Pure Vessel

The Pure Vessel is a quest boss in Hollow Knight introduced in Godmaster. It is the perfect version of the Hollow Knight, unaffected by the Infection.

Behaviour and Tactics
Pure Vessel uses the following attacks:


 * Shining Daggers: Pure Vessel will face the Knight and raise their free hand. The hand will glow white, and they will summon a semicircle of 7 daggers that rapidly fly out in a spreading formation.
 * Triple Slash: Pure Vessel will swing their Nail 3 times. Each swing of their Nail moves Pure Vessel forward, covering about 33% of the arena in total. The swings are wide enough that they can damage The Knight even if they are behind the Pure Vessel.
 * Diving Light Lances: Pure Vessel will either leap or teleport into the air and then slam straight down with their Nail, causing columns of bright shining lances to shoot up from the ground at consistent equal intervals starting from where Pure Vessel landed. No matter which method they choose, Pure Vessel attempts to slam down where the Knight was at the beginning of the attack.
 * Lunge: Pure Vessel will teleport a short distance and then lunge along the ground with their Nail towards the Knight. This lunge covers about 50% of the arena.
 * Jump: When the Knight has remained off the ground for too long, Pure Vessel will launch themselves at the Knight's location, dealing contact damage.
 * Parry: The Pure Vessel holds up their nail into a guard. If hit during this time, they will proceed to do a single slash, covering roughly 11% of the arena, less than most of the other attacks.
 * Focus: Pure Vessel will surround themselves with a circle of light. After a short amount of time, the circle will “explode” causing AoE damage in its radius. Afterwards up to 6 more smaller circles appear mid air at staggered times (usually around the timings of 3 first then 3 more) and act in the same nature. When using this attack Pure Vessel's effects very closely resemble the Knight when they are Focusing. This attack will only occur after Pure vessel has dropped to 50% health.
 * Void Tendrils: Pure Vessel will lift up their cloak, revealing a series of flailing void tendrils. The tendrils will then lash out towards the direction Pure Vessel was facing, covering about 60% of the arena. This attack will only occur after Pure Vessel has dropped to 25% health.
 * Teleport: Pure Vessel will teleport within the arena to prepare for an attack or dodge The Knight.
 * Backstep: Pure Vessel will quickly backstep away from the Knight if they get too close and then perform another attack.

Pure Vessel is a much harder version of the Hollow Knight, with all of their hazards and attacks dealing two masks of damage. They are also among one of the most difficult bosses in the game due to their rapid attack pace.

It is always recommended to jump prior to every one of Pure Vessel's attacks as a precautionary movement as this will help dodge most of them. The main two being the Lunge and Triple Slash attacks as these two occur most often and both can be avoided by using methods to try to leap or bounce over.

The Shining Daggers attack has the daggers set at random angles, and despite the beams of light indicating the direction of each dagger, it can be hard to position in a spot between two daggers. This leaves the best option to just use Shade Cloak to time and dash through the daggers. It is also recommended to stay a small distance away from Pure Vessel if dashing towards them as getting too close will cause the Knight to make contact with Pure Vessel and take damage. This attack also has a decently obvious cue as Pure Vessel will always attempt to teleport to the far side of the arena- or even off screen (Though take caution as in later stages of this fight the Void Tendrils attack has a near identical cue).

Diving Light Lances can require visual memorization of the distances of each lance in position from Pure Vessel as they will always shoot up in consistent rows in relation to where Pure Vessel landed.

The Focus attack is about the easiest to dodge as the build up is long and requires the player to simply start dashing away quickly. It is possible to heal after getting out of the major blast zone of the Focus as long as one of the other smaller explosions do not spawn on top of the Knight when healing.

Take advantage of Pure Vessel's large hit-box when trying to dodge the Void Tendrils attack as dashing close to them and then down-striking will catch the edge of Pure Vessel's hitbox and allow the player to bounce over. Otherwise simply dashing and then using Monarch Wings to cross the final distance over Pure Vessel is enough to avoid damage.

Trivia

 * The Pure Vessel was shown through the trailer of Godmaster to be fully armoured, however this armour is only displayed for a couple seconds at the beginning of the Pure Vessel fight before being ripped off.
 * Pure Vessel, along with the Hollow Knight, is the only boss whose title appears at the top of the screen.
 * In the release, Pure Vessel cannot be Dream Nailed, but has the following cut Dream Nail dialogue:
 * Do not think...
 * Do not speak...
 * Do not hope...
 * Do not...