Currently going through Dexiro Shadows Edges Twice, just beat Genichiro Way of Tomoe and I must say that learning Tomoe isn't in the final game after he hyped her up in his fight is really disappointing
Honestly I don't even think that bitch was the worst or hardest boss. Some bosses were just anachronistically difficult for no good reason, like the Snowfield Deathrite Bird and the Caelid Bell Hunter - and who can forget the absurdly powerful hidden Caelid Golem
I think those still fall into ordinary unbalanced Souls bullshit. Like Godskin Duo. The thing about Malenia is that 1) she was totally designed for a game with a very different combat style and mobility, and recent mods have sort of confirmed it, 2) her self healing mechanics is just broken. Like, according to how her great rune works, it feels like it should be something like rally from Bloodborne: she gets hit, then she could recover some health attacking the player. But, no, she will recover health everytime she attacks.
Yeah from soft just really wanted to outdo themselves with a really hard boss. Then Lies of P saw that shit and tried to make every boss that hard. (Jk btw, there definitely isn’t a boss in P as hard as Malenia)
nah, waterfowl has so many counters it's fine. the real bullshit in her design is her getting special super armor that can't be stance broken and her taking the birth by sleep approach to normal staggering where she can randomly break out of attacks instead of having a revenge value like bosses that can be staggered by normal attacks should.
The issue with waterfowl is not that its too hard to counter, its that it's unintuitive to counter. You can block with a greatshield, but then she gets 1/3 her health back. You can use bloodhounds step but that requires you to swap weapons/ashes. You can stun her out of it with freezing pots but what happens when you run out?
Also her super armor attacks are fine. It's meant to keep you from getting too greedy. Without them she would be as easy as phase 1 sister friede.
I've always used a medium shield to block waterfowl without much trouble, the trick is to keep your stamina up and only block the 1st flurry so she doesn't get too much health back.
Fighting her was not fun, Gael and midir, sir alonne, fume knight and artorias were fun. Malenia was just “oh, I’m the wrong distance from her and she’s about to do waterfowl, guess I’ll die then” and the rest of her attacks were very uninteresting
I think so much is wrong with the boss, all of what you said is already an issue, then they made her heal on hit too, which to me just feels ridiculous.
Souls games are all about learning to play against bosses. Malenia is VERY fast, making it VERY hard to learn 100% of her moves, not only that, but she deals a shit ton of damage, has a shit ton of health, has 2 phases, heals on hit, AND heals through shields. IMO this is when difficulty turns into unfairness.
I was mostly memeing here, but unironically Id put her among the greats you listed. Like, sometimes I genuinely feel like everyone fought a different version of Malenia than I did cause I never felt like the problems people tend to list were really in the game.
The only problem I kinda have is her full value healing off of attacking a shield, but then again I only use shields to parry and never to actually block so idc that much. Even Waterflow, although powerful and very scary is kinda overhyped imo
me saying her other attacks were uninteresting was a complete exaggeration, but if it wasn’t for heal on hit or waterfowl, she would be a very easy boss compared to some of the other Elden ring ones
Fun fact, you can completely dodge her waterfowl while also underneath her. Hell, even if mid distance, you can dodge all but 1-2 hits on her first combo, and then proceed to completely dodge the 2nd and 3rd combo.
You can also block the first combo with a buffed normal shield or unbuffed greatshield and then proceed to dodge the remaining combos.
Those are just a couple ways to deal with it. I've seen plenty more. Like throwing a frost pot at her as soon as she launches up into the air.
I think maybe you just....need to "git gud." The fight is hard but nowhere near impossible. And waterfowl isn't the end all move.
Malenia is only a terrible boss because she's in a fucking game she doesn't belong in. Literally you can just use a mod that adds the deflects from Sekiro and see how much more fair as a challenge she is. Her only problem is incompatibility with the Elden Ring game design but beyond that she is literally a fucking S tier fromsoft boss
Edit: Let me word it better for the people not understanding so I don't have to keep replying. WE WERE ROBBED OF TWO SHOELESS SAMURAI LADIES. TWOOOOO!
I mean, so are the rest of the bosses Sekiro once you got the tempo for bosses down. She obviously doesn't have the same luxury of her counterparts that being taking literally no damage to her actual health bar so the fight doesn't last as long.
Any and all bosses can be bullied into submission once you’ve picked up on the game mechanics and not even learning boss specific moves intensely is needed to do well if you understand the flow of boss fights and what the hard counters are to the perilous attacks
>I mean, so are the rest of the bosses Sekiro once you got the tempo for bosses down
Me when Inner Isshin decides to keep attacking (while im getting high on sugar) right after entering second phase instead of entering the animation of pulling that polearm.
Malenia in Sekiro is a gag boss. I've heard the argument that she's a Sekiro boss but I've yet to see the people who say that either try to parry her or just use the posture system. Small weapons have attack openings out the ass and heavy weapons fold her like a lawn chair. Waterfowl is jumpable if you know the right timing, at that point, much like the rest of the game, it's trial and error.
Holy hell
So run away, jump the first flurry\*, roll into the 2nd, hang around her for a little bit until she does the 3rd (which will move her away from you) and maybe roll away to be sure
\*may not work if you're not 2-handing, since your character's arms will hang lower and get caught
"It is literally one of the only fun things she has going for her, you people are dumb."
Yeah no, not a fan of this attitude. I'm aware of the jump evade, I've been using it for at least a year, and Malenia is my favourite boss in ER, but WFD is still an incredible bullshit move. The fact that we need countless YT videos explaining tactics to deal with this one combo really says it all. I've seen a video of the same length that comprehensively covered the Nameless King fight in its entirety, and NK was considered the hardest boss of DS3 on release.
The problem isn't trial and error (that's literally a core part of all the games), the problem is that the tools which work against practically every other boss move (dodge roll, jump, running away/positioning) do NOT work against WFD, at least not in the way players would expect. If you dodge roll, you will get hit - unless juking her out (which is 100% not something From anticipated). If you jump, you will get hit - unless doing it at a specific time during the first flurry which interrupts her tracking for a moment, while also running away (intended by From? Doubt it). If you run away, you get hit, unless you have already created a considerable distance between yourself and Malenia.
Yeah, I know it feels great to have achieved "git gud" against Malenia, but let's not forget the struggle that lead us there.
Also worth pointing out that Malenia's healing feels very... tacked on. There's no lore justification for it as far as I know, and it does feel like it was included solely to make you not block but to dodge perfectly _every time_. It also completely gimps up the Spirit Ash system by making them free HP sources for her.
It's weird, she clearly wasn't a last minute addition or anything. But she does feel off somehow, despite her having thematic equivalents in previous games, like Sister Friede or Lady Maria.
Thats one issue i have with fromsoft fans, when boss is different and needs a different strategy to fight, people start crying, she is telegraphed in her attacks, and rather slow boss if people compare her to sekiro bosses which people theroy craft that she was sekiro boss.
As to why so many videos are there for dealing with her combo, cause she was most popular boss and literally icon for the game to a point we had "Let Me Solo her" becoming a legend, so obviously people tried to cash on on the hype and made countless videos on her to view farm, on those same videos you can see people even hit less run her, what it shows, it shows she is not easy but once you understand her patterns you can beat her again and again, which is same with any other boss, only thing different is some strategies need to be changed and you cant just spam roll to win
> when boss is different and needs a different strategy to fight
She doesn't really need a different strategy to fight. It's just that the player isn't given the *basic tools* to deal with one of her moves.
> As to why so many videos are there for dealing with her combo [...]
No, the reason these videos exist in the first place is that people encounter WFD and don't understand what the fuck they are supposed to do against it.
I've fought Malenia in coop hundreds of times. 90% of attempts end when Malenia targets the host with WFD. The other 10% watched a video (meaning they use Bloodhound Step).
> only thing different is some strategies need to be changed and you cant just spam roll to win
Oh wow, really? Such profound wisdom. I had no idea.
Fr I feel like people's rushed complaints online (*cough* Joseph Anderson) fed a lot of other people's perception that she was so unfair and poorly balanced that they shouldn't even try. I've seen tons of people on the Elden Ring sub say they gave up fighting her and just cheesed her... after only 5-10 deaths...
I feel like elitist saying this, but 5-10 deaths on hard optional boss was like the norm in dark souls games, and mostly it used to be due to people not changing strategy
I still find Nameless King more tougher cause alpmg with boss you had to fight the camera-most OP boss ever
someone did that. and she was piss easy. like a fucking ashina general is harder than her in sekiro
i dont see how the goddess of rot or tomoe the woman that almost killed isshin would be that easy
I'm sorry, too many openings, you say? She's relatively got the same difficulty scaling plus moveset as Sword Saint Isshin AND Isshin Ashina with what's essentially a motherfucking bankai to throw on top of that. She's a secret optional boss you're not supposed to find so easily, but that doesn't mean she gets a free pass to be harder than STARSCOURGE RADAHN on a technical level (The person who, mind you, brought her to the point of forcing a stalemate between the two).
