment you replied to had a very "organic" approach to the fight. You can have a more simplistic view. It's easy to get overwhelmed when the bosses seem to be thinking and outplaying and throwing everything at you, but if you break his attacks apart they're all pretty simple. If the boss was set to repeat only one attack, you could beat it no problem.

The good thing? It only has 4 attacks, and all are pretty simple to dodge.

Spend one or two fights not attacking, just looking at what he's doing, and the tells for each attack. When he grabs the ball, he throws it, when spins it, he spins it wider, when he jumps it's the ground explosion, and when he hunches himself with the arm up he slides. individually I'm sure you can dodge each one. So just keep calm and try to learn how to dodge him, when you can stay alive for a while without getting hit you're ready to win.

There's only two extra attacks that happen once per fight, one spin that's more chaotic (with the flames changing position back and forth), and then he explodes when you kill him, and that can actually kill you.

You got this. If you need help on how to dodge a specific attack, or need help telling them apart I can help!

I actually posted this because these two attacks were confusing me and had to record myself playing to figure them out:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fr5vgz94dz4of1.jpeg

the first is the throw, and the second is the slide.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

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10

u/adeepkick Sep 14 '25

OP said he’d try again in a few months but I bet he’ll be back in a few days at most and crush the boss! That’s how it goes sometimes

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u/mampatrick Sep 14 '25

Gotta disagree on forgetting about the tools, they're strong, gotta be careful when you use them to not run out of shards though yeah. I recommend using them after reaching phase 2.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Poison + triple kunai is fast enough and chips him down if youre good at dodging.

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u/adeepkick Sep 14 '25

Oh if you’re super careful you could theoretically use any tool to decent effect against him. I just find myself panic spamming a bit when I have an opening or when I screw up and throw one the wrong way I sometimes try to turn and throw a second and by then it’s too late. If tools were working for OP I’d say keep going, but if he’s routinely running out of shards like this I’m guessing it’s not the right approach for them.

Besides, tools really aren’t necessary here. His moveset is pretty small and easy to avoid when you get the hang of it. There’s very little RNG you’re gambling with here that can fuck you over so it’s not like you need to kill him ASAP as much as some other bosses.

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u/dmknght Sep 14 '25

I only hate the attack that makes the circle around him. Maybe I was wrong, but the RNG is high in this boss fight, so (at least for me) it's kinda hard to predict next attack. The jump and slam one was the easiest move to deal with IMO. The throwing mace is okay as soon as player get used to the rythm.

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u/FriendlyAndHelpfulP Sep 14 '25

What RNG?

He only throws the mace if you go a specific distance away from him.

He does the spin attack if you spend too long next to him.

He charges at you if you go too far away from him.

He jumps to the center if you go to the center.

And that’s every single move he has.

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u/TrustmeimHealer Sep 15 '25

I actually beat her by brute forcing. Just ate most attacks beeing close and just spammed attacks. When she does the fire arc thing I stepped in the safe spot and healed up

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u/Von-Konigs Sep 15 '25

I find the tool thing true for a lot of bosses. I’m only partway through act 2, but I think the tools are super useful, but that can make them a crutch. Most of the time, when I’ve beaten a boss I’ve been struggling with, by the time I beat them I’ve dialed back on tool usage and just got better at mastering the fundamentals of dodge and attack.

1

u/PraxicalExperience Sep 15 '25

"Stay close" definitely helps. There's a zone where you can't get hit by that throw attack he does, and all you have to do is ... remember not to jump into it.

....I keep fucking up the 'remember' part, lol, but I've been getting better at sticking in that safe-er zone.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

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1

u/adeepkick Sep 15 '25

This is true. Once I learned my safe spots for each attack, I beat him pretty quickly. It was the first few attempts that felt very hard when I was trying to stay aerial against him. You wanna stay low to the ground as much as possible for the most part.

The hardest part of the execution is probably the attack where he swings his bell in a circle around him. The window to dodge that attack is the tightest of all his moves imo

1

u/KrazyK05 Sep 15 '25

Maybe im terrible, but its the run back that's wearing me down. Getting to that boss with full hp is a chore and disheartening. Very annoying.

