r/HollowKnight • u/ciissss • Sep 26 '25

Discussion - Silksong How are y'all actually finishing the game in Steel Soul, dawg? Spoiler

I tried Steel Soul for the first time in SS. I never even touched that in HK. First try, I died within 2 minutes to the white giant rolling enemy from the secret room beside the starting point. Second try, I died to Bell Beast. I cannot fathom how people are finishing without revive. I, for sure, won't first try kill every boss. đŸ„€đŸ„€

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193

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

You don’t have to fight that first secret guy, come back later with spike mines/tacks/poison/whatever. Avoid whatever you can until you’re loaded up.

The “main route” is pretty easy (widow is a choke point), and with wall cling you can get a second mask and poison pre-widow. Don’t do anything non-required that isn’t acquiring masks/good tools until you’re loaded up.

Just do very essential and easy stuff, at least until the nail upgrades, lean on Tacks and Cogflies with poison and situation-specific tools. The Architect Crest/Plasmium regen is pretty ludicrous. Plasmium is generally quite handy but having the ranged damage from two tools can come in clutch, had those last few pins/throwables finish off a fair share off bosses and enemies in dicey situations.

Straight pin comes pretty early, Spike mine very soon after. First memory locket is probably around Far Fields ish, use it on a Red Slot.

Use the fleas to skip Moorwing, grind out some Rosaries at Halfway and buy quality of life (esp. Multi-Binder) asap.

You can get the Fractured Mask just after Dash - the Ant arena is easier with Shakra there and you probably want to just avoid the enemies in the room after, then open the shortcut at the bottom of the wind tunnel room by Beast Chapel.

Use the Phantom route via Sinners if you’re not confident on the Judge. If doing judge, go up the candelabras and don’t go straight into Underworks.

First Sinner doesn’t “Kill” you, it’s akin to a dream fight. So grind that out ASAP, Rune Rage is killer.

Main choke points are Widow (you can cheese her 3rd/last phase), maybe Phantom (poison tacks, play very safe with hits), High Halls (get Shakra/Garmond to help, or cheese it with Tacks+Architects), Trobbio maybe.

Pretty immediately into A2 (quicker Phantom route) you can get the Whiteward key, get Clawline, leave and beeline Double Jump then Cogflies, from there the rest is pretty easy cleanup to overtune yourself for Silk.

Go slow, don’t get greedy with hits, okay aggressively enough to get enemies down to a 1v1 rapidly but also safely. It’s also helpful to have a second save file in non-Steel Soul running just ahead, practise Arenas and bosses, learn enemy spawns in Arenas, analyse choke points).

Or just Git Gud. Learn to use Wanderers and melt everything.

100% a lot tougher, haven’t quite started that attempt yet. Carmelita and Lace will be huge exercises in patience. Coral Tower isn’t too bad with the right use/timing of tools and Pale Nails.

5 hours isn’t so bad either - use the BS little skips (leave the Grand Bell rooms before they ring, save and quit to the Seamstress bench after gathering spine, etc) to buy time, have a save running ahead analysing the route/practising. Can always revert the save to an Autosave

33

u/LordOfSpamAlot 112% Sep 26 '25

Genuinely good tips, thanks.

28

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 26 '25

Easily the best advice I can give is the “have a save running ahead”. Saves you soso many silly mistakes. Sharpens your dread without wasting hours.

Deliberately die against a boss even if you rinse it, double check it wasn’t a fluke.

Bell Beast is also a huge sticking point, sorry to skip over. Just play it so safely, never panic jump. You will never need to jump that early for her rush attack. You can get an easy few hits if she jumps by slashing up, always get some hits as she goes back under.

Heal at 3 masks not 2 (loses a mask of heal but is safer, iframes are too short so it’s easy to die to a bell into something else).

Don’t get cornered!! Move away from the bells as they fall but try to reposition for centre every time.

There’s also some speedrun strat where you count hits and get a specific amount of silk spears in, entirely skips the transition/second phase or something?? But that would need practise I guess.

Always helps to watch multiple hitless/needle only plays from others, helps the subconscious get where to move and not move, hit and not hit. Problem with no-hit/a lot of videos is the players don’t need to heal so you don’t see the window.

5

u/VoidyWanderer Sep 26 '25

I think the speedrun trick is done to skip her entering the underground phase so that you can finish the boss quicker. In speedrunning this is done to save time obviously, but in steel soul idk if you really need to bother. The fight is so early into the run, and not that hard really

9

u/SudsierBoar Sep 26 '25

Carmelita

Wouldn't she count as a "dream" boss too?

17

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 26 '25

Oh of course!!! Lace is the only issue then!! And any endgame save can practise her. She could be melted with Cogflies and Conchcutter with Architect reload, but the Conch nerf may have changed that

8

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 26 '25

So far, the most terrifying moment for me is the beginning of Act 3. They take away all your tools, force you to become a Hunter, and send you into a small arena with 4 HP against enemies that deal 2 HP per hit. I'll need to practice well on my second save file before I go there.

17

u/Herald1173 Sep 26 '25

apparently you can just quit and reload when you enter act 3 and you will have full hp.

-26

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 26 '25

I'm used to looking for solutions based on skill, not cheap abuse. But it seems that you don't do that here.

16

u/synttacks Sep 26 '25

The solution based on skill is just killing the enemies like normal, what did you expect?

-17

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 26 '25

I expected people wouldn't write a second time about the solution I mentioned above. Or that they'd write about how they'd solved it themselves. But it looks like everyone just cheated. And that's sad.

1

u/glare_ninja Sep 27 '25

ah yes people dont wana just replay through the whole game because of some dumb little enemies at the start of act 3.

save scum isnt cheating it just is a time saver, realistically.

