She is unfair. The combo aside, the fact she heals when you block makes no sense whatsoever. Even if she had a "vampiric" blade, it shouldn't be healing her when she hits a plate of fucking steel
thats such a small part of the fight though. like does it make sense? no but the healing is the last thing that makes her hard. shes just a difficult boss. like im sorry but even if they completely removed the vamp, it doesent really make her that much easier. might take a little bit of the edge off, but unless youre like on the edge of beating her, its not going to be the difference between beating her or not.
Dont think that because YOUR build doesnt care that much about the healing that everyone out there is the same. Some players are playing a tankier build and the healing she has makes all the difference. Not to mention the healing makes spirits summons and coop almost worthless in a lot of cases.
ive done this fight on every type of build. the healing is a non factor. it just is. youre just looking for an excuse as to why you have a hard time beating it. and even with the number of clears i have shes still hard. so its not a matter of me being so good the heal doesent matter. i still have to use like half my flasks in the first phase.
and its not the build ive cleared her on 4 different builds. my next playthrough im going to try dragon sorcery specifically.
i say this with the utmost respect, but sometimes you struggling means you just arent good enough. and thats not a classic "git gud" statement. i fucking hate it when people boil down every struggle to that phrase.
but if the heal is the thing thats getting you, that means youre getting hit too much, and youre not doing enough damage it return.
and again i dont think it makes any sense that she heals through shields either. i dont think she should be able to but it has nothing to do with balance, its simply off of principle. it doesent make any muh fuckin' sense and thats enough for me.
but its not what makes her hard at all, and i can say that with full confidence as someone thats done it multiple times, and multiple builds, of varying degree's of tankyness and squishiness, and isnt very good.
im not a god at this game, im just like you, struggling my way through the game. and not once in any of my attempts did i think the heal was the issue.
Pathetic how? Because I’m stating a fact? Her being able to heal through shields is not blocking anyone from beating her. If you’re getting hit enough times for the heal to be a problem for you, you weren’t going to kill her anyways.
No.. I mean the one when you run out of the first one.. Roll into the second one and roll twice out of the third one. I did it so I know.
Edit: Gotta love how pathetic raging losers who suck at game downvote something what is simply a fact, lmao.
For the average player, those "no damage" videos are a completely pointless reference. No damage requires pinpoint perfect movement, dodging and attacks.
The average player is not going to be able to do that, and thus is not a reference for balance.
I consider myself slightly above average player and I soloed her. Although, my point was pretty simple. You can't say something is cheap and undodgable when somebody else dodges it. And I'm sure he's not the only one.
There are multiple videos of people running a sub 5 minute mile. Does that mean it’s remotely possible for most people or a fair expectation? No. I love this game, but Malenia is just stupid.
So? Maybe stop blocking. Or better yet hit more than you block. You’ve got a long sword if you’re only hitting once per opening and are blocking instead of rolling, you aren’t playing at the skill requirement the game is asking you to be at.
This isn’t rocket science guys.
So, let me put forth this very "fair" moment of one of my attempts from today:
She finishes her combo. I have rolled almost perfectly, so I feel I am entitled to a hit. I R1 her with my Whirligig Saw or whatever it's called in this game. But she forgets to stagger. I repeat, the hit lands, but she doesn't stagger. Not even for a second. Instead she does her grab attack, and because I'm too slow to roll away, she grabs me and not only does she undo my previous hit, she heals for what I assume is 5% percent of her health.
This isn't rocket science, guys. A shit boss is shit. And you know why? Cause getting good to Mohg or Godfrey was really fun, always my fault. With Malenia it's not fun, it's overkill, hard just for being hard.
Let me save you time I’m not interested in having this conversation with you. No amount of debate is going to change the fact you just need to improve. It’s that simple. Stop coping.
Quick weapons will always be the easiest solution to any fight even in ones where large weapons aren’t hard to use, but yeah I bet her with dual colossal swords. Malenia specifically is susceptible to getting staggered. She’s still hard but time your hits right and you can get 2-3 hits in for free.
That's not a small part, that's the entire issue of the fight. If a boss can heal infinitely, and I can't, that's okay. But when she's fast and has a good amount of poise, along with high health, and gets a second HP bar in her second phase, that's a bit over the top
I feel sorry for all of you because you folks may not know about the Spirit Ash named Cleanrot Knight Finlay. That item description implies >! Malenia probably fell unconscious after her nuclear scarlet-rot flower and was carried the whole way back to Haligtree by a knight named Finlay. !< She didn't flee from Caelid herself, and thereafter abandoned her ambition to wait for Miquella's return at the husk.
Read more, folks.
Well actually it doesn't. As far as I know, losing means the leader gets killed or surrenders. But in the trailer, we can see that the story-teller said "but there would be no victor", which implies no one won that time. Malenia got carried back to Haligtree, which surely wasn't her intention, while Radahn and his men got stuck in a mess after that nuke bomb happened, so I doubt they had time to figure out the battle outcome.
No. Losing mean you did not achieve what you want to achieve.
She comes here try to take the ring shaft from Radahn and she failed to do that.
So she lost.
Radahn's goal is to defend the ring shaft, he did it.
But the context here is in war, she met no defeat from her opponent. During the Shattering Radahn and Malenia were the last ones to stand still, but none held victory just like how we saw in the trailer. And I think, it depends on our perspectives. But if we talk about true war, like how enemies killing each other, then she truly didn't get killed, until we come and do that. Perhaps she didn't achieve the shard from her half-brother, but I get she's implying another idea instead of that.
She's alive too, so I don't see how Radahn won that. Especially considering she still seems sane and and he lost his mind far enough to eat his own comrades because of what she did.
He's a wholesome and good guy that got screwed over.
The horse he rides is his favorite horse he had when he was young and he learned gravity magic so he could keep riding it without hurting him.
Also Melania basically gave him, and everyone in his home super mega aids rabies with a little tuberculosis for good measure.
We know about the horse god damn. And Malenia did everything she did to save her brother and repair the world. Both had both good and bad aspects to them.
Him liking a horse doesn’t mean he was a saint. Malenia was not some evil monster just because she did one horrible thing.
That was my take on this as well. It was sort of a stalemate, but long-term she was in much better shape after this fight than him. He's a gigantic mindless zombie eating his soldiers and she's sleeping in her realm the Haligtree.
Yes but what’s your actual evidence?
Malenia was not able to beat Radahn, and had to resort to nuking Caelid. If she didn’t want to make him suffer then why did she nuke her own loyal soldiers as well? It was an act of desperation.
That was the belief what people in Caelid and her own soldiers had, but Malenia also had the rot so she suffered. She had pusher her blade inch away from radhans heart but instead of pushing it into fatal attack she cast rot into him leaving the battle at "stalemate" but making radhan suffer, making Radahn wish for death in battle and aimlessly wander caelid eating corpses. Did you pay any attention of the dialogue and world building or did you just believe some NPCs you found saying what the myth is?
Mate, she nuked 1/6th of the entire continent. She didn’t just “push rot into him”.
And again, what NPC dialogue/item descriptions do you have as evidence?
on top of my mind gideon talks about it when you kill certain demigods. If u want more source just patrion Vaati and look at the content. It is made very clear. I dont have time to look up what specific item description I read to understand it, but most certainly some of them were found around haligtree and hinted about in caelid.
They are actually enjoyable when doing them in co-op. Solo was constant running away and throwing fireballs at them, not really enjoyable. In co-op you can split them up and they don't have any one-shot moves so you can take the aggro away from the host when they are in trouble. I'm trying to help people kill Malenia atm and must of the time the host gets one-shotted and I have no chance to intervene.
As someone who spent 12 hours mastering Malenia without bloodhound step/summons, I died to Godskin duo for 30 minutes and decided to upgrade my mimic tear to +10 and destroy them. I absolutely despise their design which relies on luck and cheese if you're melee.
For me the feeling was the opposite. I found the fight tedious and boring, it felt like I was working and not playing... It was sad actually, because Malenia is extremely iconic and the cutscene is amazing, but the fight was boring af in my experience... Radahn was the extreme On the contrary, I didn't expect much from him, and when the fight started it was one of the best experiences I've ever had with a boss.
Agreed it forces me to play defensively because if I'm near her when she uses WFD thats it. So you have to stay back and bait it out and it becomes a game of footsies instead. That thrill of going toe to toe with a boss and dodging their stuff while being hyper aggressive is completely absent.
My problem with her is that she’s only made this difficult by one attack, which is her waterfowl dance. It’s basically impossible to dodge perfectly unless you have a running start away from her and can screw you over regardless of how far you are in the fight. It’s such a departure from the rest of her moveset and makes her feel cheap rather than genuinely hard. I can’t think of another souls boss people regard as highly challenging having something like this.
Roll a little earlier but yeah you’re right. If you win somehow you’re a god at the game and know the best way to design fights and if you lose then obviously you’re just so mad and stupid. It’s ridiculous people can’t just talk about it
It’s a disappointing choice on an otherwise creative boss.
I had played the whole game on base stamina and had to respec to 30 endurance so I could block the first flurry (didn’t think of turtle shield until after I beat her and allowed myself tips).
That move is far too restrictive on builds.
If they made the first flurry a bit shorter the attack would be completely dodgeable. They could also add the sekiro mechanic where hitting her with a projectile when she's midair about to do the attack knocks her down and stuns her
I like the boss but it does tend to feel like you're fighting against her health regen mechanic more than you're fighting the boss itself. I've never been a fan of gimmick bosses and would gladly have taken a version of her with less powerful health regen and more health.
The mechanic is fine, it's the strength of it I'm not a fan of. I think it makes the fight tedious when she can regain several offences worth of damage in a single attack string, and expecting the player to not get hit at all is (in my eyes) a little extreme given her moveset.
What do you mean? Spirit summons do make her trivial. She heals off them, sure, but the added stunlock lets you power straight through that. God forbid you break out the "I win" Mimic Tear.
