I feel little desire to defeat The Radiance

[ninjacarl (dk)]

After having defeated the Hollow Knight and gotten one of the endings, i feel very little motivation to defeat a boss that seems 10x harder than anything else in the game.

[Noborus]

Remove the boss name from the title please. Radiance is one of the easiest hardest bosses in the game, after playing through the game several times and getting all the endings (except for the godhome ending) i find the bosses to be really easy, the only thing that gives me a big challenge still is trial of the fool, but that's about it. Think about all the bosses you had trouble with, and look at them now, they seem really easy right? After you defeat the radiance you'll wonder how you had so much trouble with her in the first place.
I don't know what you want me to tell you, if you don't wanna fight the radiance then don't. No need to make a discussion about not wanting to do the fight, i can understand if your asking for help but you aren't you're just stating that you don't feel like fighting them. And let me ask you this, if you don't have any desire to fight defeat the radiance then why did you go through the trouble of defeating all the other bosses, just to give up on the last one? I'd suggest getting 100%+ before attempting the radiance, maybe after you come back you'll find her to be a little easier, also watch a guide of how to access path of pain, despite it being the hardest challenge in the game it also helps you improve by a lot.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Don't worry, I felt the same at first. I defeated this boss only recently, a year later, when I felt the motivation to come back to Hollow Knight again 🙂 Took me only a few tries this time. You may feel similar inspiration somewhere in the future as well.

Protip: tune down the music volume to hear its attacks better. The default music volume in Hollow Knight is incredibly loud. I even turned off the music for several boss fights that I previously felt hard, and it was much easier when I was less distracted and could hear the attacks better.

[kanna]

^^^ Trying Path of Pain is an interesting suggestion. It could help give you some perspective on the difficulty of the Radiance fight. Progressing through Godhome might as well.

Just take a break if the fight intimidates you right now. Go do something else for a while (either in this game or otherwise), and come back later. Have the confidence to know that a little practice, first learning her moves, and then problem solving the easiest way to handle fighting her will get you there. It can definitely be hard at first, but once you've beaten the Radiance a couple of times, you'll realize it's not that hard a fight really. Don't forget your spells. She is very weak to the upgraded up spell with Shaman Stone charm equipped, in particular.

IIRC when I was struggling with figuring this fight out at first, Relyea's video was very helpful to me for solidifying my understanding of the different stages I was seeing the fight progress through. You might try watching that or other such guide videos as well.

BTW, please do remove the boss name from the title of your thread. There are people who come here for help that haven't reached the end of the game yet.

[kanna]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

Don't worry, I felt the same at first. I defeated this boss only recently, a year later, when I felt the motivation to come back to Hollow Knight again 🙂 Took me only a few tries this time. You may feel similar inspiration somewhere in the future as well.

Btw did you remove that art you posted about the charms you used? Recently, I wanted to see what they were again, but I went to your profile and couldn't find it. Even though you were posting about The Radiance at the time, you reminded me that Soul Eater can be very useful for Absolute Radiance, and it's helped me a lot with that fight as I learn to do it hitless.

[Yuzhi与纸]

definitely go for it

[Yuzhi与纸]

I also believe that after you did it, you will find more interesting things to do in hollow knight such as the collecting achievements and doing the gods and glory dlc.
Achievements like finishing the game under 5hrs isn't that hard if you try it, but it looks insane. Similarly, radiance is not that hard if you try it.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Originally posted by kanna:

Btw did you remove that art you posted about the charms you used? Recently, I wanted to see what they were again, but I went to your profile and couldn't find it. Even though you were posting about The Radiance at the time, you reminded me that Soul Eater can be very useful for Absolute Radiance, and it's helped me a lot with that fight as I learn to do it hitless.

Thanks, nice, didn't know it can be that useful! This also sounds like quite the challenge...

I made this artwork unlisted, that's probably why it doesn't show on my profile 🙂
Here is that build, inspired by long-range spellcasting, and modified for more health (spoiler):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2407663334

[kanna]

@rezno[R], Thanks! Before your earlier post, I tended to forget about Soul Eater a lot, so it was definitely helpful for me even though I'm technically talking about a different fight. Maybe OP will find this helpful as well, if they want to go long range.