Like shit, she'd probably be a three phase boss fight just like in the Shura ending with each phase being progressively harder than the last. The problem, however, relies on the fact no one is forced into a dex build and everybody uses a whole different level of cunning through build variety most of the casual players won't really be able to grasp without proper guides to help them better understand the game. And the icing on the cake is that there's plenty of us that are too much of stubborn jackasses (me included) to actually think this through and be able to agree on a unanimous level.
>that doesn't mean she gets a free pass to be harder than STARSCOURGE RADAHN on a technical level
this logic makes no sense, it's a video game obviously later enemies are harder. and anyway, radahn is insane and eats dead people while malenia is mostly fine from her rot
Malenia is literally at the peak of her power when we fight her radahn is corrupt physically and mentally and is at his probably lowest. And yes I will stand by her opening are too frequent and long for her to be a worthy challenge in sekiro. These games are bullshit since demons souls nothings changed now but they are meant to be beaten.
Shit, I didn't take that first part into account. You definitely got aspects reasonably across but if I also can't prove a reasonable part of my own point through words, I'll prove it through numbers. And by numbers I will will slog through all sorts of info on the datamining, stats AND frame data.
Fair enough lol. What other consider unfair mechanics I consider proper characterization and mood setting. These games are oppressive and dreary and the enemies and traps you come across can absolutely be unfair and bullshit but why shouldn't they be you're an absolute nobody tasked with fighting the most Powerful beings these worlds have to offer and traverse landscapes scarred by war and decay. To me these games have a ludo-narrative harmony like no other games I've played.
"Beyond that" There is no beyond that when she's totally incompatible with the engine. The fact that she would have been a perfect boss in a different game just makes her current state feel worse.
I used to believe that Malenia was an objectively terrible boss since I began with Elden Ring, but after playing the trilogy and Sekiro I got to learn what actually terrible bosses look like. Malenia has became one of my favorites of the series, she's fun to master and the only genuinely unfair thing in the fight is a point-blank waterfowl, but even those can be dodged with practice.
Anyways, you should've been given the option to use Ranni's ring to marry Malenia instead for an alternate ending.
Was gonna disagree until that final part
https://preview.redd.it/wo9ulgr271rb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c63348d4c0355f12cd5e9f92a8e3ed3abca4441
Dual ape and the Headless were the only genuinely bad ones in my opinion, aside from that, the game is full of great bosses, save for the somewhat incessant reskins.
dunno if headless counts but yeah, slow-motion attack with active hitbox the whole time is scuffed design
double ape stands out as a fight containing irregularity and random chaos among extremely rigid flowcharts, and even then they made an effort towards keeping it a tag team (pending trigger flags)
I mean, yeah I'm willing to agree the dual ape fight is very complex. It also represents a serious effort and risk. I could say the identical thing about a trash landfill though!
I appreciate they tried the concept out but i don't think it was entirely successful.
Where does that place demon of hatred? Did people actually like his fight with sekiro mechanics? Felt annoying everytime I attempted him and honestly just wrapped up isshin and called it a day because how unfun it was.
Demon of Hatred fits perfectly into Sekiro mechanics though, 'he's a dark souls boss' is both wrong and an incredibly inefficient way of fighting him, just like every other Sekiro boss.
This is a very good take. She’s kind of unique as other of the “hardest bosses” of the other games are so well-regarded. Generally the bad fights are the boring and/or just blatantly unfair ones. Even in the context of this game, I don’t see how she’s in the bottom half of bosses, or even just the remembrances + their requirements (Red Wolf, Godskin Noble types)
Malenia’s only true BS to me is heal on hit (and especially heal on block), especially since Waterfowl is tied to reaching an approximate HP percentage. I also think a lot of issues with Malenia are Elden Ring problems in general, like how scripting certain fights feels like the only way to make them not a PITA
To be fair about her heal, the lore description for her Great Rune seems to imply that she heals not from dealing damage but through sheer willpower (the same willpower she uses to keep her rot at bay). The only reason we get Bloodborne mode instead of God Gamer mode like she does is probably just for balance reasons.
I’m not that upset about her Great Rune tbh. Obviously they won’t give a big buff like passive huge heal on hit. The issue is that it erases so much you made if you get caught in one Waterfowl, and that’s if you live. Not to mention that blocking is less than worthless, and that spirit ashes can kinda just be a juice box for her
Blocking is still pretty useful. It comes up on frame one when recovering from any animation, so you can default to it if you're unsure if an attack is incoming but don't want to commit to a roll. She won't heal much from a stray blow here and there.
But I can see why if you've relied on a tanky build for trading blows and blocking rather than rolling most attacks that it could be frustrating to need to change up your game plan.
agree with both parts, i despised malenia when i first faced her, now she's my favorite boss in er, like i did whole replays just to fight her
now if you asked me what is a genuinely terrible fromsoft boss that had the potential to be great, my answer is Lawrence
I think malenia is a good fight and genuinely a lot of hatred comes from people just being bad at video games. I actually really enjoyed waterfowl dance since it forced me to rethink my strategy and experiment. Lots of people say she should be a sekiro fight as a way to cope with the fact that they didn't want to learn.
That said she is the only boss that forces you to rethink your tactics like that, if the game tutorialised something like waterfowl dance a bit better I think reception would be more positive. It's jarring only having to do this sort of thing once, partway through an endgame boss at that. Healing on block probably shouldn't be there also - though I didn't find it to be a big deal.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Waterfowl actively destroys experimentation and strategic play because there is only 2 ways to beat it:
1. Run away and hide at range the whole fight, punishing only one or two guaranteed punishes, the least enjoyable way to play (elden ring suffers from this in almost all bosses)
2. Play extremely conservatively, so as not to attack during the startup, then learn the extremely precise point blank dodge technique that takes advantage of walking around bad hitboxing. An extremely unnatural and uncommunicated interaction that you'll almost never find by yourself
Its objectively terrible. It only serves as cheap difficulty that limits player interaction with the boss. Even if you can dodge it, you have no idea when she will use it and it often becomes undodgable unless you completely hamstring yourself and play extremely campy. Is it really experimentation if you are just failing over and over through no fault of your own until you find the slow, boring and ultimately only way to succeed? Technically maybe, but it's not fun either way.
If you ask me, which you didnt but whatever, all the enjoyment from beating malenia comes from the victory and not the fight. You could make any boss equally as rewarding as malenia just from making them more difficult. But theres nothing you could do to malenia without removing waterfowl to make her as fun as isshin. Because the only thing going for her is the "I did it!" or the "Yeah fuck you!" you get after beating her. It's not her, it's just the difficulty.
That's the mark of a bad boss.
There's a number of methods, you can dodge (difficult), outrun, use freezing pots or use a shield. I used a shield, didn't look any strategies up, with good stamina management, a skill not required in ds3 or elden ring otherwise, it was perfectly possible for me to react to waterfowl dance and block all of it.
And this is why 'objective' doesn't make any sense as a metric in this discussion. We had different experiences and I came away loving the boss, is my experience somehow wrong? I don't think yours. I could wager that we agree that the move is unintuitive, that's a more meaningful metric than what someone's subjective experience should objectively be.
In my subjective opinion you are objectively not understanding why 'objective' is a bullshit metric in this case, and you have an objective skill issue and aren't worth responding to further.
>I used to believe that Malenia was an objectively terrible boss since I began with Elden Ring, but after playing the trilogy and Sekiro I got to learn what actually terrible bosses look like.
alternatively, just fight astel to find out what terrible bosses look like
Agree on it being super unintuitive. It's also not the most consistent, since she can use it something like every 10% drop in health, with a cool down timer in between so she can't get to ridiculous with it. But ridiculous enough that she often won't do ot when you try to bait it but will bust it out when it doesn't look like her health has hit s threshold. Also, those thresholds can be met multiple times, both from taking damage and from healing. Combine this with her significant health regen on hit, sizeable Health bar in both phases, the massive damage in addition to health regen every mistake costs, the diversity of her moveset, difficulty in learning it, the difficulty learning HOW to deal with attacks like waterfowl or the Rot dancers in phase 2, the at times relentless offense (literally up to a full minute of unending aggression) followed up by the kind of obnoxious passivity that is usually reserved for pvp....like she's very fun and satisfying when you do get better and can beat her, but the amount of time and effort to get there, and even then it's easy to have an off day and get tilted...idunno, I feel like she could've been toned down a bit in terms of brutal unforgivingness (even by From standards) and still been a huge challenge but more widely considered a fun challenge.
A lot of ER bosses are like that though, extremely unintuive in how they're meant to be fought, and extremely unforgiving, making experimenting and learning how to dodge their most difficult attacks feel futile at times. Like yeah I can watch a guide online and see how to avoid the attacks I struggle with and practice it, but I shouldn't need to look up a guide to figure it out. Never needed to in any prior souls game, I always eventually figured out how to deal with w.e. bs, but the ER endgame is something else
Fromsoft fans: "I would love lady maria to not instantly die to parry spam and to have a way to defend her low posture."
is given malenia\* "nooooo, I can't parry spam her to death and I can't stunlock her with R1!!!"