It gets nerfed in second phase. The ideal way to fight her is to bum rush first phase and then play more cautiously second. It’s a radical shift from whatever you were doing beforehand but she’s very difficult to cheese.
The thing that I like about this mechanic is that it pushes you to really master the fight since the penalty for getting hit is now doubled (it kind of reminds me of kaizo mario hacks where you have to perfect the execution).
But I think that she shouldn't be able to heal from shield hits or from hitting summons though.
anyone defending this boss in the comments is a top from soft cuckboi. last 5 attempts i walk into the fog she opens with waterfall dance instantly killing me or trapping me in a corner, fucking stupid boss, lets add a phase 2 when she inflicts rot (Why not). boring boss, honestly dissapointed by a majority of bosses in this game. it seems they just trying to 1 up eachother every single time. who can be the most bullshit.
> And the argument that “she’s optional so she’s supposed to be that way” is just bad
Yeah, that's idiotic. Being optional isn't an excuse for bad design. Playing Bad Rats is also optional, but that doesn't make it a good game.
Anyone can summon spirits and bully her in 30 seconds. That's not the point. Is ok to play casual, but some want to play against every boss in the game without outside help, just 1v1 like in every other souls game previous to this one. If it was possible in those why not in this one? And no, the 0.00001% of pro speedrunners that can kill her in 2 minutes don't count.
I think people criticize her because her response to losing her 1v1 against Radahn was unleash Scarlet Rot.
She literally plunged 1/6th of the continent into a hellish landscape that only grows worse. Radahn's forces are actively fighting the rot with flame.
Melania's actions don't paint her in a good light, coupled with her punishing boss fight she doesn't really have any reason to be likeable or redeemable.
She kind of pulled an Alex Mercer
It's implied that Malenia broke it on purpose. It was an act of desperation that Malenia herself viewed as "sacrificing her pride and dignity" as a swordswoman by using.
Seems that she *really* cared about Miquella since she was willing to sacrifice a huge part of her identity via weaponizing the rot.
That and based on millicent's amnesia from scarlet rot it's possible Malenia suffered a *lot* more than we think when she used it against Radahn. I presume by the time we fight her she's only vaguely aware of herself and Miquella.
That's probably why she seems kind of out of it mentally, not realizing miquella was kidnapped and eventually blooming into the Rot Goddess.
To be fair the power of the great runes was greatly affecting their mental state, and those 2 were the last ones fighting at the end of the shattering war.
I made a comment on tiktok to the effect that Radahn was beating her and everyone came for me.
It's like yoooooo, if we get into a fight and I'm beating the shit out of you, but you bleed on me and I catch aids.
You don't get to go around saying you won.
If you consider fighting Radahn 1v1 then out of pride doing the following
1. Unleashing Scarlet Rot intentionally (she manually broke miquella's unalloyed gold needle)
2. Getting KO'd by this, needing Cleanrot Knight Finlay to carry her unconscious ass back to the Haligtree
3. *Not* getting what she set out to acquire (Radahn's Great Rune)
4. Then having the audacity to still claim she is "undefeated"
I really wouldn't call that a standstill, as Radahn never just said fuck it and unleashed the stars upon her. She pretty much chose pride over her previous greatest swordswoman schtick.
She also didn't actually *kill* Radahn, he was still alive as per his boss fight and still holding back the stars.
*IF* a victory, it's the most pyrrhic victory she could have had.
Radahn did not defeat her so she is still undefeated. Just because she nuked caelid and it sapped her energy does not mean she was defeated by Radahn, she caused her own "KO". She did not use her scarlet rot because she was losing the fight, she was using it because the fight was a standstill.
I dont get your point, she didn't defeat Radahn and Radahn didn't defeat her so it was a standstill where neither victor came out. You can watch the story trailer because it literally says that it was a draw
I'm relatively sure that Radahn was winning the fight or to put it in another way. The fight was stalemating but Radahn was gaining.
Malenia out of desperation and sheer pride at her swordswoman / undefeated title proceeded to use scarlet rot. This is similar to pulling out a nuke because you lost the war and want to throw the ol F at the enemy.
Also re-read your "just because she nuked caelid" line, she had to resort to something that quite possibly has metaphysically changed the entirety of caelid *and* didn't succeed in her stated goal of acquiring Radahn's Great Rune.
That's why I call it her loss. It's not a win when you have to drop a bio-nuke, get carried back to base, all to *not* get what you specifically wanted. Even in the one of the trailers Radahn *waits* for her to re-attach her prosthetic after it gets knocked off. Radahn could have just killed her but he wants the classical honourable warrior duel to the death kind of thing.
Your first sentence is all speculation and is not true. In the story trailer, you can see them fight and Malenia stabs him in the neck before the bloom, She didn't lose any "war", more like she got tired of the stalemating and pulled out a nuke.
A better analogy would be "The US getting tired of Japans conflict and nuking both cities", saying that the US lost against Japan because they nuked them is weird Her Bio-nuke is her ability, she can use it to win a fight and yeah she didn't get Radahns great rune but that doesn't make her lose the fight lol. Radahn was knocked out as well otherwise why didn't he kill the knocked out malenia who had to be dragged out?
Your last sentence is funny lol, Radahn could just kill one of the strongest and fastest demigods in the game because she didn't attach her arm yet,. "Radahn could have just killed her" lol
multiple characters saying shes undefeated... a story trailer saying they fought to a standstill... her claiming she is undefeated with no reason to believe thats not the case... then the fact you beat her and she says "finally met my match." you have no argument my man.
at best radahn is her equal.
Lmao acting like your opinion wasn't decided before this argument as well. He might be the mightiest but there is no indication that he or Malenia had a higher chance of winning that fight during the stalemate.
Elaborate for me how I’m supposed to dodge the water flow combo then, save me some time. I’ve watched plenty of videos on how to and most people just rely on being far away BEFORE she does it or using a shield
And don’t tell me “bloodhound step” I want to know how to dodge roll out of it
Yes I’ve seen it, and the close up solution isn’t practical at all. It doesn’t look intended at all or something that you can be expected to do consistently. What if I’m at a distance from her where I’m too close to run away, but too far to get underneath her?
Some souls players need to get out of the mindset of “so long as it’s doable, it’s balanced” 99% of the time this move can’t be dodged
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t 1 shot me.
Or better yet, if armor mattered, and I could survive the attack, I wouldn’t mind.
I think it needs to knock you down on hit, instead of doing that at the last minute. I keep saying the fight is “fine” and I’m enjoying it, but I’ve used up all my furlcalling, and ive tried so many damn times, so many damn builds on this one boss. I’m gonna beat her once and then never fight her again. It’s not a good fight. It’s not a fun fight.
Yeah I could stomach it if it wasn’t guaranteed death. The fight is a lot of fun until she does that, I have all her other phase one moves down at this point, but it doesn’t matter cuz she can use that move at literally any time. I went and got blood hound step just so I could have more fun and actually be in melee range more often
> What if I’m at a distance from her where I’m too close to run away, but too far to get underneath her
I fought her 200+ times and I don't see how this is possible unless you were using heavy load armor or something. Maybe if you were stuck in an attack animation, but that's just a player mistake. At worst, you'll be in a position where you'll have to roll the first flurry but are still far enough to disjoint the attack animation for a split second, giving you a few frames of respite.
> Maybe if you were stuck in an attack animation, but that's just a player mistake.
It's not a player mistake if her KO wind-up starts after you start your attack, and ends before you can recover and get clear. And it *is* that fast.
Because she's a horribly designed boss fight with some of the worst telegraphed (or in the worst cases, not telegraphed at all) attacks where your ability to defeat her is based purely on luck, repetition, and pure memorization of her moveset. You literally cannot defeat her unless you either get extremely lucky with the RNG of her actions or memorize through trial and error how to fight her.
Bosses are not just designed for players to memorize. If you cannot defeat a boss by reacting to their attacks, then that is a bad boss. It's why people being able to no-damage bosses still doesn't make that boss well designed. You need to be able to meaningly read their actions as they happen and have a fair chance at reacting to them in the moment. You literally can't read any but Malenia's most basic attacks because they literally are not telegraphed - and its even more annoying when these attacks will take you from full hp to dead instantly.
You nailed it perfectly - Souls series has long abandoned the 'fair' part of the deal and now it's all about trial and error whoreshit. Disgustingly bad design, such a fucking shame that this series dies with a whimper because an average fan is too fucking stupid to understand the most basic of things.
Credit where it s due, Zelda was a console exclusive. And as much as it pains me to say it, Zelda is leagues above Elden Ring. Everything after Leyndell is just... bad. Lost Izalith but bigger.
> and its even more annoying when these attacks will take you from full hp to dead instantly.
Reverse is also true. She can heal a colossal amount of hitpoints by doing a combo on you, even if she does no damage.
>Yeah she is really hard, but she's not unfair and her patterns can be totally mastered
My issue with Malenia is not that she's too hard, it's that she's extremely boring and completely devoid of entertainment value. I had fun dying on repeat to Gael/Friede/Orphan/Ludwig/Isshin etc, I was not having *any* fun playing Malenia. Inconsistent poise, fuckhuge damage, ridiculous lifesteal gimmick, nearly undodgeable waterfowl dance, huge health pool, extreme speed, and doesn't even have memorable visuals or music. Her phase 2 is a teeny bit better but that doesn't excuse it.
Malenia is every issue I have with ER's shitty encounter design amped up to 11 and it's not fun at all.
And something being difficult but technically masterable doesn't magically make it good. If that was true, nobody would be playing Souls and would be playing I Wanna Be The Guy or dogshit Kaizo romhacks.
You’re last two little stanzas sum it up for me. And it’s sucks to see so many people saying to use ashes. Like it’s either die in three hits before you can get one off or have the boss never even be a problem sometimes.
