Why did people think Malenia is Hard?

[D. Flame]

Why did people think Malenia is Hard? Sure here flower will catch you off guard and kill you the first time, but after that, you can just beat her by spamming spells.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Lifesteal, which is overshadowed by the flashy Waterfowl Dance people complain about - the two synergize well and is a completely BS mechanic to make the boss arbitrarily harder. A lot of the fandom is either as masochistic as Miyazaki or fanatical to the point of arguing for months about her.

[Ant Ra]

Spamming spells as a melee fighter or archer is a good idea, thanks. I would never have thought of it without help.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Truly, spells are the best in Elden Ring, compared to all previous Fromsoftware games. They are the best way to solo her imo

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by Ant Ra:

Spamming spells as a melee fighter or archer is a good idea, thanks. I would never have thought of it without help. :bash:

You could do both. An INT build also got a couple of the best melee weapons in the game. Archery was just a meme.

[Sc0rpiTr0n]

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Truly, spells are the best in Elden Ring, compared to all previous Fromsoftware games. They are the best way to solo her imo

I agree but Blasphemous Blade skill spam is close.

[Imperator Ricardo]

Ironically, Malenia used to be easier than she is now.
At some point, the devs added hyperarmour to her every move. Not that it is hard to stunlock her now, just slightly more inconvenient.

During my first playthrough i remember being incredibly disappointed by such a hyped-up boss fight, as i just destroyed her on my first attempt with powerstanced Heavy Flamberges, with Lions' Claw on the main hand one.
Every hit just staggered or flattened her, and with a piece of Boiled Crab, i could take the entire flurry of Waterfowl Dance without losing even half of my health.

All that said, i would still say her boss design is still rather bad.
A near-undodgeable attack, Lifesteal, high speed (if you do let her move), and a phase 2 that is even faster, has a nuclear bomb as a starter attack (wich can, however, easily be punished with ranged attacks) and an attack that can very easily end you if you stand too close to her (the phantom-clone attack with the transparent rot-pillar in phase 2).
Inexperienced players may reasonably have a rough time as a result.

There are theories that she was supposed to be the final boss of the cut Sekiro DLC, and i can see why.
But i just cannot call her "difficult" personally, not least because Spirit Ashes like Tiche or the Mimic Tear exist, aswell as Bleed or Frost status effects.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Originally posted by Imperator Ricardo:

Ironically, Malenia used to be easier than she is now.
At some point, the devs added hyperarmour to her every move. Not that it is hard to stunlock her now, just slightly more inconvenient.

During my first playthrough i remember being incredibly disappointed by such a hyped-up boss fight, as i just destroyed her on my first attempt with powerstanced Heavy Flamberges, with Lions' Claw on the main hand one.
Every hit just staggered or flattened her, and with a piece of Boiled Crab, i could take the entire flurry of Waterfowl Dance without losing even half of my health.

All that said, i would still say her boss design is still rather bad.
A near-undodgeable attack, Lifesteal, high speed (if you do let her move), and a phase 2 that is even faster, has a nuclear bomb as a starter attack (wich can, however, easily be punished with ranged attacks) and an attack that can very easily end you if you stand too close to her (the phantom-clone attack with the transparent rot-pillar in phase 2).
Inexperienced players may reasonably have a rough time as a result.

There are theories that she was supposed to be the final boss of the cut Sekiro DLC, and i can see why.
But i just cannot call her "difficult" personally, not least because Spirit Ashes like Tiche or the Mimic Tear exist, aswell as Bleed or Frost status effects.

Well said. I think the changes they've made over the game's lifespan has been deleterious to the community's discussion about her, since people have had an extremely varied experience of her tuning.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Originally posted by Imperator Ricardo:

Ironically, Malenia used to be easier than she is now.
At some point, the devs added hyperarmour to her every move. Not that it is hard to stunlock her now, just slightly more inconvenient.

During my first playthrough i remember being incredibly disappointed by such a hyped-up boss fight, as i just destroyed her on my first attempt with powerstanced Heavy Flamberges, with Lions' Claw on the main hand one.
Every hit just staggered or flattened her, and with a piece of Boiled Crab, i could take the entire flurry of Waterfowl Dance without losing even half of my health.

All that said, i would still say her boss design is still rather bad.
A near-undodgeable attack, Lifesteal, high speed (if you do let her move), and a phase 2 that is even faster, has a nuclear bomb as a starter attack (wich can, however, easily be punished with ranged attacks) and an attack that can very easily end you if you stand too close to her (the phantom-clone attack with the transparent rot-pillar in phase 2).
Inexperienced players may reasonably have a rough time as a result.

