Parrying Malenia - is it feasible for average skilled players?

[1100011]

Even with a trainer, installed especially for her, I can't do more damage than 2x riposte... she easily gains back any riposte damage on a single stagger & combo..

Anyone got gud enough to pull it off, any tips for us casuals?

Edit:

trying for hours, using a character that takes no damage (no other mods), and with the help of the excellent contributions in the thread below, phase 1 down except for WF (hit or miss), just finished Phase 2, where our dear Goddess of Rot decided to bloom twice in the narrow space near the doorway ... spicy .... Following insights were had:

- A LOT of Malenia's attacks can be strafed counterclockwise at close range. The safe zones are quite forgiving.
- Don't parry everything, parry what you can. Learn what combo's alow a charged R2 in the cooldown (phase 2), if she creates space punish with a jumping attack, Interrupt her as much as possible. this keeps the (stance) damage / status buildup going to counter her healing effect. Even an r1 can interrupt her!
- Follow up a successful parry with a jumping attack, and a riposte with charged R2-R1.
- adding frost & bleed to your weapon is effective, but, for the full casual experience and a factor 10 faster fightt, use a +9 Rivers of Blood katana (no weapon art, just the innate bleed &40 dex). Having abandoned all shame, add a white mask : ).

- Using medium shield / golden parry was only useful for me until FP ran out, a buckler gave more consistent parries throughout the fight.
- in phase 2, whatever you do, try keeping her out in the open in case of bloom.

...

- Miyazaki: for this boss, we need to convey the idea of disease and decay. Tanimura: got it, cancer and AIDS it is.
- attempting this at L90 may give you, your controller, and possibly the neighbourhood scarlet rot IRL. Learning how to parry using a cold claw & fire misericorde took an hour per phase 1 attempt, due to the spicy challenge of *that* move & healing on hit. Switched to Rivers of Blood (no weapon art), and adding jumping attacks, R1, charged R2 wherever possible, got it down to a couple of minutes (of course after hours and hours practice with claw/dagger)

[Dollmaker]

Arent there dozens of videos of people doing that?

[1100011]

Originally posted by Dollmaker:

Arent there dozens of videos of people doing that?

These videos encouraged me to try, now I'm wondering about the amount of skill and/our hours spent to pull it off! I'll adjust the title to make the question more clear (feasible for mortal players)

[Witcher]

Originally posted by Dollmaker:

Arent there dozens of videos of people doing that?

I watched a vid of naked man wearing a huge pot on his head and loin cloth as underwear. He managed to beat Malenia 1,000 times but never saw him parry her once.

[Señor Brown]

Originally posted by 1100011:

Even with a trainer, installed especially for her, I can't do more damage than 2x riposte... she easily gains back any riposte damage on a single stagger & combo..

Anyone got gud enough to pull it off, any tips for us casuals?

Sure, use a medium shield with Carian Retaliation or Golden Parry. Make sure you have enough endurance so any partial parries don't leave you without any stamina.

Become familiar with her attacks. Learn how to dodge them. Learn which are parryable. Then, start working on parrying one or two of her attacks. Some are more telegraphed than others (i.e. her "quickstep attacks" going either left or right). Keep it up until you are satisfied that you can start wearing her down (you don't need to master every single parryable attack).

Lastly, it helps to know how to dodge her Waterfowl Dance up close. Bloodhound's Step, circling her, whatever. She will "ruin your day" by pulling that crap out when you least expect it. So, make sure you have a means for avoiding it to continue practicing your parries.

[1100011]

Originally posted by Señor Brown:

Sure, use a medium shield with Carian Retaliation or Golden Parry. Make sure you have enough endurance so any partial parries don't leave you without any stamina.

Become familiar with her attacks. (...) Keep it up until you are satisfied that you can start wearing her down (you don't need to master every single parryable attack).

Lastly, it helps to know how to dodge her Waterfowl Dance up close. Bloodhound's Step, circling her, (...)

Thank you, these sound very helpful! Looks like I was sort of getting there, but dodging what I can't (yet) parry may just make the difference, preventing the health gain problem. One thing I did learn is, that a lot of her attacks have generous 'blind spots'.

[1100011]

Originally posted by Witcher:

I watched a vid of naked man wearing a huge pot on his head and loin cloth as underwear. He managed to beat Malenia 1,000 times but never saw him parry her once.

Got it, will try wearing a loin cloth : )

[Citizen of Zozo]

Learning to parry just takes practice. My advice is to focus on one move that she does and learn the timing for it. Don't try to parry everything she sends your way willy nilly. Pick a move. Wait for it/Bait it out. Learn it. Then move on to another.

[Witcher]

Originally posted by 1100011:

Originally posted by Witcher:

I watched a vid of naked man wearing a huge pot on his head and loin cloth as underwear. He managed to beat Malenia 1,000 times but never saw him parry her once.

Got it, will try wearing a loin cloth : )

This player can use different weapons to fight all the bosses and will parry some bosses with a Buckler but never saw them parry Melania.

https://youtu.be/w2zAIr3sXUE

[Sonnenbank]

There are lots of videos of people parrying Malenia

but honest advise from someone who has beaten Malenia 60times + with all kind of different builds. (me)
Its much much easier to just beat her without parry.

I tried to parry kill her and just gave up after ~ 10 tries
its just not worth it.
it looks cool but honestly its bad.

high risk and low reward
there is so much you have to consider and reaction time on some of the parrys is complete bs....
Its so much easier to just roll her attacks and then counter punish with a jump attack


guy named Callum here on steam however did a nice video on her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8idnfKPXe3o&lc=z22swtqyfvqtv5q32acdp4351ih2qs5afa3elxk2kzlw03c010c&ab_channel=CallumBrown

the attack at 0.35 can be parried but its timing is so bs.... (she has 2 vertical slashes from that position and one is insanely quick and one is slower)
you have to press parry basically as soon as her left hand is before her belly.