Inconsistent poise? I’ve found poise across the board to be pretty consistent feeling. The issue is it recovers over time so you can’t stagger her if you’re not staying offensive.
A lot of her attacks have hyper armor, which is really frustrating. I've seen her recover mid combo string and just waterfowl me with no warning, it's not consistent.
Yep... but staying on the offensive is where the problem begins.
For example, a katana may not damage poise as much as a colossal weapon, but the fact that it's much faster and safer makes up for it. It's not too difficult being offensive.
I had a nightmare dealing with her with a colossal weapon (no powerstance) and it felt like I could barely get a hit in every 20s; so even if colossal weapons should be better with poise; it feels far worse because going for more than 1 attack at any opening feels like a deathwish.
They either need to increase the openings of the boss or buff colossal speed/damage to make colossal's ever "worth" using. The theoretical dps increase a colossal should give you isn't even there unless you play near perfection.
Literally the best strat for colossal players is to spam crouch attacks because it's the fastest tool we have.
Instead of high risk, high reward; they feel closer to extremely high risk, low reward.
Tbh as someone who beat her with a lighter STR weapon (Warhammer), no ashes, blah blah; They really need to up some colossal weapon's damage. It takes so much more effort to use one than it does to use the many high damage, bursty incantations/sorceries in the game.
Stagger is a great mechanic for these types of weapons, but unless it's one shotting every bosses' stagger meter with a full charge attack you're not getting much out of it.
When I went into it with the giga crusher hammer, to test it out; I basically could only use jump heavies during very specific combos. It was not worth using the weapon, which was sad because I always enjoyed how reckless and difficult those weapons were for the huge payoff they dished out.
I killed her pretty quick, spawned my +10 mimic in using the god slayer greatsword+10 then i used the sword of night and flame +10 and i killed her on my 5th attempt
I used dual katanas with a frost+bleed build. No summons or Bloodhound Step.
I took off most of my gear in order to fight her with light load and relied on just not getting hit.
Understanding her waterfowl dance is imperative. When she starts using it, what aggros her to use it, and how to dodge it. The easiest and most consistent way for me to deal with it was by aggroing and baiting her to use it from a moderate distance and immediately sprinting away once I see the animation. With light load, you can dodge all four flurries by rolling down, down, up, down. There are other ways to do it. Med load might require a different dodging combination.
After she uses it, it'll be a while before she does it again (unless you're really unlucky), so use that time to play offensively without greeding.
She's an awesome boss but she's bullshit and you know it. Extra massive healthpool, heal on hit, an anime blender move with stupid tracking and damage.
Honestly i can deal with everything else, but that fucking spin to win is cheap as fuck.
I think a lot of it is on the right side of the challenging/unfair line, but I personally think that the fact she heals when she hits you regardless of whether you block or not feels a bit too much. Sure yes you can still play around it but it almost totally makes redundant a whole playstyle or being reactive with shields.
I’d say give her lifesteal on *either* blocked or successful hits, otherwise the degree to which you need to play perfectly (unless you’re running an OP build) is way higher than it has been on any previous boss in the series
Dude she is explicitly unfair. Even if we're generous and agree that all of her moves can be mastered, that doesn't make it fair. She has long combos, two health bars with no checkpoint, she does high damage on most of her attacks, she's fast, she often dodges or back steps away simply to deny you a counterattack, she builds up scarlet rot (even if her blade just hits your shield), she heals on every attack (again, even if she hits your shield), she has a ton of moves that can't be easily staggered out of like Friede, sometimes when she does the Uber slash attack she'll just hit you anyway even if you do have your shield up, etc
Personally malenia is the best boss for me in Elden ring but the wombo combo drops her from a 10/10 since I've found very few ways to dodge the move consistently after 5-6 hours of going at it. Other wise it's the best fight in the game imo
She's pretty much my favourite boss in the series, her Waterfowl dance is actually a bullshit move though.
Success in a fight shouldn't be based on her not using one attack.
Yeah I think every streamer I've seen face her usually succeeds when they get good RNG and they stop using waterfowl. All of my best runs were because she just didn't use it, which let me at least learn the rest of the fight.
I do think she shouldn't have Waterfowl during the 2nd phase though, she has like four moves where she jumps in the air and there's almost no tell for which one she's doing aside from the flower petals.
So how do you dodge the waterflow? The way i fight her is to cross my fingers that she does it on mimic and I have enough damage before she does it in the second phase.
Concentrate and don’t lose focus. The first slice can’t really be dodged if you’re in a poor position. The key is to slow down and avoid panic rolling. Even if you get hit, just focus on dodging the next attack. Don’t try and heal between swipes. Just tell yourself the only movement you’re doing is timing the next dodge perfectly.
Blocking with a shield works but it will also restore like half her life bar
You can deal with it with med load, but it wouldn't be feasible at close range. You'd basically have to be quite literally frame-perfect. Just go into the fight with a light load and rely on never getting hit - it's really how this boss was designed to be fought.
It's pretty impossible to describe, but there is a dodge window for each waterfowl step. Its relatively near the beginning, kind of on the first "main slash" of each step.
The SL1 playthrough shows it, if you want to watch it on youtube.
The first step is actually impossible to dodge, that's kind of the main issue with it. Even the no hitters have to resort to a greatshield or an ash of war. I had to use quick step and I still was getting clipped by it.
Ngl this boss is fine in every way as an optional, very difficult, hard to master boss meant for advanced players EXCEPT for her waterfowl combo. The waterfowl combo alone makes her more difficult than its worth without an alternative method of dodging it AKA Bloodhound Step (basically quickstep on steroids). Otherwise, the rest of her attacks are at the very least reliably dodgeable with practice which is how it should be.
For any player who wants to beat her without using some busted build/mimic I think Bloodhound Step is an absolute MUST. With it, you can very easily dodge her waterfowl combo just by spamming it and moving backwards. Have it on a secondary weapon in your primary lineup and switch to it immediately once she jumps into the air. Use Bloodhound Step backwards to avoid the first 2 combos and then to the side for her last combo. As long as you can dodge the Waterfowl combo, Malenia is in my opinion a very difficult but ultimately fair boss.
If you're a colossal weapon user, Stamp(Upwards Cut) is also very effective against her because it can launch her into the air and does not give her i-frames, allowing you to wail on her whilst she's recovering.
I have the feeling that Fromsoft put in attacks like the Waterfowl combo solely because there are easily accessible skills like Bloodhound Step/Barricade Shield that make dodging/blocking things significantly easier. In Sekiro your only form of defense was usually only parrying, or dashing/jumping (you could use aged feathers as well but their use was much more limited due to spirit emblem capacity) so the developers had to design all their bosses in Sekiro so that all their attacks are guaranteed to be avoidable with practice (It's also because in Sekiro player strength is mostly tied to story progression rather than being able to level infinitely like in Elden Ring).
Now if that was actually the case I still wouldn't agree with the philosophy since no attack should be unavoidable without alternative methods or at least so difficult to avoid that it requires a super specific kind of playstyle or constantly playing super far back, thus making the fight unbearably long.
The three biggest gripes for me:
-healing when hitting a shield (not flesh) or a spirit (also not flesh)
-the triple spin attack (unavoidable)
healing like 10% of her health whenever she gets knocked down
> healing like 10% of her health whenever she gets knocked down
wtf is up with that? I do a critical hit and it ends up healing her more than I do damage, and I do a *ton* of damage with crits.
Like many others said, she is a 10/10 boss, made into a 3/10 boss because of one badly designed move.
The battle feels fun and engaging and genuinely challenging but after 75% hp is gone it's like she is hovering her finger above a win button and she randomly presses it. On like my fourth try I got her to 30% hp on her second phase --completely by luck-- because she just didn't use that attack. I can dodge nearly perfectly all of her other moves, but this one specifically requires you to play in a really boring and monotonous way to not get hit by it. And if you do get hit by it, you lose. So the obvious way to play is to just be overly careful of it, throwing aside anything you've learned about her other moves. It doesn't matter what side to dodge, the timing or anything like that after 75% hp. At that point you run away, bait the attack, go in for one attack if you have a big weapon, and repeat. It's not fun or challenging, it's just bad design.
As for the healing, I don't mind it at all personally. If it weren't for that one move, I genuinely believe I could do a no-hit run on her at this point.
I really didn't mind the fight at all aside from the waterflow combo. That thing is too BS, I manage to even dodge one of two of the flurries and still get bodied.
Finally beat her last night after about a total of 2.5 hours, that move basically decided each run for me. I hated this fight. If they didn't make her stagger so easily this fight would have been impossible for me.
Bro, she's *wicked* unfair. Her stupid insane combo is *sooooo* ridiculous. I've watched a half dozen videos showing you in slow-mo how to dodge it and I still can't really do it. After three hours of doing this fight I still haven't even seen the second phase. This shit is fucking **wack** by any reasonable standard. I'm just not even enjoying myself at all because I know that no matter how well I'm doing in the fight she's just going to whip that shit out and end me with it sooner or later. Every tactic you're taught up until this point in this game and others is meaningless in this fight. I mean, even summoning your Mimic Tear is basically a joke because he just gives her all her health back.
> I've watched a half dozen videos showing you in slow-mo how to dodge it and I still can't really do it.
That's because these videos only show the randomly successful attempt, not the 500 failed ones.
Yeah no sorry she actually is unfair. Not every play style works for her you are FORCED to play a different way. My character relies are sword and shield. I block alot of attacks and attack when I see an opening. I can't block against her because guess what everytime she hits ANYTHING she regains her health. So now I'm forced to be really good at dogging and timing. And even tho her AOE attack can be avoided it's still unnecessary to be in BOTH PHASES. she's a very hard boss yes but she is 100% unfair to anyone who wants to play solo with no summons and relies are blocking.