There are theories that she was supposed to be the final boss of the cut Sekiro DLC, and i can see why.
But i just cannot call her "difficult" personally, not least because Spirit Ashes like Tiche or the Mimic Tear exist, aswell as Bleed or Frost status effects.

Well said. I think the changes they've made over the game's lifespan has been deleterious to the community's discussion about her, since people have had an extremely varied experience of her tuning.

That's fair, I think they got their egos bruised over people finding ways to easily clear bosses, so they just kept buffing enemies and nerfing players, repeatedly.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Well said. I think the changes they've made over the game's lifespan has been deleterious to the community's discussion about her, since people have had an extremely varied experience of her tuning.

That's fair, I think they got their egos bruised over people finding ways to easily clear bosses, so they just kept buffing enemies and nerfing players, repeatedly.

Nerfed Radahn into the floor, yet buffed Malenia into the moon. It's interesting, if not relevant to western intersectional something something.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by CazadorDeLobo:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

That's fair, I think they got their egos bruised over people finding ways to easily clear bosses, so they just kept buffing enemies and nerfing players, repeatedly.

Nerfed Radahn into the floor, yet buffed Malenia into the moon. It's interesting, if not relevant to western intersectional something something.

They changed Elden Beast, I did a no hit run on it not long after, and uploaded the video, and they reversed the change in like a day and called it "a bug".

I uploaded videos of using shields several times, and not long after, shields got nerfed repeatedly.

Uploaded a video of rofl-stomping Malenia using magic and BHS. BHS gets nerfed not long after.

Someone else uploads a video of cheesing the fire giant by getting it to fall. That gets patched out not long after.

I think Bamco literally pays someone to surf social media/youtube looking for these videos, and they nerf everything that they find.

[Namazu]

You're not fighting Malenia you're fighting Waterfowl dance+healing blade of miquella . Once you know when and where its coming and can A. tank it but she heals, B. dodge it...not easy but nothing trial and error cant fix, C. if your spaced enough you can just run away from it. The rest of the fight is cakewalk if you outplay that one move. I thought she was hard and spent hours trying to beat her until her weakness hit me.

[Double]

Cuz she got that Malussy

[MULTIPASS]

Her hyperarmor isn't a problem if you don't get greedy. You hit her just once during an opening, and don't queue the next attack until you see if she staggers. You can possibly get a third attack if she flinches from the second, but then it's time to back up and dodge her incoming retaliation. She has many many openings throughout her attack sequences where she can be interrupted. With a simple claymore I consistently poise break her 3 times per phase just by keeping up consistent pressure with simple r1's and thrusts.

Her health regen is a negligible mechanic unless you're completely relying on FP/arrows/bombs to kill her and can't dodge her attacks. She didn't have a ton of health to begin with, just assume her health pool is 20% larger than it looks and forget about the regen.

Waterfowl kills people who have 40 vig, low armor, and no strategy for dealing with it at close range and just die. There are numerous ways to defend against it, no point in going over all of that again.

[Namazu]

Originally posted by MULTIPASS:

Her hyperarmor isn't a problem if you don't get greedy. You hit her just once during an opening, and don't queue the next attack until you see if she staggers. You can possibly get a third attack if she flinches from the second, but then it's time to back up and dodge her incoming retaliation. She has many many openings throughout her attack sequences where she can be interrupted. With a simple claymore I consistently poise break her 3 times per phase just by keeping up consistent pressure with simple r1's and thrusts.

Her health regen is a negligible mechanic unless you're completely relying on FP/arrows/bombs to kill her and can't dodge her attacks. She didn't have a ton of health to begin with, just assume her health pool is 20% larger than it looks and forget about the regen.

Waterfowl kills people who have 40 vig, low armor, and no strategy for dealing with it at close range and just die. There are numerous ways to defend against it, no point in going over all of that again.

I mean i did it with 40vig mid armor at most. None of her attacks except for one are not that hard to dodge nor that much of a problem by no means. im on ng+ level 288 still with 40vig and ima fight her again with 40vig and ima clap her cheeks and even after all that Waterfowl dance is for the rats strait cheese......yet when you get the weapon its hot garbage juice. At least give us the "negligible" healing mechanic for the most part.

[buttchin]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Why did people think Malenia is Hard? Sure here flower will catch you off guard and kill you the first time, but after that, you can just beat her by spamming spells.

Mine is harder