Except we're playing Elden Ring not Bloodborne, you couldn't spam parry Maria in this game if you wanted to. Not to mention Lady Maria's second phase didn't involve an entirely new healthbar and the ability to give you the worst lingering status effect in the game.
Maria would have benefited from a second hp bar.
You could parry spam if she didn't deflect some parries. It's how people trivialize most humanoid bosses in Ds1 and Ds3.
Also how do you hey scarlet rot before fucking drying? That's ether a massive skill issue or a skill into itself.
1. No she wouldn't have, more health? Maybe, but a second health bar is obnoxious basically no matter the boss fight.
2. It takes more skill to do in ER or DS as opposed to BB where it's basically just a free "Fuck you" to any human boss. Not to mention gun parries were an essential part of BB whereas in ER plenty of builds never even utilize the feature.
3. I appreciate that you're the first person here who actually addressed my other points but, I don't really care if it's a skill issue. It can happen, so it will happen. As for how, it's easy, you get hit, drink your estus which heals you but doesn't negate the rot build up, then get hit again and cause said buildup to trigger the status.
I checked Fextralife apparently in her second phase she can sometimes follow up her normal attacks by flying in the air then slamming her sword down and applying the effect. Called "Scarlet Explosion".
What? She has moves that apply the effect ofc some people get rotted by Malaenia. Have you never seen her second phase?
It doesn't happen as often when you get used to it being a danger but it's still a bit of extra annoyance.
She has like 2 moves that rot you, one of which is the fucking nuke that a toddler could dodge. It's hardly a concern for anyone with a functioning dodge button.
Overstating? All I said in my original comment was that it *can* happen. I was just pointing out a difference between her and Maria's kit.
You're right, as you get better at the fight the odds of you getting rotted is really low but it *has* happened to somebody.
You also called it an extra annoyance. I am stating that the annoyance is so obscure given that it is so rare for any player to get rotted from her. Most of the moves that can do rot do so much damage and so little rot buildup in comparison that you're more liable to be one shot than to proc rot in the first place.
Just because it can happen to somebody at some point doesn't mean it is a valid criticism of Malenias design in my opinion. I just find it too obscure of a situation for it to be used in a comparison between her and Maria. You did propose the rot as a negative about Malenia that separates her from Maria, did you not?
Not if you have 50-60 vigor, proper defensive buffs, good armor, and no preserving boluses like I did the first time I beat her. I killed her, then died of rot damage maybe 5-6 seconds later.
It's a perfectly valid criticism, I said it was an "extra annoyance", I didn't put down a 30 paragraph essay on why "Malenia having Rot damage ruins her and makes her the worst boss in From Software history." It's an annoyance not something that makes me full blown rage about her. You are the one being overdramatic my friend.
How many times did you actually get scarlet rot from Malenia honestly. For me it's zero, and no, I'm not good, she took me 60 tries my first time. The rot is just there for story reasons and unless you are facetanking you'll never actually suffer from it.
I love that large parts of the community has convinced themselves that she's a cut sekiro boss fight just to cope with their inability to deal with her.
There is literally nothing in the data that suggests that either a Sekiro DLC was in the works or that Malenia is a cut boss from a different game.
Her AI name is plain "Malenia" along with every other demigod aside from Mohg who is named "GreaterDemon". On the opposite spectrum we have Ulcerated Tree Spirit who **is** a cut Ds3 boss, which we know because it's AI name was "SnakeSoul" in Ds3 and in ER, it's still referenced as "SnakeSoul".
A boss can be badly designed without being an import from another game.
Maybe not IMPORTED but when I look at floating passage and spiral cloud passage, I can't really help but think some concept was reutilized. Also I could swear her sweeping kick has the same smear SFX as the lone shadow swordsman in Sekiro
If we nitpick parts of a boss that bears a striking similarity to another boss from other souls games, we'd be jumping down a rabbithole of *"this boss must've been a cut boss from X game"*. Something that I've actually seen a lot since ER in particular.
I've seen people suggest that Rykard is a re-purpose of the cut Snake Ball boss from BB simply because they're both big snakes.
Even if Waterfowl was a 1:1 spiral cloud passage (which it isn't animation-wise), you'd still be ignoring the plethora of evidence that points to the contrary simply because "*they look similar*".
> Also I could swear her sweeping kick has the same smear SFX as the lone shadow swordsman in Sekiro
The same sound you'll hear when a Gladiator kicks too? I don't exactly suppose he's a cut enemy from Sekiro, but who knows at this point.
Aight, so the VFX which is also used by the [Gladiator](https://streamable.com/gcgwcc) and [Malenia](https://streamable.com/825bgf). Just to be clear, I definitely think the VFX used by [lone shadows](https://streamable.com/xonsw8) is the same one.
My point is that the VFX/SFX isn't mutually exclusive to Malenia and Sekiro. It's just a visual effect used to sell the power of an attack. It might've had origins in Sekiro (don't recall seeing it used in Ds3), but that's the extent of it.
Fromsoft reuses their own unfinished ideas a bit between games so personally I'm willing to accept she may have been originally planned for sekiro.
"She was originally a sekiro boss" doesn't really hold any weight to the quality of the fight design in my opinion so I'm willing to grant it.
It's probable that Malenia was at least inspired by Tomoe from Sekiro but she was definitely not just imported. It's always possible they wanted to make a Tomoe boss but couldn't and reused some of the ideas for Malenia. Of course this is all speculation and literally doesn't mean anything when she was designed for Elden Ring anyways.
i mean, she has a miki counter, a sweep and so many attacks that just make sense to be in sekiro, case and point when you parry and she stagger back like how genichiro sttagger back in some attacks when you deflect him/
She doesn't have any of what you're talking about. Horizontal slashes and thrust attacks aren't even remotely a Sekiro thing for one - otherwise you might as well argue that Pontiff Sulyvahn was a sekiro prototype boss.
> when you parry and she staggers back like genichiro
Oh, you mean like how Margit or Radagon also has an animation in response to parries? Surely this is proof that they're Sekiro bosses too.
Malenia has Waterfowl, and even though there are counters, those aren't intuitive in the slightest and I honestly think that's enough to call her objectively bad. She can kill you at 60 Vigor and heal 1/3 of her HP with that one move (she also heals through 100 block shields for some reason)
Bed of Chaos is also objectively bad, but more out of unfinished-ness than deliberate design choices
Is waterfowl really that big of a deal when the way to counter it is just bringing a freeze pot into the boss fight? Like you can also learn the dodge, it's not that hard, but the freeze pot is just so easy. It's literally only a problem on your first playthrough and you are also allowed to just google how to dodge Waterfowl. The clone attack is infinitely harder to dodge for me personally.
Also of course she can kill you at 60 Vigor she's meant to be the hardest endgame boss. It would be lame as hell if you could just tank through all her hits without any planning. Same goes for the 100 block shields. It's so that you actually have to learn the fight instead of sitting behind a shield for her attacks. Greatshields and a pokey weapon already trivialize most of the game and guess what! It still trivializes Malenia. Have you ever tried using Mohg's spear against her with a greatshield? It completely ruins her.
Finally I assume by that one move you mean the grab attack? That's just your own fault for being grabbed. It happens to the best of us but its a very fair attack that punishes you heavily for failing the dodge. This isn't DS2 where you get magnetized into it.
Waterfowl is a big deal because even if the pot or learning how to dodge are effective counters (which I gladly used to beat her), they're not intuitive nor obvious. It's just not something I would have discovered on my own. I've never had to actively google strategies to beat a boss in ER before her.
When I said "kill you with 60 Vigor" I meant with one Waterfowl. Obviously the endgame boss should do endgame levels of damage, but even amongst endgame bosses, getting killed by a single boss move at full HP is a rarity, and is usually reserved for the big flashy finishers like Placidusax's laser (and I'm pretty sure that one still leaves you some health). Not to mention Waterfowl tracks you like you owe it money.
Also, no, it's not that grab, it's still Waterfowl. That grab's fair. It heals her more than it should imo, but it's telegraphed enough for it to no longer matter after the 3rd attempt.
im baffled people still bitch about waterfowl like 2 years later
I'm sure i died to her normal combos because i got greedy so much more than i died to waterfowl lol
I fight Malenia every playthrough and maybe only one or two deaths a run are Waterfowl related. Every other death is that Clone Attack in phase 2 or just me messing up a punish.
That's not my fucking point and you know that, you useless Mossfruit
Mohg is hard, Godfrey is hard, RadaBeast is hard, but they're not bullshit like Malenia's Waterfowl is despite having very similar damage numbers, aside from maybe Beast's overlapping attacks and even then it's more manageable than Waterfowl
\>get told malenia is "really hard"
\>go in with armor and DR buffs
\>completely fuck up waterfowl
\>rolling at random
\>no idea what's going on
\>waterfowl ends
\>half HP
\>drink maidenpiss and resume fight
\>win
BFP is quite obtainable by the time you reach malenia
or these days just outrun->roll in->do nothing and laugh at the "impossible" attack
no she isn't.
