Stuck on Silksong’s obnoxious big bug boss Moorwing? There’s a cheeky way to kill him in 30 seconds—or skip the fight altogether
There I was in Hollow Knight: Silksong having a pretty good time. I made it through the Far Fields without issues and found myself riding the wind into a whole new area, Greymoor, full of blind mole monsters and dudes trying to snip me in half with giant scissors. Scary, but fun. I beat ’em and ventured west, thinking things were looking up. Definitely not about to have my adventure ground to a halt by a fat bug with an absurd amount of health!
Ah. Well, then. I doubt I’m the only Silksong player who ran into Greymoor’s big boss, the extremely peeved Moorwing, like a sparrow smashing face-first into a sheet of plexiglass. This fight ruined me dozens of times over, and after a couple hours I started to resent it. If you likewise find yourself stuck on the fight and frustrated even after getting through two (or three!) phases of this slog of a battle, then I give you permission to stop wasting your time and kill Moorwing the quick, easy, and 100% safe way.
Consider it just vengeance.
I eventually decided to cheese this fight because:
- It’s possible.
- I felt like I had experienced everything interesting the fight had to offer.
- I knew, based on previous bosses, that Moorwing likely wasn’t even going to drop any sort of reward that I’d feel better having “earned”.
- It’s a really nice day outside and I wanted to enjoy it instead of doing this fight over and over.
Moorwing’s attacks are easily learnable and readable: they’re occassionally tricky, like when he throws out two spinning talons in quick succession to catch you mid-jump. I had a lot of fun initially learning these patterns and remembering when to jump and when to go in for a hit. But this fight goes on for a long time. Moorwing takes a lot of hits to bring down, and after a bit you’re just dealing with the same attacks dozens of times over with no nuance or room for interesting strategy. Just rote execution until you’ve successfully avoided its attacks for long enough.
And that’s when I started to resent a couple of Team Cherry’s incredibly punitive design decisions for Silksong: making every boss deal two pips of health per hit, and worse in this fight, making contact damage from touching bosses also deal two pips of health. Even when they’re stunned.
I feel comfortable declaring that bullshit. Many times in the fight against Moorwing I got just a taaad too close to its body when attacking and lost 40% of my health. At least once I lost the fight because when I knocked him to the ground and he lay there stunned, I dashed forward, bumped the body, and killed myself from the contact. This is a bird! (Or a bug that kind of looks like a bird.) It’s not on fire or covered in spikes.
I’ll accept the contact damage when he hits me with a swooping divebomb attack, but I’m calling bad design on a boss with a body this big hurting you just for getting a little too close to it when it’s supposed to be helpless and vulnerable. So many petty deaths to contact damage soured me on the fight in a way I never experienced even while struggling to master the much more demanding final boss of Sekiro, for god’s sake.
This fight deserves to be disrespected, though there’s also a game-sanctioned way to skip the fight altogether if you can’t bring yourself to win with a cheeky exploit.
The sneaky exploit to defeat Moorwing in 30 seconds
Once you enter Moorwing’s arena, pull a U-turn and head back to the right. Leap up onto the platform with the air current and ride the wind up, then head to the left as if you were going to leave the area. But don’t jump through the exit: hang out in the little nook there. Moorwing will follow you up and start butting its head against the floor. Don’t worry: It can’t hurt you at all.
To kill Moorwing, all you have to do is jump and perform a downward slashing attack into the corner when Moorwing is bopping against the floor. Time it right and you’ll deal it damage through the floor, while it can’t do anything to hit you back. Repeat this long enough and Moorwing will be stunned and fall to the ground; after a few seconds it’ll shake off the daze and fly right back to the same spot.
Rinse and repeat until Moorwing is finally dead.
And no, there’s no reward for killing it. Sure would be nice if it dropped some rosaries, or a mask shard, huh?
How to skip the Moorwing fight altogether: Find all the Fleas
I’m not sure whether to be grateful that there’s a way to completely skip this boss fight, or more annoyed that the fight offers no reward for a win. But if you’re both stuck on the fight and too honorable to win with the strategy above, there’s another solution: complete Silksong’s Lost Fleas quest.
Once you find all of the lost fleas, return to the Fleamaster and accept his offer to ride with the troupe. You’ll then travel to Greymoor, and the fleas will set up camp right where Moorwing would normally be waiting for you to fight it. I’m not sure if Moorwing will return when you progress the flea quest further and they move on, but again, it doesn’t offer any reward other than a notch on your belt and an entry in your monster journal.
