🌈kosmender's Hand of the King Guide

💭 General Tips

📃NOTE: This section contains broad tips that will serve you well in all your HotK encounters. A more detailed rundown of each of his attacks and the strategies I suggest to handle them appears later in the guide.

1. Take emergency triage as a mutation.

It's the "sip your health flask faster and get a short buff to outgoing damage, but also get lowered efficacy from the sip" mutation. The mutation drops from The Time Keeper after killing her something like five or six times.

Having this mutation means that, assuming you have enough health to tank at least one hit and you have at least one flask charge, you can sip immediately after taking damage and you'll be back in play for at least one more instance of damage. (If he hits you but it doesn't put you in a bad position, you definitely don't have to insta-sip. That's simply a last resort if he's putting you at death's door.)

2. Preserve your ice platforms.

A key element of mastering this encounter is to keep the fight on the ground whenever possible; this preserves the ice platforms that spawn on each side of the arena. I should say now: many parts of this encounter will be reactive, and some of this advice won't apply if you find yourself in specific edge-case situations. But as a general rule, I try to limit my ice-platform use to:

(a) When he uses his bomb attack, to stay elevated above the explosions.

(b) When I've gotten off rhythm with my parries or rolls and he's in the middle of a lance-attack combo. In that case, the platform is my last resort to avoid damage.

(c) When nasty things are happening on both the ground floor and the ice bridge during the phase when he summons his allies. For example, if there are Disgusting Worm post-death bombs on the bottom floor, but a Slasher who's still mid-combo up top, the platform can provide a moment's delay before committing to either elevation level.

(d) To avoid his attacks that summon the telluric-shock earthen spikes (these include: single lance stab + ground pound // ultimate earthen-spike attack during final phase).

3. Prioritize extra jumps on amulets.

I cannot recommend extra-jump affixes on amulets enough—they're always helpful, but especially so in this encounter. Many of the strategies described in this guide are far easier to accomplish with extra jumps (though they're also quite doable without). This is true for all of Dead Cells: being off the ground level means being a bit safer. In this fight, the jumps help keep you out of the spike pits, above his lance swings during the three-swipe combo, and out of earthen-spike range during his ultimate slam and his lance stab + ground pound.

Attacks and Strategy

1. Opening lance uppercut swipe with long wind-up.

💭 Information: He performs a single upward slash with his lance after a long wind-up. If he holds his lance like he's about to tee off at the links, this is the attack he's about to do. On 5BC, he always opens with this.

💡 Strategy: Roll behind him once he's committed (i.e., once he's locked into the attack animation), and use the attack's long wind-up to put some damage on him.

2. Bombs!

💭 Information: He locks on to your current position and throws a volley of several bombs, tracking any change to player position during his toss.

💡 Strategy: Try to avoid all contact (i.e., player overlap) with the bombs; their fuse times are weird and sometimes it feels like even rolling through one mid-air can make them explode. If I see he's about to throw bombs, I like to thread them evenly and horizontally by moving at a moderate pace across the arena. If that's not possible because of my initial position when the attack began, I try to use elevation to avoid them, either by just jumping or using an ice platform.

3. Dash.

💭 Information: In his earlier phase, he dashes from one side of the arena to the other. Contact with the player will cause some damage and push the player in the direction HotK is running. In his later phase, he does a full "lap" of the arena, running across and then making the return trip to his original position. He's trying to throw your rhythm off and/or shove you into spikes.

💡 Strategy: Even more than with his other moves, the key here is to stay calm so that you can read him accurately. Once you're sure he's about to dash, roll through. It may take some time to remember that he'll be making a return trip during his final phase. That'll come with time.

Though the dash can be parried (and a successful parry will proc any parry-related mutations), I don't recommend it. The parry won't stop his momentum, and I find I prefer the added distance I get from rolling through him. It's helpful to be near the edges of the arena in case he tosses bombs.

There's a bit of hesitation to his wind-up for this move. I still sometimes mix up the dash telegraph with the one for single lance stab + ground pound. These days, this dash is the most likely to hit me of all his attacks.

4. Banners.

💭 Information: He calls down three banners that act as big-blast bombs on a timer. If they detonate on you, they hurt. Because the timers are long, this attack often overlaps with others. He's trying to control space in the arena and split your attention so that you fall prey to one or more of the threats. The banners have extremely low HP, but they are immune to certain types of damage.

Things like electricity emanating from Corrupted Power will not destroy the banners. Great Owls of War won't target the banners intentionally, but their arrows will destroy banners if they connect. It seems like the damage type must be "physical" to kill a banner. (E.g., they won't die to fire that's already burning on the floor the way a minion worm would.)

💡 Strategy: This is a tricky one to articulate, but I promise I'm not just prankin'. The key is to "lightly prioritize" the banners. They're both an enormous threat and a diversion tactic. More often than not, I want to destroy them rather than waiting out their timer and avoiding the explosion. The HotK is a fast bastard who attacks a lot, so being constrained to about half of the already tight arena can be tricky to endure.

Often, the banners will get destroyed organically as part of the general mayhem of the encounter (e.g., grenade blasts, errant projectiles, etc.). That's the easy way. Depending on everyone's positioning, you may get caught in a tight spot without a viable way to destroy a banner, say, on the opposite side of the arena. In this unfortunate situation, it can be wise to hunker down (away from the banner) and hope that he doesn't throw bombs. (Your being confined to the non-banner side of the arena essentially means all tossed bombs would land right on you, leaving you with an arena that's 110% explosion and somehow still 20% perspiration.)

If you're truly and utterly stuck, it can be wise to preemptively sip your flask at the last moment. It's not ideal, but this can help stave off disaster, whether from the banner blast itself or from something else that's about to connect.

