How to beat Lace in Hollow Knight: Silksong

Lace is yet another Hollow Knight: Silksong boss that ups the difficulty. Here's how to beat her.

The first couple of bosses you’re likely to encounter in Hollow Knight: Silksong are warmups compared to Lace. She’s a fellow swordsmistress who can and will send you back to the bench without a second thought, and you have to beat her if you want to reach the Far Fields. Here’s how.

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How to beat the Lace boss fight in Hollow: Knight Silkson

You’ll first encounter Lace at the far eastern end of the Deep Docks, and after chatting briefly, she attacks. Lace fights similarly to Hornet in a lot of ways, between parries, dodges, and aerial combat. She’s also incredibly fast, 

The first and most important piece of advice I can give is to always be ready to retreat. Lace loves to parry with her needle held in front of her, and almost always follows up a successful parry with a flurry of blows. You’ll lose two mask health points if that follow-up connects.

Her other attacks are fairly simple to deal with, so long as your timing and spacing are good.

All Lace Attacks

Lace has a lengthy move list that grows as the fight continues. You’ll want to be relatively close to her at most times, as her aerial attacks are easily dodged by simply strafing. Not too close, of course. Her grounded attacks can also cover a lot of…ground, and you’ll need a second to react to them.

Parry and flurry

As mentioned, Lace can parry after she puts her needle in front of her like a shield. She doesn’t capture your weapon, but the flurry riposte has a deceptively long reach. If Lace does parry an attack and you have Surge Sprint, immediately dash away to avoid a second mask of damage.

Lunging thrust

One of Lace’s favorite attacks starts with her pointing her needle straight forward, then lunging across about half the arena. It’s easy to simply jump over her and counterattack her when she stops, as there’s a small recovery period.

Two slashes

Lace will look slightly down at the floor as this attack starts, then slashes twice in front of herself in wide arcs that also have mild forward momentum. Her final flourish leaves her open, so you can jump over the first slash and get some free hits in while she’s stationary.

Jumping dive slash

This attack functions similarly to how Hornet’s diving slash does, with Lace jumping into the air, pausing for a moment, then slashing diagonally toward you. The main difference is how long the attack is active for. Lace can hit you at the apex of her jump all the way to impact, so if you see her jump, run underneath her.

Flashing slash

Lace’s ultimate attack, which she gains after taking a bit of damage, has her charge a large white circle in the air, then slash through it multiple times, then slam the ground. You can avoid this attack entirely by moving away from the edge of the bright circle and staying still. The slam doesn’t have much of an AoE beyond the edges of the circle. Lace doesn’t have a ton of recovery on this attack, so don’t expect an easy counter.

One more thing. Lace isn’t immune to falling into the lava at the arena’s edge, and you can get some hilarious damage in by stunning her while she’s near the ledge. It doesn’t end the fight, but it is funny.

For much more on Hollow Knight: Silksong, check out our dedicated game page.