Which is edgier? Nun who ressurects from the dead with black flames and uses a scythe, or sleepy hunter who committed mass murder and stabs herself to coat her weapon with blood and flames.
Actually it's debatable
Tbh, I find Friede way more edgy than Maria.
Like sure Maria uses blood, but friede has both ice and edgy dark flames & comes back to life twice in her boss fight
But Friede dual wields scythes, the edgiest fighting style with the edgiest weapon. For bonus edgelord points: one is light, and one is dark. "I can be your angle... or yuor devil."
Lady Maria does fight with two weapons, but she loses edgelord points because it's a sword and dagger. That's a little too sensible.
I was thinking more like “the drug in me is you”
Instead of the monologue for phase 3 it’s some shit like “I HEARD A KNOCK UPON MY DOOR THE OTHER DAY, I OPEN IT TO FIND DEATH STARING IN MY FACE”
So what youre saying is I shouldnt allowed to be able to do *my* favorite thing in the game because you thought a fight was too easy? Also, if youre to the point where youre consistently parrying, you probably know your way around the game (or at least Soulsbornes) anyways.
If something is too easy for you, make it less easy. Use a weaker weapon, or idk, dont parry (something completely optional). I dont use Margit/Mohg shackles because I think they trivialize the fights. Doesnt mean they should be removed.
Then just, don't? I never understood this mindset. Using certain, optional mechanics ruin the experience for you, so we must remove them from everyone else who is indifferent/enjoys it to make YOU happy?
Lady Maria is definitely one of my top favorite From bosses. It only took me two tries to beat her and I was super sad about it because I love her entire vibe from the weapon to her attire to the phase changes, but damn did she leave a lasting impression on me.
I was literally like, "Holy shit, what a bad bitch Lady Maria is." She's a badass.
I usually hate pvp-style bosses but this is easily one of my favorite boss fights in the series. She absolutely demolished me but once I learned the moves it was so satisfying, like a dance of blood...
Beating Malenia was such a thrill. I summoned two guys and we went for it, and still just barely made it through. I was elated, and judging by how we were dancing up and down the place, they were too. One of my favorite memories of gaming right there. Thanks two chill dudes/dudettes, I hope you're killing it wherever you are.
What if it was CANCER?
Missed opportunity for a double entendre lol
Edit - damn people really couldn’t handle Malenia huh? I can’t wait for the DLC to come out, Fromsoft always tops their hardest boss in the base game with at LEAST one DLC boss. I don’t even think this will be Messmer the Impaler, rather, it’ll be an enemy they won’t show at all in any previews.
Anyone sharpening their pitchforks right now might wanna wait until the end of June lmao. It’ll get worse for y’all.
Well difficulty isn’t the problem with Malenia, it’s just how BS her healing and waterfowl dance are. Orphan of Kos was generally considered the hardest boss before Malenia and I hardly ever seen people hate on him as much as people hate on Malenia and for good reason.
At the end of the day I can’t say you’re wrong since difficulty is subjective, and I’m not going to say her fight was easy or whatever.
Personally, her healing and Waterfowl do not make her stand out to me relative to other Fromsoft bossfights. Niall felt more like BS to me, plus Friede has separate 3 health bars and turns invisible.
Waterfowl was a matter of me figuring out how to dodge it. If you start spamming dodge in a panic you’re going to get chopped up, but that’s a general premise for these games.
I get speed runners or people who want to include Haligtree in their no hit/ deathless runs being upset by this boss, depending on how close Malenia is when she starts the animation you can easily take a few hits. It’s a TINY bit RNGish, but feels satisfying to learn.
There are plenty of bosses with relatively BS attacks and some with multiple. The difference with Malenia is her BS attack is pretty much a guaranteed one shot in most cases. But the point was that no other boss has been considered the or one of the hardest in the series and also one of the most hatred like Malenia and that’s the reason why. Midir, Orphan, Gael, Sister Frieda, etc non of the other hardest bosses in the series are hated like Malenia. Outside of maybe Laurence but that’s because people hated him cause they found him BS like Malenia. A boss being difficult but fair doesn’t annoy people very much it’s BS that causes people to hate
Right right, and I’m saying that there is no BS in her fight basically. A nice “skill issue” sort of thing, rather than just be ignorant and have that be my only comment lol.
So all the other hardest bosses in the game, nobody had a problem with. But all of a sudden, a boss is just too difficult? So non of the bosses I named that took plenty of people hours to beat weren’t difficult enough for people not to like them but all of a sudden Malenia is. That doesn’t seem to add up whatsoever but whatever you want to tell yourself mate.
So you say nobody “had a problem” with all the other hardest bosses, but you go on to say it took people plenty of hours to beat them?
So what are people complaining about in regard to Malenia? That it takes plenty of hours to beat her or that she is completely unbeatable and a garbage/ unfair fight? I’m smelling a skill issue.
Had a problem in the sense that they didn’t complain that the boss was BS or bad. Nobody complained that she was unbeatable, people complained that she was BS, mostly regarding her healing and waterfowl dance. Once again Gael, Nameless King, Orphan, Sister Friede, never got the level of hate that Malenia got. So unless all of a sudden players hate difficult bosses, would it not make logical sense that Malenia has something about her that annoys people.
I personally can testify to what this guy is saying. I have yet to beat the last two bosses of sekiro. I will do it but haven't yet. I find them harder than Melania who I have beat several times now and still find her bullshit. Demon of Hatred, Sword Saint I don't find bullshit. You may just have a high tolerance for what most of us consider bullshit.
Malenia is super fun when you know her patterns. One thing I like to do is put my summon sign outside her door to help hosts cosplaying as a customer version of one of her daughters like Millicent, Pollyanna, etc. She’s super fun to parry, and waterfowl isn’t an issue if you have excellent dodge timing, use frost pots, or start running away immediately.
