Hello all,

I'm relatively new to the concept of speedrunning and looking at the formats/categories here I'm curious if running benches on the main map is viable. I'm going to call the run category Benchwarmer, it'll be longer than any% and shorter than 100+%. With some refinement it may be only slightly longer than all skill. Here's the details that I've come up with so far:

• completion goal is sitting on all benches on the main map, not including the white palace and godhome
• Last bench is the Black Egg Temple
• Skills/items needed: Vengeful Spirit, Mothwing Cloak, Mantis Claw, Lumafly Lantern, Tram Pass, Simple Key x2, Crystal Heart

Possible advantageous charms/upgrades:

• Soul Catcher (near Vengeful Spirit)
• Dashmaster (near Bretta)
• Sprintmaster (req. Shopkeeper's Key, 400 Geo)
• Gathering Swarm (300 Geo)
• Dreamgate (Dreamnail, 900 Essence)
• Nail upgrade x2 (1050 Geo, Pale Ore x1)
• Monarch Wings

With this you will at least need to go through the mantis lords fight, go to the nailmasters, and get the three dreamers. Once I'm a little more versed in routes here I'll be attempting to work one out for this, get splits, and see what run times I can get. Any thoughts on this will be welcomed, let's flesh this idea out.

Here's the full list of the Benches needed (in benchwarp order): Howling Cliffs

• Dirtmouth, Mato Crossroads
• hot springs, stag, salubra, ancestral mound, black egg temple Greenpath
• waterfall, sanctuary, toll, stag, lake of unn, sheo Fog Canyon
• archives Fungal Wastes
• Queens Station, Leg Eater, Bretta, Mantis Village City of Tears
• Overlook (Quirrel), Toll, City Storeroom, Watcher’s Spire,
• King’s Station, Pleasure House Royal Waterways
• Waterways Deepnest
• Hotsprings, Failed Tramway, Beast’s Den Ancient Basin
• Toll, Hidden Station Kingdom’s Edge
• Oro, Camp, Colosseum, Hive Crystal Peak
• Dark Room, Crystal Guardian Resting Grounds
• Stag, Gray Mourner Queen’s Gardens
• Cornifer, Toll, Stag Trams
• Upper, Lower

Here is the list of bosses to get through

• Hornet 1
• Mantis Lords
• Soul Master
• Crystal Guardian 1
• Uumuu
• Watcher Knights
• Broken Vessel (Optional)

I think benchwarmer% would be hilarious and if there are fun skips I feel like it'll work out just fine

sounds like an interesting idea honestly

also, the things you call formats are called speedrun categories, or just categories. they basically say what the objective of the speedrun is

Yeah, I'm showing my Magic the Gathering past there, the tournament types were referred to as formats so that was my go-to nomenclature.

My current thoughts are on which simple keys to get, the relevance of either spore shroom or defender's crest, and if it's worth getting Isma's Tear

As for the keys, I think the one in the city is a no-brainer as it's on the way to/from the storage room stag bench and either the basin one on the way to monarch wings or white lurker as it's close to the pleasure house.

Also, what are your thoughts on skips in Kingdom's Edge using primal aspids? I think they're either on par or more difficult than the QGA acid skip myself.

I would say that the simple key in Basin on the way to wings is probably the most efficient 2nd key. I don't think wings is required at all for the run but it makes Hidden Station and the Hornet 2 bench much easier and maybe even faster, plus wings could be used for movement in other places.

Some other ideas: -Dashmaster might be worth it since you have to sit at the bench near Bretta anyway -Dash Slash could be used to access Shade Soul if the run was done on 1.2.2.1, and could potentially be routed into other places too -Descending Dark might be worthwhile if you went through Crystal Peaks to get to Resting Grounds

I'm not familiar with a way to get to hidden station without wings, might I inquire as to the strat? I agree wings will make the camp bench much easier, no need for aspids there.

I definitely think dashmaster will be worth it, the question is which way to approach the bretta bench, either after the mantis lords or swinging by after getting the waterway bench. It may also be worth thinking about sprintmaster as the shopkeeper's key is pretty close to the crystal guardian bench.

Different versions of the game will certainly create different routes, I'm going to focus on making the category friendly to current version players to reach more of the community. It will be fun to see how 1.2.2.1 will change things up however.

Speaking of version, I've seen some runners posting using the Chinese(?) localization, any specific reason an english or other language might not be preferable?

Getting to Hidden Station without wings requires a shade skip, and is much faster than getting wings.

That’s true. The path to monarch wings might take a while, especially the low equipment Broken Vessel fight.

