Malenia is possibly the worst boss ever

[Kalvix]

Seriously... I don't mean that in a "shes hard" kind of way, as she really isn't, she's just super cheap and RNG heavy and I'm already tired of fighting her.

She has a few normal attacks that are like an actual souls boss, and then she has her super all around whirlwind ball of death that WILL kill you if you aren't lucky, and yes I mean lucky as so far as a melee build I've found it almost impossible to avoid without a mimic to tank it for me, and when I had a sorc mate helping he couldn't avoid it either all the time as for the last couple burst it dashes straight to you no matter the distance, and that is enough damage to kill you at 45 vigour.

Then lets say you get lucky, she doesn't use mega insta death often and you get lucky when it is used, you then need to get lucky in the opening of the 2nd phase and not be 1 shot by the exploding bomb of flower, and then after that hope you are lucky and she doesn't use it again.

Seriously this boss is not fun, she's not a challenge, she's annoying and RNG heavy. The few normal attacks she has that I can dodge actually make me sad as it highlights how she could easily have been a really fun boss, where you learn he moves and slowly improve till you win, but then they added 2 bull**** moves that you can't learn and will just kill you most of the time.

[envy]

Great fight, great atmosphere, great voicelines... all ruined because of one bullsh1t anime move. I beat her by summoning Black Knife Tiche and praying to the RNG gods.

Very frustrating fight. Will not do it again

[paladin181]

Black knife Tiche melts her HP. And blocking the first part of waterfowl dance if you can't out space it is totally feasible. You have to make sure to dodge through the second and 3rd parts.

[kyoshilonehearted]

Ah, it is so nice to see some people still using FromSoft games as an ego trip. People are actually defending this boss fight with excuses. I'm not surprised, this game has been a prime example of tribalism. You dare say anything critical of the game and you are doused with hatred.

Having defeated Melania earlier today, with a couple of summons to help because I don't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ anymore, I can say that she is easily one of the worst bosses FromSoft has ever crafted, in a game that has disastrous boss balance all around. She is the epitome of this game's flaws in boss design, namely her ability to eviscerate you in a second, her artificial difficulty with healing on hit and her insane levels of aggro that give you barely any chance to counter attack, mostly on the second phase. As mention already, her Waterfowl Dance is a disaster. Once it starts, you essentially have to be far away from her already or then pray to the gods that it doesnt kill you in the blink of an eye. Elden Ring has a massive problem with cheap one shot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with most of the bosses, often being introduced their phase two. Melania just has it from the get go. Nothing else she does is as bad as Waterfowl, from what I've seen. Her healing on hit is simply over design to the max. She is difficult enough without any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gimmicks. Her healing like that is just the devs going "Well how can we outdo other bosses in difficulty.." instead of actually creating a balanced and fair fight. The fact that she inflictes Rot on the second phase is almost more laughable because as mentioned, the Rot doesn't even matter because she can kill you so fast anyways. The Rot is just that extra level of "Ha ha, we made boss hard", to the point where it wasn't even necessary because she is so over bloated in design that the Rot is her worst ability here.

Elden Ring is a game that I want to love but it has so many baffling design choices that I cannot pit it up there with the greats like DS1. Elden Ring's key design philosophy for bosses feels as though they were designed with difficulty at the forefront, rather than thoughtful design being first. Likely explains why so many bosses have some cheap insta kill move on the second phase. It is almost comical how much they use this tactic. Almost as comical as the sheer amount of copy and paste boss fights. Looking back on something like Artorias, my favorite boss ever, and Elden Ring *never* comes even close to the perfection of that fight. It is perfectly balanced, perfectly paced, and it is difficult without being an endless assault on the senses. Oh sure, you can say "Just dodge everything perfectly and she is fine.", but I can't recall many, if any, bosses in DS1 that are the same way, that require some insane precision or be destroyed in the blink of an eye. Even Bed of Chaos (Worst boss ever) has some room for error. You didn't need pixel perfect timing with Atorias because he was actually well thought out, instead of being designed with insane difficulty as the main goal. Not to mention the late game bosses show how near worthless most builds in this game. All that progression thrown into a volcano.

