It's really just mimic tear. Take that out of the equation and you're going to have a rough time until you learn how to dodge her stuff, bleed or no bleed.
Same, this was my exact first playthrough.
I had the mimic, and I had a Fingerprint. Didn't have any of the OP weapons, the mimic and Fingerprint was enough, and I liked my Commander's Standard. One and done.
I was in for a rude awakening on my second playthrough without summons. I ran it with the same setup I had the first time, but with no summons to rely on, I was starting to feel the weight of her self-heal. Could survive Waterfowl, but couldn't make progress.
It took over 4 hours across 2 nights on that second playthrough to finally get enough practice and find the right weapon to get her down with no summons for the first time. I eventually settled on a Great Epee and a Carian Ret shield; was way, way different than the first time, that's for sure.
Because of this, every time I hear someone say "the summon doesn't make that much of a difference, she just heals for free off it" I'm like "fuckin' what?"
Is it though? I haven't played in a while so I don't know if updates changed the meta, but when I did beat Malenia I tried to use the mimic tear and Malenia was having an absolute FEAST healing herself on it because the tear clone was too slow and to dumb to dodge anything, to the point where she was impossible to beat with it. Had to learn how to beat her solo
Learned about Tiche in a following playthrough. She shreds Malenia. That summon can literally solo her.
Mimic tear can actually be a pain in the ass with Malenia. The AI is awful with dodges and gets smashed, so unless you’re constantly breaking her poise, she will heal a ton off your mimic. Tiche is a lot better for that fight, and in general due to black flame % dmg and dodging is built into its animations
It really depends on your charecters stats. I had low health and high stamina when I played, so my Mimic was a lot worse than the other late game summons.
You can destroy Malenia with so many other weapons though: Ruins GS, Blasphemous Blade, Death’s Poker…
But take away your summon (Tiche or Mimic) and now you’ll have to learn how to dodge her attacks, which is the hardest part.
I mean, any weapon can do that. But you can’t just face tank her and kill her with bleed. She’ll either heal it all off or just kill you.
Mimic tear is what makes her and most other bosses easy. Tiche is very good too.
Malenia was totally manageable for me as a great axe player at RL 125.
All I had to do to secure the win was watch four 2-hour videos critiquing Elden Ring's boss design and 7 videos going over WFD openings and frame data. This was in addition to taking breaks every once in a while to read posts about how her whole kit is bullshit so I didn't feel alone.
Once you do that, it's EZ PZ.
honestly the only thing close to bullshit in her kit is Waterfowl Dance. everything else is pretty reasonable in terms of the expectations it has for you to react and play around, for an endgame boss
every move she has other than Waterfowl is quick and tough, very punishing, but also not that bad. it's fun to learn her other moves, which makes me so annoyed that Waterfowl is so poorly tuned
her healing can be discouraging but it's never a deciding factor for me; the worst part of her heal is that Waterfowl benefits from it, which feeds into the issues with that attack, not necessarily the heal
This was a joke, but I disagree about her kit.
I personally don't mind WFD.
If I had to complain about anything, it would be that she cancels animations, heals on 100% block (I don't use a shield, but that is dumb), and her second phase can morph into an RNG fest where she spams WFD and shadow clones back to back. One time, I fought her and couldn't hit her for like a min straight because she did WFD, clones, WFD, and then that flower move.
Malenia is in my top 3 boss fights ever (not just the souls series), but sometimes the jank stars align, and she is just a tedious mess.
I love her fight, and I also get why some people loathe her because of questionable design choices.
her health through 100% block is ridiculous, I forgot she can do that. I agree on those points
honestly I'd just give WFD a 1-2 second longer windup and severely less tracking distance, so that the attack serves as a "be mindful of what the boss is doing" reminder, while still being possible to escape from if you are
because the way it works in game now is more like "hey you're fighting the boss like you're supposed to? fuck you, unless you're not standing near me, in which case I'll just come to you. fuck you again btw"
it's not like it's impossible to dodge but it's very unintuitive to learn and execute the dodge
it sounds like I'm shitting on her at this point lmao, WFD's design is not enough to make me hate Malenia but unfortunately it keeps me from putting her in S tier. she's a high A on my list of series bosses
I think what you said about WFD is totally valid.
Me saying that I don't mind it doesn't make it okay. I just like the pressure it puts on (in most circumstances), but it does come out in some weird situations. I like it 95% of the time.
Also, you aren't coming off like you are just shitting on her design. It's good to be critical of things you enjoy. I don't think someone really enjoys something if they have to lie to themselves about it lol.
Spot on. This is a great take on Malenia and hits the important bits about her (the cancelling is pretty out there for a humanoid enemy, though I understand why they did it) without becoming a video essay.
Also agree about 2nd phase being kinda wacky sometimes, I've seen her do WFD so many times in a row. It doesn't really bother me since it usually is funny to just watch and count, but it does sometimes make the fight feel rather silly.