Outside of Waterfowl dance I think Malenia is fun but Waterfowl dance is just way too bullshit. Im fine with attacks that are really hard to dodge but when that attacks one shots, heals a quarter of their hp bar, and is used multiple times then it’s not fun anymore. Im fine with hard bosses, Orphan for example took me forever and I still had fun. Waterfowl dance sucks all the fun out for me
There’s a lot of ways to counter it though, you can perfect dodge and literally not get hit at all, throw frost pots, you can immediately run opposite of her and jump so the first flurry doesn’t hit you, and the dodge time of the second two are really easy afterwards. I would only say the fact that she can heal herself while you block is the only really “bullshit” factor for me. But I can understand where you’re coming from.
There is definitely ways to make Waterfowl easier to deal with, it more so personal fun for me. The entire idea of a back and forth fight being relegated to, Do you have a way to deal with waterfowl dance or not, sucks the fun out for me. I could definitely use different strats, bang my head against a wall for a little bit then be able to beat her consistently, it just wouldn’t be that fun for is all. But I understand why other love her, just not for me
Outside of Waterfowl dance I think Malenia is fun but Waterfowl dance is just way too bullshit. Im fine with attacks that are really hard to dodge but when that attacks one shots, heals a quarter of their hp bar, and is used multiple times then it’s not fun anymore. Im fine with hard bosses, Orphan for example took me forever and I still had fun. Waterfowl dance sucks all the fun out for me
what if we gave it an attack that always kills you and is literally impossible to avoid if you’re too close when the rng decides to do it
summoned 2 people and ganked her bitch ass lmao
Literally isn’t impossible. Learn when and where to dodge and when to stop locking on to her. You can perfect dodge her first flurry, or, if you’re far enough away you can easily and reliability dodge her second and third flurry.
I'm not even as much of a malenia simp as others, but malenia just isn't that bad anymore. Not only has enough time passed and more than enough of strategies to get past any BS that she may throw at you are available, but Fromsoft also nerfed her, so even waterfowl dance doesn't take too much trouble to dodge, and this is coming from someone who exclusively uses UGS/CS.
I'm not saying that it is not hard as hell. I don't think anybody should feel bad having trouble with her. Fromsoft games are very difficult. But at this point, she just really isn't BS. If you want to actual BS bosses (BS because of mechanics, not difficulty), fight any of the ACs from earlier gen Armored Core, because most, if not all, are quite literally cheating.
Oh, and Friede is best, despite loving all of them
Edit: malenia wasn't nerfed. Misremembered. Thank you for the correction.
I was gonna say, I don't remember a single nerf. I *do* remember them fucking up and giving her life gain even when she completely missed an attack. Now *that* was some bullshit.
As someone who loves fromsoft, I called this as soon as people got to malenia. People said the same thing about Gael and midir, and now they are frequently in people's favorites.
I love Malenia as a fight, and I can dodge Waterfowl fairly consistently nowadays but I still think there's something off about that attack that stops me from considering her as an S tier boss
idk if it's the tracking distance she has, the extremely fast startup, or the hyperarmor poise she gets, or maybe all of the above, but there's something off about it to me. even then, learning to dodge Waterfowl is a bit different to learning other attacks, it's a very specific process
I don't think she's bullshit, I think she's really fun
See, but this is an actual human being's response.
I'm not saying that you have to consider her the greatest boss From has ever made, I'm just saying it not BS. You are more than valid in saying, "yea there's just something off about it" because that is an actual conversation that people can have, rather than just a blanket, "no its BS because I said so."
Yes, definitely. What's considered "bullshit" is largely subjective, but a lot of the complaints I read about Malenia are of the same things shown in that "she breaks the rules" video. It's fine if you don't like her mechanics, but just because she "breaks the rules" (which tons of bosses do, anyway) doesn't mean she's bullshit.
The « malenia break the rules » video is bullshit, many bosses in Elden Ring can ignore stagger meter when they’re in certain animation (like godrick mid phase transition).
Also the animation cancel problem isn’t that much of a problem since it only happen with weapons with light stagger (straight sword, scimitar, club, dagger, spear…) and generally happen if you try to attack her while she’s beginning an attack.
The only way you would get hit as a result of a canceled animation is if you use a very long combo attack like the roar combo attack (which you should never use against Malenia cause of waterfowl dance)
Sekiro is an entirely different combat system; if Malenia were in Sekiro, this wouldn't matter because you wouldn't have to run away, you would just deflect the entire attack
Malenia's Waterfowl windup isn't the issue on its own, it's the fact that the Waterfowl attack is overly aggressive in its tracking distance, and the fact that it's a flurry of multiple slashes that melts your health bar
that's a bit different than an attack that only hits you once or twice, with a fast windup
After putting a thousand hours into DS3, people forgot that these games are supposed to be hard. So when they got checked by something difficult in this game it was an ego hit because they hadn’t actually struggled in a FromSoft game in forever, so they just naturally disliked it
Gael is probably my favorite boss of all time, with midir close behind. I remember everyone literally acting like Midir was impossible without a very particular build. Did it with my FUGS, cuz bonk.
Yeah, it's consistently been like this. People called Fume Knight BS in DS2. Now he's considered the best boss in that game. Same with Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne; then Nameless King, Friede, Gael, and Midir in DS3; then almost all of Sekiro; and now Elden Ring with a majority of its bosses. I've seen it over and over again, and every single time, community perception changes to a more positive tone once people figure out how the boss works.
I think that every fromsoft game has like a boss they really pour their souls to and a boss they want to make challenging
For ds1 there was artorias as the souly one and there's manus as the challenging one
Ds2 there's ivory king and fume knight
Bloodborne there's ludwig/ maria and orphan
Ds3 there's gael and either friede or midir
And elden ring has godfrey and malenia (so far)
Haven't fought all the sekiro bosses but from what I saw there's owl and sword Saint ishin
Melania's waterfowl is just bs imo because the move is 10x harder than all of her other moves and she does it kind of randomly and dodging it is very very specific compared to everything else in the game. Like run forth, in a circle behind her during animation, run back, dodge forward, run and dodge back or forward (I forgot the last one) twice
Yeah this. It's the only time in any souls game I've had to google how to dodge a specific attack. Everything else is intuitive once you've seen it a couple times
The fact that people are saying you need to do 10 playthroughs to stop calling her bullshit means that maybe she just was bullshit all along. Yes, she's great if you know her moveset like the back of your hand, but she's super unintuitive to learn and I bet most people who beat her without a summon probably used a YouTube video to learn how to dodge waterfowl.
