Mina the Hollower ditches the dodge roll entirely. Where most adventure games hand you an invincibility-frame dash, this game gives you a shovel. Burrowing underground is Mina's entire defensive toolkit, and it does a lot more than just avoid damage. Getting comfortable with the mechanic early separates players who breeze through boss rooms from those who burn through their healing supplies fighting the same enemy for the fifth time.
How does burrowing work in Mina the Hollower?
Hold the jump button and Mina dives underground. Release it and she pops back up wherever you've moved to. That's the full input. No stamina bar empties, no cooldown timer ticks down, and underground Mina is nearly untouchable by most attacks.
Burrowing past enemy attacks
The game calls this mechanic Hollowing, and it replaces the dodge roll completely. There is no separate dodge button. If you're looking for one, stop looking.
Three things limit the mechanic and you need to know all three:
- A handful of attacks still reach underground, so you can't dive under everything. Learn which enemy moves require above-ground avoidance instead.
- Lava blocks re-emergence, meaning you can't surface onto it. Plan your exit point before you dive.
- You can't swing a weapon while submerged. The burrow is for repositioning and surviving, not for attacking.
What's the right timing for a clean dodge?
Burrowing too early is the most common mistake. Enemy attacks have visible wind-up animations specifically designed to bait early reactions. Dive the moment you see movement and you'll surface right into the hit.
Watch for these cues before committing to a dive:
- Weapon swing animations reaching their peak
- Charge attack start frames
- Projectile release points
- Boss audio cues tied to specific moves
Waiting until the final moment before an attack lands produces cleaner dodges than reacting to the start of the animation. After a few hours with the game, enemy patterns start feeling like a rhythm you're playing along to rather than a threat you're scrambling to survive.
The ideal combat loop is short: dive on the wind-up, slide behind the enemy, surface swinging. Most boss telegraphs are tuned so a clean dive-then-release puts you behind the attacker with a recovery window open. Bosses with front-arc attacks like the Duchess and the Engineer start feeling almost mechanical once that timing clicks.
Surface behind the boss to punish
Can you parry in Mina the Hollower?
One weapon parries: the Guardian Casket, which is Mina's shield. Tap attack on an incoming swing and it deflects for a counter window. Every other weapon trades the parry for the dive.
The Whisper and Vesper twin daggers are built around the burrow loop specifically. Their fast recovery rewards staying close and surfacing right behind the target. Nightstar and Blaststrike Maul play the same rhythm from farther out since their wind-up wants more room. There is no universal parry button outside the Guardian Casket.
What else can burrowing do besides dodge?
The mechanic opens up a surprising amount of the map. Surfacing from a dive sends Mina higher and farther than a standing jump, clearing gaps that normal movement can't reach. A lot of treasure chests and secret areas sit behind that boost. The longest gap-cross in the game uses burrow, jump, then a mid-air Drill Driver, and that's the route into the Evra secret-boss arena in Septemburg Courtyard.
Save points are also buried underground. You reach them by diving in, which is worth knowing before you spend five minutes searching a room for a bonfire.
Jump into deep water and hold the burrow button and Mina swims underwater for a short stretch before surfacing. Deep water slows the dig, so keep crossings short. This works from the first hour with no item required, and it's useful for cutting across Nox's Bayou and Backwaters before you have the Angler's Raft.
Five of the six warp gates leading to the Astral Orrery also sit at the end of burrow paths, so the mechanic is baked into fast travel too.
Burrow jumps reach hidden chests
Which trinkets upgrade the burrow?
Several trinkets modify the dive directly, and most of them sit behind burrow-only entry points, so finding them doubles as a test of the skill you're upgrading.
- Iron Lung: extends dive time including underwater. Required for the long swims on Moonlit Path in Nox's Bayou.
- Niter Belt: triggers a damaging burst every time you surface. Free area damage that stacks quickly against groups. Won from the bomb-guiding minigame at Sandfalls: Sifted Sands.
- Seismic Belt: press attack while underground and Mina sends a shockwave upward. The dive itself deals damage.
- Oozing Organ: leaves a damaging trail behind Mina mid-dive. Kite a group underground, surface clean.
- Evasion Powder: extra invincibility frames after taking damage and right when you surface. Covers the worst window in the loop.
- Desperation Bonnet: found under a coffin in the Old Graveyard. Spikes your damage output at low health.
- Burning Beastium: buried in a southeast hole in Dead Man's Gorge. Launches fireballs when you get hit, pairs well with the surface frame as a punish.
Trinkets that modify your dive
How does burrowing change during boss fights?
Boss encounters are where the mechanic gets tested properly. Unlike standard enemies, bosses chain attacks and punish predictable movement. Some require multiple consecutive dives before a safe attack window appears.
The priorities shift slightly in boss rooms:
- Learn the full attack chain before committing to aggressive surfacing
- Don't greed extra hits after landing a punish
- Identify which boss attacks reach underground before the fight starts
- Use the burrow jump to reposition across the arena, not just dodge individual hits
Many bosses become significantly more manageable once their attack rhythm is clear. For a detailed breakdown of one specific encounter, the Duchess boss guide covers phase-by-phase positioning and when to dive versus when to hold ground.
Burrowing is also the key to navigating some of the game's more complex areas. If you're working through the Stomach Mines, the Stomach Mines navigation guide explains exactly how the burrow mechanic factors into clearing the path through that area.
For everything else the game doesn't explain upfront, the full Mina the Hollower strategy guides collection has you covered.