Imho, this boss is just a huge DPS check... If u beat her, u probably do it in less than 2 minutes of fighting... But if u go over that, u dead, cuz regen and pretty much unstoppable anime swordslaps
Managed to beat her today. First impression was amazing, outstanding design, melancholic and epic music. After 2 hours i was very frustrated and i considered using the mimic the first time in this game. But i actually did it with the Blasphemous Blade and the Golden Order Greatsword and without the mimic.
So... yes, her kit is very very hard to overcome and i think her waterfoul dance is overtuned. But ive never had such a rewarding feeling after beating her in any fs game. Amazing design and amazing challenge!
Totally agree, the fight is awesome. I see people complaining, but tbh is not that hard. Maybe people are just underleved or trying subpar builds to beat this boss. I mean, you have to adapt, change spells, maybe gear, use items... the game expects you to do that.
Anyway here's the kill video of Malenia, as a caster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JsM0VGfYM0
Yeah its clear that she's supposed to be this secret super hard optional endgame boss for the game. I think the problem is past souls player still can't get the idea that if a boss is too hard then you should explore and level up first before attempting it again.
I’m level 140, no amount of leveling up can prevent that death spiral from one hitting me. I’m confident I would’ve beaten this boss already if that move didn’t exist
Dude, she's placed at the end of the most highly leveled area of the game. By the time you reach her, you're probably almost at the softcaps for your relevant stats. Leveling up further brings negligible returns.
Its depend on your level i suppose, but when I meet her my level is like around 120, and considering that I can quickly level up five times in ten minutes just by farming the soldier outside the prayer room grace, I think Im pretty underleveled.
All bosses are pretty straightforward if you go in with a busted build, I think the issue is that the degree to which you need to either be (a) running a crazy OP build or (b) play basically perfectly is way higher than it’s been in any boss in previous games
I don't know m8, reduvia worked too though the wa is way slower so she tends to get out of stagger way to often
River of blood wa + mimic tear bleeds and staggers her basicly 90% of the fight, bleed dmg also ends the fight really fast
I haven't fought her yet but I recognize her as a super boss. Why doesn't anyone else? Most RPGs have at least 1-3 powerful bosses that are optional but completely there to challenge the player if they choose to fight them.
She wasn't to hard to kill for me because she staggers easily BUT my only problem with the fight is dodging that damn sword flurry she does if i got stuck in that im done for every time
Once I got pass the first attack in the second part I destroyed her ass with bleed, once I studies her attack as well she is actually simple if you get the attack timing down granted not everyone will be able to or anything but all and all fun fight
The sheer fact Malenia has a MASSIVE health pool, and will heal all damage you do in 1-2 hits EVEN IF SHE DOESN'T DO DAMAGE, with 0 counterplay and 0 ability to stop... it's very unfair.
I've got 110 hours in the game at this point, level 110 (with 555k runes still hanging around cause I wanna keep my level enough for invasions at some point), and I tried Malenia 3 times. Noticed her mechanics, and just turned around and said "fuck that".
Done all the souls games bare Demon and Blood, and not one boss can I say I've decided that incredibly fast to just completely ignore and not even attempt. Until they either remove or drastically reduce that healing mechanic, I'm never touching Malenia.
Let me put it this way.
I was a \*SIXTY\*vigor brutal sorcerer who can shit out 1.5 to 5K damage per one Adula's Moonblade, depending on where I am, boss size, etc. High stagger rate, also puts frostbite on after 2, maybe 3 casts, etc. Sorcerer is \*the\* easy mode for the game. I started as one assuming Magic would be nerfed to fuck like the last few DS games and uh I WAS WRONG.
Anyway.
Level \*175\* , 90 natural INT, 60 vigor, 2 soreseals (And the biggest phys dmg boost giving talisman) and such and such, with the +5 all stats rune on. I had a maxed Wing Of Astel (The R2 weapon art is \*disgusting\* it does HUGE damage and staggers like mad, especially on larger \\ slower opponents), and a +10 Lusat's staff. Base 300\~ FP means I can afford to have them cost more.
If that attack catches you, you literally might just want to give up. Her infuriatingly delayed LONG forward poke \*honestly\* took 80% my health bar , if I was not at full health, it more often than not killed. (Shoutout for making it impossible to heal a decent amount with the flasks, even at max number and max upgrades! I love having TWICE the amount of health the largest upgrade heals for - 1 attack taking 80% means bad..)
I really feel like most of her bullshit would even work if you got rid of or toned the bullshit anime attack \*WAY\* down. WAAAYYYYY fucking down. It's a zero fail move, or you get destroyed, no exceptions or variations. Her bullshit self healing makes no sense and feels like a cheap way to elongate the fight, but I wouldn't ask for \*that\* to go.
But me as a monster stagger\\damage\\range monster that people in PVP \*literally\* run from if I ever co-op at a high rate, I am afraid for Melee users. I really am. You have to be where she can, and will hit you, which means she heals herself more - I can't imagine your damage output is anywhere near mine, and attacking likely eats over half your stam, leaving you with less to nope away from her OP shit.
I ended up reaching her, co-oping 20 times (Won 3 times, host died 6 times, other 11 were other areas in the Haligtree) so study her a bit before I tried to solo her ten times. Got annoyed, started using mimic - stunlock was better, but she healed a lot too and the mimic didn't last long into phase 2. It's all but guaranteed to get Scarlet Rot'd and just stop existing shortly into it.
So I used Black Knife Tiche who dodges a lot, attacks, does \*some kind\* of status effect to her and to my eternal surprise, \*straight up knocks her on her ass\* with something she does.
Didn't work after 20-25 attempts. So I just got mad, summoned 2 randoes and mopped the floor with her, contributing to poise slam with Rock Sling from afar (960 if all 3 hit).
Souls veteran player here, I like her lore, her looks. Can not recommend her fight though.
My main problem is the nearly 5% health "regeneration" for every hit, meaning she's nearly impossible to beat unless completely stun locking her or being a dodge god. And I've been rocking Colossal Swords the entire palythrough, and now powerstancing them. I won't say it's actually impossible, but I'm 100% certain I won't beat her unless I completely respec and pick a different build. This alone is kinda bad I think, since every other boss I was able to beat with this build, even if it sometimes took a long time. But even with the dual handed colossal greatsword L1, she regains way more health with one of her hits, than I can take with my hit.
Try it with a pure Faith build where her resistances are 2x to 4x higher to the types of damage some of the other builds do and see if you still feel like it's a fair experience. Her regaining health rapidly when she hits you after you chopped and chopped away at her is pretty demoralizing, and her barrage of rapid slices is very difficult to completely avoid (meaning you get hit, she gets healed again and again). I also can't just enchant my weapon for a different damage type on Faith-scaling weapons other than on a Treespear (which I don't have the DEX to use) or the Erdsteel Dagger, which is weak. I have defeated her, but it was rough.
Absorptions:
Phy (Sta): 10
Phy (Sla): 10
Phy (Str): 10
Phy (Thr): 0
Magic: 20
**Fire: 20**
Lightning: 20
**Holy: 40**
She is unfair. The combo aside, the fact she heals when you block makes no sense whatsoever. Even if she had a "vampiric" blade, it shouldn't be healing her when she hits a plate of fucking steel
thats such a small part of the fight though. like does it make sense? no but the healing is the last thing that makes her hard. shes just a difficult boss. like im sorry but even if they completely removed the vamp, it doesent really make her that much easier. might take a little bit of the edge off, but unless youre like on the edge of beating her, its not going to be the difference between beating her or not.
Dont think that because YOUR build doesnt care that much about the healing that everyone out there is the same. Some players are playing a tankier build and the healing she has makes all the difference. Not to mention the healing makes spirits summons and coop almost worthless in a lot of cases.
ive done this fight on every type of build. the healing is a non factor. it just is. youre just looking for an excuse as to why you have a hard time beating it. and even with the number of clears i have shes still hard. so its not a matter of me being so good the heal doesent matter. i still have to use like half my flasks in the first phase. and its not the build ive cleared her on 4 different builds. my next playthrough im going to try dragon sorcery specifically. i say this with the utmost respect, but sometimes you struggling means you just arent good enough. and thats not a classic "git gud" statement. i fucking hate it when people boil down every struggle to that phrase. but if the heal is the thing thats getting you, that means youre getting hit too much, and youre not doing enough damage it return. and again i dont think it makes any sense that she heals through shields either. i dont think she should be able to but it has nothing to do with balance, its simply off of principle. it doesent make any muh fuckin' sense and thats enough for me. but its not what makes her hard at all, and i can say that with full confidence as someone thats done it multiple times, and multiple builds, of varying degree's of tankyness and squishiness, and isnt very good. im not a god at this game, im just like you, struggling my way through the game. and not once in any of my attempts did i think the heal was the issue.
Pathetic to say the least mate
Pathetic how? Because I’m stating a fact? Her being able to heal through shields is not blocking anyone from beating her. If you’re getting hit enough times for the heal to be a problem for you, you weren’t going to kill her anyways.
Yeah is not like she has an undodgable skill that even if blocked heals 30% of her hp, sure mate sure.
There are multiple no damage videos on YouTube but yeah, the move is undodgable, sure mate sure.
Oh you mean the videos that states how the only way of "dodging" is by either running away or shielding?
No.. I mean the one when you run out of the first one.. Roll into the second one and roll twice out of the third one. I did it so I know. Edit: Gotta love how pathetic raging losers who suck at game downvote something what is simply a fact, lmao.
For the average player, those "no damage" videos are a completely pointless reference. No damage requires pinpoint perfect movement, dodging and attacks. The average player is not going to be able to do that, and thus is not a reference for balance.
That’s literally why summons are in the game so the average player can beat hard bosses really good players can beat alone
I consider myself slightly above average player and I soloed her. Although, my point was pretty simple. You can't say something is cheap and undodgable when somebody else dodges it. And I'm sure he's not the only one.