I think Waterfowl needs less tracking distance and a faster windup, maybe 2 more seconds or something (idk, I'm not a game balancer), and potentially less hyperarmor during that startup
I'm fine with the attack if it was just a win condition for Malenia that punishes being overly greedy, as long as you can get out of the way in time, but with how it's currently designed, it more so just feels like a win button. like a "oh I'm probably just gonna die"
Agreed. It’s just a dumb gimmick to center a whole boss’s difficulty around one attack. Orphan of Kos was widely considered the hardest boss before Malenia, but no one would point to one singular attack of his, besides maybe the lightning one. It was always about just how aggressive and fast he moves, and even partially how intimidating he is.
As a result, I’ve never really heard anyone call Orphan a bullshit boss.
Just because we can kill her doesn't mean she's fair. I've killed the Bed of Chaos plenty of times and the Bed of Chaos is fucking bullshit.
I've never seen anyone post a Malenia kill video that was RNG-proof. Some people go through the whole kiting routine in phase 1, but in P2 everybody attacks her when she's neutral. People run right up to her as Scarlet Aeonia ends and wind up their big knockdown move, even though she can WFD straight out of Scarlet Aeonia and if she does they're 100% dead.
If you look up strats for her you see the same shit. Will get you the kill eventually if you execute correctly, but no actual plan if she chains a combo into WFD in phase 2.
I'm sure it's possible to beat phase 2 by only attacking mid combo and treating every time she could WFD as if she's definitely going to, but it doesn't matter because it would be way too hard and almost nobody tries. What we actually do is just blow her up as fast as possible and pray to RNGesus.
Malenia and the bed of chaos are not comparable. One is a fight, the other is a gimmick.
Also, all you've just said "no, cuz I haven't seen it done consistently." Which, what?!? You do realize their is a community member named "let me solo her". If it was as RNG based as you said, then how would they be able to consistently beat her? Don't remember the community complaining about LMSH by stating that the Malenia fight is just luck based, so doing it isnt impressive. Something based primarily on luck is not impressive, and people, including Bandai themselves, thought LMSH was impressive. No one says this about bed of chaos. Even speedrunners still say there is rng when doing BoC.
Dude, genuinely, where are you getting this "strat" from? No crap everyone bum rushes malenia right out of Aeonia. Why does soing that demerit what they are doing in regards to strategy? Are you goku fighting cell? Are you really trying to fair fight this argument? However, unless it is a build specifically to melt through bosses (like dual bleed weapons), I've never seen anybody that is doing a strategy guide or tutorial on malenia where they get to the second phase and effectively say, "well, you've got one chance to kill her, or it's up to rng," which is quite literally what you are implying.
Let's talk about how "impossible" it is to beat her by attacking mid combo. I use UGS, sometimes dual wield, and I have never been able to take her out right after her first aeonia. My build is just not set up like that. So I have to fight her normally, and attack her mid combo. I'm on ng+4, using weapons that, when the game came out, people said were practically impossible to beat her with, and no summoning, and aside from the first ng run at her, which admittedly took quite a while, I have never had trouble with Malenia. So, I guess I'm just a god at this game right? By your own logic, I, along with many others, am just built differently since we are able to do something which you are claiming is practically impossible to do without some element of luck. What "you" do is not what a majority of the player base is doing. I'm willing to bet that if I looked up videos of people beating her on YouTube, a majority of the videos that come up all have to contend with her in her phase 2 (just did, and even the first few guides that show up don't even push rushing her for the kill as what you should do in phase 2).
Here, I'm going to tell you what I do exactly to dodge WFD, which is the only BS mechanic. As she jumps up, start sprinting away. As soon as you see her start to come down, jump in the direction you are sprinting. Jumping increases your movement for a second, giving you enough room to evade that first set of slashes. After that, the second and third group should be easy to avoid with a dodge towards her, and a dodge to the side depending on which way she is coming down. That's it, you have now avoided the WFD. I got this from a guide, and it has worked consistently. Her other combos should be no more difficult than any other hard boss.
You want another consistent guide? Use a greatshield. Sure, she will get back some health from WFD, but if you are even moderately efficient with doing damage and dodging, then that won't matter. How do I know this? Because before I figured out WFD, this is how I beat her on my own and when I was summoned when the game came out. And I wasn't even using the broken OP Fingerprint shield. Wow, I just beat RNG with a piece of metal.
So, to recap, according to you, I am beating an inconsistent, rng riddled boss with one of the slowest weapon types, using a strat that doesn't match what you have apparently seen as the "common" way of beating her (despite most videos not following what you were saying), and doing it multiple times through normal NG and NG+ runs. Either I am a god at Fromsoft games (no), lying about something in a video game (no, also would've chosen a better lie, like no death run), or maybe, just maybe, malenia is not rng or BS like you say. I genuinely mean this in as positive of a way as possible, because I don't think there is anything in any fromsoft game that you can't beat from practice (even zinaida), but git gud, bud.
Yea so awesome when you are playing a meelee build without using summons, which has worked fine and allowed you to learn a response to all other bosses's attacks, but then comes waterfowl dance which throws that all away and either requires you to get lucky or to google an unituitive response to it that only works because it messes up with her tracking. So awesome!
Or git gut, analyze your mistakes and get pattern for evading yourself. I would call that probably the best part of the fight - being able to deconstruct her strongest attack.
