Fighting Malenia has ruined the experience for me

[PossessingSpirit09]

Just to clarify, haven't beaten her yet. I ain't the best player, but I am far from the worst.

But fighting has been like slamming my head into a brick wall, compared to the other bosses.
Even if the other bosses were extremely hard, they always felt fair in some way, there was always a way to be patient or manouvre around them to victory.

But I don't know why, fighting Malenia has just kinda killed the enjoyment has kinda just killed the enjoyment for me for the rest of the game. Just sapped the joy that I had from the beginning.

Anyone else feel like she needs to be tweaked slightly?

Edit: Just to clarify again, I love this game. No other game like Elden Ring has organically wanted me to feel this COMPULSION to complete EVERYTHING the game has to offer. Which is why I've been fighting bosses which are otherwise unnecessary.

[Smaugi]

I just used the artorias flip ash of war on my greatsword and kept slamming her into the ground

[Alexx]

probably she is the first boss not meant to be even fair. She appears inside the trailer just to hype you up, but probably the most meant to be played as a 2v1, you and any friend or the mimic spirit within the second phase of the boss.

Such a hard boss if you dont play as a bloody character or using freezing attacks either..

For me, i clearly exploded when i finally killed her. Also her weapon is insane imo, also works on pvp very well (bad luck u need such a dex character)

[Snobby Hobo]

Origineel geplaatst door LasusS:

probably she is the first boss not meant to be even fair. She appears inside the trailer just to hype you up, but probably the most meant to be played as a 2v1, you and any friend or the mimic spirit within the second phase of the boss.

Such a hard boss if you dont play as a bloody character or using freezing attacks either..

For me, i clearly exploded when i finally killed her. Also her weapon is insane imo, also works on pvp very well (bad luck u need such a dex character):Observatory_Chief::er_wave:

Right about everything you said is wrong, which is pretty incredible.

Malenia is a very fair fight. There's a difference between fair and unreasonably difficult. Unfair would be cheating, but all of Malenia's attacks take one (Waterfowl Dance) are very readable. She also has very clear windows of attack in both stages, albeit far fewer in her second phase. She is overtuned, not unfair. And it's pretty obvious that's by design; she's supposed to be the hardest boss in the game.

Also her weapon isn't great in PvP at all. Great range, sure, but cannot have the art altered and Waterfowl really sucks in PvP as it has no hyper armor. People will just pebble you out of it for the full stun duration. Also bad bleed scaling and no arc scaling on it either.

[Kalvix]

ye, I beat her with a summon and spamming ranged weapon arts. I don't know what it is about them exactly, but I've beaten every boss in all Dark souls games and Sekiro, but this is 1 boss (along with a few others) that I honestly couldn't be bothered with trying to learn as I didn't feel like there was anything to learn.

I mean thinking on it now... I know exactly what it is with most enemies and bosses in this game that makes it not as fun to learn. It's the fact that they all do SO much damage regardless of how much health you have. 40 Vigour used to be enough to take a good few hits for a boss to kill you, but in Elden Ring that'll get you 2 shot by a lot of normal enemies, and almost every boss will have a 1 shot kill move.

I really don't get why they made this change, did they think as it was open world people would be leveling up to like 300-400 and thats why damage is so high? or did they just let the Dark Souls 2 team take over later on so the "challenge" became getting 1 shot if you made a mistake.

You'll notice more and more later on that you finished bosses with a load of flasks left, as bosses do so much damage you don't heal much, you just tend to avoid the damage instead.

[Andrew. (the weeblord)]

Melania is fine. It took me 8 hours w/o a summon or cheese strats. Use a shield if you can't dodge waterfoul (which is what I did). Sure, she'll heal some. But it's a lot better than dying or taking an incredible amount of damage.

Her heal on attack is fine. Stop trying to trade with her and it won't matter. She is most likely designed that way to prevent trading or sloppy tactics

[Alexx]

Origineel geplaatst door Incredibly average:

Origineel geplaatst door LasusS:

probably she is the first boss not meant to be even fair. She appears inside the trailer just to hype you up, but probably the most meant to be played as a 2v1, you and any friend or the mimic spirit within the second phase of the boss.