Super hard to see
so he interrupts her with a r1 to avoid having to parry that.
but if you unlucky she can superarmour through that

And you are doomed if she does a different attack that looks similar.....


Also if you parry you have to be able to deal with close ranged waterfowl
thats pretty hard if you dont use barricade shield ash.

but if you do use barricade shield ash you have a harder time hitting the parrys >-<

[Kobi Blade]

Originally posted by 1100011:

Originally posted by Señor Brown:

Sure, use a medium shield with Carian Retaliation or Golden Parry. Make sure you have enough endurance so any partial parries don't leave you without any stamina.

Become familiar with her attacks. (...) Keep it up until you are satisfied that you can start wearing her down (you don't need to master every single parryable attack).

Lastly, it helps to know how to dodge her Waterfowl Dance up close. Bloodhound's Step, circling her, (...)

Thank you, these sound very helpful! Looks like I was sort of getting there, but dodging what I can't (yet) parry may just make the difference, preventing the health gain problem. One thing I did learn is, that a lot of her attacks have generous 'blind spots'.

Do not use a medium shield if you want to parry.. worst advise ever, especially against bosses like Malenia.

You want a small shield, that has a bigger window to parry, makes parrying Malenia extremely easy, since she likes to combo and doesn't delay her attacks much.

[Sonnenbank]

Originally posted by Kobi Blade:

Originally posted by 1100011:

Thank you, these sound very helpful! Looks like I was sort of getting there, but dodging what I can't (yet) parry may just make the difference, preventing the health gain problem. One thing I did learn is, that a lot of her attacks have generous 'blind spots'.

Do not use a medium shield if you want to parry.. worst advise ever, especially against bosses like Malenia.

You want a small shield, that has a bigger window to parry, makes parrying Malenia extremely easy, since she likes to combo and doesn't delay her attacks much.

1.) its not extremly easy >_<
2.) do you even understand Carian Retaliation improves parry frames close to or equal to window of buckler ?

[Kobi Blade]

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

Originally posted by Kobi Blade:

Do not use a medium shield if you want to parry.. worst advise ever, especially against bosses like Malenia.

You want a small shield, that has a bigger window to parry, makes parrying Malenia extremely easy, since she likes to combo and doesn't delay her attacks much.

1.) its not extremly easy >_<
2.) do you even understand Carian Retaliation improves parry frames close to or equal to window of buckler ?

I don't know what you want Carian Retaliation for against Malenia, if you had said Golden Parry would make more sense.

Plus as a mod author I can tell you the parry frames for Golden Parry have a bigger window, not equal nor close.

All this ignoring the fact both skills rely on FP, so I insist a small shield is the better option.

[Señor Brown]

Originally posted by Kobi Blade:

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

1.) its not extremly easy >_<
2.) do you even understand Carian Retaliation improves parry frames close to or equal to window of buckler ?

I don't know what you want Carian Retaliation for against Malenia, if you had said Golden Parry would make more sense.

Plus as a mod author I can tell you the parry frames for Golden Parry have a bigger window, not equal nor close.

As for Carian Retaliation, you not going to parry much of anything of Malenia attacks with it, since that skill is focused on parrying sorceries not normal attacks.

All this ignoring the fact Golden Parry relies on FP, so I insist a small shield is the better option.

Carian Retaliation (CR) has the same parry frames as Golden Parry (GP), except there is no FP cost for parrying physical attacks. And both Ashes Of War have the same (if not better) startup frames and more active parry frames than the Buckler Parry, even on medium shields. In fact, this is a disputed balance decision as discussed in Dollmaker's thread here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1245620/discussions/0/3421061982939449277/

EDIT: And see my mention about endurance in my post above. If you partial parry with a small shield against Malenia, you will lose a lot more stamina and suffer more damage because they naturally have lower guard boost and damage reduction. It's why a medium shield with CR or GP is a more effective learning tool for casual players.

[Sonnenbank]

@Kobi Blade

edit: the post above me by Senor Brown was written while i did my post so i didnt see it when i posted this post here

Okay my information is (From people showing test videos on youtube)

plain buckler has 8 startup frames and 11 parry frames
medium shield with Carian Retaliation has 8 startup frames and 14 parry frames
medium shield with Golden Parry is 8 startup frames and 14 parry frames

So medium shield with Carian Retaliation is better than plain buckler
Carian Retaliation and Golden Parry have same frames

but thats just from testing.
it might be slightly inaccurate.

if you could share your information ?

i gave up doing parrys in ER pretty fast since the reward is not worth the risk.
So my information might not be 100% correct.

[1100011]

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

There are lots of videos of people parrying Malenia

I tried to parry kill her and just gave up after ~ 10 tries
its just not worth it.
it looks cool but honestly its bad.

My experience exactly, only in stead of giving up I decided to spend more time learning with the help of a trainer (wrong I know... but even with a trainer I never even got close to phase 2).

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8idnfKPXe3o&lc=z22swtqyfvqtv5q32acdp4351ih2qs5afa3elxk2kzlw03c010c&ab_channel=CallumBrown

the attack at 0.35 can be parried but its timing is so bs.... (she has 2 vertical slashes from that position and one is insanely quick and one is slower)
[\quote]

That's one of the attacks that kept undoing any progress I had made. r1 is clever though, might give it a try.