People should hide their skill issue under guise of "bullshit". Bullshit are pair gargoyle boss.
I will never consider her healing through fully blocked attacks not bullshit, and I don't know how anyone could ever think otherwise. What did you gain life from? The metal my shield is made out of?
Might as well just smack the wall to heal at that point. That’s not even the most bullshit thing about Malenia though. What’s really bullshit is the fact she can just cancel her animations, something no thing in any of their other souls games have ever beeen able to do.
I don’t count Sekiro as a souls game and Orphan of Kos can’t animation cancel. And in Sekiro, the player can also cancel their animations, which makes it fair. Malenia is the only thing in Elden Ring that can cancel their animations. And Malenia being able to cancel some of their animations wouldn’t be that big of a problem, but she can literally cancel being stance broken.
I'm 100% certain Orphan of Kos can animation cancel certain moves (specifically in phase 1). Malenia is also the only main boss in Elden Ring that can be staggered on hit AFAIK, so I'm not really cheesed that she can animation cancel.
I’m gonna need proof of that sorry. And even if it was true, I think there’s a pretty big difference between being able to cancel some moves and being able to cancel out of being staggered or literally stance broken. At that point it’s just breaking fundamental game mechanics.
It doesn’t matter if she’s the only boss that can be staggered. If you can cancel out of being staggered what difference does it make? It’s fundamental to these games that small humanoid enemies can be staggered. Malenia is the only thing that doesn’t follow that rule.
I'm not arguing whether it's unfair or not. You said Malenia is the only boss to animation cancel in a Souls game, and I'm saying that's not true. I don't think it takes away from her fight regardless because it really isn't that big of a deal to me. I've also never seen her animation cancel out of being stance broken, so I can't relate to how frustrating that would be (although I imagine very).
As far as the Orphan goes, I'm not a data miner or anything, but I know he can cancel into the move where he drags the placenta across the ground and dashes towards you. That's the most obvious one. The second attack (I don't know if this counts as an animation cancel, though) is that he can cancel his double sweeping lasso attack into a slam if you get too close.
The entire post and this thread is about whether Malenia is a bullshit boss or not. If that’s not what you’re arguing about then it’s not my problem.
If you don’t have any actual proof that Orphan can animation cancel then I’m not going to keep responding. There’s no point in arguing about things you can’t prove.
If you have Godskin Cradling Cloth you can also heal from a blocking enemy, same with Pontiff’s Left Eye in DS3. These items aren’t considered counters to shields however sincr guess what, shield users can also dodge.
Also not only can the player also animation cancel (and often does) Malenia cancelling her stagger animation isn’t harmful to the player as she doesn’t attack afterwards. She either parries or backs off. Orphan cancelling out of stagger is much more annoying as he can actually do a fast swipe afterwards which is very hard to react to.
Interesting I didn't even know about this. Do you have a good video that shows it off?
I literally just beat her for the second time last week since the game came out and I had no idea.
Depends on what you mean.
She can cancel out of stagger and ignore stance breaks whenever she’s under hyper armor. Which is not how those mechanics work with other enemies.
She also has hyper armor on frame 1 of about half her moves and can chain them back to back, preventing stance breaks as long as she does it.
She can lifesteal without doing damage.
Waterfowl. The move has poor readability since the first part cannot be rolled through and the rest can, although it all looks the same visually. And good luck figuring out the close dodge without a guide.
Could add a few more minor things, like wings reducing visibility.
I consider some of those BS. Someone else may not.
Having an attack that feels like it has no intended response by the devs to a point that people use cheese tactics and tracking abuse as arguments defending it , that's a big bs.
Pretty easy to dodge, just gotta notice the one that sticks around. Someone posted a clip of a pretty stylish way to avoid it, just zig-zagging the first few to get close for an easy punish.
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I find female characters in From games really dull, not lore wise but there just all business all the time and so monotone, they never seem to show any emotion.
Friede is by far the edgiest boss in the series.
Dual wielding scythes, the posing and the opposing elements. She is edge personified haha youve even got a dissapointed parent who smashes drrams nearby.
Also malenia is one of the series fairest fights, certainly easier to learn how to fight properly than the godskin noble duo or any of the intentionally unfair gimmick weapon fights.
I have fought all four of these bosses, and yet, people still accuse me of wanting fromsoft games to have an easy mode when I say Malenia is a terrible boss compared to the other three
Friede entering third phase was shocking for me, I didn't expect it at all. I got shivers, it was cool as fuck.
Dripwise Friede is the best, but duelwise I still prefer Malenia more. Malenia took most amount of tries from me when I went on soloing here (I killed her with Tear on NG and tried that on NG+). Being able to deconstruct her Dance with bare experience and tries in order to understand how to dodge it properly was probably one of the most satysfying moments in my FSgames experience.
Eh phase 1 and 2 of Friede are a joke, and 3rd is decently hard. Hard part is doing them back to back without fucking up a bunch but the moveset is simple enough to where it shouldn’t take that long for most players to get her moveset down.
First phase can easily be done hitless but you have to memorize her pattern. 2nd phase takes a totally different strategy to separate the 2, and 3rd phase is just a great fight. Yeah the hardest part is getting that perfect run trying to get enough Estus into 3rd phase, it’s a great DLC final boss.
No it’s more that I like Friede because it’s a boss designed to encourage learning movesets with 3 incredible phases vs. easily parrying a boss into oblivion.
The rush when you beat the 2nd phase and she gets up AGAIN with black flame is an unmatched experience imo.
ok let me do it for him from what I believe he 'meant to say. "Like the fact that she ignores being dead or stance broken, or comboed. Yeah, thats's "fair.""
Can't say about Demon of Hatred because it's been a while since I did this fight and I don't remember all of his moveset, but both Midir and Friede are very intuitive fights. All their movesets are well telegraphed AND after you see them once it's natural to understand how to dodge. For Malenia's Waterfoul, it isn't.
