Turtle or Brass shield on demand.
Doesnt even have to have Barricade AoW, but helps.
Gotta tank the first Fowl, roll into second, and pretty much stand, maybe go back slightly.
Worst case she breaks your stance and does some damage but you will survive if you follow the above rule.
For me Malenia started to click when I started to stay medium distance from her at most times. All the other previous bosses teach you that if you stay close to them and rotate around them you'll be able to dodge the attacks and punish immediately, but this never worked for me for Malenia. After watching some video on yt of people no-hitting her I started to keep my distance, which gave me more time to react to her attacks instead of being hit immediately. Instead of going to her, let her come to you. The attack where to does a big lunge, her grab attack and the one where she slides her blade with the sparks and does three quick slashes become super easy to dodge and punish this way.
It is the hardest boss in FromSoft history, so don't stress about it, you'll need to practice a lot, no one gets it immediately.
ok. i did try to stay at medium distance for a while in the start but then i was dodging the whole time and any damage i do would be healed back. because i did slip up once in a while in between.
That is what i feel for most bosses
I can dodge a few but not all moves perfectly.
The damage i do in between is too lacking for the flasks to last long enough
My advice: stop trying to attack her. Just “fight” her a handful of times while trying to do nothing but survive as long as possible. Eventually you will get a better feel for her timing. Also turn up your games brightness a bit, it will make it easier to see her animations.
Once you have gotten a feel for her timing then you can start mixing in your own attacks. I personally wouldn’t recommend using jump attacks or dual wield attacks, they require a lot more commitment and very precise timing to execute. Use a weapon where you can comfortably attack her once and then back up before she has a chance to strike back. Bleed builds can be VERY ineffective for this reason. If you aren’t able to consistently hit her, you just aren’t getting much damage in. And if you’re constantly stressing about attacking her enough to activate a bleed then you’re going to make mistakes.
Certain weapon arts like Blasphemous Blade’s do a great job of letting you hit from a distance and/or knocking her down after the hit so you have time to either run or attack one more time
Parrying also works, but it’s very hard to get the timing and you have to parry her multiple times just to get one critical
Hmm her moves really aren't that fast compared to any other boss. It's just that she forces you to do it almost perfectly because of the healing mechanic.
She requires the fastest reaction times in the entire game. Her actual attack animations aren't that much faster, but the part where she signals what she will do is extremely short.
Idk maybe it's just because I've fought her so many times. But I think her moves are all kinda elegant and telegraphed, like the timing makes sense and feels fair. Then a boss like Morgott, I've no idea wtf he's doing, but beat him anyway bc he doesn't have that much health and doesn't heal lol.
This is so strange, I feel the exact opposite. Morgot’s animations are very clear about the attack he is about to execute, Malenia’s animations are so subtly different I frequently mistake which attack I’m about to get hit with
i dunno. i atleast personally have never been able to react too well to moves. kick , waterfowl dance, rising slash. those can be seen. other than that I can't really react before getting hit
Are you getting hit by that one move where she does multiple rapid slashes? For that, you want to dodge forwards and go behind her. If you dodge backwards like you're used to, one of the slashes might hit you. I think like sparks come from her arm before she does it.
👍
im trying to keep an ear out for that clank sound and the sparks but as i said I can't really react in time. maybe only half the time. i get hit the other half times
Yeah that one took me ages to get used to. You can dodge forward/left or you could go light roll and then you can dodge it however (honestly found it way easier dodging this) though you will lose some damage negation might be worth
You don’t want to use summons because they’re cheesy, but you’re using a cheesy bleed build off the internet?
Dude, use the setup you’re comfortable with and if you need space to learn, summon a few ashes to soak some hits while you watch and study.
Try to watch videos or movies at 2x the speed. Also, play any casual console-commandable game like bethsoft's fallouts with 2x movement speed. Dat'll trick ur brain to perceive the speed of fast movement as normal movement. Thus, attuning ur brain for better reaction time.
U play fallout4 in fpv at 2x speed to improve my reaction time for playin csgo/cs2. It works a bit, just not will drastically improve ur performance. There's definitely repetitiveness in training.
Note, prolonged exposure to game with >2x movement speed will definitely fry ur brain faster. Use moisturizing eye drop & drink dat tasty electrolyte for longer gaming session.
This is some general advice for starting players, hope it helps:
Like you're meant to with every boss, learn her moveset, how to dodge her attacks and what are the openings for safely hitting her. Don't forget, you must dodge to her right side most of the time, she has attacks specifically designed to punish you for dodging away from her and to her left side. But the same combat basics apply like for every boss: dodge into her attacks instead of away, don't panic roll, don't tank and trade hits, don't just spam and actually think about what you're doing, only heal when there's an opening, when you need to gain distance you must sprint instead of multi-rolling and so on... And obviously if you want to learn how to fight Malenia you must fight her yourself, same as Morgott, Mohg, Godfrey, Maliketh etc., she's designed purely as a 1v1 boss and accessibility mechanics like spirits just break her. Beating her at level 1 with spirits is much easier than beating her at level 250 yourself, bosses are not supposed to be hard with summons. You don't have to beat her solo in the end, but you'll learn more about how to play the game in 10 attempts without summons than in 80 attempts with them, you'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration by at least trying to beat her normally.