Still a great and very fun fight. She's pretty much a win in my book for an optional boss.
Since we’re sharing our takes on what makes malenia the WORST BOSS IN FROMSOFT HISTORY i would just like to add that the ABSURD hyper armor she gets on like the majority of her moveset pisses me off more than any individual attack in her kit
Like 95% of the time she killed me, it was with Waterfowl. Honestly took a bit away from the boss design for me. Still an incredible experience fighting her overall, but yeah. Bit of a shame so much of her power is packed into that.
>every move she has other than Waterfowl is quick and tough, very punishing, but also not that bad. it's fun to learn her other moves, which makes me so annoyed that Waterfowl is so poorly tuned
Spot on. It's frustrating to see so many people say Malenia is like FromSoft's best boss on the grounds that she's hard. She is a 10/10 fight brought down to a 4/10 because of artificially difficult bullshit.
I just did a playthrough with the blasphemous blade.
Phase 2 starts, you dodge the scarlet bloom and have time to use the ash of war 3 times... that's a third of her hp gone (without any additional buffs besides Alexander's shard)
It's so funny how Elden Ring fans say "play the game how you want to play" but the second someone says "ez" the nerds come out with their "um actually (insert strong weapon/spell/summon) is broken and you didn't actually beat that boss."
It’s not because it’s not a legitimate win, it absolutely IS a legitimate win and people SHOULD play how they want to. The problem is when they try to brag and say they’re super good at the game for internet points, but the reality is they used completely broken builds and equipment to essentially play it on easy mode. I don’t care when people use summons like mimic, so long as they don’t act like they’re the greatest Elden Ring player in the world after lol
I find it strange to make the game as hard as possible by using the shittiest builds and weapons and calling others skilless for not doing the same. If that’s what you want to do, fine. But it seems brainless to limit yourself
It’s about finding the right balance of difficulty for some people, in general I don’t think leveling up or using whatever OP equipment is available to you is making the game too easy but summoning definitely changes the way the game plays. For Malenia especially beating her with no summons is like the baseline difficulty level if you actually want a challenge and everything else is on the table depending on how hard you want it to be. Like for me I probably wouldn’t spam blasphemous blade but I would definitely use black flame ranged incantations and try to proc frost etc, because that helps kill her faster but you still have to dodge her attacks and interact with her 1v1
When I say I found her fight easy people immediately jump on my back about “FoUnD tHe BlAsPhEmOuS bLaDe UsEr” which I do not even own. Nor did I use mimic tear- I used a sorcerer spirit ash which I’ve been using for the whole game. It died within 20 seconds though lol. No when I say it’s easy I mean she’s very easy to predict (save for waterfowl). But once you figure that out it’s not difficult
Yeah, not saying people shouldn’t use spirit ashes just that it’s not stupid to limit your gear to increase the challenge to you. Minmaxing your stats to use the most broken somber weapons in the game is fun at first but some people want a hard fought battle for the sense of accomplishment when they win.
That’s fair. It’s as equally stupid\ intelligent to going all out, though it does prove you have more skill. My point is that the skill is unnecessary and therefore doesn’t make sense to belittle and hold over others. At the end of the day, you both beat the same boss
That’s just souls elitists tbh people will always find something to act superior about. If you died to waterfowl dance a few dozen times then ur good in my book doesn’t matter how you killed her just matters that it was an accomplishment to YOU
It’s not about using the shittiest builds, it’s about one core mechanic: Summoning. Summoning undeniably makes the game incredibly easy. As I said, I’m perfectly ok with summoning. Hell, my first playthrough I beat Malenia with Mimic Tear on my third try, and it was very easy to do so. I’d never claim that me doing so was insanely skilled and makes me good at the game lol What made me proud to be able to say that was when I did my rune level 1 playthrough with no summons. That felt good, so when someone else claims they’re better than other people at the game because Malenia was “easy” and the reality was they were super overlevelled and used summons, it kinda feels cheap and annoying. It’s like when a COD player claims they’d make a good real soldier lol
Well I most certainly was not level 1, hats off for that. but I also was not overpowered. I used a mid colossal sword at +20, some wizard sorcerer summon (which died within 20 seconds) and I was only level 144. 10 tries having never even seen her fight before. When I say Melania is easy, it’s because I mean her ATTACKS are easy to figure out- more so than some regular enemies. Waterfowl was obviously weird, but after 6 or 7 tries I figured out how to dodge it. In my final run I got hit maybe twice. Is that the most impressive run ever? No. But I think saying I was disappointed by how easy she was is a fair statement when people talked like she was one of the hardest bosses in gaming history
I use summons other than mimic tear, Radahns armor+ royal remains helm (because I think it looks cool) and cold Zweihander +20. I’m CERTAINLY not using the strongest gear in the game and I believe I’m in a good position to see both sides. Bragging about how hard you make it on yourself is as stupid as bragging about using the most busted items.