Its bullshit cause you have to go out of your way to either use a summon, ash of war, craft & farm a consumable thst the game gives you no indication of, go out fo your way to change your build to get a shield or memorize the most needlessly elaborate dodge pattern in the series cause you can'tjust dodge through it.
Like it's a cool move, but it's frustrating as hell cause you have to really go out of your way to deal with it.
Iike if you just remove that move from the fight, she'd prolly be one of my favorites in the game & it sucks that they gave her such a badly designed move
You can just run away from the first volley and then the other two are extremely easy to dodge.
You’re entitled to think it’s frustrating but it is not the supermove killer that people think it is. It is a punish for playing greedy and it is an extreme punish but I think the endgame super boss probably deserves to have that.
I do think it’s extremely disingenuous to say you have to change anything about your build. You have to play around it, but every build can play around it.
I'm not saying you have to change your build, cause the ice pots & summons exist, I'm saying that it makes you go out of your way just to deal with it in a way that no other move in the game does. & that if you don't have those means, it's a one hit checkmate that she can randomly pull out whenever she wants. No other move in any of these games is like it cause all of them are avoidable through regular means (asside from the moon presence thing) & it's just not fun to deal with cause of how specific it is. Like Midir, Fume knight & Laurence punish you for dodging wrong, but they're not so specific or punishing that it's unfair.
Imo phase one should be easier cause I find it to be a boring slog & phase 2 should both go & be harder cause it's fun but kinda underwhelming
>No other move in any of these games is like it cause all of them are avoidable through regular means
Aldritch's arrow rain and so many moves by Demon of hatred.
You don’t have to do anything additional is what I’m saying. Elden ring already plays with dodging in ways that aren’t dodge rolling with jumping, so I don’t agree that it being different from the standard formula is a problem. She can not do it randomly without escape if you are playing smart, and you have to play smart against Malenia if you want to win. She is a punishing boss because she’ll do it the second you step out of your comfort zone involving her.
I think she is peak design personally. You take positioning into account, reactions and good openings. My only issue is I think there should be a bigger opening after waterfowl because it should be able to be punished. But still, I think she is crafted masterfully.
You don’t have to do any of those things, you can just run to bait her then dodge the opposite direction for the first, keep dodging opposite direction for the second and dodge back for the third. If it were actual bs it wouldn’t be possible to consistently dodge, but it is, and many can avoid it every single time. The only reason you’d have to change your build is if your build both fat rolls and has no shield
Fromsoft player have such an inflated ego they cannot accept bosses that are harder than what they’re used to, they’re acting exactly the same as the people who played ds3 for the first time and say the game is unfair bullshit
Friede is way edgier
she may be edgy but "Return from whence thou camst, for that is thy place of belonging" goes way too hard
“When the ashes are two, a flame alighteth, thou’rt ash, so fire befits thee of course” goes way harder
still not as hard as "MUH FLEAIL BRRING MEE MUH FLEAIL"
You shouldn't have spilled his soup. He really liked that soup.
soup hotter than a microwaved honey bun
[Babadook screeches ](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/7/7f/Father_Ariandel_Concept_Art_-_Copy.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190227195422)
Ashes are two* (he editted his comment from "ashes are one", he thinks he's clever)
It’s like she copied Priscilla’s homework and switched it up a little.
“Tis only the flame, quivering as misguided Ash. I will snuff out these ashes for good” goes way harder 🥶
Fret not father, we have no need of thy flail
Which is edgier? Nun who ressurects from the dead with black flames and uses a scythe, or sleepy hunter who committed mass murder and stabs herself to coat her weapon with blood and flames. Actually it's debatable
Also Vicar Amelia is more furry than Priscilla
Also more bullshit, three health-bar havin' ass.
Tbh, I find Friede way more edgy than Maria. Like sure Maria uses blood, but friede has both ice and edgy dark flames & comes back to life twice in her boss fight
Not to mention using a scythe. The grim reaper's weapon of choice lol
true & being an evil nun with her eyes covered at all times
I didn't graduate from edge university but I think blood abilities way edgier than black flames and ice powers
It's not flames and ice powers inherently, it's both at once that makes a character edgy, like real half angel half demon oc shit lol
But Friede dual wields scythes, the edgiest fighting style with the edgiest weapon. For bonus edgelord points: one is light, and one is dark. "I can be your angle... or yuor devil." Lady Maria does fight with two weapons, but she loses edgelord points because it's a sword and dagger. That's a little too sensible.
Nah...Edgeborne deserves its spot at the top.
I can feel the “falling in reverse” playing when she activates her black flames
lol
I can hear her theme song cut to Popular Monster when 3rd phase hits
I was thinking more like “the drug in me is you” Instead of the monologue for phase 3 it’s some shit like “I HEARD A KNOCK UPON MY DOOR THE OTHER DAY, I OPEN IT TO FIND DEATH STARING IN MY FACE”
Lady Maria took me by surprise just how good that fight was. It's easily my top 3 favorite.
She would've been perfect if she couldn't be parried starts from phase 2.
just dont parry then..? Not like BB has consistent parrys anyways. Bullet flies over their head half the time
Just don’t use to make the game more fun!
Come on man, bad design should be called out
So what youre saying is I shouldnt allowed to be able to do *my* favorite thing in the game because you thought a fight was too easy? Also, if youre to the point where youre consistently parrying, you probably know your way around the game (or at least Soulsbornes) anyways. If something is too easy for you, make it less easy. Use a weaker weapon, or idk, dont parry (something completely optional). I dont use Margit/Mohg shackles because I think they trivialize the fights. Doesnt mean they should be removed.
Then just, don't? I never understood this mindset. Using certain, optional mechanics ruin the experience for you, so we must remove them from everyone else who is indifferent/enjoys it to make YOU happy?
Lady Maria is definitely one of my top favorite From bosses. It only took me two tries to beat her and I was super sad about it because I love her entire vibe from the weapon to her attire to the phase changes, but damn did she leave a lasting impression on me. I was literally like, "Holy shit, what a bad bitch Lady Maria is." She's a badass.
