How do you beat watcher knights?

[Teguu]

I've already gotten Herrah and Monomon, so now I just need Lurien. But I can't beat the watcher knights, so can anyone give me any strategies? (And yes, I know about the chandelier.)

[Perseus]

You can easily fill up on soul before starting the fight by using the Dream Nail on the sleeping watcher knights.
If both of the ones you're fighting happen to be on the same side of the arena and they both do the same attack at about the same time, and you dodge them, you should have enough time to heal once, probably twice with quick focus.

I would also recommend doing a few attempts without trying to attack (in other words, just attempting to dodge) to get more comfortable with their patterns.

(This is all i can think of right now, maybe i'll think of others and will post them, but maybe not.)

[Mechanical Lizard]

try to defeat them quickly as possible and focus on only one when there's two at the same time, also if you have descending dark you could use that attack to dodge attacks since it gives some invencible frames and it deals great damage

If you have sharp shadow already, try to pass through them when they are rolling to deal some damage

[sandy claws]

if you can kill 1 before another one spawns, that leaves you an opportunity to get a heal or 2 in. just wait for the WK that's alive to do 1 of the 2 roll attacks, dodge it, and heal.

it's a little difficult to do, but i try to focus the same WK until it's dead then move on to the next.

WK only has 3 attacks though, so with more experience at the fight, it gets easier to predict.

edit: i over-looked the fact that you knew about chandelier, so i took that part out of this post

[Boksha]

If you have it, and aren't already, use Quick Slash. Mark of Pride helps, too. Those two charms are pretty good in most fights, but in this one, they absolutely shine, especially together. You can get multiple hits in before a Watcher Knight attacks and, thanks to the increased range, you only have to take a tiny step back to dodge their counter attack.

[itsfy]

git gud

[Untrusted]

I would recommend getting descending dark and using it when both of the knights are bouncing towards you. You'll do damage and the invincibility frames will let you escape without damage. Other than that, you just need to practice until you understand their movement and attack patterns.

[Teguu]

I see a lot of people (Two) people suggesting to use descending dark, so i'll try it.

[sekai]

Watcher Knight's difficulty hike as a boss so BS the dev included their own in-game cheat to allow you to take out one of the Watcher Knights before the fight even begins, reducing them from iirc 6 to 5 for the actual fight.

You do this by jumping up at the door going into the arena (I'd forgotten if it was at the first door or the second door to the boss arena since I recall there were 2 consecutive doors or something. Could be wrong), there is a breakable roof there. Break it, and go up and you'd get to a chandelier that's breakable. Break it, and it will drop down, destroying one of the Watcher Knights instantly and reduce their number for the fight.

You can do this if they're really too much trouble for you. I know i did.

.......

Otherwise, the conventional tactic is to either be just supremely good at the game to dodge them left and right.

Or you just cheese them. Getting full soul using Dream Nail before going into the fight and then spam spells with a lot of nail slashes when their back is against you to take them out as fast as possible (kill the early one before the next one stands up) is the usual go-to.

.......

A lot of the later bosses are designed like this where you have to deal with constant full screen of stuff and your choice is either to awaken your Mountain Dew engine deep inside your mind or you just have got to cheese it. Cheesing the bosses are fine, the only issue here though is that you might still find some difficulty actually doing the cheese sometimes since the dev is pretty hellbent on making you suffer as the intended gameplay past a certain point and goes out of their way to make most cheese strats theoretically possible with charm combination utterly worthless, which is silly next to all the cool unique charm interactions they put into the game (so most people's charm setup probably just falls into the viable 3-4 combination that actually work with some minor charm swapping for specific bosses). So that's that.

Last but not least, if you can't get past anything and still want to experience the rest of the game. You can just download an invincibility mod and get through the bottleneck and disable it later. People could whine all the want about it, but Hollow Knight is a singleplayer game with no online play. You're entitled to enjoy the game to its fullest in however way you want.

Hell, I doubt people cried nearly as much about that meme mod where Knight's default weapon became an AK-47 which basically make the whole game a cakewalk, but some would be up in arms about a mod that makes you invincible even though both kinda do the same thing.

[Garbage_Collector]

The shaman charm helps: this way you can frequently hit them both a once with your vengeful spirit. So does shadow dash, because you can dash through them when they come at you. Another way you can have an edge is by using the walls: climb to the top, then jump off and use monarch wings towards the center of the room so they can't hit you.

On using the nail: try to hit them twice and get away before they have time to strike you. Also, using your down strike is very helpful against both them and lots of bosses. press down and strike your nail while over them, this will also propel you into the air.

Regardless, watcher knights are very hard. They certainly aren't the hardest bosses in the game, but you have to keep fighting them before you can win.

[K13Cove]

They're somewhat slow compared to later bosses, so as long as you aren't getting pincered by them on both sides, their attacks are easy to react to on the fly. Keep them on the end of your nail when you get an opportunity to hit them so that you have more time to react to their attacks, and so that their own nail slashes are easier to dodge. The "bouncing razor shell" attack they do seemingly has little tracking and sometimes has very little momentum too, so dodging just one of them is a cakewalk. If both of them are doing that bouncing attack, try and weave inbetween them.

Like most bosses, it's a lot easier once you get your rhythm going. Just don't try and rush them like a speedrunner if you don't have the fight nailed down.

[Dark Lord Robo]

get shade cloak it helps a lot in the watcher nights

[Boksha]

Originally posted by Robo_Jumbo:

get shade cloak it helps a lot in the watcher nights

That's cheatin'. ;-)
(but for real, this is very helpful if you really can't get past this fight, as it allows you to get out of tough spots without taking damage)

[Teguu]

I got shade soul. Also, I have no access to the abyss and hornet sentinel is even harder then WK for me. I had to get an extra mask and 4 lifeblood masks just to beat hornet protector.

[Teguu]

Hey I beat them and now i'm going to fight the hollow knight

[Teguu]