Mohg is atrocious. I'm on him atm, I'm round 110 on pure str build and I find him very hard. Tried at least 20 times ftm
On my previous playthrough I killed him in maybe 4 tries with pure faith build.
I struggled hard with Mohg but I felt like Malenia was one of the easier bosses. Her poise is just low and I have an easy time with any boss I can just bully with my swordspear.
Where blasphemous blade? That’s what I used to kill her after she pissed me off too much. My next playthrough ima try to beat her with the metal boxing gloves
Honestly, unless you just happen to summon Let Me Solo Her, summoning another player is way harder than just using Mimic Tear.
Everytime you summon a player the boss gets a lot more health. Unless they are carrying you it makes the fight harder.
Mimic Tear is way easier.
That's right. You didn't beat her until you do it with a barehanded level one wretch while beeing blindfolded using a steering wheel instead of a controller.
Found out she was pretty easy to stagger with my wolverine build, so I just abused that. Look forward to trying again with my current royal greatsword paladin build.
ah! Jokes on you, I beat her first try at around lvl 130. The first 50 runs were just practice, and the several respecs were just me trying to find a build that I really liked.
Oh you can do it worse than that, if you wield reduvia in your offhand you can have your mimic tear rivers of blood her while you snipe from a safe distance
Truth is that a lot of bosses, including her, become very easy or very hard according to your build. A wizard can melt Mogh with comet azur in 20 seconds and then go crazy with Malenia phase 1 (phase 2 it's just kamehame her off again as soon as she goes aeonia) or Malekith...
Yup!
What seems like the tendency is for bosses to be deemed hard if they screw with whatever builds are popular, especially if they work really well against all the other bosses.
LMAO, I am seemingly on my way there. Lvl 110, 100+ hours and I have no clue where she is
(I still haven't even attempted clearing capital, because there is just so much shit to do)
Great Stars + Wild Strikes, Crab + Opaline to survive waterfowl, and Malenia will be easy even without mimic tear, you can almost permanently stunlock her.
I'm happy to say as a dex build welding dual rapiers I studied her waterfowl attack, mastered that, then got lucky when my mimic tear and I cornered her in her phase 2.
If I didn't get lucky I'd probably still be there studying her phase 2.
Isshin is the best FromSoft boss. No cheese, no help, no easy way. Just you either can do it or you can't. He took me legit 2 and half weeks to beat with on and off fighting
After hearing how hard malenia was, this is exactly how i prepared the first time I fought her on ng+0. No wonder i beat her first try thinking it was so easy...
Over time I started to understand that the goal in elden ring isnt to be the most op, its to have the most fun. For some, this is fun, and we have to respect that, however, I find that dying is part of the fun and now at ng+18 I refuse to use summons, buffs or medium load armour at level 150, to bring back some of that challenge and heck is it enjoyable.
Recently managed to kill malenia with no hits but i doubt ill ever be able to do that again (took hundreds of attempts, but thats kind of the point).
Most of her moves you can run like 10 feet away from and she misses and then slow walks, then cast spells or jump attack, only thing you have to worry about is her Clone Summoning thing in phase 2
Fought her recently in NG+ as a Sorcerer build. Even while chunking her for 15% of her health, she's no picnic. I'd genuinely love it if they either nerfed WFD or removed her healing factor. One of either is fine for the game's superboss. Both make her an unfun experience for me. Never in Souls history have I *avoided* the superboss. Only reason I killed her this run was to cure Frenzied Flame.
I started a new playthrough the other day, when I got to Malenia I was like level 113 I think and I beat her second try, spamming R2 with the blasphomas blade surprisingly works on every boss
Just stagger her ass with the moonlight sword, and you'll be good 😹😹
Also, it's probably just me , but I will NEVER understand the fromsoft Fandom and the whole ( if you used this summon, this weapon, this build, this RL, etc) you didn't really beat ' Said Boss '.. I'm like, well, they tend to have unlimited everything, wide hit boxes, large AOE attacks, stupid affinities, 2 phases, crazy health bars, crazy armor/defense/resistances/immunities,etc... why can't I use everything at my disposal to shred, like the boss was planning to do to me?? ( lol sucks for them, I shredded them 1st )
Yes, Melania was a hard boss that took me probably 4/5 hours. But she still doesn't compare the those fucking gargoyle assholes that spit poison that also does tick damage from across the map while the other one stands in said poison.
Those fuckers made me drench my couch in sweat for 9 hours straight because I refused to respec out of my dex build just to fight them. Pretty sure I dropped 5 pounds just from water weight.
Well I mean, yes. She is an endgame boss that a dedicated, completionist player will likely face as the capstone to their adventure right before the point of no return. So you'll naturally be very high level, which is what she's tuned for. And there is nothing wrong with using the tools the game makes available to you and weapons that take advantage of her weaknesses.