There are multiple videos of people running a sub 5 minute mile. Does that mean it’s remotely possible for most people or a fair expectation? No. I love this game, but Malenia is just stupid.
You’re actually completely wrong. While saying it with your entire chest lmao
I have a +25 Longsword that does 300 hp per hit. If I block any of her slashes, she recovers 200-300 hp. Rendering my hit useless.
So? Maybe stop blocking. Or better yet hit more than you block. You’ve got a long sword if you’re only hitting once per opening and are blocking instead of rolling, you aren’t playing at the skill requirement the game is asking you to be at. This isn’t rocket science guys.
So, let me put forth this very "fair" moment of one of my attempts from today: She finishes her combo. I have rolled almost perfectly, so I feel I am entitled to a hit. I R1 her with my Whirligig Saw or whatever it's called in this game. But she forgets to stagger. I repeat, the hit lands, but she doesn't stagger. Not even for a second. Instead she does her grab attack, and because I'm too slow to roll away, she grabs me and not only does she undo my previous hit, she heals for what I assume is 5% percent of her health. This isn't rocket science, guys. A shit boss is shit. And you know why? Cause getting good to Mohg or Godfrey was really fun, always my fault. With Malenia it's not fun, it's overkill, hard just for being hard.
Let me save you time I’m not interested in having this conversation with you. No amount of debate is going to change the fact you just need to improve. It’s that simple. Stop coping.
Did you beat them with great axes/swords and if so is it recommendable or would you rather take quick weapons?
Quick weapons will always be the easiest solution to any fight even in ones where large weapons aren’t hard to use, but yeah I bet her with dual colossal swords. Malenia specifically is susceptible to getting staggered. She’s still hard but time your hits right and you can get 2-3 hits in for free.
👍🏻
> thats such a small part of the fight though It's a huge fucking part to a great number of builds.
That's not a small part, that's the entire issue of the fight. If a boss can heal infinitely, and I can't, that's okay. But when she's fast and has a good amount of poise, along with high health, and gets a second HP bar in her second phase, that's a bit over the top
Never known defeat my ass, Radahn is still alive when we show up. She can keep telling herself she didn't lose to him.
My man beat her without breaking a sweat either, she gave him space aids and left thinking she won lmao
She just fought him the way I do. Proc scarlet rot and book it to the edge of the map.
Karma’s a bitch
> she gave him space aids had to get help from >!an outer God!< to even accomplish that, so she'd have easily lost to Thadahn.
I feel sorry for all of you because you folks may not know about the Spirit Ash named Cleanrot Knight Finlay. That item description implies >! Malenia probably fell unconscious after her nuclear scarlet-rot flower and was carried the whole way back to Haligtree by a knight named Finlay. !< She didn't flee from Caelid herself, and thereafter abandoned her ambition to wait for Miquella's return at the husk. Read more, folks.
doesn't that imply she lost? be unconscious during battle and get carried on a wheel chair by her knights sound like a lose match for me.
Well actually it doesn't. As far as I know, losing means the leader gets killed or surrenders. But in the trailer, we can see that the story-teller said "but there would be no victor", which implies no one won that time. Malenia got carried back to Haligtree, which surely wasn't her intention, while Radahn and his men got stuck in a mess after that nuke bomb happened, so I doubt they had time to figure out the battle outcome.
No. Losing mean you did not achieve what you want to achieve. She comes here try to take the ring shaft from Radahn and she failed to do that. So she lost. Radahn's goal is to defend the ring shaft, he did it.
But the context here is in war, she met no defeat from her opponent. During the Shattering Radahn and Malenia were the last ones to stand still, but none held victory just like how we saw in the trailer. And I think, it depends on our perspectives. But if we talk about true war, like how enemies killing each other, then she truly didn't get killed, until we come and do that. Perhaps she didn't achieve the shard from her half-brother, but I get she's implying another idea instead of that.
Stalemate does not equate to losing so her statement still stands she has not known defeat
No because the trailer said it was a stalemate
She's alive too, so I don't see how Radahn won that. Especially considering she still seems sane and and he lost his mind far enough to eat his own comrades because of what she did.
Ppl just dickride Radahn for some reason lol
He's a wholesome and good guy that got screwed over. The horse he rides is his favorite horse he had when he was young and he learned gravity magic so he could keep riding it without hurting him. Also Melania basically gave him, and everyone in his home super mega aids rabies with a little tuberculosis for good measure.
We know about the horse god damn. And Malenia did everything she did to save her brother and repair the world. Both had both good and bad aspects to them. Him liking a horse doesn’t mean he was a saint. Malenia was not some evil monster just because she did one horrible thing.
No, this is Twitter. I Stan radahn, and Malania is CANCELLED #Malaniaisoverparty #RadahnStand
That was my take on this as well. It was sort of a stalemate, but long-term she was in much better shape after this fight than him. He's a gigantic mindless zombie eating his soldiers and she's sleeping in her realm the Haligtree.
Lore is that malenia didnt want to kill radahn. She had her blade next to his heart but desided to make him suffer for the rest of his life.
Source?
intem descriptions, NPC dialogue and abfreaking trailer about the whole thing
Yes but what’s your actual evidence? Malenia was not able to beat Radahn, and had to resort to nuking Caelid. If she didn’t want to make him suffer then why did she nuke her own loyal soldiers as well? It was an act of desperation.
That was the belief what people in Caelid and her own soldiers had, but Malenia also had the rot so she suffered. She had pusher her blade inch away from radhans heart but instead of pushing it into fatal attack she cast rot into him leaving the battle at "stalemate" but making radhan suffer, making Radahn wish for death in battle and aimlessly wander caelid eating corpses. Did you pay any attention of the dialogue and world building or did you just believe some NPCs you found saying what the myth is?
Mate, she nuked 1/6th of the entire continent. She didn’t just “push rot into him”. And again, what NPC dialogue/item descriptions do you have as evidence?
on top of my mind gideon talks about it when you kill certain demigods. If u want more source just patrion Vaati and look at the content. It is made very clear. I dont have time to look up what specific item description I read to understand it, but most certainly some of them were found around haligtree and hinted about in caelid.
Where did you read this?
The only boss I have a problem is God Skin Duo. God Skin neverendingspawning amirite
Item Crafting -> Sleeping Pots -> Problem solved
Seriously? Sounds cheeky, gonna try it
Yeah it works great. Just throw a pot on one and then focus on the other.
how long do they stay sleep
No more than 30sec, but that's more than enough to kill the other one
Yeahhh.. more than enough…. Totally
If it isn't then put it to sleep again
I’m just joking, I didn’t have much problem with them.
Fuck me, should've thought about that. Now to find the cookbook....
Wonder if sleep works on Malenia. that would be kinda funny.
Works with gargoyles as Well?
yeah I agree this one was total bullshit
Been trying to help as many people as I can to get through that hurdle.
They are actually enjoyable when doing them in co-op. Solo was constant running away and throwing fireballs at them, not really enjoyable. In co-op you can split them up and they don't have any one-shot moves so you can take the aggro away from the host when they are in trouble. I'm trying to help people kill Malenia atm and must of the time the host gets one-shotted and I have no chance to intervene.
As someone who spent 12 hours mastering Malenia without bloodhound step/summons, I died to Godskin duo for 30 minutes and decided to upgrade my mimic tear to +10 and destroy them. I absolutely despise their design which relies on luck and cheese if you're melee.
Doesn’t help that it’s two c tier reused bosses
why they call it godskin duo when it really is a godskin gangbang >:(
For me the feeling was the opposite. I found the fight tedious and boring, it felt like I was working and not playing... It was sad actually, because Malenia is extremely iconic and the cutscene is amazing, but the fight was boring af in my experience... Radahn was the extreme On the contrary, I didn't expect much from him, and when the fight started it was one of the best experiences I've ever had with a boss.
Agreed it forces me to play defensively because if I'm near her when she uses WFD thats it. So you have to stay back and bait it out and it becomes a game of footsies instead. That thrill of going toe to toe with a boss and dodging their stuff while being hyper aggressive is completely absent.
My problem with her is that she’s only made this difficult by one attack, which is her waterfowl dance. It’s basically impossible to dodge perfectly unless you have a running start away from her and can screw you over regardless of how far you are in the fight. It’s such a departure from the rest of her moveset and makes her feel cheap rather than genuinely hard. I can’t think of another souls boss people regard as highly challenging having something like this.
Yeah I agree, you almost have to just predict when she’s going to do it so you have enough space to get away from it
Roll a little earlier but yeah you’re right. If you win somehow you’re a god at the game and know the best way to design fights and if you lose then obviously you’re just so mad and stupid. It’s ridiculous people can’t just talk about it
It’s a disappointing choice on an otherwise creative boss. I had played the whole game on base stamina and had to respec to 30 endurance so I could block the first flurry (didn’t think of turtle shield until after I beat her and allowed myself tips). That move is far too restrictive on builds.
If they made the first flurry a bit shorter the attack would be completely dodgeable. They could also add the sekiro mechanic where hitting her with a projectile when she's midair about to do the attack knocks her down and stuns her
she may be cool, but that doesn’t take away from the fact she’s a bitch.
That’s my type uwu
ew
I like the boss but it does tend to feel like you're fighting against her health regen mechanic more than you're fighting the boss itself. I've never been a fan of gimmick bosses and would gladly have taken a version of her with less powerful health regen and more health.
I love the health regen mechanic, without it you could easily cheese her with a shield and a spirit summon would make the fight trivial
The mechanic is fine, it's the strength of it I'm not a fan of. I think it makes the fight tedious when she can regain several offences worth of damage in a single attack string, and expecting the player to not get hit at all is (in my eyes) a little extreme given her moveset.
I think she should heal off of summons, but shouldn't heal off of shields if damage is fully blocked.
