Malenia, Blade of Miquella fight is bullcrap

[UnlivingEnd]

I may have over trained for this. I was expecting an earth shattering, nail biting fight that I could barely survive. Instead, I completely bent her over the table twice in under 2 minutes. Boy that fight was overhyped.

[Zoiyya]

No chance, I watched a couple videos of how to dodge that but no matter what I try she lands right on my f*** head one hitting me. I already tried running under her, to the left or right, just away, she always lands right ontop of me. Most unbalanced boss in the game...

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Zoiyya:

Also how tf are you supposed to dodge her flower explosion at the start of 2nd phase?!? That ♥♥♥♥ always one hits me 19/20 tries!

it looks like you run away until she kinda sets in place in the air and then run towards her and she'll overshoot. watch some speedrunners or other people that play it constantly to see what i mean.

as for summoning, you can do it depending upon the summon or your build if using mimic. my mage had dung eater out there keeping her attention most of the time and doing crits when i staggered her. whip guy had mimic for the faster frost/bleed procs.

[EF_Neo1st]

Originally posted by Zoiyya:

No chance, I watched a couple videos of how to dodge that but no matter what I try she lands right on my f*** head one hitting me. I already tried running under her, to the left or right, just away, she always lands right ontop of me. Most unbalanced boss in the game...

It just works, I dont know how you are getting hit doing it unless somehow you are doing it wrong or not unlocking target.

[Titan]

That's the thing, her moveset isn't actually that bad save for a few EXCEPTIONALLY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moves. We all know the move I'm talking about. It's funny, if you just cut out like one or two moves at most I doubt she would be considered NEARLY as hard as she is right now.

[SQUID_MCDIG CLASSY]

I was having trouble fighting her 1v1 and got fed up so I used my mimic and we just took turns staggering and bleeding her. I only lost to her second phase once.

[AzysLla]

Not surprised. For example I found Isshin in Sekiro extremely easy and beat him the second try, after spending a week beating Father Owl.

[EF_Neo1st]

Originally posted by AzysLla:

Not surprised. For example I found Isshin in Sekiro extremely easy and beat him the second try, after spending a week beating Father Owl.

Oh no!!!
inb4someonesays you are a liar because of personal incredulity.

Still the case of OP is max VIG and max of other 2 stats (what brings OP to at least lvl 300 or 300+)

[Meewec]

Originally posted by AzysLla:

Not surprised. For example I found Isshin in Sekiro extremely easy and beat him the second try, after spending a week beating Father Owl.

people seem to hate ulcerated tree spirits and margit while calling mohg easy. i kinda enjoy tree spirits and margit but have trouble with mohg. different things trip up different people.

[Legiondorf]

Max level is 150. 300+ jesus sorry but you are like a 10 year old playing a Creative setting.

[[JRE] Joe Rogan]

Originally posted by Legiondorf:

Max level is 150. 300+ jesus sorry but you are like a 10 year old playing a Creative setting.

IDK about level 300 but I can safely say at level 170 or something there isn't that much of a difference between 170 and 150 because of the softcap limitations.

Originally posted by MCNacho-ナチョ:

she is quite good balanced. give you fair chance to prepare and didnt rush that hard. if she attacks, than dodge and everything is fine. that spidermanmove is easy. if she starts you can throwh a bomb and she staggers. or dodge 2 times away each charge and at the 3 one dodge to her than dodge again away. thats the way.

I think most people who play these games don't actually realize the programming behind it and how bad it is, this boss is not balanced lol it's RNG rolls on staggering and not consistent whatsoever. I mean yes there's openings and you can apply bleed which makes it more bearable but the idea of a boss being fair and all that means it should respect the rules of the game which Maelenia only pretends to but doesn't actually. Anyway I didn't think the boss was that bad I still used Mimic Tear for her because I stopped caring and that was my 4th attempt, first two attempts I tried without summons, at a certain point in this game I honestly stopped caring about learning anything else or bothering with the game. I think all these bosses come at a point where the game is just tiresome is a big issue.

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

[ULTIMATENEGRO815]

This is patched malenia just like radahn was patched too. You didn't beat the real one the people ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about being too hard. Only those people before the patch can brag or talk the talk. Sorry just saying.

[LittleEtherKitty]

Originally posted by EF_Neo1st:

Originally posted by LittleEtherKitty:

Oh, you were talking about OP. I thought you were talking about me, since you replied to one of my posts talking about my own experience.

I meant that there should be nothing "hard" for OP, no Malenia or Ulcerated Tree Spirit or whatever at lvl 300+, I just took your example as "it should not be hard for OP" as OP also had mentioned this:

Originally posted by UnlivingEnd:

The worst part is all of the stuff you have to go through just to get to her hypes her up so much, only for her to be a pushover.

Nothing there is hard and honestly Malenia is the hardest thing there but anyway OP just went through way too overleveled so...

Fair enough.

[Dragonzord]

There's absolutely no 'RNG' or 'unfairness' about Malenia.

Unlike other Souls titles, bosses react much more quickly to being attacked. They will turn around at a moment's notice and generally dodge away from the action when needed (Rellana, Twin Moon Knight is an entire boss fight of dodge-away). Malenia is no different. Her and Redahn are probably the best examples for why you are meant to have at least one cooperator during boss fights.

