The Last Judge in Hollow Knight: Silksong is a challenging boss that strikes hard, has a lot of health, and is the last thing standing in your way to completing Act 1.
You’ve made it to the grand gate, ready to open the doors and make your way to the citadel, but of course, things are never that easy in this game.
This boss has caused just about everyone who played until this point a huge headache, so here are tips for trying to take her down for good.
All Last Judge Attacks in Hollow Knight: Silksong
Bell Spin
The bell the Last Judge is holding is her weapon, and if you’re not paying attention, it will mess up your day. While you should be ready for all of her attacks, the one that caused us the most problems is the bell spin.
She will crouch down for a split second and start spinning it around her. During this, you can not hit her with any projectiles.
In her second phase, clouds will start appearing outside of the ring. Avoid them, as they are about to burst into flame.
Bell Throw
The Last Judge will toss her bell about half a screen’s distance away. The initial throw is lobbed overhead, then she yanks it back, so be sure to jump over the retreating bell if you are between the two of them.
In the second phase, the bell will explode with fire after it hits the ground, so keep your distance.
Leap Attack
Wherever Hornet is standing, the Last Judge will jump into that location. A quick swift step will allow you to avoid her coming in. When she lands, she is momentarily immobile, so you can get a couple of hits in on her.
In the second phase, a flame wave attack emits from her landing place.
Rush Attack (Second Phase)
The Last Judge will kneel and run straight at you. You can pretty easily jump over here, but watch out for the fire pillars that appear from the ground behind her.
Last Judge Weaknesses in Hollow Knight: Silksong
The Last Judge in Hollow Knight: Silksong is probably the hardest boss of Act 1, but part of that is because of the awful runback you have to do to get back to her when dying. Before you even fight her, you need to take your time in the ascent area and make sure you are coming to the fight with as much health as possible.
There is a slight shortcut you can take by jumping up the wall seen in the image below near the beginning of the area, but it only lets you skip one section. Needless to say, this runback is unquestionably the worst in the game to this point.
You may also have a favorite tool you like to have equipped, but one we highly recommend grabbing is the Magma Bell. You can get it from the Forge Daughter in Deep Docks for a craftmetal and 110 rosaries. When equipped, you will take less damage from fire attacks, and that comes in handy in the second phase of this boss fight.
Other set-up suggestions are getting your needle damage upgraded by Pinmaster Plinney in Bellhart and getting enough mask shards to give yourself an additional health slot.
Finally, if you have a cocoon sitting in the arena from a previous fight, try to save grabbing it until the second phase starts. Building up your silk is pretty easy when you learn the judge’s first phase attacks. Not so much in the second phase.
First Phase
Now then, on to the actual fight. When you start fighting with the Last Judge in Hollow Knight: Silksong, don’t rush in and try and get some hits right away. Wait to see if she is going to start with a bell spin or a leap attack.
When the bell spin is happening, keep your distance and wait to see what she does after. For the leap, dodge out of the way slightly and counter with at least two, maybe three attacks. Two is definitely safer, but if she leaps a second time, which she is known to do, three is possible.
If you notice the bell throw happening, you are safe to stay on the ground close to her when the initial throw happens to get a hit on her. After that, though, prepare to jump out of the way when she pulls it back.
After doing enough damage, the Last Judge will fall to her knees and let you hit her some more. The second phase happens soon after.
Second Phase
The second phase of the Last Judge fight in Hollow Knight: Silksong starts when you see her do a salute and light up her bell. When this is happening, you can hit her a few times with no worries, but she always follows this up with her new flaming bell spin. After you get some hits in, run away and place yourself between the clouds.
Now, this may not seem the wisest to some people, but we actually found ourselves to have a better chance at avoiding the Last Judge’s attacks when we were near one of the gates on either side of the arena, and we felt it set us up better to counterattack. The reason for this is that in the middle, the Judge has a lot of room to move around. When she gets near the gates, she always has to stop, and that sometimes makes it easier to judge where her flames are coming from.
For example, when the Last Judge does a rush attack towards a gate, the last flame pillar always seems to be a little further away than when she does it in open space. Maybe that’s not 100% true all of the time, but it felt like we had more room to jump when she rushed under and then land behind her to get a couple of hits in.
One last point we have for getting her close to the wall: the Last Judge most of the time likes to use her bell spin when she is in open space. Whenever we had her next to the edge of the arena, she almost always deferred to her other attacks, only very rarely going to the spin attack when next to the gates. When she jumps out to the middle and does her spin attack, you have a lot of time to avoid the incoming clouds.
When she is up against the wall, also watch out for her leap attack. Swiftly step away and jump over the wave of flames that comes out. Unfortunately, she moves very fast out of this attack now, so you might get one hit in, but that’s about all we recommend. When she throws her bell in, we recommend wall jumping up the gate door to avoid the explosion.
In general, we found keeping the Last Judge up against the wall to actually be a great way to deal a lot of hits on her after she rushes and leaps, and mostly allowed us to avoid incoming bell spins. Even when we got hit, we were building up enough silk to be able to heal ourselves in between her attacks.
After you do enough damage to the Last Judge, she will scream out and do one more quick salute. When this happens, she is going to do an extended bell spin. While it lasts longer, the clouds are still pretty easy to avoid if you keep your calm. She will also be stunned momentarily after she does this.
Overall, the second phase of the Last Judge fight in Hollow Knight: Silksong can feel like it takes forever. Just keep dodging attacks as they come in and striking when the time is right. When you finally defeat her, she will kneel to the ground and try to take you out in a massive explosion. Make sure you run away! If that explosion gets you, you will have to start the fight all over.
Did this guide help you finally overcome the Last Judge in Hollow Knight: Silksong? Let us know in the comments or on the Insider Gaming forum.
Now that you’ve overcome that boss, you might want to go back to the first act area and find things like the Warding Bell or defeat the Skull Tyrant.
John has been covering the game industry since 2017, covering all kinds of games and topics in that timespan. He loves his Nintendo games and enjoys achievement hunting as well.…
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