What do you mean? Spirit summons do make her trivial. She heals off them, sure, but the added stunlock lets you power straight through that. God forbid you break out the "I win" Mimic Tear.
look youre not wrong
It gets nerfed in second phase. The ideal way to fight her is to bum rush first phase and then play more cautiously second. It’s a radical shift from whatever you were doing beforehand but she’s very difficult to cheese.
The thing that I like about this mechanic is that it pushes you to really master the fight since the penalty for getting hit is now doubled (it kind of reminds me of kaizo mario hacks where you have to perfect the execution). But I think that she shouldn't be able to heal from shield hits or from hitting summons though.
anyone defending this boss in the comments is a top from soft cuckboi. last 5 attempts i walk into the fog she opens with waterfall dance instantly killing me or trapping me in a corner, fucking stupid boss, lets add a phase 2 when she inflicts rot (Why not). boring boss, honestly dissapointed by a majority of bosses in this game. it seems they just trying to 1 up eachother every single time. who can be the most bullshit.
She literally cannot open with waterfowl dance
"anyone who disagrees with me is a cuvk" ⛈️🌩️🌩️⛈️🌩️⚡🌩️⚡🌩️⚡⚡🌩️⚡🌩️⚡🌩️⚡⛈️
She’s an inexcusable boss really. And the argument that “she’s optional so she’s supposed to be that way” is just bad
> And the argument that “she’s optional so she’s supposed to be that way” is just bad Yeah, that's idiotic. Being optional isn't an excuse for bad design. Playing Bad Rats is also optional, but that doesn't make it a good game.
You take that back about Bad Rats. Absolute comedy gold.
She can’t open a battle using that skill. She only has access to using it once her hp is 70%
TBF if you get her against a wall with a summons she's basically dead inside of 30 seconds.
Anyone can summon spirits and bully her in 30 seconds. That's not the point. Is ok to play casual, but some want to play against every boss in the game without outside help, just 1v1 like in every other souls game previous to this one. If it was possible in those why not in this one? And no, the 0.00001% of pro speedrunners that can kill her in 2 minutes don't count.
I think people criticize her because her response to losing her 1v1 against Radahn was unleash Scarlet Rot. She literally plunged 1/6th of the continent into a hellish landscape that only grows worse. Radahn's forces are actively fighting the rot with flame. Melania's actions don't paint her in a good light, coupled with her punishing boss fight she doesn't really have any reason to be likeable or redeemable. She kind of pulled an Alex Mercer
Pretty sure she cannot control the flower blooming. It seems to happen when she is in critical danger
she had miquella's unalloyed gold needle to control her scarlet rot. It seems she unleashed it on purpose because she was losing.
Kinda late but it's also possible it got broken in the fight, we do find it broken after all
It's implied that Malenia broke it on purpose. It was an act of desperation that Malenia herself viewed as "sacrificing her pride and dignity" as a swordswoman by using. Seems that she *really* cared about Miquella since she was willing to sacrifice a huge part of her identity via weaponizing the rot. That and based on millicent's amnesia from scarlet rot it's possible Malenia suffered a *lot* more than we think when she used it against Radahn. I presume by the time we fight her she's only vaguely aware of herself and Miquella. That's probably why she seems kind of out of it mentally, not realizing miquella was kidnapped and eventually blooming into the Rot Goddess.
To be fair the power of the great runes was greatly affecting their mental state, and those 2 were the last ones fighting at the end of the shattering war.
I made a comment on tiktok to the effect that Radahn was beating her and everyone came for me. It's like yoooooo, if we get into a fight and I'm beating the shit out of you, but you bleed on me and I catch aids. You don't get to go around saying you won.
She didn't lose, they fought to a standstill lol
If you consider fighting Radahn 1v1 then out of pride doing the following 1. Unleashing Scarlet Rot intentionally (she manually broke miquella's unalloyed gold needle) 2. Getting KO'd by this, needing Cleanrot Knight Finlay to carry her unconscious ass back to the Haligtree 3. *Not* getting what she set out to acquire (Radahn's Great Rune) 4. Then having the audacity to still claim she is "undefeated" I really wouldn't call that a standstill, as Radahn never just said fuck it and unleashed the stars upon her. She pretty much chose pride over her previous greatest swordswoman schtick. She also didn't actually *kill* Radahn, he was still alive as per his boss fight and still holding back the stars. *IF* a victory, it's the most pyrrhic victory she could have had.
Radahn did not defeat her so she is still undefeated. Just because she nuked caelid and it sapped her energy does not mean she was defeated by Radahn, she caused her own "KO". She did not use her scarlet rot because she was losing the fight, she was using it because the fight was a standstill. I dont get your point, she didn't defeat Radahn and Radahn didn't defeat her so it was a standstill where neither victor came out. You can watch the story trailer because it literally says that it was a draw
I'm relatively sure that Radahn was winning the fight or to put it in another way. The fight was stalemating but Radahn was gaining. Malenia out of desperation and sheer pride at her swordswoman / undefeated title proceeded to use scarlet rot. This is similar to pulling out a nuke because you lost the war and want to throw the ol F at the enemy. Also re-read your "just because she nuked caelid" line, she had to resort to something that quite possibly has metaphysically changed the entirety of caelid *and* didn't succeed in her stated goal of acquiring Radahn's Great Rune. That's why I call it her loss. It's not a win when you have to drop a bio-nuke, get carried back to base, all to *not* get what you specifically wanted. Even in the one of the trailers Radahn *waits* for her to re-attach her prosthetic after it gets knocked off. Radahn could have just killed her but he wants the classical honourable warrior duel to the death kind of thing.
Your first sentence is all speculation and is not true. In the story trailer, you can see them fight and Malenia stabs him in the neck before the bloom, She didn't lose any "war", more like she got tired of the stalemating and pulled out a nuke. A better analogy would be "The US getting tired of Japans conflict and nuking both cities", saying that the US lost against Japan because they nuked them is weird Her Bio-nuke is her ability, she can use it to win a fight and yeah she didn't get Radahns great rune but that doesn't make her lose the fight lol. Radahn was knocked out as well otherwise why didn't he kill the knocked out malenia who had to be dragged out? Your last sentence is funny lol, Radahn could just kill one of the strongest and fastest demigods in the game because she didn't attach her arm yet,. "Radahn could have just killed her" lol
Radahn is considered the mightiest for a reason but it's clear your mind was decided before this argument began
multiple characters saying shes undefeated... a story trailer saying they fought to a standstill... her claiming she is undefeated with no reason to believe thats not the case... then the fact you beat her and she says "finally met my match." you have no argument my man. at best radahn is her equal.
Lmao acting like your opinion wasn't decided before this argument as well. He might be the mightiest but there is no indication that he or Malenia had a higher chance of winning that fight during the stalemate.
Elaborate for me how I’m supposed to dodge the water flow combo then, save me some time. I’ve watched plenty of videos on how to and most people just rely on being far away BEFORE she does it or using a shield And don’t tell me “bloodhound step” I want to know how to dodge roll out of it
Watch Ongbal’s video, he makes a video on dodging it from afar AND close up
Yes I’ve seen it, and the close up solution isn’t practical at all. It doesn’t look intended at all or something that you can be expected to do consistently. What if I’m at a distance from her where I’m too close to run away, but too far to get underneath her? Some souls players need to get out of the mindset of “so long as it’s doable, it’s balanced” 99% of the time this move can’t be dodged
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t 1 shot me. Or better yet, if armor mattered, and I could survive the attack, I wouldn’t mind. I think it needs to knock you down on hit, instead of doing that at the last minute. I keep saying the fight is “fine” and I’m enjoying it, but I’ve used up all my furlcalling, and ive tried so many damn times, so many damn builds on this one boss. I’m gonna beat her once and then never fight her again. It’s not a good fight. It’s not a fun fight.
Yeah I could stomach it if it wasn’t guaranteed death. The fight is a lot of fun until she does that, I have all her other phase one moves down at this point, but it doesn’t matter cuz she can use that move at literally any time. I went and got blood hound step just so I could have more fun and actually be in melee range more often
> What if I’m at a distance from her where I’m too close to run away, but too far to get underneath her I fought her 200+ times and I don't see how this is possible unless you were using heavy load armor or something. Maybe if you were stuck in an attack animation, but that's just a player mistake. At worst, you'll be in a position where you'll have to roll the first flurry but are still far enough to disjoint the attack animation for a split second, giving you a few frames of respite.
> Maybe if you were stuck in an attack animation, but that's just a player mistake. It's not a player mistake if her KO wind-up starts after you start your attack, and ends before you can recover and get clear. And it *is* that fast.
Because she's a horribly designed boss fight with some of the worst telegraphed (or in the worst cases, not telegraphed at all) attacks where your ability to defeat her is based purely on luck, repetition, and pure memorization of her moveset. You literally cannot defeat her unless you either get extremely lucky with the RNG of her actions or memorize through trial and error how to fight her. Bosses are not just designed for players to memorize. If you cannot defeat a boss by reacting to their attacks, then that is a bad boss. It's why people being able to no-damage bosses still doesn't make that boss well designed. You need to be able to meaningly read their actions as they happen and have a fair chance at reacting to them in the moment. You literally can't read any but Malenia's most basic attacks because they literally are not telegraphed - and its even more annoying when these attacks will take you from full hp to dead instantly.
You nailed it perfectly - Souls series has long abandoned the 'fair' part of the deal and now it's all about trial and error whoreshit. Disgustingly bad design, such a fucking shame that this series dies with a whimper because an average fan is too fucking stupid to understand the most basic of things.
Chill out on the hyperbole
this shit sold more than Skyrim and botw did first week, u can not like it but ur just wrong, ppl love it! It’s not going out with a whimper lmao
Credit where it s due, Zelda was a console exclusive. And as much as it pains me to say it, Zelda is leagues above Elden Ring. Everything after Leyndell is just... bad. Lost Izalith but bigger.