However, if you went there with the intention of also killing Lost Kin for essence that might justify the trip. If dreamgate was routed into the run it could potentially save a lot of time as save&quits aren’t going to be that viable in this category. If you were going for Dreamgate you could start the category similar to how True Ending starts which would allow for early Elder Hu and maybe other dream bosses too. If you also went for early Tram Pass in dark deepnest, Galien would be directly in the path for some more essence. Add to that the essence from Lost Kin, Xero, and maybe Gorb if you need more, and that should get you to the 900 needed for Dreamgate

Another quick note: People run with Chinese as the language because it has less characters and because it scrolls faster for unknown reasons

I've started to get to know any% and All Skill NMG, a few interesting bits in those might creep in to a decent start of this category in getting Mothwing Cloak, Mantis Claw and Crystal Heart using quit skips to get the early mobility upgrades before the longer bits of bench hunting.

Hi, I would like to ask how will you enter the mode once the route is set?

I personally find it a good idea anyway.

Here is a map of the benches and the Hollow knight wiki site where you will find everything you need to know about benches.

The website: https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Bench_(Hollow_Knight)

Once the route is set the splits will be here so you can put it in livesplit, then it's just a matter of playing on normal mode. You can see the guide to set up the splits on the forum here: https://www.speedrun.com/hollowknight/guide/cg9vl

To clarify what I said yesterday here’s a possible progression for the early game. It focuses more on getting skills quickly than filling out benches in the early game.

1. Vengeful Spirit -> Mothwing Cloak -> Dream Nail -> Elder Hu(+100 essence) -> Mantis Claw -> City -> Desolate Dive -> Crystal Peaks -> Resting Grounds -> Xero(+100 essence) -> Deepnest -> Galien(+200 essence) -> Tram Pass -> Basin -> Broken Vessel -> Lost Kin(+400 essence) -> Monarch Wings -> Gorb(+100 essence) -> Dreamgate

I'm not familiar with a means of gettting dream nail before mantis claw, beyond perhaps getting lumafly lantern which would be quite the amount of geo grinding early on.

I think possibly following the any% route until getting crystal heart might be good with one or two tweaks such as paying for the stags at crossroads/greenpath and using the grounds stag to open dirtmouth station before going for crystal heart.

I might just be unfamiliar with the path to dreamgate, I'll have to look at some 100+% runs to see how the steps are and how they might compare to utilizing the stag network more. I can see the method mentioned flowing nicely, I for one haven't practiced enough to get through any of the spirit champions at low equipment except maybe Elder Hu and Gorb. Also if you're adding Desolate Dive then Soul Tyrant might work here as an option instead of Galien and Gorb. Soul Tyrant would certainly be more difficult.

there’s a shade skip used in true ending to get to dream nail before claw. the way you do it is after getting dash you go to salubra and die at the right side as you would in any%. after that get soul and lure the shade up by jumping. the order of actions is this: damage tank, parry-pogo, fireball, pogo, fireball, pogo. the fireballs are used for stalling in the air so the shade can fly higher than it would with just pogos.

Thanks for the intel, more possibilities to consider and I'm impressed at the amount of nuance this game has in the community between categories.

I've been honing some skill with randomizer runs in 1.4.3.2 since before considering speedrunning, I'll have to incorporate some of the research here into those.

That's a good point about Soul Tyrant. I had initially ignored fighting him for essence because I'm pretty sure that the fight can be kind of long with low equipment (in this case just vengeful spirit, shaman stone, and base nail). However, Soul Tyrant's 300 essence in combination with Lost Kin's 400 essence would be very valuable. Then, the only other dream boss that would need to be fought would be Galien on the way to Tram Pass.

If Tram Pass and Galien were routed early it might also make sense to visit Distant Village then and go through Beast's Den while you're there, as there's no reason to return to Deepnest later when you can really grab all of the benches on the first visit.

This routing unfortunately involves going through lots of Deepnest without lantern. Getting lantern wouldn't really save any time though because you can access peaks with dive, which is needed for the waterways bench anyways.

After some testing I've found the waterways bench is accessible without desolate dive, you can access the bench from below, granted it's not very fast. Moot point however, dive is needed for Gray Mourner. I wonder if it's worth it to gather some of the geo on the way there...

It may be worth devising different paths utilizing different skips, I am rather terrible at dark rooms atm though I have done most of them before.

I would intend on getting lantern before crystal heart if nothing else for ease of deepnest.

Probably a good idea to continue this conversation in the Hollow Knight speedrunning discord (https://discord.gg/3JtHPsBjHD) since every post in a thread like this notifies everyone that is following Hollow Knight on src lol.

No problem! Sorry about all of the notifications.

@theeccentrician I’d be excited to hear how the routing is going on the speedrun discord.