Easy Steel Soul

How to steal souls, easily~!

A Note on Playstyle

Okay, so first - there are people who think that if you're playing Steel Soul at all, it's legitimate to pause just before you lose a boss fight, and quit the game to get to a bench. I'm not going to judge them. What I am going to say is that that's the worst imaginable experience with playing SS. As for why? The run makes things exciting again! Knowing that you can lose everything gives the battles you're least sure of heart-pounding excitement. It's an experience you can't get through normal play.

Beyond that, the benchquit style makes getting an ancillary achievement - Speed Completion - a pain in the ass - it shouldn't be. I casually played through my SS run, and finished at 89% with a comfortable 4 hour margin to get those last 11% of completion to get SC. The "trick" here, was that not needing to walk back to the bossroom over and over again from a bench made even my totally non-optimized playthough fast enough for that to be easy.

Ah, and, for whatever reason, Steel Heart, which is the achievement you get for having a Steel Soul run at 100% or higher is a rare achievement. Again, it shouldn't be.

The world in Hollow Knight isn't really lethal. Not if you keep you head, play things safe, and ... actually, there is no third part.

If you're reading this guide, I hope that you'll forswear the save-quit method. If you won't, then you really don't need this guide. If you're using save-quit, then just quit at two masks for 1-mask bosses, or 3/4 masks for 2-mask bosses, and your success at Steel Soul is all but guaranteed just from that. Nothing I say below will help you more than that advice, because that advice is enough to turn SS into a normal playthrough in terms of completion difficulty.

What Can You DO, Through?

Some challenge content in the game is content that's isn't harder in SS runs, because permadeath doesn't meaningfully change it.

These are the things that SS runs make exciting, by demanding your excellence:

• The hard Non-dream bosses (of course~!)
  
• Beating Hollow Knight
  
• Beating the Radiance
  
• The Colisseum of Fools
  
• White Palace without Cheese-Charms
  
• Path of Pain without Cheese-Charms

Some of these will vary depending on your level of experience coming into this, and in the worst case some or all of these might end up boring anyway, but in general, if you're part of the audience for this guide, hopefully, the majority of the list will be a awesome and engaging for you as it was for me!

As for why Godmaster content is absent from the list, sadly, dying in Godhome will never end your SS run. So there's no special meaning in, for example, beating Absrad on SS. Team Cherry missed an opportunity to give us some heart-pounding excitement, here. Maybe there's a mod for it by now...

Basic Setup

If you don't have Godhome unlocked on your normal save - if, for that matter, you don't have a normal save - go get one and beat every boss but the Radiance (and, perhaps, NKG), then unlock Godhome. If you're not aware of it, Godhome is in the Royal Waterways. You will need a Simple Key, and the Dream Nail.

Once you're in Godhome, in the lowest part of it, there are a bunch of arenas where you can challenge every boss in the game as many times as you like. If, during your SS run, you ever have cause to doubt that a boss you're intending to fight is one you can overcome? Use Godhome on your normal save to practice! Practice until you feel confident, and then take the fight to the bastard in your SS savefile!

One note of caution: I reccomend avoiding the temptation to develop a simple rule for determining when you feel ready. During my first succesful SS run, I sometimes found myself thinking stuff like, "Well, I'll beat it three times and then do it on SS for keeps." This is a trap that will lead you to failure - beating a boss any times isn't the same thing as being able to beat it consistently. The latter is what you need. Keep you mind in the game - failed runs are never worthless, but it' a hell of a L to eat unprepared - especially when it's over something as pointless as completely unintentional recklessness.

With Godhome set up, and you mentally ready, everything is in place for you to have a successful Steel Soul run on your first attempt..

Playstyle!

HEALTH IS GOD, AND SOUL IS ITS MESSIAH!

The first thing that you have to keep in mind is that spells are a lie. Yes, even when fighting Primal Aspids - the things don't actually shoot at where you are, but where you will be, so dodge only a few pixels, and the attack will always miss unless you screwed up the timing, and got into its face.

But, okay, more seriously, there are 3 types of enemy in the game. Short range aggro, long-distance aggro, and mobile hazards. Mobile hazards are enemies that crawl on a set path and which don't really react to your presence. Don't walk into them. Short range aggro are enemies that will react to your presence in a moribund way - you basic husks, guards, rich bugs, ground-mantises, etc. Engaging these guys usually isn't a problem, because you can usually bug out and heal if the going gets tough.

Long distance aggo is bad news. These guys are predominantly flyers, but a lot of the mobs in Deepnest also qualify. For these enemies, getting them offscreen means they'll follow you, get back onscreen, and keep on ruining your day. Most of them have a short initial aggro range - you need to get close to them before they'll begin trying to ruin you day. Only three long-distance mobs don't do this - the two things that hide in dead husks in Deepnest, and grub mimics. As far as I can tell, those enemies are aware of you from anywhere on the map, just like a boss.