It simply frustrates me that Elden Eing is the new hotness for everyone to conform towards and for everyone to be tribalistic as ♥♥♥♥ with, when FromSoft has done better in the past in many regards. In my opinion, Elden Ring isn't one of their shining moments, but now I doubt that they'll want to do anything else. Much like Nintendo and the equally overrated Breath of the Wild.

[MercuryTasteBad]

Melania isn't the worst boss ever, she's definitely one of the most disappointing bosses I've encountered. Forget the broken moves, the pace is legitimately at sekiro or bloodborne speed, with dark souls mechanics. Honestly, I get it, she's supposed to be undefeatable or whatever, but the fun is sucked out with the lack of mechanical support. In sekiro, there are hard counters or "correct" responses to a variety of enemy attacks, besides the ♥♥♥♥ grab hit-boxes that also torment this game as well. In this particular fight, rpg build variety is hardly a response to killing melania, there are just combat shortcomings that Fromsoft already solved with their last game.

I dont understand why they would not include more of those mechanics that actually worked. Beating Sword Saint is so fun when you've mastered the controls, I've played DS for waay longer and see no in game response to a vamperic demigod that floats and insta-kills, besides of course stun locking her.

I'm sure I'll feel differently eventually, but the wound is fresh lmao and I'm salt

[HighLanderPony]

kyoshilonehearted님이 먼저 게시:

...

Thanks, this needed to be said. DS2 was driven into the dirt for the same mistakes that ER did, but ER somehow gets a pass because "smth smth Miyazaki is a god".

@MercuryTasteBad

Agreed, she's a Sekiro boss in a DS game. Completely asinine. Also, From completely neglecting to carry over any part of the Sekiro combat into this game felt like a giant letdown.

Don't forget her hyperarmoring through your crap even though she looks like a frail woman, including while she's midair.

[Dogebrain]

Only beat her so I could get the achievement. Tried a few different things, I don’t have the dexterity to use the mimic cheese tactic (Shabriri’s woe), so I ended up using Latenna and just praying that I could dodge her attacks and get enough damage in with power stance bloodhound fang w ice grease x zamor greatsword.

Had to make sure she was well away from Latenna when she switched to phase 2. Proc’d frostbite and made sure I didn’t heal when I knew she could leap at me and neg the heal.

As a noob to soulsborne games (I finished Bloodborne but that’s it), I find waking up in night sweats repeatedly yelling ‘YOU WILL KNOW DEFEAT’ incredibly soothing and will fight her again in NG+ as I am in fact a sadist.

[Ivraas]

End game bosses are awful, most of them are balanced around using spirit summons, because that's the only way to open boss for attack. Many of them are either hyper aggressive, fight in duo, or have other cheap gimmicks, and the only way for a normal non wastebof time gamer is to use cheap tactics too, which speaks volumes about a bad design.

[MegaClaus]

The devs should rename the malenia to malenia, collector of salt because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, people write entire novels about how salty they are about her. 😂🍿

[Tao314zdin]

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

and the only way for a normal non wastebof time gamer

Not everyone is clinically unskilled though (aka learns extremely slow or not at all). So I would avoid such generalizations.

[MegaClaus]

Tao314zdin님이 먼저 게시:

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

and the only way for a normal non wastebof time gamer

Not everyone is clinically unskilled though (aka learns extremely slow or not at all). So I would avoid such generalizations.

Agreed, people who call others that, are impatient and unwilling to learn and are agressive towards people who are patient and willing to learn. Hell my brother who NEVER played a souls game or even a souls like before, beat malenia in 5 tries and he doesnt even play that much, in fact, he beat the game just 2 days ago and he started playing on release. So people who are using the pathetic excuse that only people who have no jobs can beat her without problems, are completely delusional, impatient and too lazy to learn.

