Hollow Knight: Silksong - Second Sentinel fight

Video

Difficulty

Second Sentinel doesn’t have much variety in its moveset, but is still pretty annoying to fight in that tight, confined room. Personally took me around 4-6 tries.

The runback is also pretty convenient, as a bench below the boss room is accessible without any hazards along the way.

Loadout

Traversal skills

I’d wager you can complete this fight even without using the non-Act 1 traversal skills (though I believe it’s unreachable in the first place without Faydown Cloak / double jump).

Upgrades

• Needle upgrade 3. Deal more damage / makes the fight shorter. Already did the first two Pale Oil upgrades (see Courier’s Rasher run if you’re having trouble).
• Pouch Capacity 3 and Tool Damage 2. Would also make your tools more viable.
• Seven masks. Would most probably be doable with fewer plus Shattered Mask, but I don’t like running that once I got more than six masks (then I prefer the Multibinder).

Crest and tools

Just the default loadout I’m using—nothing special, except for a few:

• Evolved Hunter’s Crest. While I take significant hits in this fight, helps pump up the damage even more.
• Sharpdart. Easily my favorite Silk Skill. Provides i-frames, easy repositioning, and deals decent Needle damage to the enemy.
• Memory Shard. Helps deal damage when you’re getting dealt damage. Fight’s rather closed quarters so this hits quite consistently.
• Cogfly. A recent favorite. Gets a number of hits in when you’re not in range of attacking. Don’t over-rely on its damage as you need to hit to regenerate your silk.
• Magnetite Dice. Saves you sometimes.

Tips

1. A lot of Second Sentinel’s attacks are parryable. Try to parry as often as possible, or even learn how to parry (if you haven’t yet) in this fight. AFAIK, Second Sentinel doesn’t change phases (or I barely noticed the difference) so it’s easy to learn its moveset from the get-go.
2. But I won’t advise to parry everything:
   1. Its flurry attack may be too unreliable to parry, while the video shows me spamming it, Hornet’s hitbox doesn’t really intersect with the attack’s hitbox which allows that
   2. Its cross (X) attack also lingers longer than Hornet’s attack animation, wherein you may get hit after successfully parrying once.
   3. Regardless of the above, if you pogo / downwards attack on hard-to-parry attacks, it’s a quick way to reposition yourself + avoid taking damage entirely.
3. Second Sentinel’s hitbox is more slender, so don’t be afraid to get close and get a few more hits in.