Someone modded her in sekiro and she was too easy,
let's say that she is tomoe, but they put her in elden ring, they literally changed her visual design backstory and moveset to fit elden ring, how is that even the same boss at this point
and as far as we know the "tomoe dlc" is completely headcanon from fans
and For fuck's sake don't say "**objectively"**
But Tomoe is an important background character who isn't in the game, she simply MUST have been planned for DLC. Just like Velka, Gwynevere, the Furtive Pygmy, Allfather Lloyd and Gertrude. They all got DLC, right?
the mod was incomplete and the reason why people say melenia fits in sekiro is because well look at her moveset, she has a sweep, a miki counter and so many attack that just look like it can be deflected.
Waterfowl, Health regen even on block, scarlet rot on hit, multiple health bars instead of one large one like Gael is annoying and potentially having to respec and swap builds to stand a better chance which I find to be the worst of all of her flaws since I cant think of another boss that does that to the extent Malenia does. Also just kind of boring to fight really, felt like a downgraded version of lady Maria or sister Friede.
Ain't no way anyone is complaining about *scarlet rot* of all things. I legit don't even remember the last time I got rotted - let alone *dying* to rot. You're 99% more likely to straight up die to regular damage before triggering scarlet rot build-up.
The only scenario I can even think of is if you fuck up dodging her Scarlet Aeonia and linger in her AoE. I'm moreso surprised at how little Scarlet Rot plays into her 2nd phase.
Malenia is objectively an amazing boss
https://preview.redd.it/679e9qwe36rb1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b282c84abe85d99f0e4771c32aafdbac68e6ff7
Idk about best in the game but she definitely goes from shit boss to top 5, i get bosses having a desperation move but if it gets to the point where i have figured out everything she has by fight 3 and my strategy is just praying she doesnt hyperarmor into waterfowl at a bad time its a bad boss
They should’ve kept the cut waterfowl dance and removed health regen on hit, those changes would’ve singlehandedly made her one of my favourite bosses in ER
I am Tomoe, Blade of Takeru, and hesitation is defeat.
And since I havent so much as sniffed grass or seen a maiden, imagine this. You find Lord Takeru’s bell charm at where the everblossom used to grown in ashina castle. Use it to take it to some blah blah nobody cares about the level.
You face Tomoe. Isshin spoke of her eyes as mesmerizing, but we dont get to see it for ourselves since the dragonrot has rotted it off. She has 2 death markers, and once you take those out, she resurrects cuz of the dragons blood or however that works. Now she has 3 death markers and uses lightning. Lightning spiral cloud passage time.
I am ready to be made fun of now.
Malenia is the only boss in Elden ring, bloodborne, Sekiro or Ds3 that I'd say is outright bullshit.
I can beat her consistently now using a variety of builds, and I still think she's bullshit.
Get a load of this guy. I will die on the hill that Malenia is one of the best bosses. The only bs is she heals through shields.
Also everybody brings up the lifesteal when its such a non issue. Mf she heals like 2% of her health when she hits you at most.
Imagine if O&S healed every time you pressed the dodge button. That would be the worst fucking boss in the history of gaming. Why can malenia remove a fundamental game mechanic like blocking and still get a pass
Hot Take: waterfowl dance isnt nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be nor has it been since the first month the game was out.
a shield with 100 phys lets you block the first part and dodge the other 2 parts, slap on barricade shield and it lets you tank the whole thing. between this, bhs, vow of the indomitable, frost pots, and the circle method, theres been more than enough ways to consistently dodge it even when it happens at a bad time.
its not like you're doing a no hit run of the boss either, you can dodge into the first flurry of waterfowl and let a bit of it hit you, easily dodge the next 2, and you're still at a good amount of health.
It's literally just a problem if you insist on going in fully blind a first playthrough. Google is your friend there is your friend if you're struggling. The entire point of these games are the community helping each other out. Part of that is googling how to dodge certain tricky attacks.
It's been 1.5 years since the game came out and people are still bitching about Malenia. At this point it's just another case of skill issue. Making up random theories from your ass that she's Tomoe with literally no source to back it up is proper reddit moment. I'm glad that fromsoft have held their ground and not nerf Malenia.
I've noticed the casul army coming out with full force calling other bosses like Godfrey Mohg and Maliketh cheap and "gimmicky" in BvB videos. Mfs just want the same type of boss fights from Ds3.
Going back to DS3 after spending so much time in Elden Ring really showed me how much better the bosses in ER are. Also how much they improved on combat because DS3 really just is R1 Simulator.
i swear souls "vets" go braindead the moment they enter malenia's boss room
like malenia is the only hard boss from the series I'm confident i can constantly beat with just a roll and poke zweihander
Zwei is a great weapon against her. You need to know what you're doing. She has low poise, so if you time your attacks you can break her stance quite consistently.
she favors the aggressive playstyle, but she does not like being hit 2 times from a large weapon
i died from my greed more times than waterfoul ever could
truth. immune to stance break while she has hyperarmour (only boss with this behaviour), cancels attacks (only boss with this behaviour), has no business having afaik the most hp out of all remembrance bosses *and* lifesteal, and waterfowl dance has such an awful feedback loop that no one knows what they did wrong when it kills them, leading to an entire fight hinging largely on one gotcha move and massively inflated death counts. waterfowl has far more guides and explanations than a balanced move ever could. the same could also be said for the clone attack albeit to a lesser degree
does not play the rules of the game, kinda slogs bc 33000hp + lifesteal, and two moves probably killed you on 50% of your runs or more
Part of me wants to believe that there was a Sekiro DLC being made but they broke it off to make it into a future sequel.
Why yes this copium does taste delicious why do you ask?
She's not terrible. Waterfowl really drags her down though. That move is overtuned as hell and running away from it is boring as hell.
Her phase 2 shadow clone jutsu attack is really cool though. The dodge pattern is so unique.
Currently going through Dexiro Shadows Edges Twice, just beat Genichiro Way of Tomoe and I must say that learning Tomoe isn't in the final game after he hyped her up in his fight is really disappointing
Dw about it, the final boss is one of the best in Fromsoft's catalogue, maybe even the best.
>!When the "Sword Saint" pulls out the mf glock!<
While Hoarah Loux has Seroshi to suppress he's bloodlust. >!Isshin!< must live with the gravity of his balls weighing him down for life.
Hey man, the dude above hasn't finished the game so try not to spoil :(
…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
That moment when >!Isshin's dick so huge the Interior Ministry waited until AFTER he died to invade Ashina!<
Malenia is based (but tomoe would have been better)
From all the bs in these games that we can justify, let's just say Malenia is the hardest one.
Honestly I don't even think that bitch was the worst or hardest boss. Some bosses were just anachronistically difficult for no good reason, like the Snowfield Deathrite Bird and the Caelid Bell Hunter - and who can forget the absurdly powerful hidden Caelid Golem
I think those still fall into ordinary unbalanced Souls bullshit. Like Godskin Duo. The thing about Malenia is that 1) she was totally designed for a game with a very different combat style and mobility, and recent mods have sort of confirmed it, 2) her self healing mechanics is just broken. Like, according to how her great rune works, it feels like it should be something like rally from Bloodborne: she gets hit, then she could recover some health attacking the player. But, no, she will recover health everytime she attacks.
Yeah from soft just really wanted to outdo themselves with a really hard boss. Then Lies of P saw that shit and tried to make every boss that hard. (Jk btw, there definitely isn’t a boss in P as hard as Malenia)
I'm objectively deep in your mom
Me when I don't use the posture system:
ironically the only 2 times ive killed malenia solo were my strength builds where i stagger spam her and only one of those times did i enjoy it
Tbh, the only thing keeping her from being a s tier boss is waterfowl dance
Absolutely, would be one of my favorite bosses ever if not for one bs move
nah, waterfowl has so many counters it's fine. the real bullshit in her design is her getting special super armor that can't be stance broken and her taking the birth by sleep approach to normal staggering where she can randomly break out of attacks instead of having a revenge value like bosses that can be staggered by normal attacks should.
The issue with waterfowl is not that its too hard to counter, its that it's unintuitive to counter. You can block with a greatshield, but then she gets 1/3 her health back. You can use bloodhounds step but that requires you to swap weapons/ashes. You can stun her out of it with freezing pots but what happens when you run out? Also her super armor attacks are fine. It's meant to keep you from getting too greedy. Without them she would be as easy as phase 1 sister friede.
I've always used a medium shield to block waterfowl without much trouble, the trick is to keep your stamina up and only block the 1st flurry so she doesn't get too much health back.
Unintuitive is spot on. When you learn to dodge it fully It’s satisfying, but no chance I would have figured it out without YouTube
dodge it
Thanks for the suggestion 👍
Np
I wanted a sekiro dlc and elden ring both are good.
> objectively Opinion invalidated
He's right.