For Long distance aggro bugs, try, if at all possible, to attract one at a time if they're anything you have problems with. Especially Primal Aspids - the trick for dodging can fail, when you're dealing with more than one, and typically does fail once you're dealing with between three and four. Any more than that, and you should run to a different room.

Now, returning to the top of this section? Health is god, and soul is its messiah. Do not, under any circumstances other than an absolute last-ditch effort to salvage the run, spend soul for spells when you could spend it to heal. And, even when your masks are full, give yourself a 2-mask margin of souljuice to keep reserved for healing. Things can go bad, fast. Once you have a Soul Vessel or two, you can spend soul more freely - once you have three, you should save a full half of your soul at any given time for healing purposes, unless healing is completely pointless - generally, that means during a bossfight, where safe-windows last long enough to restore 2 masks, where staggers take more than six hits. In that case, you should only save up 2 masks.

You'll have noticed that the advice I'm giving more-or-less forces you to adopt a nail focused playstyle, and yes: that's precisely correct. Nail focused is the way to go in SS, because it ensures that you're fueling your healing ability with every attack you make - and in a run where perma-death is the name of the game, that's absolutely critical.

Beyond this - nail arts. Nail arts are great when you're fighting an enemy that forces you to measure their pace, like a Mantis Petra or a Primal Aspid. They're also a great way to hurt a boss during a stagger. However, not all nail arts are made equal. Particularly, the zelda-reference nail art is the wrong answer in any given situation. I link I've seen the thing used productively once, by a speedrunner, who was also using both Fragile Strength and Fury of the Fallen. This use was in Godhome, and wouldn't be possible in the normal game, because you can't get the zelda-reference attack without killing Hornet in greenpath, who is the boss it's especially good against.

The reason why the zelda-reference attack is bad is because it locks you into it in a way to other Nail Arts don't. Environmentally, this is often OK, in the sense that you probably won't end up dying because of it - but make no mistake: it's still worse that a normal attack, because you lose your ability to dodge!

On the other hand, bosses will typically walk into the attack and give you damage. Something you'll notice as your skill increases is that you'll go from trying to do a lot of damage really fast, to trying to do a lot of damage really fast in ways that won't lead to you losing health, to doing a lot of damage really fast without taking a single hit. Ultimately, the zelda-reference attack is the first and most noobish of those trend exemplified. Avoid it.

Dash Slash and Charge Slash are both better, and both of those are still situational. They're not to be used casually! If you have a choice between hitting a boss three times and hitting them with a Nail Art, hit them three times. It will do more or the same damage, and reward you with more Soul, to either heal with, or with which to use a zero-charge spell.

Speaking of spells - there's also a hierarchy of usefulness for those. The No-Direction spells which fire a bullet are the least useful, but the safest. Down-Direction spells are the absolute best spells overall - they hit twice, and give you tasty invincibility frames! In fact, the invincibility frames they give you last a little after the spell, and you can do anything you want during them. It's a short window, but it's better than the Shade Cloak for that reason. Up-Direction spells are the best damage-dealers. They hit four times if the boss doesn't get out - and generally, only dream-bosses or very fast-moving ones will - but they leave you totally vulnerable. If you have a bright idea for using Up-Direction spells to make a bossfight short, test those ideas in Godhome, because a lot of them are bad ideas: I've had them, too!

Up-Direction spells are better than the zelda-reference attack for one huge reason - bosses and enemies cannot just walk into you to punish you for it. This is why they are not disfavoured.

Charm Build

HEALTH IS GOD, AND SOUL IS ITS MESSIAH!

... however, there's more than one way to worship. One of your focuses in the early game should be getting the Fragile series, because in a steel soul run, they are just as good as the Unbreakable series - dream bosses won't shatter them, and everything else is a game-over. if you're going to neglect a Fragile charm, neglect greed - Confessor Jiji is replaced by an NPC who buys rancid eggs, so getting Geo is easier in a SS run.

Your top tier charms are going to be nail-focused. Minion builds don't really do enough damage to be worth it.

Top-tier charms are (in no particular order):

• Grubsong
  
• Fragile Heart
  
• Fragile Strength
  
• Quickslash
  
• Longnail
  
• Mark of Pride
  
• Quick Focus
  
• Nailmaster's Pride (this one, however, is the least useful)

About the rest:

Some are sort of good -

Lifeblood charms are situationally useful - never, ever use them during random, unstructured exploration, or during a bossfight in which you routinely lose more than 1 full set of masks.

Soul Catcher... maybe?

Some are meh -

Nearly everything else? Can help, but isn't worth the slots that a top-tier charm would otherwise occupy. Use them if you have slots that are open, but nothing better to put there.