This game simply isn't designed around solo play; you are persistently given summons for a reason; bosses react super quickly to being hit from behind for a reason. Hell, they'll even switch targets mid-combo. I suppose some of you don't notice design peculiarities like these because you are just following walkthroughs or guides or something...

Anyway, if you do want to fight her solo (without magic / incants) all you need is a weapon with reach to hit her first when she walks towards you. Attacking her one-to-three times, hit confirming that she's been mini-stunned on each of your hits and forcing her into a 'dodge-back' animation is basically how that fight goes. During her 'dodge-back' you can shoot off a bolt / arrow / throwing item or re-assess the situation.

The second phase is basically the same thing as the first phase, except you get less time to land hits when she's finished her lengthy animations. Like most bosses in this game, the visual information with her attacks is messy because of all the explosions and other flower-wing nonsense she's doing.

Going long-range specifically for the second phase is usually what gets you through.

Water Fowl Dance is not random either: it comes out exactly after a third of her health goes down, then it will activate 2-3 times afterwards at max. It really depends on how long you are dragging the fight out, to be quite honest. I've seen her use it three times in a row while fighting her solo, it doesn't affect the "difficulty" of that fight whatsoever if you are paying attention to spacing and have a decisive technique to mitigating it (the run, dodge, swivel-dodge method is my preferred tactic).

If you understand your spacing and aren't randomly attacking her all the time (which is 90% of players, to be fair) you'll be fine.

One thing I've noticed with Elden Ring fans, and the discourse around Malenia's fight in particular, is that no one understands that this entire game is meant to be played in co-op. You'll notice that 'learning' Radahn and Malenia in solo play puts you outside of the intended scope of the game's design. Why is Malenia activating Water Fowl Dance when you're hugging a wall? Because ideally she's changed focus to your partner when she uses it. Why does Radahn ride around on his little horse in a huge ass arena where it takes forever to run to him? Because there are supposed to be 5+ NPCs and two human cooperators that he focuses on.

You guys frustrate yourselves way too much when From is giving you the answers to your problems from the outset.

[Dragonzord]

Originally posted by Zoiyya:

Also how tf are you supposed to dodge her flower explosion at the start of 2nd phase?!? That ♥♥♥♥ always one hits me 19/20 tries!

Don't listen to anyone else, just memorize the dodge timing.

You dodge into her dive as soon as she twitches (it's kind of like she lowers herself in the air for a second) then the second after she lands you dodge away from the explosion.

[EF_Neo1st]

Originally posted by Still Tarnished:

There's absolutely no 'RNG' or 'unfairness' about Malenia.

Unlike other Souls titles, bosses react much more quickly to being attacked. They will turn around at a moment's notice and generally dodge away from the action when needed (Rellana, Twin Moon Knight is an entire boss fight of dodge-away). Malenia is no different. Her and Redahn are probably the best examples for why you are meant to have at least one cooperator during boss fights.

This game simply isn't designed around solo play; you are persistently given summons for a reason; bosses react super quickly to being hit from behind for a reason. Hell, they'll even switch targets mid-combo. I suppose some of you don't notice design peculiarities like these because you are just following walkthroughs or guides or something...

Anyway, if you do want to fight her solo (without magic / incants) all you need is a weapon with reach to hit her first when she walks towards you. Attacking her one-to-three times, hit confirming that she's been mini-stunned on each of your hits and forcing her into a 'dodge-back' animation is basically how that fight goes. During her 'dodge-back' you can shoot off a bolt / arrow / throwing item or re-assess the situation.

The second phase is basically the same thing as the first phase, except you get less time to land hits when she's finished her lengthy animations. Like most bosses in this game, the visual information with her attacks is messy because of all the explosions and other flower-wing nonsense she's doing.

Going long-range specifically for the second phase is usually what gets you through.

Water Fowl Dance is not random either: it comes out exactly after a third of her health goes down, then it will activate 2-3 times afterwards at max. It really depends on how long you are dragging the fight out, to be quite honest. I've seen her use it three times in a row while fighting her solo, it doesn't affect the "difficulty" of that fight whatsoever if you are paying attention to spacing and have a decisive technique to mitigating it (the run, dodge, swivel-dodge method is my preferred tactic).

If you understand your spacing and aren't randomly attacking her all the time (which is 90% of players, to be fair) you'll be fine.

One thing I've noticed with Elden Ring fans, and the discourse around Malenia's fight in particular, is that no one understands that this entire game is meant to be played in co-op. You'll notice that 'learning' Radahn and Malenia in solo play puts you outside of the intended scope of the game's design. Why is Malenia activating Water Fowl Dance when you're hugging a wall? Because ideally she's changed focus to your partner when she uses it. Why does Radahn ride around on his little horse in a huge ass arena where it takes forever to run to him? Because there are supposed to be 5+ NPCs and two human cooperators that he focuses on.

You guys frustrate yourselves way too much when From is giving you the answers to your problems from the outset.

She and Rellana are designed around solo play, Malenia duels you and Rellana sort of too. They are not designed around "be aggressive solo to win" but it dont mean they are not designed around solo play (no NPC/spirit/player summons).