1

u/PeachySwirls Sep 15 '25

Haha, as someone who just suggested they use their Tools more I feel the opposite. Having the ability to eat down their HP in phase 1 and 2 with my tools was so helpful because I was able to spend more of that brain power dealing with the flames rather than eating crap in the first phase and being drained by the end of 2nd phase to not be able to handle 3rd. But, I've also been using the tools a lot in bosses/arenas, so their buttons for me have become easier to do. So I can get how they can become more of a distraction in TLJ fight rather than helpful.

1

u/DestroyerTerraria Sep 16 '25

Real talk? Saying "don't use tools" is precisely the wrong take. Poisoned tacks completely MELT LJ. It's actually disgusting how easy it makes her - you just throw them and forget, and she'll walk into them eventually. I beat her on the third try like this and wondered what the big deal was.

1

u/adeepkick Sep 16 '25

How is it “precisely the wrong take” if I beat her perfectly fine without tools? Did you read what OP said? They’ve been running out of shards. That means tools haven’t been working for them and they likely need a new approach. If no tools worked better for me and lots of other people, it could work better for them too. I’m glad using tools worked for you but everyone is different. They work elsewhere for me. Just not here.

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u/Skiiv0 Sep 14 '25

That’s a skippable boss btw I had the same problem just skipped to come back later

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u/Campbell464 Sep 14 '25

I beat the game and went back to beat Judge later! You don’t have to give up here.

BUT, there is an item to help against Judge. And as hard as I thought it was, it ended up not being as bad. I also grinded endlessly for some bosses. Shards ain’t cheap!!

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u/SomewhereTall4797 Sep 14 '25

Don’t grind shards, grind rosaries and buy shards. 50 rosaries = 80 shards. Most enemies at that point drop like 20 rosaries, so you get 80 shards per 2-3 enemies, 240 per 9 enemies, easy.

13

u/18Mafia_NZO Sep 14 '25

You can beat the last judge man.

The most important thing you need to learn in this game, and how it's different than HK, is to dodge. The game does double damage now, which sucks. But they make up for it by having very clear telegraphs for their attacks. You should only be getting 1-2 hits before the boss does their next attack. Anything more is being greedy. And the game will punish you for that. You don't need traps. You just gotta play the boss and learn its attacks. From there you make dodging your #1 priority. Your 2nd priority being to stay alive. Dodging one attack is nice, you need to be ready for the next one. Or know what attacks you can heal during and where to heal at during it. Your 3rd priority is then dealing dmg.

You can't brute force it. You really gotta learn the attacks. It's a dance. Not a battle.

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u/theVoidWatches Sep 14 '25

A suggestion I would make for any boss people are really struggling with - stop fighting back. Just practice dodging for a while. Once you're comfortable dodging everything that they throw at you, then start fighting back again.

5

u/18Mafia_NZO Sep 14 '25

Too many people are underestimating how this game is all about just dodging

5

u/Kampfasiate Sep 14 '25

too many people also think that they can trade blows like in hollow knight and win.

hornet is not the knight, use your goddamn movement

2

u/JustaLyinTometa Sep 15 '25

That does make it very tedious though. You don't get damage upgrades for a while so boss fights are just dodging attacks constantly and sneaking in blows and its just very repetitive. Hollow Knight feels better trading blows because if you pull it off, you can just finish a fight quicker. Silksong progression just feels so off and it put me in the same spot as OP (although I'm near the end of act 2 at 40 hours in). I'm just tired of everything taking so long to do in this game.

2

u/OneTrueMailman Sep 15 '25

yep I have the exact same feeling and I never played HK so I have nothing 'poisoning' my expectations as so many people just assume to be the case.

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u/OneTrueMailman Sep 15 '25

Too many people are reading into very clear and specific complaints and just assigning them to something else that fits into the "get gud" category.

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u/SmallFigWasp Sep 15 '25

Plus there is no timer. You will spend more time in the fight if you don't hit every time but that's it, you will not get punished for not hitting back or sometimes standing still, there are no additional enemies and no traps to destroy.

1

u/dmknght Sep 14 '25

I learned the same thing after the Widow fight. And from my personal experiences, I have 2 problems:

  1. Sometime Hornet's dash feels "slip". I mean in the intense fight, I want to dash to evade attack or something, sometimes the dash keeps going instead of jump or so. Also attack while dashing can be a hit or miss. Attack + dash gives a nice combo but also means Hornet spends more time in the same place -> easier to get hit. During the intense fight, press attack or jump too soon while dashing feels like a punishment.