Some come from the malefic depths of Radiant Hell -

Never equip the following charms:

• Thorns of Agony
  
• Sharp Shadow (AVOID AVOID AVOID)

As for why, thorns adds a (small) random recoil after it punishes enemies for hitting you, which can ♥♥♥♥ up platforming.

Sharp Shadow will ♥♥♥♥ up platforming: when you equip it, it increases the distance that the Knight dashes, just a little. But, Team Cherry built the ENTIRE GAME for the default dash distance.It shows. While skill can make up for anything, and you can definitely use SS and still platform safely by manually learning the new distance, learning how to do so will take a lot of practice time on a different save, and you will have to learn a lot of room- and segment-specific tricks.

On the other hand, skill can make up for anything - including this charm: Team Cherry built the entire gamefor the default distance, and I've taken the time to confirm that that every boss that Sharp Shadow is useful against, with the sole exception of Flukemarm, can still be dashed through with vanilla shade-cloak. It will take tight, precise timing and staying close to the boss, but those are two things that you'll naturally start doing as your skill improve in any case. Of course, you will lose the damage output ifyou don't have it equipped, but that is worth it to not put all the pltforming challenges into Hard Mode.

Well, that said, if you've already done your first SS run, doing another with Sharp Shadow perma-on could dd a lot of excitement to the second go~! I mean, the charm name even shares initials. A message from the devs, maybe? (Well, probably not.)

But do you follow you advice?

I do!

My working build is Quicknail, Longnail, Mark of Pride, and Fragile Strength. Prior to entering Godhome in that run (to finish up Speed Completion by clearing Pantheons instead of hunting down collectibles), Strength was replaced with Quick Focus (because dying mattered more, so healing mattered more). Also, Longnail was replaced by either Gathering Swarm, Nailmaster's Glory, or Soulcatcher depending on my objectives and available slots at the time. Very early in the run, I focused more on the Fragile series.

Of all the charms, which is most worthy?

Mark of Pride is the most essential charm, I think. It extends your nail's hitbox to be two player-body-widths in frontal attacks, and one in vertical. The nice thing about this is that it's often the case that when a boss has parriable attacks, this allows you to both parry and hit them. That's something that's impossible with the normal hitbox, and either difficult or impossible with the Longnail hitbox. Of course, stacking LN and MoP makes that even easier, but with MoP it's at least possible the majority of the time. (If you hadn't encountered the mechanic before, parrying is good because if you parry then even if you're inside the hitbox of the parried attack, it does 0 damage. You'll know you've parried an attack if you swing your nail at the same time the boss attacks and instead of you taking damage, what happens is the game plays a cool metallic sound that also seems to make the game physics lag just barely.)

Outside of the bossfight context, in the field, MoP gives you a much larger margin of safety to dodge and flee, which makes the world that much easier to survive, and so that much more forgiving to play nice and casually.

Strategy

HEALTH IS GOD, AND SOUL IS ITS MESSIAH!

...but how does that apply to strategy? Well, it's basically me saying that you should take your damn time and explore. Mask fragments. Vessel containers. Rescuing grubs so you can buy cool ♥♥♥♥ with Grubfather's blood money! Bosses can get you cool ♥♥♥♥, and often the coolest ♥♥♥♥, but before going for that ♥♥♥♥, focus on mildly cool ♥♥♥♥ instead! I mean, really. Strip the areas you can go to bare. If you play the game safely, the environment won't kill you (Nota Bene: being out of soul with a missing mask in an area where you can't get soul back is not safe! It's really, really not safe. You have one life, don't take unnecessary risks.).

And beyond even that, there's precisely no shame in being over-levelled. If you want to do a challenge run, that's your business. This guide, though, is written for people going for the achievements for the first time. There's no shame in collecting every advantage you can accumulate: It's there for the taking for a reason.

Just remember. Keep your heath as high as possible, always, even if it means retreating. When you can heal one mask safely, heal one mask at that very moment. If you can heal more, heal up to the maximum you can. Don't wait to build up enough soul for three. Heal, heal, heal, and the world won't kill you. Train with Ascended bosses in Godhome on another save, and the bosses won't kill you either. Steel Soul on the first try is exciting, doable, and extremely fun if you treat it with the respect and calculation it demands of you.

Go forth, and conquer!

Comment Responses

Now that this guide is getting read, I'm going to take some time to adress comments left by other people. First, if you left your thanks: it was my pleasure! I hope that this advice helps you enjoy your Steel Soul experience. If you left your thoughts: thank you for your analysis.

Below, I will give response to some of those comments. Silence implis neither assent, dissent, or contemptl, though, I might just have nothing to say... message me if you want guaranteed feedback, ok?

suFist2K8d on Charge Slash

Proposal: Charge Slash isn't situational, and is actually a great thing. Three reasons - 1 hits some enemies that are annoying and which are problematic in Trial of the Fool, free damage at fight start and stagger (claimed to be optimal at stagger), range.