Such a hard boss if you dont play as a bloody character or using freezing attacks either..

For me, i clearly exploded when i finally killed her. Also her weapon is insane imo, also works on pvp very well (bad luck u need such a dex character)

Right about everything you said is wrong, which is pretty incredible.

Malenia is a very fair fight. There's a difference between fair and unreasonably difficult. Unfair would be cheating, but all of Malenia's attacks take one (Waterfowl Dance) are very readable. She also has very clear windows of attack in both stages, albeit far fewer in her second phase. She is overtuned, not unfair. And it's pretty obvious that's by design; she's supposed to be the hardest boss in the game.

Also her weapon isn't great in PvP at all. Great range, sure, but cannot have the art altered and Waterfowl really sucks in PvP as it has no hyper armor. People will just pebble you out of it for the full stun duration. Also bad bleed scaling and no arc scaling on it either.

the hard part becomes in the second phase, thats why i said ab summoning if you feel like. it is not unfair, it is really hard. Malenia's 2nd phase attacks are more unpredictable, still slow and easy to learn, but hard to chill on them, she realoads all her PS and your estus still go down (while she stills gets her PS back, and by a big amount.)

There may be cool casts to counter her easily, even others as the bloodhound step, but for any normal player starting in the franchise, Malenia wont be a boss he will try to defeat alone. it is not prepared for a 1v1 situation, and even less for a new player.
You really need extremely Pve stuff to beat her when not being a knowledge souls player

[Snobby Hobo]

Origineel geplaatst door LasusS:

Origineel geplaatst door Incredibly average:

Right about everything you said is wrong, which is pretty incredible.

Malenia is a very fair fight. There's a difference between fair and unreasonably difficult. Unfair would be cheating, but all of Malenia's attacks take one (Waterfowl Dance) are very readable. She also has very clear windows of attack in both stages, albeit far fewer in her second phase. She is overtuned, not unfair. And it's pretty obvious that's by design; she's supposed to be the hardest boss in the game.

Also her weapon isn't great in PvP at all. Great range, sure, but cannot have the art altered and Waterfowl really sucks in PvP as it has no hyper armor. People will just pebble you out of it for the full stun duration. Also bad bleed scaling and no arc scaling on it either.

the hard part becomes in the second phase, thats why i said ab summoning if you feel like. it is not unfair, it is really hard. Malenia's 2nd phase attacks are more unpredictable, still slow and easy to learn, but hard to chill on them, she realoads all her PS and your estus still go down (while she stills gets her PS back, and by a big amount.)

There may be cool casts to counter her easily, even others as the bloodhound step, but for any normal player starting in the franchise, Malenia wont be a boss he will try to defeat alone. it is not prepared for a 1v1 situation, and even less for a new player.
You really need extremely Pve stuff to beat her when not being a knowledge souls player:dungdefender:

I agree. The boss is ridiculously overtuned - but luckily it's also an optional boss. It's for people who do want to go the extra mile and challenge themselves.

She is definitely designed for a 1 on 1 fight however, like I think all bosses outside Radahn are. It's just that her second phase takes a lot of windows away, which makes the fight slower. When I defeated her I think 4/5 of the time was spent in phase 2. Annoying maybe, but again not unfair; she has clear openings and they're all readable. Even her mixups are avoidable when you react in time, unlike many other bosses.

[Foofuu_]

Greatshield, bloodhound step, vow of the indomitable or just having a roll setup are 4 ways to counteract waterfowl dance. greatshield can be used to block the first attack and then you can roll the rest. she gets a bit of health back but its consistent. bloodhound step is also very very consistent ( 2-3 blinks back, another 2 blinks back, and 1 more blink forward to get to the other side of her after startup of the 3rd flurry and you dodge the entire thing from any distance with bloodhound step as long as you aren't positioning yourself against a wall.) The mobility also lets you avoid things like the phase 2 images flying at you. Vow you can just use with correct timings and avoid all of them if you get the timing down. There's not a TON of tools but the tools are available and you can definitely make a setup that will work. It will require a bunch of attempts to really get it down but by far its not bad once you have something for it. She has weaker poise and also her regular sword combos all have tells of "is it a extender or an ender" and you can punish the enders every time. The attack will be slightly different, the sword wont spark on the attack startup and it'll be slower at the end of the attack that leaves an easy opening. There's also some consistency to when she'll deflect based on the amount of attacks you hit her with so watch and see how many hits you land before she deflects.

