How should I beat Malenia?

[Walrus Beard]

I want to be able to feel that I did it properly, and by properly I mean that part of beating a boss the right way is going through the pain of learning and adapting to their moves. The Waterfowl Dance has me scared. It's bad enough if you play some sort of regular character like strength or dex, but as a magic user, I am VERY squishy. Waterfowl Dance is pretty much instant death.

I learned a workaround though. Apparently if you hit her with a freezing pot right before she is about to do the dance, it cancels her move. The frost buildup is too much for her.

On the one hand, this seems like the easy way out, and I'm not sure if I would find a victory won in this way satisfactory. On the other hand, the Souls games have ALWAYS been a community effort. These games are so dense and obscure it takes the whole community to unravel their secrets. I'm just not sure which approach I should use.

[Malthar]

try learning it first, if you find it too difficult, freeze the ♥♥♥♥♥

[Walrus Beard]

Originally posted by Malthar:

try learning it first, if you find it too difficult, freeze the ♥♥♥♥♥

Yeah I feel like I should at least try first. Even if I learn her moves there is another puzzle; which weapons/spells to use. She dodges most magic easily.

[zab]

just roll into her every time she does the waterflow thing and you will be fine

[Key]

Think of waterfowl as a 3-hit combo, I know it isn't 3 hits, but it's effectively a 3 hit combo.

The first two flurries can be outspaced, and if you roll through the first the second one is always going to miss. The third will track you no matter how far you are, so roll through it as it's about to hit, then outspace/roll again to avoid the fourth. She's now gonna land and pop the last, just don't be next to her after she lands and it's done.

Here's the steps to learn as a squishy character:

1. Accept that you're gonna die to waterfowl at least 40-50 times before you can dodge it reliably.

There is no step two.

[Tao314zdin]

If you want to show her who is the boss and who is the "beach" you probably wanna go close and personal, like parry her to death.

If you just wanna smack her as a wizard - use the Moon, she can't dodge that really and you can stay at range so her WD is basically useless as it is only dangerous if she does it on top of you.

[Killer Kitten]

You have a magic build so you're in a good position to "bait" her into a waterfowl instead of dodging it.

When Malenia has 1/4 to 1/3 of her health gone, you are in a the danger zone of a Waterfowl dance. What you can do is get a lot of distance between her and you, and spam one of your projectile spells. This will "bait" her into doing the waterfowl. Keep backing up as she's doing it.

If you have enough space, the first two flurries will wiff you without having to dodge them, other than holding your distance. The third will come straight for you, so I suggest running towards her and then rolling just as she starts the third flurry.

That's it. That's the easiest way to dodge it.

[Last Jackdaw]

If you don't want to completely break malenia, avoid Night Comet lol.

[opus132]

I used parry in the second phase, and bonking in the first phase, but i practiced parry in the first phase first.

She has a few attacks that are fairly easy to parry once you get the timing down and you can play it safe in the second phase and wait for those attacks you know you can punish.

After you have done practicing parry or dodging her attacks in the first phase, i would just use the biggest piece of steel you got and just smash her head to get rid of her first phase after you mastered all her moves. Her AI is fairly passive in the first phase and her posture isn't particularly strong so you can literally stomp her to death.

BTW, a tip to make the above strategy work: you can use freezing pots to knock her out of her Waterfowl attack. This only works three times, and you are better off saving those for the second phase.

[P.]

Just stunlock her spamming Burn O Flame.

It might not work from NG +2 onwards because enemies take less stance damage for each higher NG cycle.
But frost and bleed procs always stagger enemies unless they're immune to stagger.

[Velber]

by any means necessary
or you could do what i did and spam takers flame with the mimic ashes so she barely has time to breathe

[Last Jackdaw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdkY9s9UwcQ

Do it like this no damage (on malenia)

[SotiCoto]

Originally posted by Walrus Beard:

Originally posted by Malthar:

try learning it first, if you find it too difficult, freeze the ♥♥♥♥♥

Yeah I feel like I should at least try first. Even if I learn her moves there is another puzzle; which weapons/spells to use. She dodges most magic easily.

First time I beat Malenia, which is to say the first time I fought Malenia, I went in there overlevelled with a level 10 Mimic Tear and I used Night Comet to flinch her while the Mimic used Terra Magica and Comet Azur. Like there we were both standing at opposite edges of the Terra Magica circle casting our respective sorceries at her and she basically melted.

At the end of the day, having weird pride issues about doing things properly and not using cheap bullsh!t tactics is just shooting yourself in the foot. If it works, it isn't stupid.

[Steel]

Originally posted by SotiCoto:

Originally posted by Walrus Beard:

Yeah I feel like I should at least try first. Even if I learn her moves there is another puzzle; which weapons/spells to use. She dodges most magic easily.

First time I beat Malenia, which is to say the first time I fought Malenia, I went in there overlevelled with a level 10 Mimic Tear and I used Night Comet to flinch her while the Mimic used Terra Magica and Comet Azur. Like there we were both standing at opposite edges of the Terra Magica circle casting our respective sorceries at her and she basically melted.

At the end of the day, having weird pride issues about doing things properly and not using cheap bullsh!t tactics is just shooting yourself in the foot. If it works, it isn't stupid.

Based.
Play to win, use whatever is available to you, don't let scrubs tell you how you should play the game.

If you want to challenge yourself there's always self-challenges later, as well as mods to make the boss/the whole game way harder. No need to limit yourself if you don't want to.

[Haliax Jundiania]

I kind of felt the same with her. The first time i fought her, i did it coop. Tried it for like 15 hours solo and then just did it coop. The next time i wanted to do it solo. I used bloodhound step, to make dodging waterfowl easier. The next time i just used frost pots, and the fourth time, i beat her without tools at all. Maybe some kunai iirc.
So thats one thing you could do. Just try to kill her with what you have (i.e. summon, coop, frost pots, spells...) and the next time use less help. Until you can beat her comfortably without any tools and help. Also, the fight is still rewarding with all that. Everything in the game is something you can and should consider using. There is no shame in using tools. The game is intended that way.

[Necius]

I am maybe a little late but you can dodge the waterfowl easily if you run away from the first 2 parts and then go under her right before she does the last part