Response: I'd like to address this point by point, and in reverse order.

So, in terms of range, I advocate dash slash instead of charge slash. It's just better. The damage output is the same, and if you execute it carefully, at the end of your dash, you'll still be farther away.

In terms of damage at the start of a fight, it depends on the boss. For some, Nail Arts are better, for some, regular attacks are better. That's why I call them situational. So I don't wholly disagree with you. Regarding damage opportunities for stagger, though: it's not universally (or even frequently) true that you only have time to get one hit in. For the majority of bosses, the window of vulnerability on stagger is two hits without quicknail, or three hits with. It requires mastery of timing, because you need to execute each attack at or near the fastest pace that the Knight can swing. Hit the button too quickly, and the Knight won't slash.

Because of this, if you aren't using quicknail, and if damage is a primary concern, you're right that it's a great time for a nail art. However, if you need soul, regular slashing is better regardless of charm configs. Also, if you have anything other than full health, you shouldn't be attacking at all during a Steel Soul run unless doing so is going to put the boss six feet under, or unless your confidence to beat the boss is truly absolute. Health is god, and soul is its messiah.

Finally, regarding the ability to kill certain fliers quickly, you are right. It is superb at killing them quickly. The reason that I didn't mention it is because it's been my experience that killing fliers quickly is actually (usually) worse for survivability than exploiting them for the mobility they afford via nail-pogoing. I've found that killing them just a bit more slowly that way is worth it for both that reason, and the extra Soul. That applies both in the Trial of the Fool, and outside of it.

Of course, it's not universally true. There are situations where the slash is your best option. That's why I have Charge Slash down as situational instead of calling it awful like the Zelda Reference Attack. In the end, you're the player and you'll need to judge the right situation, but I don't agree with you that the right situation is every situation.

Regarding youtube and people on youtube using it in Trial of the Fool, you're right. It's a common tactic, both by normal players and speedrunners. But a lot of normal players have immense problems with Trial of the Fool, and speedrunners... a lot of the time, the strategies they use represent the best ways to deal with something. And for killing enemies quickly, charge slash probably is the best way.

But! Steel Soul isn't about doing things quickly! It's about survival. Sometimes, the fastest way isn't the best, and I truly think that this situation is one such. Thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts!

BTW, Haters Gonna Haet

I've seen some of the older players turn their nose up at using Godhome, and say that a Godhome-using SS completion is worth less than one that does without.

This is stupid.

It's like you're a mountaineer and some snot is telling you that reaching the summit didn't count because you used a map while they went in blind. While in actual reality a map of Mt Everest in thcce hands of a non-mountaineer is nothing more than wall art, if even that.

They're essentially calling Godhome a cheatcode. Team Cherry doesn't agree with them even a little: the achievement unlocks regardles of your star, Moreover, Godhome is accesible in SS mode, while TC dummied out other things. So, as the title of thiss section says....

Well, anyway. That's all I had to write. Thanks for reading my guide! I hope it's a cndle in the dark for your attempt. Good luck, godspeed, and - when you win through?

Congratultions!

(Now please don't turn into a puddle of tang.)

[787Lynx]

Health is god and Fragile heart is his blessing!

Despite being used to the fights, panic builds up real-fast when falling to 1-2 masks during a SS run, so having those extra two masks helped me a lot on keeping it cool and waiting for the proper opportunities on bosses.

[RigellooStarz]

is this even hollow night

[Vallies]

This is amazing, thank you!

[<NO_NAME>]

Yeah, sure. It shouldn't be a rare achivement. This is the easy mode. You can't even loose your geo!

[Trincate]

if you ever need encouragement just go to the secret supporter quote room in the spirits' glade

[(Phe)Nyx17]

Actually I found Greed + Swarm is useful as it means you have more geo, so you don't need to farm, and because of this it decreases your chances of dying while doing so.

[Words Greenwood]

Great stuff, great guide! Thanks

[kenqr]

Spin 2 win

[suFist2K8d]

I disagree on charged slash:
* Late game it 1-hits Petras and almost every other Arena-air-combatant. This is extremely useful (with practice) during Trial of the Fool
* It's often free damage at the beginning of a fight or during a stagger ("alpha strike".) Staggers only allow a single hit (usually? always?) and the beginning of a fight there's no point in not getting an extra 1.5 hits of damage out of it.
* It has a longer range than other attacks. This can make it very useful when you don't/can't fit Mark of Pride on.

If you youtube people doing Trial of the Fool (especially hitless) there's a good chance you'll see them spamming Charged Strike.

[stratosvarius]

Good job, very nice guide