Hornet in Kingdom's edge.

[Sgt. YippyYap]

If you ask me, it's completely ridiculous.

The health pool is way too high, considering what she does.
Constant spam. Instant attacks without some sign of the attack starting, so you can't predict and dodge properly, since the animation for her jump and her charge are about the same. So you have to wait and decide in 0.000001 second what you'll do.
Her stupid spikes which she spawns all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. So much fun.
Inconsistent at some attacks, and sometimes predicting way too good. If I see her commencing an attack, if I jump, she'll jump. sometimes she homes-in on me, while the other time, she randomly flies somewhere else, so I end up getting hit anyway.
Not to mention, her constant noises just make me even more mad. I'd find it cute usually, but it just gets on my nerves for some reason, making the whole experience so much more painful

Basically, things like these ruined the game for me. It's hard as it is, with absolute perfect timing, but when you throw something super spammy and tanky like this, it's plain and simple unfair.

People say Soul Tyrant is hard. It is, but the patterns are consistent. Like it should be in a "metroidvania" game. You can see what the attack will be, and you can prepare your dodge properly. I almost beat him on my 4th attempt. And with this stupid Hornet, I just can't beat her. It would be okay if it was like a bonus boss or whatever, but not like this

[Aeternalis the Abyssal Alchemist]

The fact that you're complaining about her health pool makes me think you haven't been upgrading your Nail.
You should have either the Channeled Nail or the Coiled Nail by this point.

You should also be upgrading your Spells when possible. At this point in the game you are able to upgrade Vengeful Spirit into Shade Soul, and upgrade Desolate Dive into Descending Dark. The third spell is Howling Wraiths, which is available in the top-left corner of Fog Canyon, but you will not be able to upgrade it into Abyssal Shriek until after this fight.

As for your remark about the necessary reaction time, its objectively false. The only differences between this fight and the one in Greenpath, are the increased health, one or two new attack(s), and slight reduction to her attack cooldown. Her attack speed is the same as far I can tell.

[Fracastador]

Hornet 2 is more difficult pattern-wise than the soul tyrant, yes. She's one of the first bosses that I think starts to show what Hollow knight looks like when you're playing near the highest skill level the game asks of you, and she was the second boss battle I encountered that really stunned me for a bit. I had a lot of trouble with a lot of bosses, but Hornet 2 felt like a whole new side to the game.

Also hornet 2 is a bonus boss. She's not mandatory. I found her harder than all the mandatory bosses except watcher knights. She does gate off a lot of optional content, though. Most of said optional content is harder than she is anyway, so if you are not willing to try hard enough to learn her patterns, or search for enough gear to facetank her, you probably wouldn't want to play the optional game after her anyway.

[Recjawjind]

If youre struggling that much with hornet, you clearly didnt learn how to propperly play in the hours leading up to this point. Good bloody luck with any of the endgame bosses.

[RocketPotatoL62]

Honestly I didn't find Hornet 2 that much harder than Hornet 1.

If you want to play it safe, all you have to do is land 1 hit after every single attack, you can sneak in an additional hit when she tries to throw the needle at you if you're used to the pattern.

I like the fight, when she isn't hopping around aimlessly like a fool, it really looks like you're playing against another player.

[Carrier Pidgeons]

I found Hornet 2 very similar to Hornet 1, but with the spike attack completely making the fight hell. A trick I found is that, when there are already spikes on the battlefield, she won't use that attack / won't spawn as many, making her significantly easier to fight if you just leave spikes in areas where you can dodge and fight and pretty much ignore them. Other than that, managing your dodge is really important as, without it, she can pretty much get a mask for free from charging into you from above. I found Baldur's shell amazing here because it acts as a free couple masks if you're boxed in by spikes and can't make a clean escape. Use of Desolate Dive to clear the arena is also a good idea, as well as using your soul abilities to smack her around when she throws her nail.


Also, the Nailmaster skills are amazing here. You don't have much time to just whack her around, so getting 1 or 2 really strong hits is amazing.

[Saph]

Just fought her on my second playthrough using the sequence break to get to her early. Having only two nail upgrades and the range extention charms with Lifeblood Heart made it a walk in the park compared to my first playthrough where I somehow missed the Mark of Pride.

Having that bigger hitbox really helps outrange her big attack, punish her dash & dive attacks and clear her pointy balls when needed. I'm fairly sure she only hit me two or three times the whole fight and it did not last very long.

[TheNinthAlly]

What are people even talking about...? I have 107% and only one regular boss left for 112% (NKG) and Hornet is still my worst nightmare. The first Hornet fight took around three hours, but the other took 85 tries and over in the span of 5 hours. It was painful. It’s honestly just your play style. Don’t give up just because you are failing on an early boss because that might just be your play style and other bosses might be found much easier.

[Kanra]

Originally posted by yz223301:

What are people even talking about...? I have 107% and only one regular boss left for 112% (NKG) and Hornet is still my worst nightmare. The first Hornet fight took around three hours, but the other took 85 tries and over in the span of 5 hours. It was painful. It’s honestly just your play style. Don’t give up just because you are failing on an early boss because that might just be your play style and other bosses might be found much easier.

Okay but this was over a year ago