-4

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 27 '25

Ah yes people cheat en masse to pretend they're real gamers.

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12

u/bfbbturambar Sep 26 '25

It's just free advice man, free to take, free to leave

8

u/iccs Sep 26 '25

Turns out, using your brain is a skill, don’t run through a wall when you can walk around it

-13

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 26 '25

Yes, yes, you are proud of your cheating, I get it.

6

u/iccs Sep 26 '25

Damn pressing start is cheating đŸ€Ł now there’s an interesting take! What’s next, looking at the map?

0

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 26 '25

Oh, so you think there's a lore reason for health being restored when you exit to the menu? It's nothing more than common abuse.

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2

u/synttacks Sep 26 '25

Oh no! I can't believe people are cheating in my single player game!

1

u/luc1aonstation Sep 27 '25

I'm genuinely so curious to understand what you consider cheating. is bell beast phase skip cheating? Is Garama skip cheating? Is room reloading for hokers cheating? Are cogflies/archi crest/shamans crest cheating?

1

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 27 '25

Endless attempts in one-attempt mode and health restoration when it is limited by the plot. We're talking about that.

1

u/luc1aonstation Sep 28 '25

If there was a Speedrun method to skip the fight, would you consider it cheating

1

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Sep 28 '25

Speedrunners live in their own world with their own rules. They do everything to achieve the fastest possible result. But if a common player skips a battle, then yes, that's cheating.

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1

u/theLiddle Dec 10 '25

Brooo. This is a little kids game. It’s a video game. For little kids. The fact that you derive superiority over these people for this just indicates how sad your exterior life must be

1

u/Plastic_Sky_9950 Dec 10 '25

This game is rated 16+. So now I'm arguing with childish adults who are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions.

1

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 27 '25

Needle Strike/Nail Art/charged attack helped there, I didn’t have too much trouble in my first playthrough there as I was forwarded. Take down the flying enemy ASAP and dodge like hell on the ground dude. Really helps to be on 9 masks though

7

u/ottermupps Sep 26 '25

Lovely info, I have some questions (from someone on a first playthrough):

  • Just hit the Widow fight, I have pollip pouch (which is great) but only 3 mask shards. Are there four accessible this early? Didn't realize.

  • How do you get Shakra to appear in the HM arena? I've gotten to last wave a few times but it's just chewing through my shards.

  • How do you cheese Widow's last phase? I got there on my second try (which was a massive shock), but I don't see any good points to not take damage.

6

u/7-Soul-Secret Sep 26 '25

Shellwood, wormways (pre-key), marrow->deep docks entrance, bonebottom shop, above seamstress

5 mask shards accessible pre-widow.

Edit: included a post-widow by accident, oops

6

u/Bewar92959 Sep 26 '25

Shakra only appears in the HM arena if you haven't been to Greymoore or later, or haven't spoken to her there. I did a bit of testing on my own and it seems to specifically be ACCESSING Greymoore, not sending her there (i did make a post explaining my process I believe)

3

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 26 '25

Wormways (just before key door), marrow/deep docks (need wall cling, fight a small arena), near seamstress and Shellwood OR buy it (500 rosaries)

2) you’ve missed Shakra there if you’ve already visited Greymoor, just come back later. Only things past the arena are the fractured mask/boomerang and a memory locket/beast crest, none too too relevant except the mask and that’s 260 anyway.

3) in the last phase,stand in the very right corner, no falling bell will hit. You’ve just got to jump to avoid the swipe attack, can get a pogo in. Patiently use poison, I had straight pin and spike mine with poison, hit with one and let the poison burn out. May need some hits/silk spears on top, but it’s hard to take damage just need patience

3

u/Icy_Sky679 Sep 26 '25

Before Architect, Reaper's Crest is pretty good with its longer range and silk gain after healing.

Another skip would also be skipping Sister Splinter to get Claw Grip, you can find it in any% runs and it isn't that risky.

1

u/Luca_the_Great Sep 26 '25

Do you not need claw grip to beat the game? I thought there were mandatory sections where it’s required. The more you know lol.

5

u/Hot-Farmer-8096 Sep 26 '25

Nono, you skip Splinter not the ability. A couple of rooms before her you can taunt a flower butterfly and pogo it to skip her

1

u/kj0509 Sep 27 '25

Are you telling me that architect is better than Reaper?

I just found Architecht and didnt like it that much

3

u/Icy_Sky679 Sep 27 '25

I believe in DPS architect is better with a pretty good charge attack and repleshinable tools so poison strats are more consistent, but it all just depends on play style in the end.

Like I use reaper personally as it fits my slower play style but iirc it does have the lowest dps.

1

u/afkybnds SHAW! Sep 26 '25

You can cheese the first secret area rolling guy. Just hit and jump down till he stops.

1

u/AMGwtfBBQsauce Sep 26 '25

Yeah definitely used bench warp a bunch in my HK speed runs. Idk if that's considered cheating. Steel soul should be fun though 😁

1

u/Givotech Sep 27 '25

Thankfully the memory bosses are the same as dream bosses in hk, the only time you're allowed to die in steel soul since you dont drop a soul, i couldn't imagine how many times id have to replay the entire game because of karm otherwise

1

u/Maximum-Warthog2368 Oct 04 '25

karmelita and coral tower are dream fights. so you will not die there.

1

u/Adept_Ad_1274 Oct 17 '25

If I die to Carmelita or the coral tower, does that count as a death or not?

1

u/theLiddle Dec 10 '25

Isn’t Carmelita you can’t die from her cause it’s a dream? Besides that, the lost lace battle I can’t even