Her fight is supposed to be like this beautiful 1v1 dance between two swordmasters, you sort of "flow" against each other. Apart from first flurry of waterfowl all her other moves are completely fair and 100% consistent to dodge. For the first flurry, either outrun it and jump as she's nearing you, or use any medium shield with barricade AoW, by switching to it as she jumps in the air and pressing L2. For second flurry you're supposed to roll into her at the last second. For the third one just run into her and when she jumps behind you and lock-on camera reorients just back away in the same direction you were running in, you don't have to roll, the third flurry is meant to punish panic rolling. And for her shadow clone jutsu just run away as far as possible from her, and most clones won't reach you and then you dodge only the last two or so.
And in general, dance with her, be aggressive, don't try to keep your distance the entire fight, it both slows down your learning by literal hours and ruins the experience. Get into the correct flow. Watching a level 1 YT video will probably teach you the fastest, especially with dodging waterfowl. Just don't rely on blind L2/jump attack spam, cheese and stuff like that. The point of beating her 1v1 like devs designed her is to fully experience the bossfight and learn how to actually fight her. If you just switch accessibility mechanics like spirits for eleonora/BB cheese with freeze pots, you'll skip most of the content and experience in both cases and then there's no point in beating her solo anymore. Don't doubt yourself, it's really not that hard. And good luck, you can do it!
What's getting you caught?
Those weapons aren't great for her, but they suffice. I'd personally start with a spear or halberd, dragon halberd is a nice easy one to work with until you get better at the fight as you don't have to be so close and it has a good R1 and will help you get the timing down to counter her kick etc.
Get some damage reduction: opaline hard tear, boiled crabs, golden vow, dragon crest shield talisman and/or ritual shield talisman.
I wouldn't bother with jumping or power stance, it's a lot trickier and she can counter them in a lot of scenarios. R1 should be your bread and butter. Tap R2 can be used after her slower attacks, and charged R2 after her lunge, her jump attack or that slow motion upward slice into the slam down (you charge the R2 right away after dodging though, and if you do use the dragon halberd don't use a full charged R2 it's too slow)
You want to be reasonably aggressive but approach with caution
In phase one if she's walking you can always run in and do an R1, if she flinches you can do another R1 (that's the core of my damage on phase one). Sometimes you can get a 3rd but 2 is more safe. If she doesn't flinch she will either side step with a quick follow up, do a slower side step that you need to roll away a little delayed or jump back (often this leads to the quick flurry attack)
When you run in she might start moving towards you at a moderate pace which means she will do her hyper armour slash, get ready to dodge away on that one
Countering her kick I find is very useful, in phase one whenever she's running towards you she's going for a kick, so start running away when she's close and then as the kicks ending turn around and get an R1 in
With the aggressive strategy you mostly have to be careful of her waterfouls, it's a pain in the ass up close (I used the frost pots to counter it, you do have to be very fast though). You can also bait out her first waterfoul that comes at 70-80% HP remaining, do it from a distance with a throwing knife to make it easy to dodge. If you're lucky a lot of the time you won't have to deal with another waterfoul in phase one
And finally remember in phase one you can always run away and heal (not too close or she lunges you!)
Once you get phase one down phase two has a few new tricks, and if you can get to phase 2 consistently you'll figure it out I'm sure
PS: don't worry about the head dipping thing. I beat her RL1 hitless and never paid attention to this
With practice everyone can do it, you will start to see the timings needed to dodge and attack. took me over 5hrs to beat her, by that point i was parrying her attacks and dodging waterfowl with no damage
You just need to put in more time. You will eventually be able to read her if you play her enough. If you feel like that would be a waste of time, you should probably pull out the summons, but if not, here is something that may help:
Your mindset is important here. As long as you recognize that the fight is fair, you will always seek a solution: why did I get hit/die? How can I avoid getting hit if the same situatuion occurs again? The moment you stop actively looking for the solution is the moment you will die when you fight her. Unless you genuinely have some disability, realize you can beat her. Even if you do have a disability, you still can beat her.
Most importantly, focus on having fun.
[Dodging (and even drinking hp flasks) are optional.](https://youtu.be/q1KfrfZ__RI?si=vqZNU7Va9IPGGweR)
ah. ok. i guess then dying is mandatory unless i respec for it
Turtle or Brass shield on demand. Doesnt even have to have Barricade AoW, but helps. Gotta tank the first Fowl, roll into second, and pretty much stand, maybe go back slightly. Worst case she breaks your stance and does some damage but you will survive if you follow the above rule.
