How to beat the Nightmare King

A guide on how to beat the Nightmare King boss from the Grimm Troupe expansion for Hollow Knight.

Charms to use.

These are what charms you should use for this guide.
Before you fight Grimm you should have 3 things, all 11 charm notches, shade cloak, and obviously grimmchild.
You can use any charms you want for this fight but if you want to follow this guide to the letter this is what i used:
Quick focus
Grubsong
Baldur Shell
Weaversong
Grimmchild
Thorns of agony

Now onto his moves and what to do when he uses them.

Grimms attacks.

What attacks the boss has and how to dodge them.


Firebats: Grimm opens his cape and fires 4 tracking firebats in a high, low, high, low pattern. Each firebat also spawns a fire pillar on top of Grimm.
Probably his easiest attack to dodge, just hop over the bats on the bottom and dont get hit.


Firebat Teleport: Getting into melee range before the 3rd firebat causes Grimm to teleport to the other side of the arena and fire both remaining bats at once. These bats start high and low before convering.
Just dont get too close to him when he uses firebats and this shouldnt happen, i found this on the wiki, it never happened to me.


Dive dash: Grimm dashes towards you leaving a trail of fire around him.
Just double jump over him and dash to the other side of the room, time this right though because if you jump over him before he hits the wall he'll turn around and charge you again.


Dash uppercut: Grimm will dash forward and uppercut into the ceiling, before dropping fireballs all over the room.
Stay directly in front of him while he dashes forward without getting hit and stay there when he drops the fireballs, this way they will never hit you.


Cloak spikes: Grimm dissapears, small plants sprout out of the ground until shooting into the air as thorny pillars.
Just dodge them and get in between the pillars.
Using quick charm heal 1 mask everytime he does this, if you dont use quick charm then even this is a bad time to heal.

Flame Pillar: Grimm floats above the ground, and spawns four fire pillars one after the other below The Knight, they fire after a short delay and leave a lingering patch of fire for a few seconds.
If you want to play it safe this will be your only chance to hit him with your nail, dodge each pillar and with each one get close to grimm before jumping and up slashing him.


Evade: Occasionally, if you get close to Grimm before his grounded attacks begin, he will scurry away before attacking.
Just dont fight oo aggressively and this shouldnt happen.


Stagger: Every 13 hits, Grimm will explode into a horde of bats. Grimm can be damaged in this state, taking the form of the bat with eyes. However, he can only take a maximum of 50 damage per stagger.
Dont bother trying to attack him when he does this just take the opportunity to heal as much as possible.

Git Gud

Even knowing all of this i think this is easily the hardest boss fight in the game, honestly the best advice i could give is to...

[The Vessel]

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▌▓▓▓▄▄▀▀▓▓▓▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█▓█▓█▓▓▌█▌DO IT.
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[Phog Fish]

can you do one about the grimm?

[vinhh9608]

I just use unbreakable strength, glowing womb, defender's crest, soul catcher and grimmchild to get over it, very ez, just know how to dogde Grimm's skill and hit him right time to recharge your soul to use the glowing womb

[aogasd]

Take note that a dive dash can and will sometimes interrupt your heal, so only use safe heal windows if you're on your last hp. Sometimes you can still cancel your heal in time, or shade cloak through the dive dash if he attempts to mess with your heals.

In the end, if you're trying to do ascended, don't heal. 4hp is really hard to gain back, just use spells. The fight will go faster too, so less chances to mess up.

[aogasd]

You can heal 1 hp with most of the attacks if you're fast, start immediately when you get an opening, and a bit lucky. No quick focus needed.
Pillars: heal as soon as you see you're clear from the spikes. If you jump around, it's already too late, just step a little left or right and heal.
Dash uppercut: walk away from him when he starts the attack and heal. Memorize the correct spacing and you can start healing before you see where the fire lands. My favorite, the gaps are wider than with pillars and there's enough time.
Fire bats: Jump over the first and heal. 4th bat should fly just over your head.
Fire pillars: sneak forwards slowly and heal when the 4th pillar location starts glowing. can be a bit risky.

[Goga Boga]

Great guide! it didn't help me because I have already beaten NKG but I am sure it will help some noobs out there! Great job!

[Morphed Cat]

I mean, I used Nailmaster's Glory, Sharp Shadow, Shaman Stone and Unbreakable Strength, when he was using firebats I charged a nailart and when he did his flame pillar I hit him three times/two times&vengeful spirit

[Boxell]

:

[Boxell]

i got gud and it worked.

[TheTitanOwl]

I just dodged and let the weaverlings do the job thanks for the Weaversong advice.