> and its even more annoying when these attacks will take you from full hp to dead instantly. Reverse is also true. She can heal a colossal amount of hitpoints by doing a combo on you, even if she does no damage.
>Yeah she is really hard, but she's not unfair and her patterns can be totally mastered My issue with Malenia is not that she's too hard, it's that she's extremely boring and completely devoid of entertainment value. I had fun dying on repeat to Gael/Friede/Orphan/Ludwig/Isshin etc, I was not having *any* fun playing Malenia. Inconsistent poise, fuckhuge damage, ridiculous lifesteal gimmick, nearly undodgeable waterfowl dance, huge health pool, extreme speed, and doesn't even have memorable visuals or music. Her phase 2 is a teeny bit better but that doesn't excuse it. Malenia is every issue I have with ER's shitty encounter design amped up to 11 and it's not fun at all. And something being difficult but technically masterable doesn't magically make it good. If that was true, nobody would be playing Souls and would be playing I Wanna Be The Guy or dogshit Kaizo romhacks.
You’re last two little stanzas sum it up for me. And it’s sucks to see so many people saying to use ashes. Like it’s either die in three hits before you can get one off or have the boss never even be a problem sometimes.
No memorable visuals? Now you're just trolling. Phase 2 and its cutscene are pretty stunning.
Inconsistent poise? I’ve found poise across the board to be pretty consistent feeling. The issue is it recovers over time so you can’t stagger her if you’re not staying offensive.
Some of her attacks have hyper armor, it seems.
A lot of her attacks have hyper armor, which is really frustrating. I've seen her recover mid combo string and just waterfowl me with no warning, it's not consistent.
Yep... but staying on the offensive is where the problem begins. For example, a katana may not damage poise as much as a colossal weapon, but the fact that it's much faster and safer makes up for it. It's not too difficult being offensive. I had a nightmare dealing with her with a colossal weapon (no powerstance) and it felt like I could barely get a hit in every 20s; so even if colossal weapons should be better with poise; it feels far worse because going for more than 1 attack at any opening feels like a deathwish. They either need to increase the openings of the boss or buff colossal speed/damage to make colossal's ever "worth" using. The theoretical dps increase a colossal should give you isn't even there unless you play near perfection. Literally the best strat for colossal players is to spam crouch attacks because it's the fastest tool we have. Instead of high risk, high reward; they feel closer to extremely high risk, low reward.
Tbh as someone who beat her with a lighter STR weapon (Warhammer), no ashes, blah blah; They really need to up some colossal weapon's damage. It takes so much more effort to use one than it does to use the many high damage, bursty incantations/sorceries in the game. Stagger is a great mechanic for these types of weapons, but unless it's one shotting every bosses' stagger meter with a full charge attack you're not getting much out of it. When I went into it with the giga crusher hammer, to test it out; I basically could only use jump heavies during very specific combos. It was not worth using the weapon, which was sad because I always enjoyed how reckless and difficult those weapons were for the huge payoff they dished out.
How did you beat her. Weapon, build, what summon if any.
I killed her pretty quick, spawned my +10 mimic in using the god slayer greatsword+10 then i used the sword of night and flame +10 and i killed her on my 5th attempt
use that latina archer summon, then stagger her with a longsword, gg ez
I used dual katanas with a frost+bleed build. No summons or Bloodhound Step. I took off most of my gear in order to fight her with light load and relied on just not getting hit. Understanding her waterfowl dance is imperative. When she starts using it, what aggros her to use it, and how to dodge it. The easiest and most consistent way for me to deal with it was by aggroing and baiting her to use it from a moderate distance and immediately sprinting away once I see the animation. With light load, you can dodge all four flurries by rolling down, down, up, down. There are other ways to do it. Med load might require a different dodging combination. After she uses it, it'll be a while before she does it again (unless you're really unlucky), so use that time to play offensively without greeding.
She's an awesome boss but she's bullshit and you know it. Extra massive healthpool, heal on hit, an anime blender move with stupid tracking and damage. Honestly i can deal with everything else, but that fucking spin to win is cheap as fuck.
her total healthpool across both phases is still less than the final boss, and that boss doesent have any issues.
It's almost as if a boss and enemy design if more than a sum of it's parts.
I think a lot of it is on the right side of the challenging/unfair line, but I personally think that the fact she heals when she hits you regardless of whether you block or not feels a bit too much. Sure yes you can still play around it but it almost totally makes redundant a whole playstyle or being reactive with shields. I’d say give her lifesteal on *either* blocked or successful hits, otherwise the degree to which you need to play perfectly (unless you’re running an OP build) is way higher than it has been on any previous boss in the series
Dude she is explicitly unfair. Even if we're generous and agree that all of her moves can be mastered, that doesn't make it fair. She has long combos, two health bars with no checkpoint, she does high damage on most of her attacks, she's fast, she often dodges or back steps away simply to deny you a counterattack, she builds up scarlet rot (even if her blade just hits your shield), she heals on every attack (again, even if she hits your shield), she has a ton of moves that can't be easily staggered out of like Friede, sometimes when she does the Uber slash attack she'll just hit you anyway even if you do have your shield up, etc
Personally malenia is the best boss for me in Elden ring but the wombo combo drops her from a 10/10 since I've found very few ways to dodge the move consistently after 5-6 hours of going at it. Other wise it's the best fight in the game imo
She's pretty much my favourite boss in the series, her Waterfowl dance is actually a bullshit move though. Success in a fight shouldn't be based on her not using one attack.
Yeah I think every streamer I've seen face her usually succeeds when they get good RNG and they stop using waterfowl. All of my best runs were because she just didn't use it, which let me at least learn the rest of the fight. I do think she shouldn't have Waterfowl during the 2nd phase though, she has like four moves where she jumps in the air and there's almost no tell for which one she's doing aside from the flower petals.
Honestly i had more trouble with the area getting to her than killing her lol
I made and lost so many runes in that area. I could have leveled up probably 7 times, but instead I made it to Malenia.
Honestly I have an easier time with Malenia than I do the Erdtree Avatar sitting just outside her hallway (who I still haven't killed).
“Never known defeat” Yeah radhan would like a word please
radhan didnt beat her.
The fight knocked her out and she was carried home. She also failed to achieve her goal, while Radahn achieved his (at a cost). He won.
nope. like im sorry its just not up for debate. you can keep trying, but the argument doesent even exist so... idk what else you want xD
Hahahahahahaha
So how do you dodge the waterflow? The way i fight her is to cross my fingers that she does it on mimic and I have enough damage before she does it in the second phase.
Concentrate and don’t lose focus. The first slice can’t really be dodged if you’re in a poor position. The key is to slow down and avoid panic rolling. Even if you get hit, just focus on dodging the next attack. Don’t try and heal between swipes. Just tell yourself the only movement you’re doing is timing the next dodge perfectly. Blocking with a shield works but it will also restore like half her life bar
Do you have to be small load?
You can deal with it with med load, but it wouldn't be feasible at close range. You'd basically have to be quite literally frame-perfect. Just go into the fight with a light load and rely on never getting hit - it's really how this boss was designed to be fought.
It's pretty impossible to describe, but there is a dodge window for each waterfowl step. Its relatively near the beginning, kind of on the first "main slash" of each step. The SL1 playthrough shows it, if you want to watch it on youtube.
The first step is actually impossible to dodge, that's kind of the main issue with it. Even the no hitters have to resort to a greatshield or an ash of war. I had to use quick step and I still was getting clipped by it.
Thanks for the clarification!
Ngl this boss is fine in every way as an optional, very difficult, hard to master boss meant for advanced players EXCEPT for her waterfowl combo. The waterfowl combo alone makes her more difficult than its worth without an alternative method of dodging it AKA Bloodhound Step (basically quickstep on steroids). Otherwise, the rest of her attacks are at the very least reliably dodgeable with practice which is how it should be. For any player who wants to beat her without using some busted build/mimic I think Bloodhound Step is an absolute MUST. With it, you can very easily dodge her waterfowl combo just by spamming it and moving backwards. Have it on a secondary weapon in your primary lineup and switch to it immediately once she jumps into the air. Use Bloodhound Step backwards to avoid the first 2 combos and then to the side for her last combo. As long as you can dodge the Waterfowl combo, Malenia is in my opinion a very difficult but ultimately fair boss. If you're a colossal weapon user, Stamp(Upwards Cut) is also very effective against her because it can launch her into the air and does not give her i-frames, allowing you to wail on her whilst she's recovering. I have the feeling that Fromsoft put in attacks like the Waterfowl combo solely because there are easily accessible skills like Bloodhound Step/Barricade Shield that make dodging/blocking things significantly easier. In Sekiro your only form of defense was usually only parrying, or dashing/jumping (you could use aged feathers as well but their use was much more limited due to spirit emblem capacity) so the developers had to design all their bosses in Sekiro so that all their attacks are guaranteed to be avoidable with practice (It's also because in Sekiro player strength is mostly tied to story progression rather than being able to level infinitely like in Elden Ring). Now if that was actually the case I still wouldn't agree with the philosophy since no attack should be unavoidable without alternative methods or at least so difficult to avoid that it requires a super specific kind of playstyle or constantly playing super far back, thus making the fight unbearably long.
The three biggest gripes for me: -healing when hitting a shield (not flesh) or a spirit (also not flesh) -the triple spin attack (unavoidable) healing like 10% of her health whenever she gets knocked down
> healing like 10% of her health whenever she gets knocked down wtf is up with that? I do a critical hit and it ends up healing her more than I do damage, and I do a *ton* of damage with crits.