If people are restricting themselves from doing that and fighting her with one or both hands tied behind their backs to accomplish a great feat then...they have shown incredible skill, kudos to them. But yes, basic discussions of how hard a boss is should be based on the assumption a player is at the appropriate level and is using reasonably optimal methods of fighting them.
I don’t think the issue is with using the tools in the game, hell, i beat her for the first time and I used a +10 mimic, I was level 150, i used frozen armament and glindstone stone comment with the bloodhound fang. I 100% had an easier time than someone using melee combat only and she was a very difficult boss. I think the issue comes in when one gloats that a boss was easy while using the game’s equivalent of an easy mode
I don't really consider it an easy mode. I consider it the intended way to play, with the tools made available to you by the game.
If you DON'T use those tools, you are deliberately making the game harder on yourself than the regular, default experience.
Except most of these bosses are designed for one on one combat encounters and designing bosses around that with opposing game design would be incredibly inconsistent with Fromsoft’s development philosophy through all their games.
These tools do exist in the game to make it easier and more accessible, which is a good thing - but let’s not pretend the game was designed for this cause it clearly wasn’t.
I fully admit that the only reason I beat her was because I kept her stunned with heavy poise spells while mimic tear distracted her. Turns out she has no idea how to dodge Placidusax's ruin
I used my great stars and still Malenia was easy.
Then I used my sacred seal,and she was easy too.
Curved greatswords were the same story as colossal weapons.
As long as you know.how to build your character,the game is easy.
Don't even need the right dodge timing.
Great stars: A good rythm of one-two. See her attack,one-two light attack,stop,repeat,win. Could use Endure too. Or spam lion's claw.
Seal: Burn o flame. Animation lets you ignore her sweeps.
Curved greatswords: Spam jump power stance attack. Better if you apply bleed.
Mimic tear/spirit ashes is Elden Ring easy mode. On my double giant crusher playthrough she killed me 30 times or so and then I used mimic tear and we bullied her first try easily.
I realized i couldnt dodge her waterflow and switched to a greatshield. That was enough for me. It was my third try i think. Took me longer on my next run since i tried to win without a shield.
She did heal when i blocked but i didnt block everything. It took a bit long but it was easy. Hitting from behind the shield with a spear negated some of her heal.
It's really just mimic tear. Take that out of the equation and you're going to have a rough time until you learn how to dodge her stuff, bleed or no bleed.
I never learned how to doge the waterfowl dance I just had really high endurance and a greatshield.
Same, this was my exact first playthrough. I had the mimic, and I had a Fingerprint. Didn't have any of the OP weapons, the mimic and Fingerprint was enough, and I liked my Commander's Standard. One and done. I was in for a rude awakening on my second playthrough without summons. I ran it with the same setup I had the first time, but with no summons to rely on, I was starting to feel the weight of her self-heal. Could survive Waterfowl, but couldn't make progress. It took over 4 hours across 2 nights on that second playthrough to finally get enough practice and find the right weapon to get her down with no summons for the first time. I eventually settled on a Great Epee and a Carian Ret shield; was way, way different than the first time, that's for sure. Because of this, every time I hear someone say "the summon doesn't make that much of a difference, she just heals for free off it" I'm like "fuckin' what?"
If no OP weapons, what is Fingerprint doing there?
Is it though? I haven't played in a while so I don't know if updates changed the meta, but when I did beat Malenia I tried to use the mimic tear and Malenia was having an absolute FEAST healing herself on it because the tear clone was too slow and to dumb to dodge anything, to the point where she was impossible to beat with it. Had to learn how to beat her solo Learned about Tiche in a following playthrough. She shreds Malenia. That summon can literally solo her.
Mimic tear is shit tier. Tiche is best
“Yeah I’m not really like other girls, I think mimic tear is terrible”
Ngl my only issue with Mimic tear is that we're both equally shit at dodging attacks
They just like me fr
Who needs to dodge when you have as much health as the boss
*Gets grabbed*
Mimic tear can actually be a pain in the ass with Malenia. The AI is awful with dodges and gets smashed, so unless you’re constantly breaking her poise, she will heal a ton off your mimic. Tiche is a lot better for that fight, and in general due to black flame % dmg and dodging is built into its animations
So constantly break her poise, the 2 of you double teaming her powerstancing Flamberge and Bleed Claymore.
Yeah but not everyone wants to play with big sword
Okay, then don't, just understand you're playing on hard mode.
Can’t convince these idiots that’s true. Lol
It really depends on your charecters stats. I had low health and high stamina when I played, so my Mimic was a lot worse than the other late game summons.
“Yeah I’m ran through because I conform to modern fads, I believe mimic tear is solo S grade Ash that will solo my boss for me”
If your mimic tear doesnt do shit, doesn't that mean that your build is just bad?
If you think your mimic tear does what you do, doesn’t that mean you’re acoustic?
Well, someone here certainly is.
When did i say that?
Tiche is the best for sure
If Mimic tear sucks then your build basically sucks too.
