How to beat Puzzle Knight in Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon

You’ll meet Puzzle Knight early on in Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon taking him on in boss form near the end. Despite plotting with fellow newcomer Prism Knight, his duel isn’t a random occurrence like other boss fights in the game. He’s always waiting atop the Scholar’s Sanctum, which means you can plan ahead. You’ll definitely want to do so because Puzzle Knight is harder to beat than any other knight you’ll have encountered by this point in the game. Here’s how to handle his harrowing battle.

First, you need to immediately break the little light bulb that appears at the start of the fight and any time it reappears after that: Puzzle Knight takes no damage while this is on the grid. Next, you need to be constantly dodging Puzzle Knight’s sweeping attack. He swings his compass in a 3×3 grid in the direction he’s facing, so be sure to attack from the sides or rear. Keep your own attacks going as often as you can, because speed is important in this battle.

This is because the grid pretty quickly fills with Crabstals and rocks. Neither will actively attack you, but they take up a lot of space very quickly, making it harder to avoid Puzzle Knight’s attacks. Once the minions or obstacles are nicely chained, take the time to clear them out en masse. Until then, you can focus on whittling down Puzzle Knight’s large health pool.

The other thing to be mindful of is Puzzle Knight’s AoE attack. It’s very telegraphed: he’ll start casting a spell in a large 5×5 space around himself. Stay out of this to avoid getting struck by the magic blast. Puzzle Knight is a difficult boss to beat, but he’s not invincible — so long as you remember to break the light bulb as soon as you see it.