I remembered it was at least partially a spell using build, now I see it was specialized for long-range spells.

@OP, I looked up some detailed tips I gave for defeating The Radiance in another thread in case you want 'em. I'd probably change up the charms mentioned at the bottom now - still Strength and Shaman Stone, but lately thanks to rezno[R] I've been using Soul Eater (and Sprintmaster) a lot with those first two for just about every fight.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/367520/discussions/0/3109143313939855257/#c3109143313939936731

[chopinnumberonefan]

just wait until you encounter pure vessel, nkg, and abs rad. youll change your mind and radiance will seem very easy

[Noborus]

Originally posted by chopinnumberonefan:

just wait until you encounter pure vessel, nkg, and abs rad. youll change your mind and radiance will seem very easy

If you can defeat radiance then you could defeat absrad, also pv and nkg are fairly easy, i find sly harder then both of them combined as his arena makes me drop frames.

[zorocancor]

Weird, I've seen a lot of people saying Radiance is hard, but i thought it was easy. Probably because i defeated NKG after being absolutely clapped for 2 hours before going to Radiance

And @OP, 90% of the fight is basically you dodging attacks, so completing Path of Pain as others suggested is a good idea

[Grumm]

Oh if you think thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, wait till I tell you about absolute radiance, the definition of unfair bosses. Shes like the only negative feeling I have about this game tbh. Complete horrid game design.

[Noborus]

Originally posted by Grumm:

Oh if you think thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, wait till I tell you about absolute radiance, the definition of unfair bosses. Shes like the only negative feeling I have about this game tbh. Complete horrid game design.

I really don't see much of a difference between radiance and absrad, she's just more powerful. Just like with grimm and nkg or the hollow knight and pure vessel, if you can beat the original boss you can beat the harder version.

[Grumm]

Originally posted by Coco:

Originally posted by Grumm:

Oh if you think thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, wait till I tell you about absolute radiance, the definition of unfair bosses. Shes like the only negative feeling I have about this game tbh. Complete horrid game design.

I really don't see much of a difference between radiance and absrad, she's just more powerful. Just like with grimm and nkg or the hollow knight and pure vessel, if you can beat the original boss you can beat the harder version.

Its not a case of not beating them, its a case of it being fair so that theyre able to be mastered. NKG is probably one of my favorite bosses in any video game and its because of its difficulty on top of being fair. I can consistently beat NKG hell, even without getting hit. Absolute Radiance, I legitimately do not think, can ever be "mastered" to that degree. Or if it can, it takes such a long amount of time that I don't want to bother. Absolute Radiance is the only thing stopping me from doing all bindings pantheon of hollow nest and it gets to me that its because of one badly designed boss compared to all of the other amazing gems the game has to over. Essay over

[kanna]

Originally posted by Grumm:

Originally posted by Coco:

I really don't see much of a difference between radiance and absrad, she's just more powerful. Just like with grimm and nkg or the hollow knight and pure vessel, if you can beat the original boss you can beat the harder version.

Its not a case of not beating them, its a case of it being fair so that theyre able to be mastered. NKG is probably one of my favorite bosses in any video game and its because of its difficulty on top of being fair. I can consistently beat NKG hell, even without getting hit. Absolute Radiance, I legitimately do not think, can ever be "mastered" to that degree. Or if it can, it takes such a long amount of time that I don't want to bother. Absolute Radiance is the only thing stopping me from doing all bindings pantheon of hollow nest and it gets to me that its because of one badly designed boss compared to all of the other amazing gems the game has to over. Essay over

People have mastered AbsRad. It's not a badly designed fight at all, it's just not as patterned as NKG and you can't just prepare the same way for almost every attack by jumping into the air like with PV.

You actually have to consistently pay attention to visual tells and sound cues for each type of attack, then respond quickly enough that you're ready for the next attack, in rapid succession for each stage, until the next stage transition occurs.

Just like with any of the faster fights, you watch and react-- it just has to happen faster than the rest. It's very fitting to have the final boss be just as much a platforming challenge as she is a boss fight (so Path of Pain definitely becomes useful training as suggested above), and it always feels amazing to get that fight right. When I don't get it right, I can generally figure out what I'm doing wrong ( usually trying to go for more damage too soon), remind myself to slow down a bit and adjust my approach.