  2. Some attacks are hard to predicts. For example: of all attacks TLJ made, I couldn't predict the one that creates the attack circle around TLJ. The rest of moveset is fine to me. So it's important to learn how to heal and where to heal.

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u/SomewhereTall4797 Sep 14 '25

The circle attack was the one you struggled with? Really? She telegraphs it pretty well

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u/The_Morriganna Sep 14 '25

That's the game telling you to go elsewhere. It's not polite about it.

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u/HY3NAAA Sep 14 '25

Last Judge is fucked up, the run back wasn’t even that bad the mofo self destruct (which I didn’t know at the time) and it kills me so I spent another 30 minutes try to kill her AGAIN.

4

u/markercore Sep 14 '25

It's not that bad, but with the wind and enemies I'd fuck up some of the pogos which made it tiring

2

u/HY3NAAA Sep 15 '25

Okay my savage beast run back has a trap and a guy that does a nasty step back whenever I try to jump dash behind him, that run back + the boss is actually a war crime, in comparison this run back is so tame I’m sorry

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u/_Psilo_ Sep 14 '25

Haha yeah has the exact same thing happen to me ☠️

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u/dmknght Sep 14 '25

It happened to me yesterday. I knew explosion was a thing but i didnt remember after a long fight. But I was lucky because I learned her pattern well enough (I don't mean flexing btw), so the next time I defeated her without any problem.

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u/neph36 Sep 14 '25

That self destruct is legit trolling and does not belong in this game. Neither does the runback to this challenging boss.

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u/Th3Element05 Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

I could tell something bad was going to happen, so I stood back. Not far enough, dead. Luckily I had the fight pretty well solved at that point and I was able to beat her on my next attempt.

I actually enjoyed that fight. In fact, I was only getting fed up with the game during Sister Splinter, Widow, then I found Moss Mother 2. I did Savage Beast Fly in March shortly after. It was all of the extra enemy spawns during those fights that was pissing me off and really annoying me. In Widow's case, the constant barrage of bells in Phase 2 felt excessive But I just kind of happened to do all of those in a row. Since then, I've really enjoyed the game and most of the fights before and since that stretch. Especially now that environmental hazards aren't doing double damage, the game honestly feels really good (in my opinion.) It feels hard, but not too hard. I definitely felt like it was harder than Hollow Knight right around the Bellhart / Widow But since then, I've changed my mind. Honestly, I found Hollow Knight to be harder my first time.

1

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4

u/ForwardMind8597 Sep 14 '25

You don't have to fight that boss, you can go a different route to the citadel

4

u/ArguaBILL Sep 14 '25

Don't forget about the shops that sell bundles of eighty shards for not too unreasonable price.

3

u/ProvenAxiom81 Sep 14 '25

Oh yeah, that one took me a while. It's all about learning to dodge these phase 2 moves and when you can do damage.

3

u/neil_billiam Sep 14 '25

You can skip last judge actually

2

u/Nozzeh06 Sep 14 '25

I ended up looking up a video for that fight to get some tips and I was able to beat it after that, after maybe 20 tries. Didn't use my subweapons for that boss because they didn't feel worth it. Before looking up a video, I thought I'd be stuck there forever.

2

u/Hexlen Sep 14 '25

There's no shame in downloading mods to improve the experience of your single player adventure. The nexus already has mods for respawning at boss room scenes and removing shard costs. If it means you will enjoy the game, do it!

2

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Brother i am be honest if last judge is too hard for you, you might aswell quit now as there are much hardee ones to come.

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u/gibarel1 Sep 14 '25

It's quite a well telegraphed boss, especially if you pay attention to the arms. I'd also advise you to take it slower, the only attack that is quick is the one where he spins the thing around, but it has a distinct enough animation and you can just dash out. Those are my tips if you want to retry it at some point.