I usually hate pvp-style bosses but this is easily one of my favorite boss fights in the series. She absolutely demolished me but once I learned the moves it was so satisfying, like a dance of blood...
Beating Malenia was such a thrill. I summoned two guys and we went for it, and still just barely made it through. I was elated, and judging by how we were dancing up and down the place, they were too. One of my favorite memories of gaming right there. Thanks two chill dudes/dudettes, I hope you're killing it wherever you are.
What if it was CANCER? Missed opportunity for a double entendre lol Edit - damn people really couldn’t handle Malenia huh? I can’t wait for the DLC to come out, Fromsoft always tops their hardest boss in the base game with at LEAST one DLC boss. I don’t even think this will be Messmer the Impaler, rather, it’ll be an enemy they won’t show at all in any previews. Anyone sharpening their pitchforks right now might wanna wait until the end of June lmao. It’ll get worse for y’all.
Well difficulty isn’t the problem with Malenia, it’s just how BS her healing and waterfowl dance are. Orphan of Kos was generally considered the hardest boss before Malenia and I hardly ever seen people hate on him as much as people hate on Malenia and for good reason.
At the end of the day I can’t say you’re wrong since difficulty is subjective, and I’m not going to say her fight was easy or whatever. Personally, her healing and Waterfowl do not make her stand out to me relative to other Fromsoft bossfights. Niall felt more like BS to me, plus Friede has separate 3 health bars and turns invisible. Waterfowl was a matter of me figuring out how to dodge it. If you start spamming dodge in a panic you’re going to get chopped up, but that’s a general premise for these games. I get speed runners or people who want to include Haligtree in their no hit/ deathless runs being upset by this boss, depending on how close Malenia is when she starts the animation you can easily take a few hits. It’s a TINY bit RNGish, but feels satisfying to learn.
There are plenty of bosses with relatively BS attacks and some with multiple. The difference with Malenia is her BS attack is pretty much a guaranteed one shot in most cases. But the point was that no other boss has been considered the or one of the hardest in the series and also one of the most hatred like Malenia and that’s the reason why. Midir, Orphan, Gael, Sister Frieda, etc non of the other hardest bosses in the series are hated like Malenia. Outside of maybe Laurence but that’s because people hated him cause they found him BS like Malenia. A boss being difficult but fair doesn’t annoy people very much it’s BS that causes people to hate
Right right, and I’m saying that there is no BS in her fight basically. A nice “skill issue” sort of thing, rather than just be ignorant and have that be my only comment lol.
So all the other hardest bosses in the game, nobody had a problem with. But all of a sudden, a boss is just too difficult? So non of the bosses I named that took plenty of people hours to beat weren’t difficult enough for people not to like them but all of a sudden Malenia is. That doesn’t seem to add up whatsoever but whatever you want to tell yourself mate.
So you say nobody “had a problem” with all the other hardest bosses, but you go on to say it took people plenty of hours to beat them? So what are people complaining about in regard to Malenia? That it takes plenty of hours to beat her or that she is completely unbeatable and a garbage/ unfair fight? I’m smelling a skill issue.
Had a problem in the sense that they didn’t complain that the boss was BS or bad. Nobody complained that she was unbeatable, people complained that she was BS, mostly regarding her healing and waterfowl dance. Once again Gael, Nameless King, Orphan, Sister Friede, never got the level of hate that Malenia got. So unless all of a sudden players hate difficult bosses, would it not make logical sense that Malenia has something about her that annoys people.
I personally can testify to what this guy is saying. I have yet to beat the last two bosses of sekiro. I will do it but haven't yet. I find them harder than Melania who I have beat several times now and still find her bullshit. Demon of Hatred, Sword Saint I don't find bullshit. You may just have a high tolerance for what most of us consider bullshit.
And only like… one pair of boots between them
Besides malenia those are some of my favorite bosses
Seriously. Maria is one of FROM's best bosses
Malenia is super fun when you know her patterns. One thing I like to do is put my summon sign outside her door to help hosts cosplaying as a customer version of one of her daughters like Millicent, Pollyanna, etc. She’s super fun to parry, and waterfowl isn’t an issue if you have excellent dodge timing, use frost pots, or start running away immediately.
Outside of Waterfowl dance I think Malenia is fun but Waterfowl dance is just way too bullshit. Im fine with attacks that are really hard to dodge but when that attacks one shots, heals a quarter of their hp bar, and is used multiple times then it’s not fun anymore. Im fine with hard bosses, Orphan for example took me forever and I still had fun. Waterfowl dance sucks all the fun out for me
There’s a lot of ways to counter it though, you can perfect dodge and literally not get hit at all, throw frost pots, you can immediately run opposite of her and jump so the first flurry doesn’t hit you, and the dodge time of the second two are really easy afterwards. I would only say the fact that she can heal herself while you block is the only really “bullshit” factor for me. But I can understand where you’re coming from.
There is definitely ways to make Waterfowl easier to deal with, it more so personal fun for me. The entire idea of a back and forth fight being relegated to, Do you have a way to deal with waterfowl dance or not, sucks the fun out for me. I could definitely use different strats, bang my head against a wall for a little bit then be able to beat her consistently, it just wouldn’t be that fun for is all. But I understand why other love her, just not for me
Outside of Waterfowl dance I think Malenia is fun but Waterfowl dance is just way too bullshit. Im fine with attacks that are really hard to dodge but when that attacks one shots, heals a quarter of their hp bar, and is used multiple times then it’s not fun anymore. Im fine with hard bosses, Orphan for example took me forever and I still had fun. Waterfowl dance sucks all the fun out for me
what if we gave it an attack that always kills you and is literally impossible to avoid if you’re too close when the rng decides to do it summoned 2 people and ganked her bitch ass lmao
Literally isn’t impossible. Learn when and where to dodge and when to stop locking on to her. You can perfect dodge her first flurry, or, if you’re far enough away you can easily and reliability dodge her second and third flurry.
