So I have finally beaten Silksong, and Lost Lace bothers me.
Now, lemme preface this post with some important info;
I found a lot of the two-mask complaints incredibly unwarranted. I didn't mind how some enemies did two masks on contact damage. I fought the Savage Beastfly and, while he took me a while to beat, I thought most of the issues I had were because they were my own fault. Same with the Forum battle, I thought it's difficulty was well justified. I famously spent until 4 in the morning fighting Last Judge, but that was because I was being stubborn and beast crest is the worst of them all. I was sad when Moorwing and Sister Splinter were nerfed because I felt they were as difficult as they needed to be, and I was especially annoyed when the elder pilgrim's damage was nerfed because they are so goddamn easy to avoid, why would you whine about that?!
With all that in mind, lemme say that Lost Lace is a perfect boss fight with two very,
1. Her teleporting inside you.
I do not mind the fact she deals two damage on contact. She's voided, I would be shocked if she didn't. However, that combined with the fact she can so often spawn *inside* you while you are trying to run from one attack is rather atrocious.
And usually Team Cherry is good at making teleporting enemies not have this issue. Any teleporting enemy either doesn't have contact damage (Radiance), doesn't teleport near enough to you to hurt you (Soul Master), or appear in predictable places so that if you are hurt, it's your own fault for not staying out of that spot (Mantis lords).
But with Lace, oftentimes you are hurt through no fault of your own, and that feels bad for any player for any boss, much less the *final boss of the game*
And I am not sure some sort of tell would help avoid this issue, considering the arena is often chock full of black-on-black-on-black damaging nonsense and she tends to attack out of cover of tentacles anyways.
2. The Phase Transition is long, tedious, and pointless.
The first time it was neat, the void flooding in was a cool way to add to the battle. Every other time though, I was either bored, or debating reloading because the first phase kicked my ass enough that I had no healing and no chance to beat the second phase.
This should be the perfect time to heal and recuperate, and in Hollow Knight it would be. But in silksong, where you have at maximum 2 heals, and every attack Lace hits you with eats away at your silk, your often left with nothing to do except jump over two very easy to avoid attacks and wait for Lace to show her face again.
For her teleporting, I think it would be far more tolerable if she had 1 mask of contact damage, *but* only while she's emerging from the void. This would make it so recovering from a particularly bad streak of luck far easier, especially if you can avoid her regular attacks.
Also, please let me hit Grand Mother Silk during the transition. Only during the transition, mind; she can be completely indestructible outside of that, and she should be. She can have tentacles wrap around her to help illustrate that she cannot be harmed again. I'm just saying that it's be real useful if you can hit her for silk so you can recover the smallest bit for the next phase.
And I am not saying include one or both of these changes and call it good! I am all for making Lost Lace more difficult to balance these two things! Make her have more health during the second phase, make her have a three-mask attack, go wild! I love silksong's difficulty and it's perfect for someone who has mastered Hollow Knight. But I also want the challenge to be fair, and not because of repeated bullshit damage, or time-wasting.