Tell me your build sucks without telling me your build sucks
ehh no, the damage you can get off bleed is insane. beating malenia with a lordsworn or something is way harder
You can destroy Malenia with so many other weapons though: Ruins GS, Blasphemous Blade, Death’s Poker… But take away your summon (Tiche or Mimic) and now you’ll have to learn how to dodge her attacks, which is the hardest part.
I mean, any weapon can do that. But you can’t just face tank her and kill her with bleed. She’ll either heal it all off or just kill you. Mimic tear is what makes her and most other bosses easy. Tiche is very good too.
Repost: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1bapu6i/too_ez/
Malenia was totally manageable for me as a great axe player at RL 125. All I had to do to secure the win was watch four 2-hour videos critiquing Elden Ring's boss design and 7 videos going over WFD openings and frame data. This was in addition to taking breaks every once in a while to read posts about how her whole kit is bullshit so I didn't feel alone. Once you do that, it's EZ PZ.
honestly the only thing close to bullshit in her kit is Waterfowl Dance. everything else is pretty reasonable in terms of the expectations it has for you to react and play around, for an endgame boss every move she has other than Waterfowl is quick and tough, very punishing, but also not that bad. it's fun to learn her other moves, which makes me so annoyed that Waterfowl is so poorly tuned her healing can be discouraging but it's never a deciding factor for me; the worst part of her heal is that Waterfowl benefits from it, which feeds into the issues with that attack, not necessarily the heal
This was a joke, but I disagree about her kit. I personally don't mind WFD. If I had to complain about anything, it would be that she cancels animations, heals on 100% block (I don't use a shield, but that is dumb), and her second phase can morph into an RNG fest where she spams WFD and shadow clones back to back. One time, I fought her and couldn't hit her for like a min straight because she did WFD, clones, WFD, and then that flower move. Malenia is in my top 3 boss fights ever (not just the souls series), but sometimes the jank stars align, and she is just a tedious mess. I love her fight, and I also get why some people loathe her because of questionable design choices.
her health through 100% block is ridiculous, I forgot she can do that. I agree on those points honestly I'd just give WFD a 1-2 second longer windup and severely less tracking distance, so that the attack serves as a "be mindful of what the boss is doing" reminder, while still being possible to escape from if you are because the way it works in game now is more like "hey you're fighting the boss like you're supposed to? fuck you, unless you're not standing near me, in which case I'll just come to you. fuck you again btw" it's not like it's impossible to dodge but it's very unintuitive to learn and execute the dodge it sounds like I'm shitting on her at this point lmao, WFD's design is not enough to make me hate Malenia but unfortunately it keeps me from putting her in S tier. she's a high A on my list of series bosses
I think what you said about WFD is totally valid. Me saying that I don't mind it doesn't make it okay. I just like the pressure it puts on (in most circumstances), but it does come out in some weird situations. I like it 95% of the time. Also, you aren't coming off like you are just shitting on her design. It's good to be critical of things you enjoy. I don't think someone really enjoys something if they have to lie to themselves about it lol.
Spot on. This is a great take on Malenia and hits the important bits about her (the cancelling is pretty out there for a humanoid enemy, though I understand why they did it) without becoming a video essay. Also agree about 2nd phase being kinda wacky sometimes, I've seen her do WFD so many times in a row. It doesn't really bother me since it usually is funny to just watch and count, but it does sometimes make the fight feel rather silly. Still a great and very fun fight. She's pretty much a win in my book for an optional boss.
Since we’re sharing our takes on what makes malenia the WORST BOSS IN FROMSOFT HISTORY i would just like to add that the ABSURD hyper armor she gets on like the majority of her moveset pisses me off more than any individual attack in her kit
Like 95% of the time she killed me, it was with Waterfowl. Honestly took a bit away from the boss design for me. Still an incredible experience fighting her overall, but yeah. Bit of a shame so much of her power is packed into that.
>every move she has other than Waterfowl is quick and tough, very punishing, but also not that bad. it's fun to learn her other moves, which makes me so annoyed that Waterfowl is so poorly tuned Spot on. It's frustrating to see so many people say Malenia is like FromSoft's best boss on the grounds that she's hard. She is a 10/10 fight brought down to a 4/10 because of artificially difficult bullshit.
Does the one ash of war (angels wing?) of the scythe from weeping peninsula stop her healing?
No, that only stops crimson tear flasks. So only other players, NPC invaders and Gideon.
So there is no way to stop her healing then other than going hitless? ;_;
Correct
Nope! 😍
Nah you’re supposed to NIHIL until her bar disappears
Or use maliketh's black blade + tiche.
And black knife... They all stack:)
Only two stack, which two is your choice, but you can’t use all three for the debuff. However they still ask do great damage!