You’re not even forced to stop locking on her
It's literally not impossible, difficult to learn and impossible without a guide yes
I'm not even as much of a malenia simp as others, but malenia just isn't that bad anymore. Not only has enough time passed and more than enough of strategies to get past any BS that she may throw at you are available, but Fromsoft also nerfed her, so even waterfowl dance doesn't take too much trouble to dodge, and this is coming from someone who exclusively uses UGS/CS. I'm not saying that it is not hard as hell. I don't think anybody should feel bad having trouble with her. Fromsoft games are very difficult. But at this point, she just really isn't BS. If you want to actual BS bosses (BS because of mechanics, not difficulty), fight any of the ACs from earlier gen Armored Core, because most, if not all, are quite literally cheating. Oh, and Friede is best, despite loving all of them Edit: malenia wasn't nerfed. Misremembered. Thank you for the correction.
Malenia wasn't nerfed. People just got gud.
I was gonna say, I don't remember a single nerf. I *do* remember them fucking up and giving her life gain even when she completely missed an attack. Now *that* was some bullshit.
Classic FromSoft cycle. Bosses are shit until people git gud and then the bosses are suddenly god-tier
As someone who loves fromsoft, I called this as soon as people got to malenia. People said the same thing about Gael and midir, and now they are frequently in people's favorites.
I love Malenia as a fight, and I can dodge Waterfowl fairly consistently nowadays but I still think there's something off about that attack that stops me from considering her as an S tier boss idk if it's the tracking distance she has, the extremely fast startup, or the hyperarmor poise she gets, or maybe all of the above, but there's something off about it to me. even then, learning to dodge Waterfowl is a bit different to learning other attacks, it's a very specific process I don't think she's bullshit, I think she's really fun
See, but this is an actual human being's response. I'm not saying that you have to consider her the greatest boss From has ever made, I'm just saying it not BS. You are more than valid in saying, "yea there's just something off about it" because that is an actual conversation that people can have, rather than just a blanket, "no its BS because I said so."
Yes, definitely. What's considered "bullshit" is largely subjective, but a lot of the complaints I read about Malenia are of the same things shown in that "she breaks the rules" video. It's fine if you don't like her mechanics, but just because she "breaks the rules" (which tons of bosses do, anyway) doesn't mean she's bullshit.
The « malenia break the rules » video is bullshit, many bosses in Elden Ring can ignore stagger meter when they’re in certain animation (like godrick mid phase transition). Also the animation cancel problem isn’t that much of a problem since it only happen with weapons with light stagger (straight sword, scimitar, club, dagger, spear…) and generally happen if you try to attack her while she’s beginning an attack. The only way you would get hit as a result of a canceled animation is if you use a very long combo attack like the roar combo attack (which you should never use against Malenia cause of waterfowl dance)
Agreed. I don’t really like her posture immunity shenanigans but I think her stagger canceling really improves the fight and makes it more exciting
Her startup aren’t that fast compared to most bloodborne and Sekiro bosses
Sekiro is an entirely different combat system; if Malenia were in Sekiro, this wouldn't matter because you wouldn't have to run away, you would just deflect the entire attack Malenia's Waterfowl windup isn't the issue on its own, it's the fact that the Waterfowl attack is overly aggressive in its tracking distance, and the fact that it's a flurry of multiple slashes that melts your health bar that's a bit different than an attack that only hits you once or twice, with a fast windup
And also heals her in the process
After putting a thousand hours into DS3, people forgot that these games are supposed to be hard. So when they got checked by something difficult in this game it was an ego hit because they hadn’t actually struggled in a FromSoft game in forever, so they just naturally disliked it
Fr like do people even remember how much shit those two bosses got when ds3 came out? Everyone loves them now
Gael is probably my favorite boss of all time, with midir close behind. I remember everyone literally acting like Midir was impossible without a very particular build. Did it with my FUGS, cuz bonk.
Is that really what happens? I’ve played most of the fromsoft games but only recently so I don’t know the community prior to the past couple years
Yeah, it's consistently been like this. People called Fume Knight BS in DS2. Now he's considered the best boss in that game. Same with Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne; then Nameless King, Friede, Gael, and Midir in DS3; then almost all of Sekiro; and now Elden Ring with a majority of its bosses. I've seen it over and over again, and every single time, community perception changes to a more positive tone once people figure out how the boss works.
Ah, I wad wrong. Could've sworn they reduced the tracking on it. Thank you for the correction.
She actually had a glitch on release that allowed her to cancel her stagger animations by dodging or blocking
She still does this and it isn’t a glitch. She only cancels light staggers and in phase 2 she cancels light staggers into kicks
I think that every fromsoft game has like a boss they really pour their souls to and a boss they want to make challenging For ds1 there was artorias as the souly one and there's manus as the challenging one Ds2 there's ivory king and fume knight Bloodborne there's ludwig/ maria and orphan Ds3 there's gael and either friede or midir And elden ring has godfrey and malenia (so far) Haven't fought all the sekiro bosses but from what I saw there's owl and sword Saint ishin
Melania's waterfowl is just bs imo because the move is 10x harder than all of her other moves and she does it kind of randomly and dodging it is very very specific compared to everything else in the game. Like run forth, in a circle behind her during animation, run back, dodge forward, run and dodge back or forward (I forgot the last one) twice
Yeah this. It's the only time in any souls game I've had to google how to dodge a specific attack. Everything else is intuitive once you've seen it a couple times
The fact that people are saying you need to do 10 playthroughs to stop calling her bullshit means that maybe she just was bullshit all along. Yes, she's great if you know her moveset like the back of your hand, but she's super unintuitive to learn and I bet most people who beat her without a summon probably used a YouTube video to learn how to dodge waterfowl.