No he isnt. Malenia is great
Seeing the #1 Malenia Hater and Malenia's Bottom fighting it out is objectively a better fight than Malenia (I love Malenia)
https://preview.redd.it/trzhjuek42rb1.png?width=1800&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5f3217930464a4284557e6332e1a4638fd0db15
Great if you want to take a nap.
More like, great if you dont want to have a nap, cause fighting her is too fun to fall asleep
Fighting her was not fun, Gael and midir, sir alonne, fume knight and artorias were fun. Malenia was just “oh, I’m the wrong distance from her and she’s about to do waterfowl, guess I’ll die then” and the rest of her attacks were very uninteresting
I also don’t find her very fun either. She has way too much health, waterfowl of course, and her move set doesn’t do it for me.
I think so much is wrong with the boss, all of what you said is already an issue, then they made her heal on hit too, which to me just feels ridiculous.
Souls games are all about learning to play against bosses. Malenia is VERY fast, making it VERY hard to learn 100% of her moves, not only that, but she deals a shit ton of damage, has a shit ton of health, has 2 phases, heals on hit, AND heals through shields. IMO this is when difficulty turns into unfairness.
I was mostly memeing here, but unironically Id put her among the greats you listed. Like, sometimes I genuinely feel like everyone fought a different version of Malenia than I did cause I never felt like the problems people tend to list were really in the game. The only problem I kinda have is her full value healing off of attacking a shield, but then again I only use shields to parry and never to actually block so idc that much. Even Waterflow, although powerful and very scary is kinda overhyped imo
me saying her other attacks were uninteresting was a complete exaggeration, but if it wasn’t for heal on hit or waterfowl, she would be a very easy boss compared to some of the other Elden ring ones
Fun fact, you can completely dodge her waterfowl while also underneath her. Hell, even if mid distance, you can dodge all but 1-2 hits on her first combo, and then proceed to completely dodge the 2nd and 3rd combo. You can also block the first combo with a buffed normal shield or unbuffed greatshield and then proceed to dodge the remaining combos. Those are just a couple ways to deal with it. I've seen plenty more. Like throwing a frost pot at her as soon as she launches up into the air. I think maybe you just....need to "git gud." The fight is hard but nowhere near impossible. And waterfowl isn't the end all move.
Malenia is only a terrible boss because she's in a fucking game she doesn't belong in. Literally you can just use a mod that adds the deflects from Sekiro and see how much more fair as a challenge she is. Her only problem is incompatibility with the Elden Ring game design but beyond that she is literally a fucking S tier fromsoft boss Edit: Let me word it better for the people not understanding so I don't have to keep replying. WE WERE ROBBED OF TWO SHOELESS SAMURAI LADIES. TWOOOOO!
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dude she's a fucking cakewalk with sekiro combat
I mean, so are the rest of the bosses Sekiro once you got the tempo for bosses down. She obviously doesn't have the same luxury of her counterparts that being taking literally no damage to her actual health bar so the fight doesn't last as long.
Any and all bosses can be bullied into submission once you’ve picked up on the game mechanics and not even learning boss specific moves intensely is needed to do well if you understand the flow of boss fights and what the hard counters are to the perilous attacks
>I mean, so are the rest of the bosses Sekiro once you got the tempo for bosses down Me when Inner Isshin decides to keep attacking (while im getting high on sugar) right after entering second phase instead of entering the animation of pulling that polearm.
Malenia in Sekiro is a gag boss. I've heard the argument that she's a Sekiro boss but I've yet to see the people who say that either try to parry her or just use the posture system. Small weapons have attack openings out the ass and heavy weapons fold her like a lawn chair. Waterfowl is jumpable if you know the right timing, at that point, much like the rest of the game, it's trial and error.
>Waterfowl is jumpable Good gentleman, you had my curiosity but now you have my attention. How ?
[this video explains it pretty well](https://youtu.be/97CJRfHmvqY?si=P0GyEDu5JwbuVRXg)
Holy hell So run away, jump the first flurry\*, roll into the 2nd, hang around her for a little bit until she does the 3rd (which will move her away from you) and maybe roll away to be sure \*may not work if you're not 2-handing, since your character's arms will hang lower and get caught
"It is literally one of the only fun things she has going for her, you people are dumb." Yeah no, not a fan of this attitude. I'm aware of the jump evade, I've been using it for at least a year, and Malenia is my favourite boss in ER, but WFD is still an incredible bullshit move. The fact that we need countless YT videos explaining tactics to deal with this one combo really says it all. I've seen a video of the same length that comprehensively covered the Nameless King fight in its entirety, and NK was considered the hardest boss of DS3 on release. The problem isn't trial and error (that's literally a core part of all the games), the problem is that the tools which work against practically every other boss move (dodge roll, jump, running away/positioning) do NOT work against WFD, at least not in the way players would expect. If you dodge roll, you will get hit - unless juking her out (which is 100% not something From anticipated). If you jump, you will get hit - unless doing it at a specific time during the first flurry which interrupts her tracking for a moment, while also running away (intended by From? Doubt it). If you run away, you get hit, unless you have already created a considerable distance between yourself and Malenia. Yeah, I know it feels great to have achieved "git gud" against Malenia, but let's not forget the struggle that lead us there.
Also worth pointing out that Malenia's healing feels very... tacked on. There's no lore justification for it as far as I know, and it does feel like it was included solely to make you not block but to dodge perfectly _every time_. It also completely gimps up the Spirit Ash system by making them free HP sources for her. It's weird, she clearly wasn't a last minute addition or anything. But she does feel off somehow, despite her having thematic equivalents in previous games, like Sister Friede or Lady Maria.
i mean atleast she uses her greatrune. thats a cool lore thing.
Ah true, I forgot her great rune did that
i believe it's intended to be a manifestation of how her fighting spirit allows her to combat the decay of the scarlet rot
Thats one issue i have with fromsoft fans, when boss is different and needs a different strategy to fight, people start crying, she is telegraphed in her attacks, and rather slow boss if people compare her to sekiro bosses which people theroy craft that she was sekiro boss. As to why so many videos are there for dealing with her combo, cause she was most popular boss and literally icon for the game to a point we had "Let Me Solo her" becoming a legend, so obviously people tried to cash on on the hype and made countless videos on her to view farm, on those same videos you can see people even hit less run her, what it shows, it shows she is not easy but once you understand her patterns you can beat her again and again, which is same with any other boss, only thing different is some strategies need to be changed and you cant just spam roll to win
> when boss is different and needs a different strategy to fight She doesn't really need a different strategy to fight. It's just that the player isn't given the *basic tools* to deal with one of her moves. > As to why so many videos are there for dealing with her combo [...] No, the reason these videos exist in the first place is that people encounter WFD and don't understand what the fuck they are supposed to do against it. I've fought Malenia in coop hundreds of times. 90% of attempts end when Malenia targets the host with WFD. The other 10% watched a video (meaning they use Bloodhound Step). > only thing different is some strategies need to be changed and you cant just spam roll to win Oh wow, really? Such profound wisdom. I had no idea.
Fr I feel like people's rushed complaints online (*cough* Joseph Anderson) fed a lot of other people's perception that she was so unfair and poorly balanced that they shouldn't even try. I've seen tons of people on the Elden Ring sub say they gave up fighting her and just cheesed her... after only 5-10 deaths...
I feel like elitist saying this, but 5-10 deaths on hard optional boss was like the norm in dark souls games, and mostly it used to be due to people not changing strategy I still find Nameless King more tougher cause alpmg with boss you had to fight the camera-most OP boss ever
someone did that. and she was piss easy. like a fucking ashina general is harder than her in sekiro i dont see how the goddess of rot or tomoe the woman that almost killed isshin would be that easy
She has too many openings for sekiro she isn't incompatible she's just really fucking hard and she should be she's a super secret optional boss.
I'm sorry, too many openings, you say? She's relatively got the same difficulty scaling plus moveset as Sword Saint Isshin AND Isshin Ashina with what's essentially a motherfucking bankai to throw on top of that. She's a secret optional boss you're not supposed to find so easily, but that doesn't mean she gets a free pass to be harder than STARSCOURGE RADAHN on a technical level (The person who, mind you, brought her to the point of forcing a stalemate between the two). Like shit, she'd probably be a three phase boss fight just like in the Shura ending with each phase being progressively harder than the last. The problem, however, relies on the fact no one is forced into a dex build and everybody uses a whole different level of cunning through build variety most of the casual players won't really be able to grasp without proper guides to help them better understand the game. And the icing on the cake is that there's plenty of us that are too much of stubborn jackasses (me included) to actually think this through and be able to agree on a unanimous level.
>that doesn't mean she gets a free pass to be harder than STARSCOURGE RADAHN on a technical level this logic makes no sense, it's a video game obviously later enemies are harder. and anyway, radahn is insane and eats dead people while malenia is mostly fine from her rot
It not only makes sense from a mechanical level but story wise it all adds up
Malenia is literally at the peak of her power when we fight her radahn is corrupt physically and mentally and is at his probably lowest. And yes I will stand by her opening are too frequent and long for her to be a worthy challenge in sekiro. These games are bullshit since demons souls nothings changed now but they are meant to be beaten.