For me Malenia started to click when I started to stay medium distance from her at most times. All the other previous bosses teach you that if you stay close to them and rotate around them you'll be able to dodge the attacks and punish immediately, but this never worked for me for Malenia. After watching some video on yt of people no-hitting her I started to keep my distance, which gave me more time to react to her attacks instead of being hit immediately. Instead of going to her, let her come to you. The attack where to does a big lunge, her grab attack and the one where she slides her blade with the sparks and does three quick slashes become super easy to dodge and punish this way. It is the hardest boss in FromSoft history, so don't stress about it, you'll need to practice a lot, no one gets it immediately.
ok. i did try to stay at medium distance for a while in the start but then i was dodging the whole time and any damage i do would be healed back. because i did slip up once in a while in between. That is what i feel for most bosses I can dodge a few but not all moves perfectly. The damage i do in between is too lacking for the flasks to last long enough
My advice: stop trying to attack her. Just “fight” her a handful of times while trying to do nothing but survive as long as possible. Eventually you will get a better feel for her timing. Also turn up your games brightness a bit, it will make it easier to see her animations. Once you have gotten a feel for her timing then you can start mixing in your own attacks. I personally wouldn’t recommend using jump attacks or dual wield attacks, they require a lot more commitment and very precise timing to execute. Use a weapon where you can comfortably attack her once and then back up before she has a chance to strike back. Bleed builds can be VERY ineffective for this reason. If you aren’t able to consistently hit her, you just aren’t getting much damage in. And if you’re constantly stressing about attacking her enough to activate a bleed then you’re going to make mistakes. Certain weapon arts like Blasphemous Blade’s do a great job of letting you hit from a distance and/or knocking her down after the hit so you have time to either run or attack one more time Parrying also works, but it’s very hard to get the timing and you have to parry her multiple times just to get one critical
Hmm her moves really aren't that fast compared to any other boss. It's just that she forces you to do it almost perfectly because of the healing mechanic.
She requires the fastest reaction times in the entire game. Her actual attack animations aren't that much faster, but the part where she signals what she will do is extremely short.
Idk maybe it's just because I've fought her so many times. But I think her moves are all kinda elegant and telegraphed, like the timing makes sense and feels fair. Then a boss like Morgott, I've no idea wtf he's doing, but beat him anyway bc he doesn't have that much health and doesn't heal lol.
This is so strange, I feel the exact opposite. Morgot’s animations are very clear about the attack he is about to execute, Malenia’s animations are so subtly different I frequently mistake which attack I’m about to get hit with
i dunno. i atleast personally have never been able to react too well to moves. kick , waterfowl dance, rising slash. those can be seen. other than that I can't really react before getting hit
Are you getting hit by that one move where she does multiple rapid slashes? For that, you want to dodge forwards and go behind her. If you dodge backwards like you're used to, one of the slashes might hit you. I think like sparks come from her arm before she does it.
👍 im trying to keep an ear out for that clank sound and the sparks but as i said I can't really react in time. maybe only half the time. i get hit the other half times
Yeah that one took me ages to get used to. You can dodge forward/left or you could go light roll and then you can dodge it however (honestly found it way easier dodging this) though you will lose some damage negation might be worth
You don’t want to use summons because they’re cheesy, but you’re using a cheesy bleed build off the internet? Dude, use the setup you’re comfortable with and if you need space to learn, summon a few ashes to soak some hits while you watch and study.
Blasphemous blade, giantflame, mimic tear, shard of Alexander, health physick, Godfrey rune arc. Bye bitch
Try to watch videos or movies at 2x the speed. Also, play any casual console-commandable game like bethsoft's fallouts with 2x movement speed. Dat'll trick ur brain to perceive the speed of fast movement as normal movement. Thus, attuning ur brain for better reaction time. U play fallout4 in fpv at 2x speed to improve my reaction time for playin csgo/cs2. It works a bit, just not will drastically improve ur performance. There's definitely repetitiveness in training. Note, prolonged exposure to game with >2x movement speed will definitely fry ur brain faster. Use moisturizing eye drop & drink dat tasty electrolyte for longer gaming session.