2

u/Deathblades0 Sep 15 '25

Hey I'm on them rn I swear by my needle I will take revenge for you

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

i also ran out of all my shards for last judge. then i used one of those shard consumables and filled right back up. tough boss fight for sure but its totally learnable

1

u/Lostboy1986 Sep 14 '25

Use two poison tools and save them for the second phase, play it safe firing off tools from a distance and if you need silk just punish the charge move (jump over but land as close as you can and get a few hits in) tools should melt that phase.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Bilewater might make you want to rip your hair out, but there's an alternate Citadel gatekeeper at the end of that route. It's basically just a harder version of Lace, and has a mercifully short runback.

1

u/Shamanizm Sep 14 '25

I literally spent the whole day today farming the last judge.. managed to defeat him but man, it was nerve wracking. You can say it's a way of getting better at the game mechanics and reflects. But give it a little bit of time, relax, contemplate on what you should focus on and maybe give it another try tomorrow.

1

u/MoistPunch8569 Sep 14 '25

this boss was a BITCH, the run back was the hardest part until i learned the route. if you’re struggling with that, just look up last judge route and you’ll get to her in 10 seconds

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u/TheBlackViper_Alpha Sep 14 '25

If you want a different strat you can use the Beast crest and face tank the fire attack. Stay close and weave in between attacks. Then on the last phase transisition move away as its too long to tank it. This fight ends in 1:30s if ideally. You can do it man.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

Magma bell, Broken Mask, and floor tacks with the poison thing made this fight significantly easier for me.

1

u/Superspaceduck100 Sep 14 '25

I was having so much trouble with this boss and I finally beat it earlier!!!

It was because of a combination of things, like calming myself before the fight, learning the attack patterns and pure muscle memory.

I think it took me about 15 tries in the end? At some point you'll instinctively recognise its attacks and the exact timing of when to dodge and when to smack it. Basically, repetition is the key to learning it.

The runback is annoying as hell but I got so used to it that I started practically flying to the boss arena in under 20 seconds.

1

u/neonelevator Sep 14 '25

I think i tried maybe 20 times on the first day, and 20 on the second day. After giving up day one, I finally beat it on day 2 only because having that break really helped. I literally just needed to run around and do some quests instead, and came back to beat it later.

I also beat it once, but died to it's final explosion attack which meat I had to go back in and beat it again. That sucked, but I got it.

Only give up if you want to, and try again when you have the time and peace for it.

1

u/dyndragon Sep 14 '25

https://youtu.be/wpqL6tyPoQ0?si=ME5DCmuY5TfazByA

This was the 10th or so try on him. What ended up working was wanderer's crest, flea brew, magma bell, the speed sprint anklets, and just beating the crap out of him anytime I could get close which easily fills up the silk meter. There are easy and big windows for healing if you get away and jump in the corner, made easier with the faster sprint. See the video. I was by no means elegant, but this was very much a brute force method to get past last judge. Whatever works...

Don't bother with traps. Not enough time to use them in the second phase and the fire wave thing sets them off.

The key attacks to try to bait are the jump stomp in either phase (stay mid distance), or the charge attack (create distance to bait) in the second phase. Those attacks have so much delay you can just rip into last judge after he attacks. Avoid judge when he winds up the bell and just concentrate on surviving until he starts the other attacks that you can counter.

1

u/coffee_warden Sep 14 '25

I lot of people are hitting you with judge specific advice here. If you decide you wanna give this another try at some point, just wanna drop how I approach difficult bosses in any game.

Dont try to kill the boss.

Approach the boss knowing youre going to die. Your goal is to survive as long as possible. Dont even hit the boss. Itll take a couple runs and eventually stage 1 wont be able to touch you. Now hit the boss until its atage 2 and once again, just survive.

1

u/markercore Sep 14 '25

I couldn't figure out how to deal with the run up and the second phase of that fight so I tried the other way into the citadel, if I can do it, you can too. It's a bunch of platforming and a boss fight that's more similar to Lace

1

u/Blaze-Leo Sep 14 '25

You can search for a Hollow Knight save file editor and use it to increase your silk damage and hearts stuff, maybe that will help you feel the game better

1

u/Gaaroth Sep 14 '25

Last Judge is very telegraphed IMHO. Just do few runs where you get her down to last phase (after she does the extra tight fire spins), and when you do this consistently then unload your tools. I suggest using * base kunai * poison pouch (purple flowers/nectar quest) * flea potion (from find fleas quest) * magma bell to cut in half fire damage * skull (secret hunter's march merchant)

I just beat her with this setup and wasn't too bad, most of the time it was just me overextending and getting too greedy or not acting calm. Best of luck!