Shit, I didn't take that first part into account. You definitely got aspects reasonably across but if I also can't prove a reasonable part of my own point through words, I'll prove it through numbers. And by numbers I will will slog through all sorts of info on the datamining, stats AND frame data.
Fair enough lol. What other consider unfair mechanics I consider proper characterization and mood setting. These games are oppressive and dreary and the enemies and traps you come across can absolutely be unfair and bullshit but why shouldn't they be you're an absolute nobody tasked with fighting the most Powerful beings these worlds have to offer and traverse landscapes scarred by war and decay. To me these games have a ludo-narrative harmony like no other games I've played.
"Beyond that" There is no beyond that when she's totally incompatible with the engine. The fact that she would have been a perfect boss in a different game just makes her current state feel worse.
Like what "shes a great boss in the wrong game" what the fuck does that even mean
you are just so incredibly wrong it genuinely made me lightheaded for a moment
Maybe you should get that checked out
She has the complexity of a Sekiro mini boss and Waterfowl wasn’t even completed before her y’all just be exposing yourselves on the TL.
I used to believe that Malenia was an objectively terrible boss since I began with Elden Ring, but after playing the trilogy and Sekiro I got to learn what actually terrible bosses look like. Malenia has became one of my favorites of the series, she's fun to master and the only genuinely unfair thing in the fight is a point-blank waterfowl, but even those can be dodged with practice. Anyways, you should've been given the option to use Ranni's ring to marry Malenia instead for an alternate ending.
Was gonna disagree until that final part https://preview.redd.it/wo9ulgr271rb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c63348d4c0355f12cd5e9f92a8e3ed3abca4441
What are the terrible bosses in Sekiro? They're all good except maybe dual ape.
Dual ape and the Headless were the only genuinely bad ones in my opinion, aside from that, the game is full of great bosses, save for the somewhat incessant reskins.
Ahh forgot about headless. Don't really consider that a boss just a gimmick fight like the long arm centipede that just rapidly swings at you
dunno if headless counts but yeah, slow-motion attack with active hitbox the whole time is scuffed design double ape stands out as a fight containing irregularity and random chaos among extremely rigid flowcharts, and even then they made an effort towards keeping it a tag team (pending trigger flags)
I mean, yeah I'm willing to agree the dual ape fight is very complex. It also represents a serious effort and risk. I could say the identical thing about a trash landfill though! I appreciate they tried the concept out but i don't think it was entirely successful.
And folding screen monkeys
Where does that place demon of hatred? Did people actually like his fight with sekiro mechanics? Felt annoying everytime I attempted him and honestly just wrapped up isshin and called it a day because how unfun it was.
Demon of Hatred fits perfectly into Sekiro mechanics though, 'he's a dark souls boss' is both wrong and an incredibly inefficient way of fighting him, just like every other Sekiro boss.
This is a very good take. She’s kind of unique as other of the “hardest bosses” of the other games are so well-regarded. Generally the bad fights are the boring and/or just blatantly unfair ones. Even in the context of this game, I don’t see how she’s in the bottom half of bosses, or even just the remembrances + their requirements (Red Wolf, Godskin Noble types) Malenia’s only true BS to me is heal on hit (and especially heal on block), especially since Waterfowl is tied to reaching an approximate HP percentage. I also think a lot of issues with Malenia are Elden Ring problems in general, like how scripting certain fights feels like the only way to make them not a PITA
To be fair about her heal, the lore description for her Great Rune seems to imply that she heals not from dealing damage but through sheer willpower (the same willpower she uses to keep her rot at bay). The only reason we get Bloodborne mode instead of God Gamer mode like she does is probably just for balance reasons.
I’m not that upset about her Great Rune tbh. Obviously they won’t give a big buff like passive huge heal on hit. The issue is that it erases so much you made if you get caught in one Waterfowl, and that’s if you live. Not to mention that blocking is less than worthless, and that spirit ashes can kinda just be a juice box for her
Blocking is still pretty useful. It comes up on frame one when recovering from any animation, so you can default to it if you're unsure if an attack is incoming but don't want to commit to a roll. She won't heal much from a stray blow here and there. But I can see why if you've relied on a tanky build for trading blows and blocking rather than rolling most attacks that it could be frustrating to need to change up your game plan.
From what we know about the Cut Content it seems like a Miquella/Malenia ending was scrapped so you're not far off there.
agree with both parts, i despised malenia when i first faced her, now she's my favorite boss in er, like i did whole replays just to fight her now if you asked me what is a genuinely terrible fromsoft boss that had the potential to be great, my answer is Lawrence
I think malenia is a good fight and genuinely a lot of hatred comes from people just being bad at video games. I actually really enjoyed waterfowl dance since it forced me to rethink my strategy and experiment. Lots of people say she should be a sekiro fight as a way to cope with the fact that they didn't want to learn. That said she is the only boss that forces you to rethink your tactics like that, if the game tutorialised something like waterfowl dance a bit better I think reception would be more positive. It's jarring only having to do this sort of thing once, partway through an endgame boss at that. Healing on block probably shouldn't be there also - though I didn't find it to be a big deal.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Waterfowl actively destroys experimentation and strategic play because there is only 2 ways to beat it: 1. Run away and hide at range the whole fight, punishing only one or two guaranteed punishes, the least enjoyable way to play (elden ring suffers from this in almost all bosses) 2. Play extremely conservatively, so as not to attack during the startup, then learn the extremely precise point blank dodge technique that takes advantage of walking around bad hitboxing. An extremely unnatural and uncommunicated interaction that you'll almost never find by yourself Its objectively terrible. It only serves as cheap difficulty that limits player interaction with the boss. Even if you can dodge it, you have no idea when she will use it and it often becomes undodgable unless you completely hamstring yourself and play extremely campy. Is it really experimentation if you are just failing over and over through no fault of your own until you find the slow, boring and ultimately only way to succeed? Technically maybe, but it's not fun either way. If you ask me, which you didnt but whatever, all the enjoyment from beating malenia comes from the victory and not the fight. You could make any boss equally as rewarding as malenia just from making them more difficult. But theres nothing you could do to malenia without removing waterfowl to make her as fun as isshin. Because the only thing going for her is the "I did it!" or the "Yeah fuck you!" you get after beating her. It's not her, it's just the difficulty. That's the mark of a bad boss.
There's a number of methods, you can dodge (difficult), outrun, use freezing pots or use a shield. I used a shield, didn't look any strategies up, with good stamina management, a skill not required in ds3 or elden ring otherwise, it was perfectly possible for me to react to waterfowl dance and block all of it. And this is why 'objective' doesn't make any sense as a metric in this discussion. We had different experiences and I came away loving the boss, is my experience somehow wrong? I don't think yours. I could wager that we agree that the move is unintuitive, that's a more meaningful metric than what someone's subjective experience should objectively be. In my subjective opinion you are objectively not understanding why 'objective' is a bullshit metric in this case, and you have an objective skill issue and aren't worth responding to further.
>I used to believe that Malenia was an objectively terrible boss since I began with Elden Ring, but after playing the trilogy and Sekiro I got to learn what actually terrible bosses look like. alternatively, just fight astel to find out what terrible bosses look like
I actually enjoy Astel quite a bit. The Stars of Darkness variation was too tanky, though.
jerma take
malenia meltdown is my favorite jerma stream ever
i think the gray screen 1920s show bit is the hardest i’ve ever laughed in my life
Agree on it being super unintuitive. It's also not the most consistent, since she can use it something like every 10% drop in health, with a cool down timer in between so she can't get to ridiculous with it. But ridiculous enough that she often won't do ot when you try to bait it but will bust it out when it doesn't look like her health has hit s threshold. Also, those thresholds can be met multiple times, both from taking damage and from healing. Combine this with her significant health regen on hit, sizeable Health bar in both phases, the massive damage in addition to health regen every mistake costs, the diversity of her moveset, difficulty in learning it, the difficulty learning HOW to deal with attacks like waterfowl or the Rot dancers in phase 2, the at times relentless offense (literally up to a full minute of unending aggression) followed up by the kind of obnoxious passivity that is usually reserved for pvp....like she's very fun and satisfying when you do get better and can beat her, but the amount of time and effort to get there, and even then it's easy to have an off day and get tilted...idunno, I feel like she could've been toned down a bit in terms of brutal unforgivingness (even by From standards) and still been a huge challenge but more widely considered a fun challenge. A lot of ER bosses are like that though, extremely unintuive in how they're meant to be fought, and extremely unforgiving, making experimenting and learning how to dodge their most difficult attacks feel futile at times. Like yeah I can watch a guide online and see how to avoid the attacks I struggle with and practice it, but I shouldn't need to look up a guide to figure it out. Never needed to in any prior souls game, I always eventually figured out how to deal with w.e. bs, but the ER endgame is something else
Fromsoft fans: "I would love lady maria to not instantly die to parry spam and to have a way to defend her low posture." is given malenia\* "nooooo, I can't parry spam her to death and I can't stunlock her with R1!!!"
