While it may be tedious, healing to full before every attempt in the finale is the best way to guarantee your safety against these two foes.
Counterintuitively, Pogoing as close as possible to a spike or buzzsaw is the safest way to proceed through these tightly-packed rooms. Selectively pogo: While your first instinct may be to stay as far away from the buzzsaws as possible, thorns comprise much of the ceilings within the Path of Pain and will punish you for getting too much height.
Although it is only applicable for a few obstacles, its one notch cost makes it an excellent choice to fulfill your last charm slot. Sprintmaster – (1 notch cost): Sprintmaster is an excellent charm for evading a few fast-moving horizontal buzzsaws by increasing your walk into a sprint.Therefore, having extra health on you is a great way to ensure you survive the Path of Pain’s final onslaught. While the Path of Pain is primarily a platforming challenge, the presence of two kingsmoulds at the path’s end, that individually deal two mask damage, is still enough to kill you if you’re unprepared. Fragile/Unbreakable Heart – (2 notch cost): Fragile Heart gives you two more masks of health.Long nail, requiring a two-notch cost, is also a viable alternative for those who cannot afford the three notch cost of the Mark of Pride. While pogoing was a helpful strategy for progressing and taking shortcuts through the White Palace, the Path of Pain demands your pogoing competence for every challenge. Mark of Pride – (3 notch cost): Significantly lengthening the size of your nail, Mark of Pride makes it substantially easier to perform pogo jumps from a safer distance from each buzzsaw.In short, using these two charms together allows us to finish the Path of Pain quicker by spending less time waiting to heal and time on each attempt. Hiveblood – Grubsong: Although you can get through the Path of Pain without Grubsong, using it along Hiveblood enables you to be more reckless, so you don’t have to wait 12 seconds following each mistake.While there are some Hollow Knight statues we can whack for soul throughout the Path of Pain, Grubsong ensures we’ll have at least some soul to heal with through this challenge run. Grubsong – (1 notch cost): Generating soul every time we get hit, Grubsong enables us to heal after every 2-3 mistakes.If you only have room for four notches, this is the one charm you need to complete the path of pain. In practice, equipping Hiveblood enables you to infinitely retry obstacles you’re struggling on without fear of death. Hiveblood – (4 notch cost): Regenerating a mask of health every twelve seconds, Hiveblood is crucial for surviving the Path of Pain.Our reward is a special cutscene that recontextualizes the Pale King. At the end of the hall lies a stone tablet inscribed: “To witness secrets sealed, one must endure the harshest punishment.” If we choose to continue, we’ll face the most challenging platforming section in all of Hollow Knight. Halfway through the White Palace, we encounter a breakable wall that leads to a hidden corridor. Quest Location: Ancient Basin – White PalaceĪfter using our awoken dream nail on the corpse of an ancient basin bug, we enter the challenging dream world of the White Palace.Finish this challenge, and you’ll witness a special cutscene between the Pale King and the Hollow Knight. Once you reach the final section of the platforming challenge, a vast horizontal area rightward over thorns, heal to full before each run (two kingsmoulds are waiting at the end to kill you). Use Hiveblood and Grubsong together to outwait the massive loss of masks you’ll endure. As a bonus, I’ll explain my interpretation of the Path of Pain’s reward to make our shared suffering worth it. In this Hollow Knight Path of Pain guide, I’ll be going over the most optimal way to beat the Path of Pain and save you hours of needless deaths. The amalgamation of buzzsaws, spikes, and wingsmoulds work together to produce the most harrowing platforming challenge in all of Hollow Knight, requiring countless hours to beat. Stand alone and grow my wings to take me high”- Justine Suissa (from my favorite Trance track ever “If I Could Fly On The Surface”).Ģ.The Path of Pain is the cruelest, most despicable creation yet devised by Team Cherry.