How to beat Widow in Silksong
Widow boss strategy for Hollow Knight: Silksong.
After getting your hands on the ability to double jump in Hollow Knight: Silksong, you’ll be able to challenge a formidable opponent. Silksong’s Widow boss found in Bellheart is no joke; she’s speedy, has projectiles galore, and is very difficult.
While Widow is technically optional at this point in the game, you will ultimately want to beat her sooner or later to get your hands on the Needolin. To help with that, here’s how to beat Widow in Hollow Knight: Silksong.
Looking for more help on your adventure through Pharloom? Check out our Hollow Knight: Silksong walkthrough and bosses list.
How to find Widow in Silksong
To beat Widow in Hollow Knight: Silksong, you first need to find her. She’s tucked away in Bellheart and is only accessible following your exploration of Shellwood. More specifically, you must defeat the Sister Splinter boss and unlock the Cling Grip Skill – which allows you to double jump on walls – to reach her.
You then access Widow via Shellwood, but first, let’s unlock a shortcut from her arena to the nearest Bench (which is in Shellwood). The route from Shellwood’s Bench, through Bellheart, and to the shortcut is labeled on the below map:
Once you have the shortcut unlocked, which requires you to navigate some narrow passages with Furm and Winged Furm enemies in Bellheart (and destroy plenty of bell walls), the route from Shellwood’s Bench directly to Widow is labeled on the below map:
How to beat Widow in Silksong
With how to reach Widow out of the way, let’s talk about how to actually beat her. Her moveset isn’t too complex, but the speed at which she dishes out her moves – especially during her second phase – can quickly be overwhelming. One item I do recommend having equipped is the Warding Bell. It can be hard to Bind during the Widow fight, and this item makes Binding that little bit safer to do during tense moments.
Attacks of Widow’s that you want to look out for and avoid are as follows:
- Pincer Attack: In the first phase of the fight, Widow lunges into the air at an angle, diving and slicing at you. She then charges, with her pincers, across the arena in the opposite direction. Dash beneath her dive and then jump dash over the follow-up attack. In the second phase of the fight, Widow no longer winds up for this attack with the angled dive; instead, she will simply charge across the arena with her pincers, so you want to keep a very careful eye on her.
- Bouncing Bells: Widow stands still and begins to summon threads of light around the arena, both vertical and diagonally. This is prime time to attack Widow but be careful of where the threads of light are, as this means bells are about to be summoned from the ceiling. These bells will bounce, and the diagonal ones do have a chance of bouncing off of the walls, so stay in the centre of the room where possible.
- Bell Floor AoE Attack: Widow will scurry across the floor of the arena, conjuring bunches of light threads from the ceiling before a dozen bells then protrude from the ground. Carefully keep an eye on which side of the arena Widow started this attack, then jump and glide over there. The Drifter’s Cloak will allow you to hover just long enough to avoid this attack.
- Roar, followed by Bouncing Bells: This particular attack is a little different to the bouncing bells that Widow hurls across the arena. Whenever Widow performs a roar, a row of multiple strings of light will appear before multiple bells drop and bounce from them. You want to go into the area where bells are not being summoned and wait out the attack, but anticipate Widow launching another one quickly after.
It won’t take too long for most players to deal with Widow’s first phase, especially after a couple of attempts; avoid those bells (which you can often do so by standing still), jump over her pincers (which are quite predictable during this phase), and keep attacking while she is standing still summoning bells. You’ve plenty of openings to attack here, given she summons a lot of bells. Provided you don’t get overwhelmed by these projectiles, this phase of the fight can be over with quite quickly.
Stun Widow three times and the fight is over… except it isn’t. The sound that normally indicates a boss fight is over will end but this fight, unfortunately, is not over yet; this is the beginning of Widow’s second phase. This is where the real meat of the fight begins, though this phase – if successful – is shorter than her first phase. If you die and feel like you were close to beating her, you probably were. Keep going!
Widow’s second phase is more of the same with two key differences: she summons more bells more often, and moves exceptionally fast. The main thing to also note here is that her pincer attack changes slightly; rather than jumping into the air at an angle, diving at you, then completing her follow-up charge attack, she will now be able to do the charge attack at random intervals without diving first. This makes this attack significantly harder to predict and avoid, especially when bells are appearing at all angles.
Here, you have a lot to keep an eye on at once; you want to keep an eye on where the bells are coming from so that you can dash and avoid them, but you also want to keep an eye on what Widow is up to so you don’t get caught out by her devastating pincer attack. This is where the likes of the Silkspear Skill or your throwing daggers come in handy, allowing you to attack Widow from range – meaning you’ve less chance of getting caught by her pincer attack – while avoiding bells.
Another good rule of thumb is to heal while aerial and ideally out of the way of bells. Fortunately, bells only do a single Mask of damage as opposed to Widow’s pincer attack, so it’s still better to be hit by one of these while healing rather than her melee attack or the bells that emerge from the floor.
With exceptional patience and some attempts taken getting used to Widow’s attacks, you’ll soon take down the hostile arachnid and be rewarded with the Needolin. Good luck!
For more on Hollow Knight: Silksong, take a look at our Silksong walkthrough.