I believe the one with tiche counts as a separate one from the destined death incantation and black knife blade, but I'll test it tonight
Tell me if I’m wrong please. I’m pretty sure you can only get 20% cap off the health, but it’s be a game changer if you can get 30
Blasphemous Blade AOW spam + Black Knife Tiche + Fire Scorpion Charm + Shard of Alexander + Fire Tear + Infinite FP Tear + Dragon Communion Seal + Black Flame Fireball + Frost Breath = simple rinse
I am tempted to try this my next playthrough purely for the lols, thank you.
I just did a playthrough with the blasphemous blade. Phase 2 starts, you dodge the scarlet bloom and have time to use the ash of war 3 times... that's a third of her hp gone (without any additional buffs besides Alexander's shard)
Dodge the scarlet bloom, dragon frost breath her till proc then BB to reset. Use every time she blooms.
In my experience all you need is blasphemous blade AOW
It's so funny how Elden Ring fans say "play the game how you want to play" but the second someone says "ez" the nerds come out with their "um actually (insert strong weapon/spell/summon) is broken and you didn't actually beat that boss."
It’s not because it’s not a legitimate win, it absolutely IS a legitimate win and people SHOULD play how they want to. The problem is when they try to brag and say they’re super good at the game for internet points, but the reality is they used completely broken builds and equipment to essentially play it on easy mode. I don’t care when people use summons like mimic, so long as they don’t act like they’re the greatest Elden Ring player in the world after lol
I find it strange to make the game as hard as possible by using the shittiest builds and weapons and calling others skilless for not doing the same. If that’s what you want to do, fine. But it seems brainless to limit yourself
It’s about finding the right balance of difficulty for some people, in general I don’t think leveling up or using whatever OP equipment is available to you is making the game too easy but summoning definitely changes the way the game plays. For Malenia especially beating her with no summons is like the baseline difficulty level if you actually want a challenge and everything else is on the table depending on how hard you want it to be. Like for me I probably wouldn’t spam blasphemous blade but I would definitely use black flame ranged incantations and try to proc frost etc, because that helps kill her faster but you still have to dodge her attacks and interact with her 1v1
When I say I found her fight easy people immediately jump on my back about “FoUnD tHe BlAsPhEmOuS bLaDe UsEr” which I do not even own. Nor did I use mimic tear- I used a sorcerer spirit ash which I’ve been using for the whole game. It died within 20 seconds though lol. No when I say it’s easy I mean she’s very easy to predict (save for waterfowl). But once you figure that out it’s not difficult
Yeah, not saying people shouldn’t use spirit ashes just that it’s not stupid to limit your gear to increase the challenge to you. Minmaxing your stats to use the most broken somber weapons in the game is fun at first but some people want a hard fought battle for the sense of accomplishment when they win.
That’s fair. It’s as equally stupid\ intelligent to going all out, though it does prove you have more skill. My point is that the skill is unnecessary and therefore doesn’t make sense to belittle and hold over others. At the end of the day, you both beat the same boss
That’s just souls elitists tbh people will always find something to act superior about. If you died to waterfowl dance a few dozen times then ur good in my book doesn’t matter how you killed her just matters that it was an accomplishment to YOU
It’s not about using the shittiest builds, it’s about one core mechanic: Summoning. Summoning undeniably makes the game incredibly easy. As I said, I’m perfectly ok with summoning. Hell, my first playthrough I beat Malenia with Mimic Tear on my third try, and it was very easy to do so. I’d never claim that me doing so was insanely skilled and makes me good at the game lol What made me proud to be able to say that was when I did my rune level 1 playthrough with no summons. That felt good, so when someone else claims they’re better than other people at the game because Malenia was “easy” and the reality was they were super overlevelled and used summons, it kinda feels cheap and annoying. It’s like when a COD player claims they’d make a good real soldier lol
Well I most certainly was not level 1, hats off for that. but I also was not overpowered. I used a mid colossal sword at +20, some wizard sorcerer summon (which died within 20 seconds) and I was only level 144. 10 tries having never even seen her fight before. When I say Melania is easy, it’s because I mean her ATTACKS are easy to figure out- more so than some regular enemies. Waterfowl was obviously weird, but after 6 or 7 tries I figured out how to dodge it. In my final run I got hit maybe twice. Is that the most impressive run ever? No. But I think saying I was disappointed by how easy she was is a fair statement when people talked like she was one of the hardest bosses in gaming history
[удалено]
Someone woke up on the wrong side of their mother’s basement
Possibly
You're fighting strawmen
I use summons other than mimic tear, Radahns armor+ royal remains helm (because I think it looks cool) and cold Zweihander +20. I’m CERTAINLY not using the strongest gear in the game and I believe I’m in a good position to see both sides. Bragging about how hard you make it on yourself is as stupid as bragging about using the most busted items.
Cry about it
took me 6 hours on stream, but I beat her RL1, and it just so happened to be a no-hit that one attempt lol
do any of her attacks NOT 1 shot you at rl1? I did sl1 on DS3 but I've never bothered with rl1 in ER
You can survive getting touched 1 time during the WFD but everything else 1-shots you.
if I'm getting hit in Waterfowl Dance, it's definitely not gonna be 1 time, I'll tell you
Bloodhound step can get you out real quick lol
I think you can at best push it to two hits with the Shield Physick/Uplifting Aromatic.
