How to Beat Lace in Silksong: A Guide for Players of All Skill Levels

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Defeat the main antagonist of the game with ease

Co-authored by Eric McClure

Last Updated: October 10, 2025 Fact Checked

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The First Fight

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The Second Fight

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Lace is to Silksong what Hornet was to Hollow Knight—she’s the most important NPC and her boss fights mark the different acts of the game. You’ll fight Lace at least two times over a single playthrough of Silksong, with each fight increasing in difficulty. We’ll break down how to beat Lace so that you can advance and keep working your way towards solving the mystery of your kidnapping.

Spoiler Warning! The first Lace fight appears pretty early in the game, but the encounters after that are definitely in the deeper part of the game, and you may lose a bit of the surprise by reading through tutorials for fights you haven’t encountered yet.

Strategies for Beating Lace

Every Lace fight is a skill check against your patience as a player. Take your time and focus first on dodging Lace’s quick attack strings. Preserve your silk for healing, lay traps, and reposition quickly after getting 1-2 hits in. This strategy doesn’t change for the different Lace fights.

Section 1 of 3:

The First Fight

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Dodge over Lace’s horizontal dash and slash and hit her once. Lace’s first move is a dash and slash. She makes a noise and sprints along the platform before swinging once. As she comes to you, jump and dash horizontally away from her. If you’re close enough to hit her, strike her once before repositioning.^{[1]
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- Basic strategy overview: The first Lace fight is an exercise in patience and positioning. Do not try to chase her. Her attacks are all harder to dodge the closer you are, so focus on letting her come to you. It’s okay if this fight takes a little longer than the average boss fight!
- Why only hit her once? Lace parries very quickly, and sort of at random. You won’t have time in this fight to get more than one hit in, except when you stun her twice.
  - The stuns appear at the end of each third of the fight, so you can pace the fight out in terms of how long it will take based on how long it takes you to stun Lace.
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Dash below Lace’s jumping attack and hit her once. Lace’s second move is a jumping attack where she strikes down at you at a fixed 45-degree angle (it’s the same move you have as Hornet when you down-slash with the first weapon). When she jumps, dash underneath her in the opposite direction. If you have room to hit her once, go for it. Otherwise, step back to reposition.^{[2]
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- The jump attack animation is pretty long, so this is the perfect move to try healing if you need to channel some silk and get some life back.
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Dodge Lace’s flurry of blows attack and don’t try to hit her. The flurry of blows move only occurs if you’re caught standing next to her when she’s ready to attack again. She’ll wind up and fire a bunch of white fists at you. Only attempt to dodge this attack. There is no good counter window, and this attack actually deals double damage, so it’s especially bad to get hit by this one.
- This is another reason to only hit Lace once when you can hit her. If you try to hit her twice and she parries or attacks quickly, it’s very easy to get stuck in the flurry of blows attack.
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Run to an edge to avoid the circle of blades attack. After the first two phases of the fight, Lace will introduce another move: the circle of blades. It’s very easy to see the start of this one since a big light will appear in the middle of the screen. Run to the edge of the platform you’re on to just avoid this attack entirely. There are no counter moves here.^{[3]
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- Attack her when she finishes the circle of blades. The “finisher” for this move involves Lace jumping down and pounding the ground below her. When she does that, dash in and attack her once. It’s a free hit.^{[4]
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Avoid using your ranged abilities unless you really need to. The Lace fight is really more of a marathon than a sprint. We recommend skipping the throwing knives and silk attack. You’ll have an easier time beating Lace if you focus primarily on just following her animations and using melee attacks.^{[5]
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- Why save my silk? While Lace is very hard to hit more than once at a time, she does provide tons of opportunities for healing. You may be best off preserving your silk for healing instead of using it aggressively to try and race her.
Keep taking Lace down in little chunks until you eventually beat her. When she loses, Lace will rappel away from the map the same way Hornet does when you beat her the first time in Hollow Knight, which is undoubtedly foreshadowing her return later in the game.

Section 2 of 3:

The Second Fight

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Get two shots in as soon as you step off the elevator. Lace appears as soon as you find the Cradle via the elevator. She gets up pretty slowly though, so dash towards her and hit her twice for some easy and free damage.^{[6]
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- Build recommendation: At this point, you’ve amassed a lot of crests and trinkets. Here’s our recommendation for this fight:^{[7]
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  - Wanderer Crest with the following trinkets: Weighted Belt, Cogfly, Pollip Pouch, and Fractured Mask. Take the Tacks for your tool.
- Basic strategy overview: Like the first Lace fight, this boss is all about taking your time and picking the right openings. Luckily, Lace’s moveset hasn’t changed much, so this should feel like a relatively easy fight by this point in the game.
Like the first fight, Lace will fire off a bunch of white punches at you if you end up standing next to her. She has another flurry of blows attack now, too: she can launch this attack after jumping up in the air at a downward angle. Like the first fight, we just recommend avoiding her entirely when this animation starts. It’ll still take twice as much damage off your health bar.^{[8]
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This is the best way to deal with Lace in this fight: just down-attack her whenever she finishes her horizontal dash attack. If you’re adept at it, you can even pull it off multiple times in a row using Hornet’s floating dress and butterfly jump abilities.^{[9]
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Beyond the edge of the platform on the right and the left there are actually walls. You can bait Lace into down-slashing towards you if you jump on a wall, hug it, and then wall jump over her. Get some easy hits in and repeat the process on the other side.^{[10]
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Use the circle of blades attack to heal or attack once. The circle of blades attack is identical to the first fight. Simply avoid the giant circle in the middle and wait it out on the edge of the platform. This is actually the perfect time to heal if you get low. However, this platform is also bigger than the first fight’s, so if you end up on the same side as her, you can hit her at the beginning of the animation.^{[11]
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- Can you still hit Lace after the end of this move? Yes! Dash in after she slams on the ground and get 1-2 hits in before repositioning.
The second Lace fight only has three phases. In the third phase, she’ll leave AOE explosions behind her when she jumps, but these are really only a psychological problem. There’s no phase of the fight where you want to be behind her path anyway, so keep doing what you’re doing until you finally knock her out and she leaves a third time.^{[12]
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Section 3 of 3:

The Third Fight

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Find the Lost Lace fight at the bottom of the Abyss. Unlike the first two Lace fights (which you encounter automatically), you have to actively seek out the Lost Lace fight. Get the Everbloom and travel to the bottom of The Abyss. A cutscene will play with Lace, you jump into the dark ocean, and the fight begins.^{[13]
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- Build recommendation: Whatever crest you’re most comfortable on by this point is probably the best one for the fight, but Reaper crest and Witch crest are both probably the best here. For trinkets, we like: Weighted Belt, Cogfly, Pollip Pouch, and Fractured Mask. Shell Satchel, Flea Brew, and Warding Bell are also great. Take the Tacks for your tool.
  - You’ve probably unlocked every silk skill by this point in the game. We’d recommend Pale Nails and Thread Storm for this fight.
- Basic strategy overview: If the first two Lace fights are all about patience, the Lost Lace fight is like a master exam on the subject. You really have to take this fight slow if you’re going to have a shot. Set a lot of traps, evade her moves, and pick your spots carefully to get hits in quickly before dashing out.
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Avoid Lost Lace’s triple slashing attack. Her old horizontal dash has been replaced by three attacks in a trenchcoat. Just dash away repeatedly or dash over her when she performs this move: there’s no realistic or reliable counterattack.^{[14]
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- This is why traps are great here! As you’re running away, lay down some tacks (or whatever trap you brought if you grabbed one). Lace will take damage pursuing you.
- The third slash can be replaced by a jumping spin. If you linger in the air for too long after jumping over the second slash, Lace will jump up at you at an angle and fire a circular attack mid-air. Dash out of the way fast if you see her fly up after two slashes.^{[15]
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Lost Lace’s jump and diagonal dash attack is basically unchanged, and it’s now the best opportunity to get some hits in. When she jumps in the air and holds still for a moment, get ready to move. As soon as she fires down, move out of the way and hit her 1-2 times before repositioning.^{[16]
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Jump whenever Lost Lace parries you. After Lost Lace parries, she’ll (usually) perform her flurry of blows attack that would slap you for two lives a hit. Instead of dashing away, jump up. Dashing away will get you hit 50% of the time because the range on this attack is comically massive compared to the first two Lace fights.^{[17]
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- You may be tempted to dash in the opposite direction, hit her once from behind, and reposition. Avoid this urge, it won’t work. You can pogo bounce on her for a single hit if you’re quick about it, though!
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Dash out or jump out of the tendril attack. Lost Lace also has a ranged tendril attack with a pretty big windup. The range is out of this world, so dashing away usually doesn’t work, but you should have no problem jumping straight up, holding the jump with your dress, and coming back down slowly.^{[18]
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- Lace will also fire the tendril from the air at a downward angle. This is a great time to get a jumping attack in. Dash under her, jump up, and hit her once before getting out of the way.
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Move one step out of the way when she throws fireballs. In the second phase of the fight, Lace will summon flying fireballs that track your position. She’ll also throw out fireballs in an arcing pattern. For both attacks, don’t over-manuever—just move one or two steps to get out of the way.^{[19]
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- Get hits in here if you can! Lace stays still during these moves, so dash in and get a hit before you have to start sidestepping.
In the third phase of the fight, Lace will throw out all kinds of wacky tendril attacks using the shadow pool on the floor. There’s really no overarching strategy here beyond “look for moving black goo, then get out of its way.” Lace doesn’t need to move for these abilities, so just keep your eye out for them.^{[20]
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Seriously, take your time and relax. Focus on dodging, keep an eye on Lace’s animations and sound cues, and do your best to get safe hits whenever you can. Eventually, you’ll beat her and end the game!