[[Lethalvriend]]

Malenia has been the only boss in the game so far that I had to optimize for, mostly because I couldn't consistently dodge the whole sword dance. Fat armor, greatshield talisman, frost weapon art to make her brittle, frost pots in p2... I beat her eventually but it was tough. I kinda agree that the whole fight feels fair except that sword dance, probably mostly because I just could never get the timing right consistently. I'd either randomly dodge the whole thing or I'd get partial damage every single time. The timing on that (with medium load) seems to be incredibly tight. That's playing a full melee STR build, I imagine as a ranged player it's a lot easier because you can always outrange the first two dance bursts.

Perhaps one oversight on my part was not switching to Bloodhound step. I have never used it, thought about using it.. woke up the next day and still forgot about it.

[clemons75]

Sickery님이 먼저 게시:

Use mimic tear +10+ Ash of War:Frost Stomp then just spam the ♥♥♥♥ out of it along with your duplicate. Trash bosses are being dealt with fitting solutions.

Fully agreed. I went even trashier with a greatshield, frost breath, and Swarm of Flies. Easy.

What could have legitimately made her better would be something like what they did with the Fume Knight. If you fully explore the level leading up to the boss, you can negate the heal aoe, making the boss much more manageable.

[Noeat]

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

End game bosses are awful, most of them are balanced around using spirit summons,

no, this is blatant lie, more than one target break AI what isnt able react properly
it is just excuse what you dream up for your own incompetency to learn them and beat them

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

because that's the only way to open boss for attack.

this is another blatant lie, as you can see in tons of clips with their kills
it is just excuse what you dream up for your own incompetency to learn them and beat them

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

Many of them are either hyper aggressive,

what it means? they fight and dont just peacefully wait for you to kill them?
it is just excuse what you dream up for your own incompetency to learn them and beat them

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

fight in duo,

yes, this is challenge.. you dont like challenges? then just play games what arent that hard for you.. you have tons of tools how to make challenges easier in this game.

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

or have other cheap gimmicks,

bosses fight back and dont only wait peacefully until you kill them... heresy!!!
how dare game what is too hard for you, when other ppl have fun and dont have those problems like you... almost like you are not that good as you think you are..

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

and the only way for a normal non wastebof time gamer is to use cheap tactics too, which speaks volumes about a bad design.

this is another blatant lie, as you can see in tons of clips with their kills
it is just excuse what you dream up for your own incompetency to learn them and beat them

when is game too hard for you, go and play easier games what are for ppl like you are. when this games, like all other souls / souls like games can beat streamer who have only one hand.. then i guess your problem exists between keyboard and chair..

[YosemiteBear]

why is it so hard to understand. J U S T D O N T G E T H I T ...G I T G U D

[Ivraas]

Tao314zdin님이 먼저 게시:

Ivraas님이 먼저 게시:

and the only way for a normal non wastebof time gamer

Not everyone is clinically unskilled though (aka learns extremely slow or not at all). So I would avoid such generalizations.

Hey, look who is generalizing now...
The game just doesn't respect my time with the badly designed bosses, you can fight her for a few minutes then comes one misstep during one of her ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ attacks, and you need to start over.
Not to mention it's all RNG based along with crappy input reading, i still laught at one of my fights with Godfrey where he just stomps constantly, so i needed to jump jump jump, without even the time to attack, close or far away, he was stomping all the time, it's just ridiculously bad.
Up to the cancerous Maliketh i killed every boss in one or two tries, even Godskin duo wasn't that bad for me, yeah the fight itself was extremely weak, but i managed to beat them relatively easy.
This fights are all designed around using spirit summons, it doesn't mean you can't defeat the boss without them, but the experience isn't fun for me in the slightest, i'll beat radagon and that cosmic blob at the end, and finish the game, for the sake of it, the pvp is also unbalanced mess, one of the worst From games for sure.