Stalking Devout

"Worshippers of Herrah the Beast. Shield themselves with hard plated foreclaws, then lash out suddenly to cut down prey. Powerful, well-armoured and fast, these are no mere beasts. Study their movements and watch carefully for an opening."

Stalking Devouts are enemies in Hollow Knight. They are cloaked worshippers of Herrah the Beast who use their foreclaws to shield their head.

Behaviour and Tactics
Found in narrow tunnels, sleeping. Upon engaging, it skitters back and forth, often waiting in one spot before moving again or attacking. It is invulnerable from the front unless it is attacking.

If their mask is hit, it will immediately retaliate. To attack, it opens its mask, exposing its face for a moment before leaping forward in a flurry of attacks that deal 2 masks of damage. Strike it when exposed and quickly dash away from its attacks.

When approached from behind, it will not attack unless hit. This provides a good opportunity to hit it with a Nail Art or a Spell or use the Dream Nail to get SOUL.

It has no retaliation against attacking from above, so if possible, lure it into a more open room and down-strike on it until dead. Using a Great Slash on its mask will hit twice, once to open it, and one tick of damage while it is vulnerable; be sure to dash away immediately after the second hit to avoid damage. The same method can be used with Dash Slash from certain ranges, allowing a little more distance to be kept from the creature.

Another method to defeat them is to get close to them so that they open their mask to attack and then quickly swipe at their face before dashing away as they begin their attack sequence. This is the simplest and risk-free way, but it will take a fairly long time to kill them. However, combining the Sharp Shadow charm into this tactic can hasten the killing process by simply dashing through it instead of away from it whenever it attempts to attack. If fast enough, striking it again with a nail immediately after dashing through is possible, further making it shorter to kill them.

Location
The Stalking Devout can be rarely seen in the west part of Deepnest and Distant Village.

Trivia

 * The Stalking Devout guarding Herrah's chamber will disappear forever after Herrah has been killed. It will also not respawn even when resetting on a Bench.
 * It is possible that the dream warrior Galien was killed by a stalking devout because of diagonal cuts on Galien‘s face like the way that stalking devouts strike you

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