5. Single lance stab + ground pound/earthen spikes.

💭 Information: He stabs once with his lance horizontally, then hops a couple of in-game meters toward the player and does a telluric-shock pound. The resulting earthen spikes cover what I always imagine as half the arena's length, emanating out from wherever he landed. He does have contact damage as he pounds down, so you don't want your body to touch his body. It's a very frustrating way to take damage. The earthen spikes and Hotk's body both have weird collision boxes. Assume they're bigger than they look.

💡 Strategy: Either parry or roll through the opening stab, then avoid his body on the downward slam and get at least half an arena away from the spot where he's landing. Ice platforms can be a great help here. If you choose to parry the stab, you need to move fast-fast-fast to get away from the earthen spikes in time. This is a damn tricky attack to consistently handle well.

6. Triple lance-swipe combo.

💭 Information: He does three horizontal lance swipes in a consistent rhythm. There are some factors that can make that rhythm unpredictable and inconsistent: (1) if he's been slowed down for part of the combo but not the rest of it, (2) if he's been combo-breached (interrupted) due to his taking massive damage, or (3) if he's been otherwise changed from his default state (e.g., a bunch of stacked status effects, potential for weird bugs, etc.).

I find this attack relatively easy to avoid if I read it in time, but devastatingly painful if he catches me off guard.

💡 Strategy: The rhythm is consistent, so with a shield you can either do a 1-2-3 parry or some combination of parrying and rolling. If you're shieldless, the best method I've found consistent success with is: roll, jump+jump with a tiny delay between the first and second jump to ensure you stay elevated, then roll again when you land. A demonstration of this technique follows in the clip below.

One of the most challenging parts of mastering this fight is learning how to read the difference between the single lance stab + ground pound attack and the triple lance-swipe combo. I learned through a lot of repetition, and I still misread these two attacks occasionally.

The game clip below demonstrates both of his lance attacks one after the other, and it can be instructive in learning to differentiate them. Thanks to Qualentin for clipping it.

7. Ally summons + ice bridge.

💭 Information: He builds a horizontal ice floor roughly the length of the grass portion of the ground, then summons one elite on each floor, and one non-elite helper on each floor. The pool for these summoned enemies doesn't include everyone in the game, but it includes plenty of nasties: Slashers, Lacerators, Cleavers; they are ready to party.

💡 Strategy: You want these summons dead quickly. One general strategic note here is that you want to be very careful if you're trying to platform-thread yourself between the main ice bridge and the little ice platforms on either side. You can fit through the gap, but it's a tight spot and there's a very real danger of touching one side and auto-scrambling back up (often right back into the attack you were moving to avoid).

If your encounter includes summoned enemies whose influence on the fight continues after their death via bombs (Disgusting Worms, Bombardiers) or projectiles (Inquisitors, Cleavers), take special note of that. Cleavers in particular can be tricky because their thrown axes don't despawn when they die, and that axe’s return trip can be surprising when there's a lot of other activity happening.

Try not to exhaust your ice platforms during this phase if possible. I recommend clearing the floor enemies first, then the ones atop the ice bridge. The ice bridge will despawn and the HotK will return to the fray as soon as the elites die, so do your best to save the second elite as your final kill. Otherwise, you'll be fighting Hand & Friends all together.

If you're ascending from ground floor to ice bridge and will arrive right next to an enemy with a strong melee like a Scorpion, I recommend jumping up at a spot where they'll be facing toward you, rolling through them, and then attacking. Letting them lay eyes on you, dodging through, then attacking gives you more time to work than if you, say, jumped up behind them or tried to lay directly into damage without the roll. Don't get tagged by a super-fast melee attack here, is what I'm saying.

Disgusting Worms are my least favorite enemy here, largely because of their post-death bombs. If you pull a Disgusting Worm on the ground floor, I'd suggest killing them ASAP and hopping to the ice bridge to deal with top-floor enemies while the ground bombs explode. If you pull a Worm on the top floor, I'd suggest clearing the ground first, jumping to the ice bridge to draw the Worm's aggro, then dropping back down to lure the Worm while leaving the top-floor elite alive. Then dispatch the ground-floor Worm, wait out the bombs' detonations, and kill the final elite.

8. Ultimate earthen spikes.

💭 Information: He goes into a "just standin' here with my fist all clenched" pose, charges the attack, and then unleashes earthen spikes that cover the floor of the arena, take a long time to despawn, and have erratic collision boxes. It's a very dangerous attack and it has tanked more than a few of my runs.

He will only do this attack during his final phase (i.e., after the summoning phase). At least at the time of writing, once he gains this ability, he casts it a lot. Very high damage.

The biggest risk here is similar to that of his bomb or banner attack—overlapping threats becoming scarier than the sum of their parts. He wants to catch you with exhausted ice platforms, maybe worried about a lingering banner smirking at you from the corner, and then capitalize on your split attention.

💡 Strategy: My suggested strategy is simple to understand but difficult to consistently perform: wait out the attack's notably long telegraph, then stay elevated for as long as possible.

Having your ice platforms preserved will help. Having extra jumps on your amulet will help. Having a weapon that provides extra airtime with some swiping can help. I can't stress enough that the collision boxes on the earthen spikes are bizarre. When I see this attack, I treat it as if the entire length of the arena is damage at any elevation below the ice platforms.

Alright, that's all I've got. This encounter is a beautiful, complex beast. Please don't be discouraged if it doesn't click for you immediately. With some applied practice and repetition, you'll get it if you want it.

Good luck and happy hunting.

❤

- kosmender 🌈