[grandma_moses]

Normally I get a rush after beating a hard boss, but after beating Malenia I just sat there completely wiped out.

Did her without summons or ashes, took me forever and ever, literally. She was the last thing on my list before New Game+ and I literally lost days to her.

That said, the fight itself is fine except her BS move - handling the Waterfoul Dance had become the only real problem by the end of my time with her. I honestly believe she would be a perfectly fine boss fight if she didn't have access to the Waterfoul Dance.

[Rokynn]

At the end of the day she is an optional boss. If you really wanna kill her there are many strategies out there to make it considerably easier.

I do not understand why people feel the need to call for nerfs on an optional boss just because they cannot defeat it, whether because their build is all over the place or they just can't step up to do it. It's FINE that not everyone can beat the boss in a reasonable amount of time; it's FINE to have something for which you need to IMPROVE or tweak your build before you conquer it.

YES, her flurry attack is hard to dodge; YES, her flurry attack can be dodged consistently even in melee range and there's room to take some damage so you don't need to be perfect. YES, you will sometimes ♥♥♥♥ up and die because of that one attack,, and that's FINE. NO, dodging is not your only option - equip a strong shield and block it - she will heal some but you survive and can still do it.

[PossessingSpirit09]

Origineel geplaatst door ֍:

Origineel geplaatst door PossessingSpirit09:

Just to clarify, haven't beaten her yet. I ain't the best player, but I am far from the worst.

But fighting has been like slamming my head into a brick wall, compared to the other bosses.
Even if the other bosses were extremely hard, they always felt fair in some way, there was always a way to be patient or manouvre around them to victory.

But I don't know why, fighting Malenia has just kinda killed the enjoyment has kinda just killed the enjoyment for me for the rest of the game. Just sapped the joy that I had from the beginning.

Anyone else feel like she needs to be tweaked slightly?

Edit: Just to clarify again, I love this game. No other game like Elden Ring has organically wanted me to feel this COMPULSION to complete EVERYTHING the game has to offer. Which is why I've been fighting bosses which are otherwise unnecessary.

Just curious what Level your character is at?

around lvl 120 i think give or take 1-2 levels

[grandma_moses]

Did her later ( 140ish, I believe ) and with 60 stamina, if that helps. First tries with 40 stamina didn't go that well. Good to learn the fight.

For the kill I only needed 4 flasks and the mixed physick, so 60 stamina is not important if you can do the fight - but it helps to get you to this point by giving you more practice time with her.

[PossessingSpirit09]

Origineel geplaatst door grandma_moses:

Did her later ( 140ish, I believe ) and with 60 stamina, if that helps. First tries with 40 stamina didn't go that well. Good to learn the fight. For the kill I only needed 4 flasks and the mixed physick, so 60 stamina is not important if you can do the fight - but it helps to get to this point by giving you more practice time with her.

Im planning on finishing the main game first and farm levels and get OP and come back so its less of a headache. That seems like the optimal approach right now

[Wubbinz]

I changed my entire build just for her fight. I maxed out a claw weapon for the bleed and got my poise really high. Just stood and bled her to death, dodging as much as possible ofc. Don't bother with a shield unless it's a greatshield and you have lots of stamina, she'll blow right through it otherwise.

[Fleshly Delight]

Beat her after seven hours of attempt after attempt.
After beating her, I felt nothing but a bad taste in my mouth.
Optional or not, that whirlwind is just disgusting.
The rest of the fight is well-made, but that single attack just ruined the entire thing.

Hell, now I can dodge her whirlwind at a decent level in my friend's games as a summon, but it doesn't make me happy or feel anything good once I kill her again, it just makes me sad that it was even this bad to begin with.