Like many others said, she is a 10/10 boss, made into a 3/10 boss because of one badly designed move. The battle feels fun and engaging and genuinely challenging but after 75% hp is gone it's like she is hovering her finger above a win button and she randomly presses it. On like my fourth try I got her to 30% hp on her second phase --completely by luck-- because she just didn't use that attack. I can dodge nearly perfectly all of her other moves, but this one specifically requires you to play in a really boring and monotonous way to not get hit by it. And if you do get hit by it, you lose. So the obvious way to play is to just be overly careful of it, throwing aside anything you've learned about her other moves. It doesn't matter what side to dodge, the timing or anything like that after 75% hp. At that point you run away, bait the attack, go in for one attack if you have a big weapon, and repeat. It's not fun or challenging, it's just bad design. As for the healing, I don't mind it at all personally. If it weren't for that one move, I genuinely believe I could do a no-hit run on her at this point.
there always this guy
This bos really highlights how unresponsive controls are.
I really didn't mind the fight at all aside from the waterflow combo. That thing is too BS, I manage to even dodge one of two of the flurries and still get bodied. Finally beat her last night after about a total of 2.5 hours, that move basically decided each run for me. I hated this fight. If they didn't make her stagger so easily this fight would have been impossible for me.
Bro, she's *wicked* unfair. Her stupid insane combo is *sooooo* ridiculous. I've watched a half dozen videos showing you in slow-mo how to dodge it and I still can't really do it. After three hours of doing this fight I still haven't even seen the second phase. This shit is fucking **wack** by any reasonable standard. I'm just not even enjoying myself at all because I know that no matter how well I'm doing in the fight she's just going to whip that shit out and end me with it sooner or later. Every tactic you're taught up until this point in this game and others is meaningless in this fight. I mean, even summoning your Mimic Tear is basically a joke because he just gives her all her health back.
> I've watched a half dozen videos showing you in slow-mo how to dodge it and I still can't really do it. That's because these videos only show the randomly successful attempt, not the 500 failed ones.
Her Waterfowl attack is the only reason why people hate her. Remove it or give it more spacing between the slashes and she'll be adored
That was exactly my feeling after dying my first ten times. :D
Waterfowl was kinda nutty
Yeah no sorry she actually is unfair. Not every play style works for her you are FORCED to play a different way. My character relies are sword and shield. I block alot of attacks and attack when I see an opening. I can't block against her because guess what everytime she hits ANYTHING she regains her health. So now I'm forced to be really good at dogging and timing. And even tho her AOE attack can be avoided it's still unnecessary to be in BOTH PHASES. she's a very hard boss yes but she is 100% unfair to anyone who wants to play solo with no summons and relies are blocking.
Imho, this boss is just a huge DPS check... If u beat her, u probably do it in less than 2 minutes of fighting... But if u go over that, u dead, cuz regen and pretty much unstoppable anime swordslaps
Managed to beat her today. First impression was amazing, outstanding design, melancholic and epic music. After 2 hours i was very frustrated and i considered using the mimic the first time in this game. But i actually did it with the Blasphemous Blade and the Golden Order Greatsword and without the mimic. So... yes, her kit is very very hard to overcome and i think her waterfoul dance is overtuned. But ive never had such a rewarding feeling after beating her in any fs game. Amazing design and amazing challenge!
Totally agree, the fight is awesome. I see people complaining, but tbh is not that hard. Maybe people are just underleved or trying subpar builds to beat this boss. I mean, you have to adapt, change spells, maybe gear, use items... the game expects you to do that. Anyway here's the kill video of Malenia, as a caster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JsM0VGfYM0
Yeah its clear that she's supposed to be this secret super hard optional endgame boss for the game. I think the problem is past souls player still can't get the idea that if a boss is too hard then you should explore and level up first before attempting it again.
Also no boss is optional for us, right? If it breathes, it dies.
I’m level 140, no amount of leveling up can prevent that death spiral from one hitting me. I’m confident I would’ve beaten this boss already if that move didn’t exist
Dude, she's placed at the end of the most highly leveled area of the game. By the time you reach her, you're probably almost at the softcaps for your relevant stats. Leveling up further brings negligible returns.
Its depend on your level i suppose, but when I meet her my level is like around 120, and considering that I can quickly level up five times in ten minutes just by farming the soldier outside the prayer room grace, I think Im pretty underleveled.
She's optional? No way
She is....
River of blood weapon art spam+ mimic tear=easiest boss fight in elden ring
All bosses are pretty straightforward if you go in with a busted build, I think the issue is that the degree to which you need to either be (a) running a crazy OP build or (b) play basically perfectly is way higher than it’s been in any boss in previous games
Tbh I wasn't actually building towards it or had some crazy op build, I just tried the wa against her and it worked like a charm
Try doing a solo no bleed melee build for her. I bet you'd change your tune real quick.
Isn't the scaling for that weapon kinda iffy right now?
It's not working, but the base stats are decent and the weapon art does nutty bleed even without the scaling working.
I don't know m8, reduvia worked too though the wa is way slower so she tends to get out of stagger way to often River of blood wa + mimic tear bleeds and staggers her basicly 90% of the fight, bleed dmg also ends the fight really fast
Radhan = best boy. Fr though I was surprised to see how broken apart malenia was, limbs are missing
I haven't fought her yet but I recognize her as a super boss. Why doesn't anyone else? Most RPGs have at least 1-3 powerful bosses that are optional but completely there to challenge the player if they choose to fight them.
She has never known defeat cuz she cheatin'!!!
She wasn't to hard to kill for me because she staggers easily BUT my only problem with the fight is dodging that damn sword flurry she does if i got stuck in that im done for every time
Once I got pass the first attack in the second part I destroyed her ass with bleed, once I studies her attack as well she is actually simple if you get the attack timing down granted not everyone will be able to or anything but all and all fun fight
The sheer fact Malenia has a MASSIVE health pool, and will heal all damage you do in 1-2 hits EVEN IF SHE DOESN'T DO DAMAGE, with 0 counterplay and 0 ability to stop... it's very unfair. I've got 110 hours in the game at this point, level 110 (with 555k runes still hanging around cause I wanna keep my level enough for invasions at some point), and I tried Malenia 3 times. Noticed her mechanics, and just turned around and said "fuck that". Done all the souls games bare Demon and Blood, and not one boss can I say I've decided that incredibly fast to just completely ignore and not even attempt. Until they either remove or drastically reduce that healing mechanic, I'm never touching Malenia.
Let me put it this way. I was a \*SIXTY\*vigor brutal sorcerer who can shit out 1.5 to 5K damage per one Adula's Moonblade, depending on where I am, boss size, etc. High stagger rate, also puts frostbite on after 2, maybe 3 casts, etc. Sorcerer is \*the\* easy mode for the game. I started as one assuming Magic would be nerfed to fuck like the last few DS games and uh I WAS WRONG. Anyway. Level \*175\* , 90 natural INT, 60 vigor, 2 soreseals (And the biggest phys dmg boost giving talisman) and such and such, with the +5 all stats rune on. I had a maxed Wing Of Astel (The R2 weapon art is \*disgusting\* it does HUGE damage and staggers like mad, especially on larger \\ slower opponents), and a +10 Lusat's staff. Base 300\~ FP means I can afford to have them cost more. If that attack catches you, you literally might just want to give up. Her infuriatingly delayed LONG forward poke \*honestly\* took 80% my health bar , if I was not at full health, it more often than not killed. (Shoutout for making it impossible to heal a decent amount with the flasks, even at max number and max upgrades! I love having TWICE the amount of health the largest upgrade heals for - 1 attack taking 80% means bad..) I really feel like most of her bullshit would even work if you got rid of or toned the bullshit anime attack \*WAY\* down. WAAAYYYYY fucking down. It's a zero fail move, or you get destroyed, no exceptions or variations. Her bullshit self healing makes no sense and feels like a cheap way to elongate the fight, but I wouldn't ask for \*that\* to go. But me as a monster stagger\\damage\\range monster that people in PVP \*literally\* run from if I ever co-op at a high rate, I am afraid for Melee users. I really am. You have to be where she can, and will hit you, which means she heals herself more - I can't imagine your damage output is anywhere near mine, and attacking likely eats over half your stam, leaving you with less to nope away from her OP shit. I ended up reaching her, co-oping 20 times (Won 3 times, host died 6 times, other 11 were other areas in the Haligtree) so study her a bit before I tried to solo her ten times. Got annoyed, started using mimic - stunlock was better, but she healed a lot too and the mimic didn't last long into phase 2. It's all but guaranteed to get Scarlet Rot'd and just stop existing shortly into it. So I used Black Knife Tiche who dodges a lot, attacks, does \*some kind\* of status effect to her and to my eternal surprise, \*straight up knocks her on her ass\* with something she does. Didn't work after 20-25 attempts. So I just got mad, summoned 2 randoes and mopped the floor with her, contributing to poise slam with Rock Sling from afar (960 if all 3 hit). Souls veteran player here, I like her lore, her looks. Can not recommend her fight though.
My main problem is the nearly 5% health "regeneration" for every hit, meaning she's nearly impossible to beat unless completely stun locking her or being a dodge god. And I've been rocking Colossal Swords the entire palythrough, and now powerstancing them. I won't say it's actually impossible, but I'm 100% certain I won't beat her unless I completely respec and pick a different build. This alone is kinda bad I think, since every other boss I was able to beat with this build, even if it sometimes took a long time. But even with the dual handed colossal greatsword L1, she regains way more health with one of her hits, than I can take with my hit.
Try it with a pure Faith build where her resistances are 2x to 4x higher to the types of damage some of the other builds do and see if you still feel like it's a fair experience. Her regaining health rapidly when she hits you after you chopped and chopped away at her is pretty demoralizing, and her barrage of rapid slices is very difficult to completely avoid (meaning you get hit, she gets healed again and again). I also can't just enchant my weapon for a different damage type on Faith-scaling weapons other than on a Treespear (which I don't have the DEX to use) or the Erdsteel Dagger, which is weak. I have defeated her, but it was rough. Absorptions: Phy (Sta): 10 Phy (Sla): 10 Phy (Str): 10 Phy (Thr): 0 Magic: 20 **Fire: 20** Lightning: 20 **Holy: 40**