White Defender

The White Defender is a hidden boss in Hollow Knight. It is the dream form of the Dung Defender, at the peak of his strengths from his past.

Behaviour and Tactics
The White Defender's attacks are stronger versions of the Dung Defender's moves, along with a few new ones:


 * Dung Toss: White Defender will gather up and throw two dung balls one after the other. The balls will bounce around the arena randomly in large arcs, reaching to the top of the arena. Each ball will persist for about 4.5 seconds but can be broken if the Knight deals enough damage to them. These dung balls will continue to bounce even if they hit the Knight and White Defender will perform other attacks while the dung balls are bouncing.
 * Dive: White Defender will dive in and out of the ground to move around the arena. He will dive in once and re-emerge somewhere else in the arena shortly after, covering about 25% of the arena. He moves left or right independent of where the Knight is.
 * Burst: White Defender will dive underground and after a bit of time burst into the air, raining dung balls everywhere. When he bursts from the ground, 10 dung balls join him, 5 on each side, and fall away from him in a tall arc. These dung balls do not bounce around. Instead, they break once they hit a wall, the floor, or the Knight. White Defender can burst up anywhere in the arena and he will travel underground for about 1.5 seconds before he finds his burst point.
 * Spike Slam: White Defender slams his arm into the ground, causing large spikes of dung to jut up. Three spikes will form in rapid succession on each side of White Defender. The spikes reach high into the air and are unable to be cleared even by Monarch Wings.
 * Defender Jubilee: White Defender will gather up and throw 3 dung balls one after the other, like a longer Dung Toss attack. After the third dung ball, White Defender will leap into the air and curl into a ball to join in the bouncing. After bouncing on the ground 3 times, he slams straight into the ground sending spikes across the arena in both directions. The spikes form in sets of two (one on each side) and disappear just after the next set of spikes spring up. White Defender will remain underground until all of the spikes are gone. Once the spikes are gone, he re-emerges with a Ground Burst Attack. The spikes are short enough that the player can double jump over them.
 * Zeal: Once per fight after enough damage is dealt to him, White Defender will stop and shout like he does at the beginning of each fight signaling the beginning of this attack. For the next ~11 seconds, White Defender will string together 6 Ground Burst Attacks, each occurring about 1.5 seconds after the previous. Once Hyper Mode is over, White Defender returns to his regular attack patterns. White Defender will only do this attack once at 600 hp.
 * Evade: When the Knight is too close White Defender will sometimes quickly curl into a ball and roll back a short distance. In most instances he will also follow up this maneuver with a Spike Slam attack.

He can be fought up to a maximum of five times, but after each victory he will deal an additional mask of damage (one mask on the first fight, two masks on the second, etc.)

White Defender will no longer stagger nor will Desolate Dive or Descending Dark for him out of the ground.

For damage output, Nail-based Charms work very well; Fragile Strength, Quick Slash and Mark of Pride/Longnail are helpful.

Spells are incredibly useful against White Defender. A well-timed Shade Soul can destroy a dung ball before it's tossed and damage White Defender at the same time. Abyss Shriek can deal maximum damage when White Defender is returning to the ground after a Ground Burst (provided the Knight is standing just to the left or right of White Defender). As with all spell-focused builds, the charms Shaman Stone and Spell Twister are very helpful.

It is possible to keep White Defender in his ball form until he is defeated so long as you never let him hit the ground 3 times. This can be accomplished with well-timed upward slashes and quick movements. Dashmaster and Sprintmaster help with this tactic.

As with the other Dream Bosses, the Knight does not die when they lose all their health during this battle, but simply wakes up next to the Dung Defender. This means that Fragile Strength and Fragile Heart can be used continually without breaking.

The left and right corners are generally safe for healing due to White Defender's attacks almost never reaching there.



Location
To reach the White Defender, both the Dung Defender and all three Dreamers have to be defeated first

Use Desolate Dive/Descending Dark on the floor at the far right end of his boss room directly underneath the floating platform to access a hidden room beneath. Here the player will find the Defender sleeping in the room on the left. Use the Dream Nail on him to enter the dream and initiate combat.

Trivia

 * In the background of the arena, the white silhouettes of the Great Knights (minus Ogrim) and The Pale King can be seen in this order: Hegemol, Ze'mer, Dryya, Isma, and the Pale King.
 * The White Defender can be beaten a total of 5 times on each save file, though he can be challenged indefinitely in Godhome.
 * After defeating the White Defender 5 times and hearing Dung Defender's extra dialogue, when The Knight leaves and returns there will be a seventh dung statue made in their image.
 * Upon defeat, the White Defender will reach toward the background silhouettes as they dissolve before hanging his head dejectedly.
 * White Defender appearing in white armour may imply that all five of the Great Knights likely dressed in white while serving the King.
 * White Defender can be unlocked in Godhome either by defeating him in Dung Defender's dreams or by beating Dung Defender in Godhome once, either in the  Pantheon of the Master or in the  Hall of Gods.
 * White Defender's journal entry mentions an event called "The Battle of the Blackwyrm". This event is never mentioned in the game and, there is little information on the subject.
 * Fighting White Defender in Godhome will increase the difficulty of the boss when fought again in the base game location.


 * There is a glitch where a dung ball could be stuck in one of the corners of the room, which could be potentially detrimental as the hit-box for the dung ball is still active. However, it can still be destroyed by spells.

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