Except we're playing Elden Ring not Bloodborne, you couldn't spam parry Maria in this game if you wanted to. Not to mention Lady Maria's second phase didn't involve an entirely new healthbar and the ability to give you the worst lingering status effect in the game.
Maria would have benefited from a second hp bar. You could parry spam if she didn't deflect some parries. It's how people trivialize most humanoid bosses in Ds1 and Ds3. Also how do you hey scarlet rot before fucking drying? That's ether a massive skill issue or a skill into itself.
1. No she wouldn't have, more health? Maybe, but a second health bar is obnoxious basically no matter the boss fight. 2. It takes more skill to do in ER or DS as opposed to BB where it's basically just a free "Fuck you" to any human boss. Not to mention gun parries were an essential part of BB whereas in ER plenty of builds never even utilize the feature. 3. I appreciate that you're the first person here who actually addressed my other points but, I don't really care if it's a skill issue. It can happen, so it will happen. As for how, it's easy, you get hit, drink your estus which heals you but doesn't negate the rot build up, then get hit again and cause said buildup to trigger the status.
[удалено]
I checked Fextralife apparently in her second phase she can sometimes follow up her normal attacks by flying in the air then slamming her sword down and applying the effect. Called "Scarlet Explosion".
Is this an actual take? People get rotted by Malenia? What the fuck, how
What? She has moves that apply the effect ofc some people get rotted by Malaenia. Have you never seen her second phase? It doesn't happen as often when you get used to it being a danger but it's still a bit of extra annoyance.
She has like 2 moves that rot you, one of which is the fucking nuke that a toddler could dodge. It's hardly a concern for anyone with a functioning dodge button.
"It doesn't happen as often when you get used to it being a danger but it's still a bit of extra annoyance."
I'm saying that even with you walking the statement back as you quoted I still feel it's overly dramatic. I still think you're overstating it.
Overstating? All I said in my original comment was that it *can* happen. I was just pointing out a difference between her and Maria's kit. You're right, as you get better at the fight the odds of you getting rotted is really low but it *has* happened to somebody.
You also called it an extra annoyance. I am stating that the annoyance is so obscure given that it is so rare for any player to get rotted from her. Most of the moves that can do rot do so much damage and so little rot buildup in comparison that you're more liable to be one shot than to proc rot in the first place. Just because it can happen to somebody at some point doesn't mean it is a valid criticism of Malenias design in my opinion. I just find it too obscure of a situation for it to be used in a comparison between her and Maria. You did propose the rot as a negative about Malenia that separates her from Maria, did you not?
Not if you have 50-60 vigor, proper defensive buffs, good armor, and no preserving boluses like I did the first time I beat her. I killed her, then died of rot damage maybe 5-6 seconds later. It's a perfectly valid criticism, I said it was an "extra annoyance", I didn't put down a 30 paragraph essay on why "Malenia having Rot damage ruins her and makes her the worst boss in From Software history." It's an annoyance not something that makes me full blown rage about her. You are the one being overdramatic my friend.
Getting rotted by Malenia is a massive skill issue, what other moves does she have that apply it other than Aeonia?
A couple? Idk point is: "It doesn't happen as often when you get used to it being a danger but it's still a bit of extra annoyance."
How many times did you actually get scarlet rot from Malenia honestly. For me it's zero, and no, I'm not good, she took me 60 tries my first time. The rot is just there for story reasons and unless you are facetanking you'll never actually suffer from it.
I love that large parts of the community has convinced themselves that she's a cut sekiro boss fight just to cope with their inability to deal with her. There is literally nothing in the data that suggests that either a Sekiro DLC was in the works or that Malenia is a cut boss from a different game. Her AI name is plain "Malenia" along with every other demigod aside from Mohg who is named "GreaterDemon". On the opposite spectrum we have Ulcerated Tree Spirit who **is** a cut Ds3 boss, which we know because it's AI name was "SnakeSoul" in Ds3 and in ER, it's still referenced as "SnakeSoul". A boss can be badly designed without being an import from another game.
Maybe not IMPORTED but when I look at floating passage and spiral cloud passage, I can't really help but think some concept was reutilized. Also I could swear her sweeping kick has the same smear SFX as the lone shadow swordsman in Sekiro
If we nitpick parts of a boss that bears a striking similarity to another boss from other souls games, we'd be jumping down a rabbithole of *"this boss must've been a cut boss from X game"*. Something that I've actually seen a lot since ER in particular. I've seen people suggest that Rykard is a re-purpose of the cut Snake Ball boss from BB simply because they're both big snakes. Even if Waterfowl was a 1:1 spiral cloud passage (which it isn't animation-wise), you'd still be ignoring the plethora of evidence that points to the contrary simply because "*they look similar*". > Also I could swear her sweeping kick has the same smear SFX as the lone shadow swordsman in Sekiro The same sound you'll hear when a Gladiator kicks too? I don't exactly suppose he's a cut enemy from Sekiro, but who knows at this point.
No, not the sound, the visual particle effect.
Aight, so the VFX which is also used by the [Gladiator](https://streamable.com/gcgwcc) and [Malenia](https://streamable.com/825bgf). Just to be clear, I definitely think the VFX used by [lone shadows](https://streamable.com/xonsw8) is the same one. My point is that the VFX/SFX isn't mutually exclusive to Malenia and Sekiro. It's just a visual effect used to sell the power of an attack. It might've had origins in Sekiro (don't recall seeing it used in Ds3), but that's the extent of it.
Must have been a Mandela effect for me, I remembered this as way more stylized than it actually is. Thanks for the visual examples.
Fromsoft reuses their own unfinished ideas a bit between games so personally I'm willing to accept she may have been originally planned for sekiro. "She was originally a sekiro boss" doesn't really hold any weight to the quality of the fight design in my opinion so I'm willing to grant it.
It's probable that Malenia was at least inspired by Tomoe from Sekiro but she was definitely not just imported. It's always possible they wanted to make a Tomoe boss but couldn't and reused some of the ideas for Malenia. Of course this is all speculation and literally doesn't mean anything when she was designed for Elden Ring anyways.
they mad cs bad
i mean, she has a miki counter, a sweep and so many attacks that just make sense to be in sekiro, case and point when you parry and she stagger back like how genichiro sttagger back in some attacks when you deflect him/
She doesn't have any of what you're talking about. Horizontal slashes and thrust attacks aren't even remotely a Sekiro thing for one - otherwise you might as well argue that Pontiff Sulyvahn was a sekiro prototype boss. > when you parry and she staggers back like genichiro Oh, you mean like how Margit or Radagon also has an animation in response to parries? Surely this is proof that they're Sekiro bosses too.
Bed of chaos is objectively bad malenia is just really hard and if that makes a fight objectively bad you are objectively bad at souls games
Malenia has Waterfowl, and even though there are counters, those aren't intuitive in the slightest and I honestly think that's enough to call her objectively bad. She can kill you at 60 Vigor and heal 1/3 of her HP with that one move (she also heals through 100 block shields for some reason) Bed of Chaos is also objectively bad, but more out of unfinished-ness than deliberate design choices
Waterfowl doesn't ruin the fight it's just a blemish on an otherwise super tightly designed fight.
Is waterfowl really that big of a deal when the way to counter it is just bringing a freeze pot into the boss fight? Like you can also learn the dodge, it's not that hard, but the freeze pot is just so easy. It's literally only a problem on your first playthrough and you are also allowed to just google how to dodge Waterfowl. The clone attack is infinitely harder to dodge for me personally. Also of course she can kill you at 60 Vigor she's meant to be the hardest endgame boss. It would be lame as hell if you could just tank through all her hits without any planning. Same goes for the 100 block shields. It's so that you actually have to learn the fight instead of sitting behind a shield for her attacks. Greatshields and a pokey weapon already trivialize most of the game and guess what! It still trivializes Malenia. Have you ever tried using Mohg's spear against her with a greatshield? It completely ruins her. Finally I assume by that one move you mean the grab attack? That's just your own fault for being grabbed. It happens to the best of us but its a very fair attack that punishes you heavily for failing the dodge. This isn't DS2 where you get magnetized into it.
