Final opinions on Malenia boss fight?

[ZTL-Altima]

Was practicing this boss, and my initial impression still stands. To me it's by far the best designed boss fight in entire game, and I would say it's the only one (not a fan at all of ER bosses).

This is really "hero" type fights done right. Now I want a Lady Maria fight with this level of epicness in Bloodborne remake. :D

Only thing I would change is perhaps her flower move cheese dodge. It should track and make player dodge. As it is now is a wasted very cool move, and is supposed to be her real super. I still think her Waterfowl provides too much fluke deaths, since close distance dodge requires very precise timing, but to "correct" this maintaining the delicious danger is a difficult task; I though maybe her startup could be much longer (maybe with her saying some cool words of warning?), so the player can make a decision regarding position, but then everyone would just run away and do the easy long distance dodge, and move lose its impact.

[ZTL-Altima]

MundM の投稿を引用：

There are several things wrong with here, that are completly against the design philosophy of the souls like genre.
Not only is her waterflow dance a gimmicky anti player move that is immersion breaking duo how she just flies to your direction from hovering, which is not really important, lol, but just look at phase 2 alone, where she suddenly has multiple attacks that all start out like the waterflow dance so you can't really tell what she is about to do, and that alone makes here one of the lesser bosses Fromsoft has ever design.

You are all just praising her because she's one of the few bosses in the game that actually pose a threat, but it's all for the wrong reasons.
Champion Gundyr is an example of an extremely hard but fair boss. Fromsoft even put a nerv on Parrying in Elden Ring, so despite that being a perfect solution against most attacks of Malenia, it's completely pointless to do so because you need several attempts, so parry players get punished here by Fromsoft, which is again against the design philosophy we got used to.
I hope the dlc got the polish this game deserves, because everything just needs to be put to the polishing board for just a bit to become perfect 11/10, lol.

I praise her purely by feeling. The fight is too damn fun, and once you get in the right "rhythm" it's addicted. You are correct about her goddess form. Initially it's incredibly annoying with all those startups that seem like waterfowls, but it's possible to tell them all apart, albeit it's one of those things that will require both experience of fighting her a lot and fast eyes. I'm still think that waterfowl would require a very specific alert, though, to minimize flukes.

Agree about Champion Gundyr. It's one of the best bosses ever. If he was some kind of anime girl, would probably be everyone's favorite.

[The Commendatore]

Overrated.

[opus132]

Tom の投稿を引用：

She feels too reliant on that one super move to me. I can dodge all of her phase 1 attacks with relative ease, if playing semi-careful, except waterfowl. 9 times out of 10 that move kills me. I've dodged it before, even done it without taking damage, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that timing is so strict. And if she decides to pull it in the middle of one of my attacks then its basically RIP for me.

Just block it.

I mean the first volley.

It's easy to dodge it in the first phase because you know the exact moment where it's coming, but after that you cannot prepare for it so you are forced to at least block the first flurry, then dodge the second and third.

I don't consider myself a pro but as you can see i was able to do it pretty consistently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnnnt6JHl2k

Yes it sucks that you are giving her free heals but at least you are safe.

[MundM]

I just noticed the title says "final opinions". I'm not sure if it's fair to ask for that, because the game is still subject to change. I'm pretty sure this boss fight will also be different after the next patch, even if it's just further rolling distance, like with the previous light roll buff which already made it easier to dodge out of waterflow dance.

[Karumati]

Malenia is a dommy mommy

[gFreak696]

Would be a good and fun fight if every number was lowered.

Damage
HP
Regen
Rot damage

[nwad]

Broken and unfair. It's like they used AI to playtest.

[ZTL-Altima]

Onionrunner の投稿を引用：

As for her flower, what you're suggesting is overtuning the tracking with the likes of the Dwelling Arrows shot by the Shamans. Her flower already has good enough tracking, she shouldn't be Goku and a Missile.

But her flower has broken tracking. If you unlock and just run straight, boom, she arrives far away from you.

[Rama]

Imo she's a terrible boss, both boring and frustrating. I mean, 90% of her moveset is slow, clearly telegraphed, easy to dodge and VERY easy to parry. That and how she constantly disengage after getting hit makes the fight a slog and a snore fest.

Then you have the only thing that makes her fight remotely difficult, or the"hardest boss" in the souls series, as some easily impressed fanboys like to call it. That dumb anime move is only "hard" because there is no way to figure out how to dodge it other than trial and error. Once you have that down, Malenia becomes a pushover.

[Bourbon Bob]

It's a fun fight and waterfowl dance can easily be mitigated consistently. I used below strat to take 0 damage from 5-7 of them on my kill fight. Once you know how to mitigate waterfowl, it becomes substantially easier than purported online.

Equip Greatshield >> Assign it "Vow of the Indomitable" ash of war.

Block entire first hit on waterfowl, use ash of war on second, just back up and block to avoid 3rd/4th hits.

Works consistently and you will take 0 damage if you time the ash of war correctly, even if you are at point blank range at cast.

[M.T. Fish]

I dislike her mainly because of her HP regen mechanic. I don't like bosses or enemies that can heal in general but her ability to get almost half her health back from her Waterfowl sucks the fun out of it for me.