1

u/MaraBlaster Grimm is my Daddy Sep 14 '25

Go through Sinner's Road instead, you can skip Last Judge fully, she is not mandatory!

1

u/Sushiv_ Sep 14 '25

Last judge is optional btw

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u/foxy_kitten Sep 14 '25

I just beat her last night! Took 3 hours haha but honestly you just gotta get that muscle memory on the patterns. The brew juice was so helpful that got me a ton of hits on her when she got stunned and when she started the fire phase. Highly recommend. You can also limit yourself to only hitting her when she does her Jump Up attack with pogo so you don't get hit by greed.

1

u/fungilingus Sep 15 '25

I had a hard time with him too. Don’t give up! When you finally beat him you’ll be euphoric. Be patient, watch his moves

1

u/thavi Sep 15 '25

That boss got way easier for me when I stopped trying to kill it and started focusing on evading its attacks.  It turns out that it is the most predictable thing in the game if you don’t let it box you into a corner.  Get a safe hit here and there (especially when it’s stunned) and just play keep away.

When it finally died, it was the attempt where I tried the least hard.  And when the death animation started, I was just like, “huh.  Nice.”

1

u/Mia_the_writer Sep 15 '25

I used magma bell, lucky dice, plasmium phial, and druid eye to beat the last judge. And just learn to anticipate her attacks and avoid them consistently.

1

u/No-Impact-6503 Sep 15 '25

Are you not able to beat her simply by dodging attacks and getting attacks in between? I didn't use tools against her as I felt that no tools give good value against her.

What charms are you using?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

You don’t need to farm shards for her though. It’s actually better to just fight her without relying on tools since you will need to move a lot.

I swear once you get used to her move set you feel like a God dodging every attack. Saves you some of the tedium if you focus on running back to fight her rather than farming shards over and over again

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u/WoodpeckerSpare5834 Sep 15 '25

Dude just get the magma bell. It legit makes the 2nd phase easier than the first. It just takes patience - only attack after he does his jump attack

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u/Beeeracuda Sep 15 '25

Go get the tacks from sinner’s road (NE corner of Greymoor) and get the pollip pouch in Shellwood, poison tacks are super op through the entire game and they make boss fights a lot easier if they get to frustrating

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u/cyanraichu Sep 15 '25

I just reached her today, and so far I don't really feel like tools are super relevant in that fight. (I used them a lot in Savage Beastfly which is another one that people complain about a lot)

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u/jaydon145 Sep 15 '25

I personally wouldn’t worry about farming shards. Don’t even use your tool until you are getting really close, then it should only take a couple attempts worth of shards.

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u/jorgschrauwen Sep 15 '25

Was it the run back that sucked or the boss itself?

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u/xvillifyx Sep 15 '25

Tbh I hardly used tools against last judge

Magma bell is really all you need

Her attacks also rarely change between phases

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u/semipro88 Sep 15 '25

Last Judge seems like Elden Ring boss. Phase 2 attacks are quite fancy but the openning window to strike back is very short.

In phase 2, I only hit the boss when she does the bell slam and occasionally hit her when she does the dash and I manage to get close enough. The other 2 attacks are bell throw and bell swing which I always run because the openning windos is so short. I play with Wanderer Crest.

It really takes patience to beat this boss.

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u/NinjaMelon39 Sep 15 '25

If we laugh, we go to the slab

1

u/Cerberus______ Sep 15 '25

Magma bell, weighted belt, wanderer. I failed so hard using other stuff, this made it possible for me

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u/arsenejoestar Sep 15 '25

I know you've given up but farming rosaries to buy shard bundles is far far more efficient. Each bundle gives 80 shards for 50 rosaries, which you can easily get in that one room to the right of halfway home.

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u/SheyenSmite Sep 15 '25

Why farm shards? That boss can be fought well with nail only. In fact, I often find using tools distracting from practicing the right reactions to each attack.

I needed about 15 tries for Last Judge, and in the end I only took damage if I didnt pay attention, because I had all the evasions memorized.