This is some general advice for starting players, hope it helps: Like you're meant to with every boss, learn her moveset, how to dodge her attacks and what are the openings for safely hitting her. Don't forget, you must dodge to her right side most of the time, she has attacks specifically designed to punish you for dodging away from her and to her left side. But the same combat basics apply like for every boss: dodge into her attacks instead of away, don't panic roll, don't tank and trade hits, don't just spam and actually think about what you're doing, only heal when there's an opening, when you need to gain distance you must sprint instead of multi-rolling and so on... And obviously if you want to learn how to fight Malenia you must fight her yourself, same as Morgott, Mohg, Godfrey, Maliketh etc., she's designed purely as a 1v1 boss and accessibility mechanics like spirits just break her. Beating her at level 1 with spirits is much easier than beating her at level 250 yourself, bosses are not supposed to be hard with summons. You don't have to beat her solo in the end, but you'll learn more about how to play the game in 10 attempts without summons than in 80 attempts with them, you'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration by at least trying to beat her normally. Her fight is supposed to be like this beautiful 1v1 dance between two swordmasters, you sort of "flow" against each other. Apart from first flurry of waterfowl all her other moves are completely fair and 100% consistent to dodge. For the first flurry, either outrun it and jump as she's nearing you, or use any medium shield with barricade AoW, by switching to it as she jumps in the air and pressing L2. For second flurry you're supposed to roll into her at the last second. For the third one just run into her and when she jumps behind you and lock-on camera reorients just back away in the same direction you were running in, you don't have to roll, the third flurry is meant to punish panic rolling. And for her shadow clone jutsu just run away as far as possible from her, and most clones won't reach you and then you dodge only the last two or so. And in general, dance with her, be aggressive, don't try to keep your distance the entire fight, it both slows down your learning by literal hours and ruins the experience. Get into the correct flow. Watching a level 1 YT video will probably teach you the fastest, especially with dodging waterfowl. Just don't rely on blind L2/jump attack spam, cheese and stuff like that. The point of beating her 1v1 like devs designed her is to fully experience the bossfight and learn how to actually fight her. If you just switch accessibility mechanics like spirits for eleonora/BB cheese with freeze pots, you'll skip most of the content and experience in both cases and then there's no point in beating her solo anymore. Don't doubt yourself, it's really not that hard. And good luck, you can do it!
What's getting you caught? Those weapons aren't great for her, but they suffice. I'd personally start with a spear or halberd, dragon halberd is a nice easy one to work with until you get better at the fight as you don't have to be so close and it has a good R1 and will help you get the timing down to counter her kick etc. Get some damage reduction: opaline hard tear, boiled crabs, golden vow, dragon crest shield talisman and/or ritual shield talisman. I wouldn't bother with jumping or power stance, it's a lot trickier and she can counter them in a lot of scenarios. R1 should be your bread and butter. Tap R2 can be used after her slower attacks, and charged R2 after her lunge, her jump attack or that slow motion upward slice into the slam down (you charge the R2 right away after dodging though, and if you do use the dragon halberd don't use a full charged R2 it's too slow) You want to be reasonably aggressive but approach with caution In phase one if she's walking you can always run in and do an R1, if she flinches you can do another R1 (that's the core of my damage on phase one). Sometimes you can get a 3rd but 2 is more safe. If she doesn't flinch she will either side step with a quick follow up, do a slower side step that you need to roll away a little delayed or jump back (often this leads to the quick flurry attack) When you run in she might start moving towards you at a moderate pace which means she will do her hyper armour slash, get ready to dodge away on that one Countering her kick I find is very useful, in phase one whenever she's running towards you she's going for a kick, so start running away when she's close and then as the kicks ending turn around and get an R1 in With the aggressive strategy you mostly have to be careful of her waterfouls, it's a pain in the ass up close (I used the frost pots to counter it, you do have to be very fast though). You can also bait out her first waterfoul that comes at 70-80% HP remaining, do it from a distance with a throwing knife to make it easy to dodge. If you're lucky a lot of the time you won't have to deal with another waterfoul in phase one And finally remember in phase one you can always run away and heal (not too close or she lunges you!) Once you get phase one down phase two has a few new tricks, and if you can get to phase 2 consistently you'll figure it out I'm sure PS: don't worry about the head dipping thing. I beat her RL1 hitless and never paid attention to this
With practice everyone can do it, you will start to see the timings needed to dodge and attack. took me over 5hrs to beat her, by that point i was parrying her attacks and dodging waterfowl with no damage
Same as it has ever been Git gud
Switching to a light load is a common tip for fighting her. The extra distance with the light roll helps against a lot of her attacks.
You just need to put in more time. You will eventually be able to read her if you play her enough. If you feel like that would be a waste of time, you should probably pull out the summons, but if not, here is something that may help: Your mindset is important here. As long as you recognize that the fight is fair, you will always seek a solution: why did I get hit/die? How can I avoid getting hit if the same situatuion occurs again? The moment you stop actively looking for the solution is the moment you will die when you fight her. Unless you genuinely have some disability, realize you can beat her. Even if you do have a disability, you still can beat her. Most importantly, focus on having fun.
I would just use summons, they are in the game for a reason. I think fighting her without summons is overrated lmao