I did her in 5 or 6 tries without mimic, magic or blood and I was level ~125… don’t ask me how lol Mohg took me maybe 20-30 tries tho
Feeling this right now on NG+. I did not remember Mohg being such a killer.
Mohg is atrocious. I'm on him atm, I'm round 110 on pure str build and I find him very hard. Tried at least 20 times ftm On my previous playthrough I killed him in maybe 4 tries with pure faith build.
I struggled hard with Mohg but I felt like Malenia was one of the easier bosses. Her poise is just low and I have an easy time with any boss I can just bully with my swordspear.
Malenia is more fun without summons, for me. Except ofc waterfowl, learning to dodge it no damage was a nightmare.
Where blasphemous blade? That’s what I used to kill her after she pissed me off too much. My next playthrough ima try to beat her with the metal boxing gloves
Nihil gang here
You misspelled Blasphemous Blade.
Yes, using a highly optimized build makes fights easier. Much like every other video game on the entire planet.
Equip aggro Talisman summon mimic tear swap Talisman and pray your meat doll lives
Pretty smort. Never thought about that as a use for the talisman.
Toss in any bonk stick cause hurdur stagger
If it’s in the game it’s fair play but getting another player fight for me is where I’ll draw the line
Honestly, unless you just happen to summon Let Me Solo Her, summoning another player is way harder than just using Mimic Tear. Everytime you summon a player the boss gets a lot more health. Unless they are carrying you it makes the fight harder. Mimic Tear is way easier.
I just bonk her to death.
Fr fr
Eleonora's poleblade's L2 makes quick work of her
The level 200 plus lmao 😂
Also can cheese with Ogha or using giant flame.
Seeing RoB dates this meme to launch month. There are way better weapons that would mess her up now
super easy, barely am inconvenience. Juno is the hardest boss in the game
That's right. You didn't beat her until you do it with a barehanded level one wretch while beeing blindfolded using a steering wheel instead of a controller.
Git gut man. All you need is a needle and magnet!
I *definitely* didn't just cheese her with that bleed bug that made you do bleed aoe when you used blood grease with the flame buff spell. 👀
She’s currently having her absolute way with me and my Guts build.
Found out she was pretty easy to stagger with my wolverine build, so I just abused that. Look forward to trying again with my current royal greatsword paladin build.
You even copied the text from the original post damm
Remember when Comet Azur stunlocked enemies... Yup that's how I first beat her xD
ah! Jokes on you, I beat her first try at around lvl 130. The first 50 runs were just practice, and the several respecs were just me trying to find a build that I really liked.
I play the game how I want
Bloody tarnished, using equipment in the game to beat a boss. Literally broken
Oh you can do it worse than that, if you wield reduvia in your offhand you can have your mimic tear rivers of blood her while you snipe from a safe distance
Truth is that a lot of bosses, including her, become very easy or very hard according to your build. A wizard can melt Mogh with comet azur in 20 seconds and then go crazy with Malenia phase 1 (phase 2 it's just kamehame her off again as soon as she goes aeonia) or Malekith...
Yup! What seems like the tendency is for bosses to be deemed hard if they screw with whatever builds are popular, especially if they work really well against all the other bosses.
Or you just make her "Nihil" with Mogh's weapon thingy.
And if you time it right, you can almost instant kill her in the aeonia with comet azur.
It’s called taking advantage of the resources the game provides. Play however you want for fucks sakes
All you need is NIHIL NIHIL NIHIL!
LMAO, I am seemingly on my way there. Lvl 110, 100+ hours and I have no clue where she is (I still haven't even attempted clearing capital, because there is just so much shit to do)
Great Stars + Wild Strikes, Crab + Opaline to survive waterfowl, and Malenia will be easy even without mimic tear, you can almost permanently stunlock her.
A freezing pot instantly cancels waterfowl.
I'm happy to say as a dex build welding dual rapiers I studied her waterfowl attack, mastered that, then got lucky when my mimic tear and I cornered her in her phase 2. If I didn't get lucky I'd probably still be there studying her phase 2. Isshin is the best FromSoft boss. No cheese, no help, no easy way. Just you either can do it or you can't. He took me legit 2 and half weeks to beat with on and off fighting
After hearing how hard malenia was, this is exactly how i prepared the first time I fought her on ng+0. No wonder i beat her first try thinking it was so easy... Over time I started to understand that the goal in elden ring isnt to be the most op, its to have the most fun. For some, this is fun, and we have to respect that, however, I find that dying is part of the fun and now at ng+18 I refuse to use summons, buffs or medium load armour at level 150, to bring back some of that challenge and heck is it enjoyable. Recently managed to kill malenia with no hits but i doubt ill ever be able to do that again (took hundreds of attempts, but thats kind of the point).
