The hardest boss in the game is not Malenia.

[Uncanny Moskvich]

It's Maliketh. This boss is pure cancer. He spends 80% of his phase airborne and unable to be struck with melee and most magic. Most windows to attack him are negated by him AoE nuking his vicinity or screeching at you and sending you flying across the arena.

Malenia's difficulty tones down by a lot when you learn how to dodge waterfowl dance.

[Kha]

Publicado originalmente por CourtesyFlush90:

Publicado originalmente por Blackraptor:

The majority of my deaths, yeah. That move is such pure BS, if you have to watch youtube tutorials to follow the exact dodge steps and equip specific ashes/gear to cheese the fight, maybe its objectively poor design.

It's because she's a discarded Sekiro boss - straight up. She can even cancel her own attacks mid-animation to deflect yours (which no other enemy can, effectively breaking the game's rules).

Huh, that wasn't just me then? I remember her being able to back step juuuuuust barely out of my spear's reach mid-attack, then cancel the rest of the dodge animation, and then immediately doing that move where she makes the ping sound, it all happened so suddenly i had no time to react, so i'm not even sure if it was even possible to dodge.

[PK_Thunder]

For when you come across them, I'd say the double Gargoyles is the worst boss. You can run into them very, very early if you don't realize where you're heading.

By the time you reach Haligtree at all, let alone the bottom, you're in endgame and you have a complete build at least.

[Kha]

Publicado originalmente por PK_Thunder:

For when you come across them, I'd say the double Gargoyles is the worst boss. You can run into them very, very early if you don't realize where you're heading.

By the time you reach Haligtree at all, let alone the bottom, you're in endgame and you have a complete build at least.

Worst thing about the gargoyles for me was that my only real weapon at that point was the bloody helice, which meant 35% of all my damage was being completely ignored, plus all my bleeding had no effect because as it turns out, stone doesn't exactly tend to bleed.

Had to go back to exploring, find and upgrade a striking weapon i could use, find proper ashes for it to turn it into an arcane weapon and then try again as my damage and stagger was just way too low otherwise.

Then again, i WAS a spellblade, maybe i should've just used a bit more magic instead of ungaing my way through? Oh wait no, the gargoyles are also resistant to pretty much everything an incantation user can throw at them too....go figure.

[PK_Thunder]

Publicado originalmente por Kha:

Publicado originalmente por PK_Thunder:

For when you come across them, I'd say the double Gargoyles is the worst boss. You can run into them very, very early if you don't realize where you're heading.

By the time you reach Haligtree at all, let alone the bottom, you're in endgame and you have a complete build at least.

Worst thing about the gargoyles for me was that my only real weapon at that point was the bloody helice, which meant 35% of all my damage was being completely ignored, plus all my bleeding had no effect because as it turns out, stone doesn't exactly tend to bleed.

Had to go back to exploring, find and upgrade a striking weapon i could use, find proper ashes for it to turn it into an arcane weapon and then try again as my damage and stagger was just way too low otherwise.

Then again, i WAS a spellblade, maybe i should've just used a bit more magic instead of ungaing my way through? Oh wait no, the gargoyles are also resistant to pretty much everything an incantation user can throw at them too....go figure.

I stumbled on those bastards at about fifty during my first playthrough. That was an experience.

[Pan Filuta]

the hardest boss is the knight in front of Maliketh's fog gate

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

With Glintstone Magic i beat him first try without him even damaging me (no spirit ashes or summons). He is a bit tougher in melee (or a lot), but Malenia is so much more difficult. She has more HP, she can leech her HP back, she has two full phases. No contest.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Publicado originalmente por CourtesyFlush90:

Publicado originalmente por Blackraptor:

The majority of my deaths, yeah. That move is such pure BS, if you have to watch youtube tutorials to follow the exact dodge steps and equip specific ashes/gear to cheese the fight, maybe its objectively poor design.

It's because she's a discarded Sekiro boss - straight up. She can even cancel her own attacks mid-animation to deflect yours (which no other enemy can, effectively breaking the game's rules).

Exactly. With this boss they threw the "hard but fair" out of the window and made the boss outright cheat. Very poor design and no fun imo.

And yes Maliketh is also total bs.

[Sabaithal]

Publicado originalmente por Blackraptor:

The majority of my deaths, yeah. That move is such pure BS, if you have to watch youtube tutorials to follow the exact dodge steps and equip specific ashes/gear to cheese the fight, maybe its objectively poor design.

Have to agree with this. Trying to figure out how to dodge it in singleplayer specifically without using BHS or anything similar purely on trial and error is...ridiculously tedious. It is poor design, one shouldn't have to exit/tab out of the game to figure it out even after 10+ attempts. Also it has no telegraph (it has a chargeup animation, that's not the same thing), which is always bad design.

Coop its not as much of an issue due to her tracking being worse, because of the innate latency.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Publicado originalmente por Sabaithal:

Have to agree with this. Trying to figure out how to dodge it in singleplayer specifically without using BHS or anything similar purely on trial and error is...ridiculously tedious.

The best part is what comes after. If you're a melee player and successfully dodge arguably the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ move in FromSoft history (aka Waterfowl), you get nothing for it since she usually just dodges away or goes into her next hyper-armored attack right after it.

[GoreTiger]

Malenia's difficulty relies on a single move that also has the gimmick to absorb health.

She's a gimmick boss that has a really annoying move and that's mostly it. Withinout waterfowl, she is pretty mediocre.

I feel like the malenia hype is mostly just softboys finally seeing a (half) naked woman on screen.

[Rj]

godskin duo is the hardest

[The Dogfather]

I didn't really find him that difficult at all. I believe I bested him third or second try when I killed him the first try. Subsequent playthroughs I have mostly beaten him on the first try.

I found Radagon/Elden Beast to be the games hardest boss (even harder than the much famed Malenia), especially for a pure melee char.

But that is the thing about "soulslike" bosses, your Achilles heel is not necessarily going to be my Achilles heel.

Point in case I recently replayed Dark Souls III and the boss I struggled on the most this time (despite clearing the game about five times already in the past) was the bloody stupid Crystal Mage - who I have never had problems with LOL.

[FIRE]

Maybe if his hp bar wouldn't be so tiny. Most people melt his second phase without even needing to learn how to dodge anything because of that.

[FIRE]

Publicado originalmente por CourtesyFlush90:

It's because she's a discarded Sekiro boss - straight up. She can even cancel her own attacks mid-animation to deflect yours (which no other enemy can, effectively breaking the game's rules).

There are no ''game rules'' that say all bosses need to have the same mechanics. If you make up your own rules and pretend that the devs did you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

She's also not the only boss that has mechanics unique to her. Mohg is the only one with an undodgeable attack and Maliketh the only one that has attacks that can be parried by an unique item.

You can say that she's unfair all you want but stop with the nonsense about made-up ''game rules''.

[Crystal]

Nah the hardest boss is gravity.

I believe your first death is to gravity at Chapel of Anticipation.

And your subsequent 852937 deaths are to falling at Frenzy Flame hidden altar.

Malenia is nothing compared to the real boss of game.