Boss Breakdown: How to Beat Absolute Radiance - Hollow Knight

A full breakdown of Hollow Knight's Absolute Radiance fight to make it easy. It includes her attacks and how to dodge, best time to heal and when to do damage. How to beat Absolute Radiance and make it easy.

If you think I missed anything important let me know down in the comments so others can get the tip as well!

0:00 Intro
0:14 What We Have
0:55 Moveset
10:08 Healing
11:44 Tips & Tricks
13:46 The Fight Tips
15:04 Flawless Fight

A few simple tricks to make the fight easy for anyone struggling to get better at the fight.

[joshuapatrick]

It’s no lie to say I’ve fought this fight 50 times, got to the final phase knowing I only needed ten hits, got 7 at most. I watched this video then beat her on the very next attempt, thanks!

[henra]

12:25 Literally the best advice for hollow knight in general, I wish I learned it a lot earlier on in the game.

[nickolasdaff]

Thanks for advice, and for cheering us up :) Small technical hint from me, is to shrink up brightness in settings, it can be overbright so you won't able to see some attacks.

[kaka_extreme]

Thanks for the tips on the climbing part, I died about 4 times in this part and today I managed to pass after 11 days of trying. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing, I've never had an experience like this playing a video game.

[ahhhhhhhhhhhh]

Took me 50 hours to finally beat absolute radiance in radiant mode!

Some additional advices for future people.

phase 1-4, if the light beam reached more than half way, just Desolate Dive, if you don't 3 spells will come at you at the same time lol.
Whenever an attack ends or reached 50% of the area, pay attention to her face, if her eyes shine bright, she is going to use Triple Beams or sword burst.
If you see spike floor, just Desolate Dive it, gives you more space to deal with other BS.

phase 4 is the RNG phase, if you get bad rng and absolute radiance decided to have a picnic in a distance for 3 minutes, then it's not your fault.
Since there aren't many chances to attack her, I would go aggressive if she's at the middle 4 platforms, use the edge of Abyss Shriek to hit her once if she's at a terrible location. Save at least 1 Desolate Dive for safety.
The orbs, stay at the bottom, you want to lead the orb into the side platforms, then run back and lead the next one to the ground you're standing on, then repeat.

phase 5, the cursed jump, the light beam is a bit random before the platform 7:59, after that, a ringing sound will start playing, this is when the absolute radiance attack starts to track you, so you should bait her attack. You have about 0.3 second to react.
3 things to focus on:
1.if you're getting sniped at your current location, dash away and jump back to the same platform
2.if the beam is at your next destination, then wait for next turn.
3.make sure you get enough height and stay within jumping distance of your current platform, so that you don't hit the wall or fall into the void.

For the last phase, if you're not a pogo fan, a very consistent way is to just dodge with dash, less RNG and don't need to deal with the boss spawning at random place.
What you want to do is to lead the orb into the platform.
if the orb spawns on the same side as you, dash to the middle and jump back to the platform, the orb will either hit the opposite platform or go into the void.
if the orb spawns at the opposite side or middle, wait for it to spawn and come at you, then dash to the next platform, the orb should hit the first platform. (here you can either jump to attack absolute radiance or just Abyss Shriek, but get ready for the next orb!)
Weird case, if the orb spawn in you, do not attack! you should dash ASAP and jump upward to go back to the platform and Desolate Dive, the orb will most likely not hit the opposite platform, so you want to lead it upward to buy some time.

Final tip, pray to Lord Markoth for good RNG! Good luck you got this!

[bboxx]

A tip for the climb phase is to patiently wait for a laser to appear than as soon as it disappears jump to the next platform. It is very slow though cause you have to time it.

[aspenisthebest]

Smaller channels always have the best advice. It annoys me how mediocre videos of how to beat a boss has millions of views when the ones that are actually helpful and helped me win aren’t as promoted

[ezgmez]

Great video! I'm going to recommend it every time I can in the subreddit. It's great. It gave me hope to beat AR and finally get the last achievement.

[Sparda]

the three rules for difficult bosses rules
1. heal per chance
2. dash through not away
3. FIGHT YOUR FIGHT NOT THEIRS
Those saved me on Pure Vessel. I don't like jumping and pogoing like crazy I'm not good at it. I love sharp shadow, so i used it to hit PV through its attacks. It was hard but i did defeat PV with this man's help. Now on my way to the flasy moth

[yousifmohammed]

I had to sub cause your breakdowns are pretty thorough

I've yet to do NKG but I managed to do vanilla Radiance thanks to your words, albeit just barely

[julesvallecillo]

I was beginning to lose hope. Thanks to you I beat her 3 times already ! Thank you ! Now I have to do this in P5...

[sandorrclegane]

Thanks man, this seems very helpful. I'll update this when I beat her.

Edit: LMAOO a few hours later I beat her for the first time in the Hall of Gods, practiced her until I beat her 20 times, then tried POH and omg I did it! Hell yeah dude!

[Zebra_M]

Thanks a lot for the tips! I ended up just dodging and nail hitting this one. Got to about 1 in 3 consistent in practice, then equipped fragile heart & wayward compass instead of shaman stone and blasted my way to the top. Nothing stopping me from getting 100% achievements now!

[Ankhe_Thom]

My friends said that I'm too bad to defeat her. With your "I believe in you" I feel motivated. Thank you :')

[derphunk]

Thanks to this video I finally beat Absrad on radiant.

[diamondrhino]

I've fought her for months and even beaten her double damage and haven't been able to beat her a single time after hours of trying tonight. All I want is consistency. Her inconsistency is the reason she's one of my lowest ranked bosses in this game.

[MrPatrickbuit]

Great guide. I love how there’s lots of footage of every attack so that the viewers get an idea of what you’re talking about.

A few comments/bits of feedback I can give are:
At 8:39 it might be very hard for a player who’s just learning AbsRad to understand what you mean at all. It could have been more useful to show a slow mo replay of you doing it and talk over that instead of just footage of you climbing up.
13:03 the orbs aren’t actually the issue when you’re in the air. The attack that gets you is the vertical sword wall.

[Chizypuff]

I was feeling pretty hopeless practicing this boss, but I saw your Pure Vessel vid and it helped me git gud at him so I came back to see if you had more.
Maybe 10 attempts after watching this, out of nowhere, I reached the last phase and just killed it thanks to that pogo strat. Many thanks, I may just see that p5 ending yet

[theblzr]

nah i actually almost beat PV, NKG, and Abs Rad with this guy. He's a legend. 100% worth it.

[jonathansejlitznakshbandi]

Thank you, this helped a lot. I made it to the final face but died there everytime, your tip is very nice