Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition

Okay, first of all: You CAN fight Pure Vessel without having to reach him in the patheon first.

When you clear the first three pantheons, you unlock Godseeker mode. This is a game mode (select New Game to enter it) where you start in Godhome with all charms and upgrades, and all bosses except Radience already unlocked in the Hall of Gods. You can just go there right away and practice the Vessel to your heart's content.

Now, for the actual fight, this is gonna sound a bit crazy, but... don't jump. At all. I've gotten pretty good at this fight, and I don't jump, ever. I use Sharp Shadow, Dashmaster and Sprintmaster to maximize my mobility, and then I dash through all of his attacks. Yes, you do have to be good at reading what he's gonna do, but he really doesn't have a huge amount of attacks. The lunge and triple slash are easy enough to dash through, and the latter usually lets you deal an extra hit to him afterwards. Dashing through his throwing daggers, you always want to hit him once, wait a second to see if he assumes the parry state, and then either hit him again if he doesn't, or wait for him to drop his guard and then get a quick hit in before he moves on.

The ground pound is a bit annoying with high mobility since it can be hard to make a careful adjustment to your position to avoid the spikes, but you get used to it. A free hit when they go away as well, if you're close enough to him and have soul, an Abyss Shriek is a good option here. The focus attack is no biggie, just back off and throw a shade if you have soul, or get a quick heal in if you need it. Just keep an eye on the boss since he always launches the next attack just before the spheres disappear. If you don't see him, you're usually about to get attacked from above.

The void tendrils are the hardest thing to deal with. When you get to the point in the fight where he starts using them, always run towards him as soon as he teleports. If he uses the tendrils, simply dash right through him, and claim three or four perfectly free hits on his sorry ass. What makes this hard is the timing, but again it's something you get used to. Even if you do get hit by this attack, you can still get a few good hits in, and he should be near death at this point anyway.

I simply didn't feel comfortable with jumping around and pogoing all over the place during this, so for me this is a better, though somewhat unorthdox and certainly quite ballsy, strategy.

Fourth boss is Traitor Lord. Ninth boss is Soul Tyrant. Although a video is helpful, I think some actual advice about Pure Vessel is necessary, just to save people time. A lot of his attacks are hard to dodge on reaction, so knowing his capabilities and giving yourself optimal positioning will lower the threat level. His lunge attack and triple slash attack can be dashed through (much better when using sharp shadow for increased dash distance and damaging the boss). You need to be very aware of whether or not your shadow dash has recharged, as you won't be invincible while dashing if it hasn't recharged.

So whenever you’ve just dashed and find yourself near Pure Vessel, you’ll often want to strong jump away from him after briefly attacking (don’t neutral jump, as he’ll hit you if he goes up in the air to initiate the sword pillars). If you used the dash to avoid the sword pillar attack or the triple slash, or you’ve seen the boss go in to riposte animation, then there’s no need to jump away if he’s close to you, as your dash will definitely have recharged before he can attack again. If ever the boss is off screen (although that’s kind of scary) it really limits what he can actually hit you with. The only dangers are the semi circle dagger attack, but because you’re far away you’ll have the time to see if you need to jump or stay still to avoid the bottom dagger. And the sword pillar attack, so be expecting him to teleport above you. Everything else will miss entirely apart from maybe the orb attack, but there’s ample time to react to that.

It’s only really safe to heal once you’ve staggered the boss, and if you’re going to heal during the stagger, only heal once, you’ll likely pay the price if you’re greedy. If using sharp shadow, if you’re about dash distance away from the boss, and he uses the semi circle dagger attack, you can just dash towards him and attack briefly before retreating with a jump. If you end up hitting the boss (intentionally or otherwise) during his riposte stance, the retaliation can be dashed through. Don’t get greedy while spamming magic during his orb attack. Never use more than 2, and only use 1 if you weren’t already in position to avoid the initial orb. Or else he’ll probably nail your ass with a lunge attack. Also if you’re not already in position to avoid the small orbs that follow the large one, try to walk to a position of safety as opposed to dashing (when possible) as it’s best to have your dash saved for whatever follows.

There’s one downside to using sharp shadow in this fight. If sharp shadow causes the boss to stagger, then depending on positioning you can actually take damage from the boss staggering, which is both hilarious and frustrating, but it’s something you’ll have to just put up with if going that route. If you do end up getting hit at any point, try to make the most of the invincibility and get off several hits on the boss. When the boss has about a third of his health left (something like that) he'll start using that god forsaken void tendril attack, so near the end of the fight you'll want to start jumping away whenever the boss is close to you, even if you have your dash charged. You'll either be far enough away that while in the air you can dash away and avoid it entirely, or close enough to dash above him and pogo on his head. Recommended charm setup: Unbreakable Strength, Mark of Pride, Quick Slash, Sharp Shadow.