How to beat Cogwork Dancers in Silksong

Choral Chambers continues to be the bit of welcome respite we all need with the Cogwork Dancers boss fight in Hollow Knight: Silksong. Long gone are the horrible Driznit enemies of Blasted Steps and Murkroaches of Sinner’s Road, as we’re back to fighting Pilgrims and eventually, dancing bugs, when faced with Silksong’s Cogwork Dancers.

The great thing about this fight is that the Cogwork Dancers aren’t trying to attack Hornet; they’re dancing with one another and your job is to try not to get in the way of their blades while landing attacks on the duo. To help with that, here’s how to beat Cogwork Dancers in Silksong.

How to beat Cogwork Dancers in Silksong

Silksong’s Cogwork Dancers are, in my opinion, one of the best bosses up until this point in the game. The spectacle of the pair of robotic bugs dancing with one another as Hornet prances around them is just wonderful, and after beating The Last Judge, this is exactly the type of fight you will no doubt welcome. It’s a little bit easier than our prior endeavours!

The Cogwork Dancers will deal two Masks of damage if you come into contact with them but the nice thing about this fight is that they aren’t actually trying to attack Hornet. If anything, it feels like you’ve accidentally walked into a malfunctioning music box that you can’t escape; the duo will dance around Hornet and it becomes your job to avoid their moves while trying to safely land attacks on them.

I found the Thread Storm Skill to be helpful here, but Silkspear, alongside any ranged Tools you may have equipped, will come in handy. These will allow you to attack the Cogwork Dancers from range, without needing to get too close and risk being caught by their sharp blades.

One important thing to note before going into this fight is that you should, to the best of your ability, focus all of your attacks on one of the Cogwork Dancers. This is fortunately quite easily done considering the duo mainly stick to their own sides of the arena, but quickly becomes confusing once the pair speed up so don’t worry about this too much. Either way, once one of the Cogwork Dancers dies, you’ll be in the final phase of the fight, in which you’ll only need to fight the remaining Cogwork Dancer – who will move significantly slower compared to the rest of the fight – for a short period of time before the fight ends.

What happens before you take one of the Cogwork Dancers down, however? Well, there’ll be three phases to the fight before the final phase begins (which occurs when one of the Dancers has been downed). During the duo’s second phase, they’ll get faster, and during their third phase, they’ll get even faster while also now performing out of sync with one another, making avoiding their moves – and an opportune moment to attack them – a little more troublesome.

The Cogwork Dancers three moves that they repeat are as follows:

• Dancing Charge: The Cogwork Dancers will project a narrow stream of light in front of them, before charging in the direction of the light. If either of the Dancers land on the floor, they will simultaneously slash from both sides of their body as they land. Avoid their attacks here and maintain some distance if they are aiming for the ground so you’re not caught out by their slashes. You can then dash over to any Dancers on the ground and attack them quickly before they move again.
• Dancing Duo: A glowing circle will appear in the middle of the arena. Both Cogwork Dancers will dash towards these and then complete a devastating circular blade attack. Avoid this by steering clear of the glowing circle and wait for the Dancers to resume their other moves.
• Speedy Dancing Charge: The Cogwork Dancers vanish from the arena and multiple streams of light will be projected. Use Drifter’s Cloak to avoid the streams of light to the best of your ability, as the Cogwork Dancers are about to – very quickly – come charging across all of them.

Your main opportunities for attacking the Cogwork Dancers are whenever they are standing stationary preparing for their Dancing Charge move. You usually have ample time to get in one or two hits – or use one of your Skills – before they charge off in whatever direction, but be careful that the other Cogwork Dancer is not about to charge at you when you’re attacking.

Similarly, if either Cogwork Dancer charges into the floor as a result of their Dancing Charge attack, you’ve opportunity to attack them once or twice then too. Just be careful to steer clear of them as they come into contact with the floor, because being too close means their blades – which temporarily emerge from either side of them when crashing into the ground – could hurt you.

Aside from getting in your attacks when it's safe to do so, the fight against the Cogwork Dancers is merely a matter of avoiding their attacks and finding ample opportunity to land your own. This is easily done during the first and second phase of the fight, but gets increasingly more difficult as the duo speed up. Focus on mastering avoiding their moves first and foremost, then start weaving in your attacks between their moves.

As far as boss attack patterns go in Silksong however, the Cogwork Dancers beautifully choreographed moveset isn’t too hard to counter all in all, but it is devastating if you’re caught out by them given their ability to do two Masks of damage by coming into contact with them.

The fourth and final phase of the fight is easier than the rest of it, so you need not worry about this too much. Sit back and enjoy what is a tragic end to a brilliant boss fight.

Good luck beating the Cogwork Dancers!

For more on Hollow Knight: Silksong, take a look at our list of all Needolin door locations, as well as all Wishes you need to complete in Pharloom and our Silksong walkthrough.