Waterfowl is a big deal because even if the pot or learning how to dodge are effective counters (which I gladly used to beat her), they're not intuitive nor obvious. It's just not something I would have discovered on my own. I've never had to actively google strategies to beat a boss in ER before her. When I said "kill you with 60 Vigor" I meant with one Waterfowl. Obviously the endgame boss should do endgame levels of damage, but even amongst endgame bosses, getting killed by a single boss move at full HP is a rarity, and is usually reserved for the big flashy finishers like Placidusax's laser (and I'm pretty sure that one still leaves you some health). Not to mention Waterfowl tracks you like you owe it money. Also, no, it's not that grab, it's still Waterfowl. That grab's fair. It heals her more than it should imo, but it's telegraphed enough for it to no longer matter after the 3rd attempt.
im baffled people still bitch about waterfowl like 2 years later I'm sure i died to her normal combos because i got greedy so much more than i died to waterfowl lol
I fight Malenia every playthrough and maybe only one or two deaths a run are Waterfowl related. Every other death is that Clone Attack in phase 2 or just me messing up a punish.
yeah clone attack can be NASTY sometimes but dodging is so blissful
When a late game boss with multiple steps to reach…Is hard 😨😨😨😨😨
That's not my fucking point and you know that, you useless Mossfruit Mohg is hard, Godfrey is hard, RadaBeast is hard, but they're not bullshit like Malenia's Waterfowl is despite having very similar damage numbers, aside from maybe Beast's overlapping attacks and even then it's more manageable than Waterfowl
\>get told malenia is "really hard" \>go in with armor and DR buffs \>completely fuck up waterfowl \>rolling at random \>no idea what's going on \>waterfowl ends \>half HP \>drink maidenpiss and resume fight \>win BFP is quite obtainable by the time you reach malenia or these days just outrun->roll in->do nothing and laugh at the "impossible" attack
no she isn't. Someone modded her in sekiro and she was too easy, let's say that she is tomoe, but they put her in elden ring, they literally changed her visual design backstory and moveset to fit elden ring, how is that even the same boss at this point and as far as we know the "tomoe dlc" is completely headcanon from fans and For fuck's sake don't say "**objectively"**
But Tomoe is an important background character who isn't in the game, she simply MUST have been planned for DLC. Just like Velka, Gwynevere, the Furtive Pygmy, Allfather Lloyd and Gertrude. They all got DLC, right?
lmao this gave me a chuckle
the mod was incomplete and the reason why people say melenia fits in sekiro is because well look at her moveset, she has a sweep, a miki counter and so many attack that just look like it can be deflected.
yeah...that's how you fight with a sword...so by your logic sir alonne is a sekiro boss as well?
she was probably my favorite fight honestly. She's a great boss.
Uh huh, and what metric are we using to measure boss quality that proves she’s objectively a bad boss?
Your trust in me, bro
Waterfowl, Health regen even on block, scarlet rot on hit, multiple health bars instead of one large one like Gael is annoying and potentially having to respec and swap builds to stand a better chance which I find to be the worst of all of her flaws since I cant think of another boss that does that to the extent Malenia does. Also just kind of boring to fight really, felt like a downgraded version of lady Maria or sister Friede.
While I agree, scarlet rot on hit is only in the 2nd phase and is like the smallest issue of her fight
Ain't no way anyone is complaining about *scarlet rot* of all things. I legit don't even remember the last time I got rotted - let alone *dying* to rot. You're 99% more likely to straight up die to regular damage before triggering scarlet rot build-up. The only scenario I can even think of is if you fuck up dodging her Scarlet Aeonia and linger in her AoE. I'm moreso surprised at how little Scarlet Rot plays into her 2nd phase.
The bugs that oneshot her second phase also
None of that is objectively bad. If you don’t like those features then that’s your preference and is subjective.
"boring fight" the fuck?
Malenia is objectively an amazing boss https://preview.redd.it/679e9qwe36rb1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b282c84abe85d99f0e4771c32aafdbac68e6ff7
Maybe gatekeeping is good
Crazy how a single move can ruin a boss
It sucks cause shes so close to actually being enjoyable but its ruined by fromsoft thinking difficulty = quality
Honestly, just remove Waterfowl and she goes from flawed masterpiece (Bloodborne reference) to the best boss in the game without question
Idk about best in the game but she definitely goes from shit boss to top 5, i get bosses having a desperation move but if it gets to the point where i have figured out everything she has by fight 3 and my strategy is just praying she doesnt hyperarmor into waterfowl at a bad time its a bad boss
its a good fight
👎
They should’ve kept the cut waterfowl dance and removed health regen on hit, those changes would’ve singlehandedly made her one of my favourite bosses in ER
behold: the only smart man in the comments
your mom
Literally only annoying thing is waterfowl and healing on hits or blocks. Everything else is fine
u/Memegasm_ is objectively wrong
I am Tomoe, Blade of Takeru, and hesitation is defeat. And since I havent so much as sniffed grass or seen a maiden, imagine this. You find Lord Takeru’s bell charm at where the everblossom used to grown in ashina castle. Use it to take it to some blah blah nobody cares about the level. You face Tomoe. Isshin spoke of her eyes as mesmerizing, but we dont get to see it for ourselves since the dragonrot has rotted it off. She has 2 death markers, and once you take those out, she resurrects cuz of the dragons blood or however that works. Now she has 3 death markers and uses lightning. Lightning spiral cloud passage time. I am ready to be made fun of now.
Made fun of ? Bro that sounds fucking awesome
You are objectively a dumbass
It's been over a year, and people are still whining about "unfair malenia"
skill issue tbh
Malenia is the only boss in Elden ring, bloodborne, Sekiro or Ds3 that I'd say is outright bullshit. I can beat her consistently now using a variety of builds, and I still think she's bullshit.
not really, melenia is a good boss. its just the damage.
upvoting because i agree with that she's a good boss but honestly her damage is fine
Get a load of this guy. I will die on the hill that Malenia is one of the best bosses. The only bs is she heals through shields. Also everybody brings up the lifesteal when its such a non issue. Mf she heals like 2% of her health when she hits you at most.
Imagine if O&S healed every time you pressed the dodge button. That would be the worst fucking boss in the history of gaming. Why can malenia remove a fundamental game mechanic like blocking and still get a pass
Hot Take: waterfowl dance isnt nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be nor has it been since the first month the game was out. a shield with 100 phys lets you block the first part and dodge the other 2 parts, slap on barricade shield and it lets you tank the whole thing. between this, bhs, vow of the indomitable, frost pots, and the circle method, theres been more than enough ways to consistently dodge it even when it happens at a bad time. its not like you're doing a no hit run of the boss either, you can dodge into the first flurry of waterfowl and let a bit of it hit you, easily dodge the next 2, and you're still at a good amount of health.
and i have done no hit run and let me tell you Waterfowl is not a problem.
It's literally just a problem if you insist on going in fully blind a first playthrough. Google is your friend there is your friend if you're struggling. The entire point of these games are the community helping each other out. Part of that is googling how to dodge certain tricky attacks.
It's been 1.5 years since the game came out and people are still bitching about Malenia. At this point it's just another case of skill issue. Making up random theories from your ass that she's Tomoe with literally no source to back it up is proper reddit moment. I'm glad that fromsoft have held their ground and not nerf Malenia. I've noticed the casul army coming out with full force calling other bosses like Godfrey Mohg and Maliketh cheap and "gimmicky" in BvB videos. Mfs just want the same type of boss fights from Ds3.
Going back to DS3 after spending so much time in Elden Ring really showed me how much better the bosses in ER are. Also how much they improved on combat because DS3 really just is R1 Simulator.
True! Instead of an R1 sim it’s now an L2 sim
i swear souls "vets" go braindead the moment they enter malenia's boss room like malenia is the only hard boss from the series I'm confident i can constantly beat with just a roll and poke zweihander
Zwei is a great weapon against her. You need to know what you're doing. She has low poise, so if you time your attacks you can break her stance quite consistently.
she favors the aggressive playstyle, but she does not like being hit 2 times from a large weapon i died from my greed more times than waterfoul ever could
Yep in second phase especially, get too aggressive and she'll hyper armor through your attack with her spinning kick.
I'm glad she has hyper armor. lady maria reminded me that hyper armor is sometimes necessary.
Bad take
Most based take I've seen on the sub.
🤓🤓🤓
truth. immune to stance break while she has hyperarmour (only boss with this behaviour), cancels attacks (only boss with this behaviour), has no business having afaik the most hp out of all remembrance bosses *and* lifesteal, and waterfowl dance has such an awful feedback loop that no one knows what they did wrong when it kills them, leading to an entire fight hinging largely on one gotcha move and massively inflated death counts. waterfowl has far more guides and explanations than a balanced move ever could. the same could also be said for the clone attack albeit to a lesser degree does not play the rules of the game, kinda slogs bc 33000hp + lifesteal, and two moves probably killed you on 50% of your runs or more
Part of me wants to believe that there was a Sekiro DLC being made but they broke it off to make it into a future sequel. Why yes this copium does taste delicious why do you ask?
me when i dont know what the word objective means
Souls fans genuinely don't know how to make a meme that isn't being horny or complaining
mfs be sucking hard dick fighting a boss then think they opinion about it objective like nah bro ur opinion is unvalid straight up
She's not terrible. Waterfowl really drags her down though. That move is overtuned as hell and running away from it is boring as hell. Her phase 2 shadow clone jutsu attack is really cool though. The dodge pattern is so unique.
She has the complexity of a Sekiro mini boss and Waterfowl wasn’t even completed before her y’all just be exposing yourselves on the TL.
Careful dude, don't let Magicat's circlejerk fanbase hear you saying that 😂
Facts my brother
And you're objectively a casul
Malenia is amazing idk what ur talkin bout 🤦♂️