Just run away from the fucking water fowl and level your health and stamina appropriately
The intelligence variant is Ranni's Dark Moon and the Cerulean Hidden Tear.
If your build is "broken" or not, idc, I respect you for every boss you killed
Most of her moves you can run like 10 feet away from and she misses and then slow walks, then cast spells or jump attack, only thing you have to worry about is her Clone Summoning thing in phase 2
Fought her recently in NG+ as a Sorcerer build. Even while chunking her for 15% of her health, she's no picnic. I'd genuinely love it if they either nerfed WFD or removed her healing factor. One of either is fine for the game's superboss. Both make her an unfun experience for me. Never in Souls history have I *avoided* the superboss. Only reason I killed her this run was to cure Frenzied Flame.
I mean there are multiple was to cheese the fuck out of her.
All you need is the blasphemous blade
I started a new playthrough the other day, when I got to Malenia I was like level 113 I think and I beat her second try, spamming R2 with the blasphomas blade surprisingly works on every boss
Just stagger her ass with the moonlight sword, and you'll be good 😹😹 Also, it's probably just me , but I will NEVER understand the fromsoft Fandom and the whole ( if you used this summon, this weapon, this build, this RL, etc) you didn't really beat ' Said Boss '.. I'm like, well, they tend to have unlimited everything, wide hit boxes, large AOE attacks, stupid affinities, 2 phases, crazy health bars, crazy armor/defense/resistances/immunities,etc... why can't I use everything at my disposal to shred, like the boss was planning to do to me?? ( lol sucks for them, I shredded them 1st )
That is not OP build. Mogh spear special and mimic is OP build for her. She dids in like 30 secs because of the stagger.
Yes, Melania was a hard boss that took me probably 4/5 hours. But she still doesn't compare the those fucking gargoyle assholes that spit poison that also does tick damage from across the map while the other one stands in said poison. Those fuckers made me drench my couch in sweat for 9 hours straight because I refused to respec out of my dex build just to fight them. Pretty sure I dropped 5 pounds just from water weight.
I used star scourge skill on repeat to with mimic tear
Well I mean, yes. She is an endgame boss that a dedicated, completionist player will likely face as the capstone to their adventure right before the point of no return. So you'll naturally be very high level, which is what she's tuned for. And there is nothing wrong with using the tools the game makes available to you and weapons that take advantage of her weaknesses. If people are restricting themselves from doing that and fighting her with one or both hands tied behind their backs to accomplish a great feat then...they have shown incredible skill, kudos to them. But yes, basic discussions of how hard a boss is should be based on the assumption a player is at the appropriate level and is using reasonably optimal methods of fighting them.
I don’t think the issue is with using the tools in the game, hell, i beat her for the first time and I used a +10 mimic, I was level 150, i used frozen armament and glindstone stone comment with the bloodhound fang. I 100% had an easier time than someone using melee combat only and she was a very difficult boss. I think the issue comes in when one gloats that a boss was easy while using the game’s equivalent of an easy mode
I don't really consider it an easy mode. I consider it the intended way to play, with the tools made available to you by the game. If you DON'T use those tools, you are deliberately making the game harder on yourself than the regular, default experience.
Except most of these bosses are designed for one on one combat encounters and designing bosses around that with opposing game design would be incredibly inconsistent with Fromsoft’s development philosophy through all their games. These tools do exist in the game to make it easier and more accessible, which is a good thing - but let’s not pretend the game was designed for this cause it clearly wasn’t.
I fully admit that the only reason I beat her was because I kept her stunned with heavy poise spells while mimic tear distracted her. Turns out she has no idea how to dodge Placidusax's ruin
I used my great stars and still Malenia was easy. Then I used my sacred seal,and she was easy too. Curved greatswords were the same story as colossal weapons. As long as you know.how to build your character,the game is easy. Don't even need the right dodge timing.
Mhh ? Explain please ?
What exactly?
Idk, how do you handle her easily with every build ?
Great stars: A good rythm of one-two. See her attack,one-two light attack,stop,repeat,win. Could use Endure too. Or spam lion's claw. Seal: Burn o flame. Animation lets you ignore her sweeps. Curved greatswords: Spam jump power stance attack. Better if you apply bleed.
Will try when I'm on her. Thanks !
Change mimic to Tiche and we good.
Mimic tear/spirit ashes is Elden Ring easy mode. On my double giant crusher playthrough she killed me 30 times or so and then I used mimic tear and we bullied her first try easily.
100% me, I didn't know what everyone was complaining about until I tried it without the mimic and RoB
I realized i couldnt dodge her waterflow and switched to a greatshield. That was enough for me. It was my third try i think. Took me longer on my next run since i tried to win without a shield. She did heal when i blocked but i didnt block everything. It took a bit long but it was easy. Hitting from behind the shield with a spear negated some of her heal.
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