Key fights
🤺 Lace (Deep Docks)
She attacks when you attack. Two hits, step back, let her lunge, pogo or dash through, two more. Bind only when she is at the far wall. Every later duel is this with more health.
🕸️ Sister Splinter
Use the walls: her room is built for Cling Grip you do not have yet, so it is jumps and dashes. Softened in Patch 1; still the first check on patience.
🕷️ Widow
Big, slow windups, and a lair full of silk to pogo on. Stay above her; the floor is where she wants you.
⚖️ Last Judge
The gate. Long combos with a clear end; punish the end, not the middle. If it is a wall, Sinner’s Road and the Mist go around her.
⚙️ Cogwork Dancers
The attacks are on the beat of the music. Count it, and the fight is a rhythm game with a needle.
⛓️ First Sinner
The Slab’s optional monster. Two-mask hits, a huge arena, and the reward is Rune Rage. Reaper for silk, Cross Stitch for the projectiles.
👑 Grand Mother Silk
Phases, silk everywhere, and the fight that decides the ending. Have Silk and Soul done before you go up if you want act 3.
🤺 Lost Lace
The last one. Everything the two earlier duels taught, in the dark, with the double jump and Silk Soar as your dodge. Bring the crest you know best, not the strongest.
Rules that hold
- The bench before the boss is closer than it looks; find it before you fight, not after you die.
- Black-threaded bosses in act 3 are the same fights with more damage. Do the optional ones in act 2 while they are still normal — and Shakra and Garmond & Zaza in act 2 without fail: once act 3 begins they cannot be fought at all.
- A cocoon of rosaries on a boss floor is a reason to win the next attempt, not to reload.
Still to verify
Cross-checked on 17 September 2026 against Nintendo Life’s boss order, Game8’s boss guides and the Hollow Knight Wiki’s notes on black-threaded bosses; the tactics are the guides’, not from a playthrough. Re-checked on 23 September 2026 against Nintendo Life’s boss list. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and what the sources do not describe is not on this page.