Serpent 5 boss is complete nonsense

[enticedwanderer]

I was loving this game until this boss, now I have 0 desire to play it any more.

As someone who 100% hollow knight, including no hit run, and many other metroidvanias, this boss is absolutely unfair and horrible design. Nothing so far in the game felt unfair as much as this. It is rage inducing. After roughly 20 attempts that are have no rhyme or reason to why any of them is better or worse I'm done.

I'm sure it is possible to beat it yes. But the fact I have to bang my head against the wall, until the RNG has mercy ruins this game for me. It is so ridiculous that I have to be missing something? There is no way this is how the game is intended to be?

He will chase you down with a wall of bullet hell and lasers around him, which means you need to stay away. Every time you hit him he sprays even more bullets from the tail. So you are forced to get a single hit and then run away and pray he won't go gang ho on your behind. It maybe works for a few hits before he just simply encircles you and starts following you no matter which direction you go, at which point you are taking a hit every few seconds. He just decides to end the attempt randomly. Sometimes it happens after 2-3 shots, sometimes after 5-6, but it seems to always happen.

[コトラ]

It seems to be a very infamous difficulty spike, but have you watched a video? Maybe there's a strategy that is being overlooked here.

[enticedwanderer]

I did nothing different from my previous 25+ attempts and beaten him with 6 health left. I still don't have a clue what I was supposed to do different, just ended up finding the RNG run that worked out.

I wish I could say it was fun, but after the next boss I decided I had enough. There is no sense of accomplishment. Just thank god it's over. Not for me I guess.

[Shucks]

Im confused, i beat him first try, he was super easy i just charge shot his tail. Then he flies snd you just stand in the middle firing charge shots.

Hollow knight has way harder bosses.

[Terron]

Cant say I remember having much trouble with him at all. (not to downplay your difficulty, some bosses gave me a good bit of trouble) I remember mainly using charged attacks and cant you kinda manipulate his pathing? I coulda sworn I could make him keep doing circles around me but would move here and there to stop it closing in too much. I got hit for sure but dont remember dying more than once or twice to him. Just lots of charged attacks to its tail.