Hollow Knight: Silksong: Lace Boss Guide

While playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, after you’ve found your bell beast fast travel station in the Deep Docks, you’ll soon be met with a big forge to get a couple of upgrades, and several other things in the adjoining areas.

One of these is the boss room for Lace, a small but very fierce little warrior who antagonizes Hornet the moment she arrives. Luckily, there are a bunch of benches around, and you should sit at the forge bench before trying this.

You should only go for this after you’ve gotten the dash from the Weaver mask near the top of the Deep Docks, so keep that in mind as you make attempts on this fight.

I’ll be covering exactly what items you will want to get and the best strategy for beating Lace. You can avoid her and hold off for a while, but I’ll assume you’re fighting her immediately.

The Forge

First things first, the Forge Daughter gives you two real options from her selection, both of which require this game’s Pale Ore equivalent. You likely only have one of these, but if you want both items, you can head back to Bone Bottom to buy another Craftmeal.

All things considered, though, your best option here is the Sting Shard, something you’ll recognize from Hornet’s fight in Hollow Knight. This lets you trap the arena, which is especially useful for Lace, as she loves moving around the entire platform.

The other options are a little subpar, especially for right now. The Magma Bell makes you take one mask of damage to lava and fire, but there are only two small pits of magma in this arena, and they aren’t very difficult to avoid.

The Crafting Kit and Shard Bundle are both nice to have, but don’t help a ton with this fight in particular, and aren’t a priority. Equip those stingers, or go with your Straight Pin if you’d rather, and we can get cracking.

Lace Fight

Lace is an incredibly agile fighter. She will frequently parry your attacks, jump around the arena, and chase you down. Be mindful of her spacing at all times, and do your best to get some distance.

The easiest way to get damage without having to risk anything is by placing your Sting Shards and letting her run into them. If you’re running with the Straight Pins, then stay on the opposing side of the arena and keep tossing them to her.

Either way, even if you’re doing good on health, I would not recommend wasting silk on a Silkspear here. Things can go downhill very fast, and you can get double hit frequently, so hoarding silk in case you need to heal is a far better strategy.

Wait out Lace’s attacks, especially when she puts her guard up, then dive into her, or go for standing attacks if you’re willing to tank a hit. Whenever she thrusts her sword back, she’s about to lunge right into you.

I don’t recommend challenging her whenever she goes up into the air, as that’s her laggiest attack, and gives you plenty of time to heal. Instead, wait out her normal combos, and get in a hit or two after she’s done swinging.

Every twelve hits or so, Lace will get staggered, and this is the perfect opportunity to maximize your damage for a couple of seconds. If you’ve gotten here and you’re at only one or two masks, though, you should take the time to heal up.

When you see a circle with a star in the middle appear, you should dash away instantly. This attack can take off multiple masks at once, and if you’re unlucky, you can get hit and immediately be comboed to death. Do not be fooled by the long startup animation.

Once you’ve gotten to this point, though, Lace is already almost down. Keep going for your very safe projectiles, make liberal use of your dash, and get in extra damage right after she’s finished slashing, and you should have a dead bug on your hands.