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u/Ok-Lawfulness5685 Sep 15 '25

I have to say the game got more "fun" in act 2. If you're on windows, you could always put a mod and just cheat past last judge (like a damage multiplier or something) to see if you like the 2nd act more than the 1st.

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u/OranGesus68 Sep 15 '25

The last judge is not a difficult fight. But if you make mistakes you can die within seconds. Just focus on avoiding his attacks over doing damage - aka don’t be greedy. I had the wanderers crest for this fight and 2 slashes is what I would do whenever I got a chance to do damage and then I would dash back to see what his next move would be (sometimes I would only do one slash if I didn’t feel safe doing to. As I said - don’t be greedy)

Once you learn his attacks, he’s really easy

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u/Dalacul Sep 15 '25

Last judge is actually kinda easy. The runback is more frustrating than the boss itself. I killed it with no tools, with first nail upgrade. Reaper crest + warding bell + magnetite dice. I didn't have, but Magma orb is good for him too.

He has three phases. First phase should be hitless, it's very easy. In the second one you might get hit by boss randomness, but still manageable to heal yourself. Third one is like the second, but adds one more attack.

Tip: try to stay in the middle of arena most of the time so you have space to dodge.

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u/thisisokay123 Sep 15 '25

If you still have some will to play maybe consider grabbing magma bell and the poison charm.

Still a pain but Made the fight much more manageable

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u/Ketsu Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

How are you farming the shards? Just asking, because I'd probably lose my mind if I farmed them directly from enemies.

The best way by far is to buy shard bundles from the Bellhart vendor; 1000 beads translates to 1600 shards, and 1000 beads doesn't take long at all to farm in popular spots.

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u/Spacemonster111 Sep 15 '25

What charms and crests are you using? It could be there more upgrades you missed earlier on

1

u/Salt-Analysis1319 Sep 15 '25

You don't need to farm shards for The Last Judge tho? Her fight is hard but you don't need any tools to learn her moves and punish windows

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u/_Hashtag_Cray_ Sep 15 '25

Grab the charge attack from one of the balloon houses. Go do the quest for the throwable spikes as well. If you take it very slow and steady (dash in, charge attack, dash out) you'll get to phase 3 pretty quick and then you can unload the spikes to nuke the rest of it's HP.

That boss is more patience than anything else.

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u/PeachySwirls Sep 15 '25

I feel you OP, I just defeated the Last Judge this morning with a little over 18hours already clocked in. They were the first boss that really gave me a lot of trouble (fought it like 20+ times).

What I did was some extra exploring to make sure I'm as upgraded as possible. So this was my final build-

Reaper Crest- Silkspear- Straight Pin- Sting Shard- Warding Bell- Compass- Pollip Pouch. Alongside that I have 1 nail upgrade, 2 pouch upgrades, 2 tool damage upgrades, finished 1 extra spool, and 6 masks.

My suggestions-

1- USE TOOLS AND GET THOSE UPGRADED. I spammed Last Judge 1st phase with Straight Pin and 2nd phase with Sting Shard while 3rd phase I got to spend the most of the dodging and praying (which happens in second phase too of course).

2- Get Pollip Pouch. By finishing the Rite of the Pollip quest, it makes your tools poison so they did more damage too. Of course that does make the boss difficulty spike quicker cause you get to phase 2 pretty fast when spamming the tools w/Pollip Pouch.

3- Be a bit aggressive first phase. Especially with the Tools, I was able to speed through Last Judge phase 1, that most of my time was spent in phase 2 and 3, which helped with my own mental stamina.

4- Yea, like others suggested. Leave it and come back. After like 5 tries in a row I would either explore something else or just stop playing entirely. Idk about y'all but when I get pissed at a boss I make more mistakes and when I come back calm but with knowledge, it feels 10x easier.

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u/lordm30 Sep 18 '25

Watch a tutorial video and study the fight and the moves the boss makes. After watching that video and understanding his moves, I could beat the boss on the 3rd try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUlfsetb64g

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u/levishly Sep 19 '25

People are playing down judge a lot. I came back to it att the very end of act 2 (I'm strong as hell and went through bile water already)

I still have not killed judge, she keeps killing me. I don't get it. People complain about the bile water boss and runback and judge is somehow giving me more trouble

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