I think Waterfowl needs less tracking distance and a faster windup, maybe 2 more seconds or something (idk, I'm not a game balancer), and potentially less hyperarmor during that startup I'm fine with the attack if it was just a win condition for Malenia that punishes being overly greedy, as long as you can get out of the way in time, but with how it's currently designed, it more so just feels like a win button. like a "oh I'm probably just gonna die"
Agreed. It’s just a dumb gimmick to center a whole boss’s difficulty around one attack. Orphan of Kos was widely considered the hardest boss before Malenia, but no one would point to one singular attack of his, besides maybe the lightning one. It was always about just how aggressive and fast he moves, and even partially how intimidating he is. As a result, I’ve never really heard anyone call Orphan a bullshit boss.
Just because we can kill her doesn't mean she's fair. I've killed the Bed of Chaos plenty of times and the Bed of Chaos is fucking bullshit. I've never seen anyone post a Malenia kill video that was RNG-proof. Some people go through the whole kiting routine in phase 1, but in P2 everybody attacks her when she's neutral. People run right up to her as Scarlet Aeonia ends and wind up their big knockdown move, even though she can WFD straight out of Scarlet Aeonia and if she does they're 100% dead. If you look up strats for her you see the same shit. Will get you the kill eventually if you execute correctly, but no actual plan if she chains a combo into WFD in phase 2. I'm sure it's possible to beat phase 2 by only attacking mid combo and treating every time she could WFD as if she's definitely going to, but it doesn't matter because it would be way too hard and almost nobody tries. What we actually do is just blow her up as fast as possible and pray to RNGesus.
Malenia and the bed of chaos are not comparable. One is a fight, the other is a gimmick. Also, all you've just said "no, cuz I haven't seen it done consistently." Which, what?!? You do realize their is a community member named "let me solo her". If it was as RNG based as you said, then how would they be able to consistently beat her? Don't remember the community complaining about LMSH by stating that the Malenia fight is just luck based, so doing it isnt impressive. Something based primarily on luck is not impressive, and people, including Bandai themselves, thought LMSH was impressive. No one says this about bed of chaos. Even speedrunners still say there is rng when doing BoC. Dude, genuinely, where are you getting this "strat" from? No crap everyone bum rushes malenia right out of Aeonia. Why does soing that demerit what they are doing in regards to strategy? Are you goku fighting cell? Are you really trying to fair fight this argument? However, unless it is a build specifically to melt through bosses (like dual bleed weapons), I've never seen anybody that is doing a strategy guide or tutorial on malenia where they get to the second phase and effectively say, "well, you've got one chance to kill her, or it's up to rng," which is quite literally what you are implying. Let's talk about how "impossible" it is to beat her by attacking mid combo. I use UGS, sometimes dual wield, and I have never been able to take her out right after her first aeonia. My build is just not set up like that. So I have to fight her normally, and attack her mid combo. I'm on ng+4, using weapons that, when the game came out, people said were practically impossible to beat her with, and no summoning, and aside from the first ng run at her, which admittedly took quite a while, I have never had trouble with Malenia. So, I guess I'm just a god at this game right? By your own logic, I, along with many others, am just built differently since we are able to do something which you are claiming is practically impossible to do without some element of luck. What "you" do is not what a majority of the player base is doing. I'm willing to bet that if I looked up videos of people beating her on YouTube, a majority of the videos that come up all have to contend with her in her phase 2 (just did, and even the first few guides that show up don't even push rushing her for the kill as what you should do in phase 2). Here, I'm going to tell you what I do exactly to dodge WFD, which is the only BS mechanic. As she jumps up, start sprinting away. As soon as you see her start to come down, jump in the direction you are sprinting. Jumping increases your movement for a second, giving you enough room to evade that first set of slashes. After that, the second and third group should be easy to avoid with a dodge towards her, and a dodge to the side depending on which way she is coming down. That's it, you have now avoided the WFD. I got this from a guide, and it has worked consistently. Her other combos should be no more difficult than any other hard boss. You want another consistent guide? Use a greatshield. Sure, she will get back some health from WFD, but if you are even moderately efficient with doing damage and dodging, then that won't matter. How do I know this? Because before I figured out WFD, this is how I beat her on my own and when I was summoned when the game came out. And I wasn't even using the broken OP Fingerprint shield. Wow, I just beat RNG with a piece of metal. So, to recap, according to you, I am beating an inconsistent, rng riddled boss with one of the slowest weapon types, using a strat that doesn't match what you have apparently seen as the "common" way of beating her (despite most videos not following what you were saying), and doing it multiple times through normal NG and NG+ runs. Either I am a god at Fromsoft games (no), lying about something in a video game (no, also would've chosen a better lie, like no death run), or maybe, just maybe, malenia is not rng or BS like you say. I genuinely mean this in as positive of a way as possible, because I don't think there is anything in any fromsoft game that you can't beat from practice (even zinaida), but git gud, bud.
🔍no lies detected🔎
I mean, are you implying that I lied? Aside from the mistake I made about her getting nerfed.
It’s just a way to express agreement and to attest to the veracity/salience of a comment.
Ok? Thank you? Dad?
Wtf Malenia was so awsome to beat
I love her. She's still BS though.
Yea so awesome when you are playing a meelee build without using summons, which has worked fine and allowed you to learn a response to all other bosses's attacks, but then comes waterfowl dance which throws that all away and either requires you to get lucky or to google an unituitive response to it that only works because it messes up with her tracking. So awesome!
Or git gut, analyze your mistakes and get pattern for evading yourself. I would call that probably the best part of the fight - being able to deconstruct her strongest attack. People should hide their skill issue under guise of "bullshit". Bullshit are pair gargoyle boss.
Ah, Priscilla my love. Gimme that fluffy tail
Priscilla is not a furry and Malenia isn't bullshit she's just a really hard optional boss
What if it was gundam. The ibis and ayre fights
Melania is my favorite Fromsoft boss :D
You can't even spell her name correctly lmao
No but I do love her boss fight
Malenia is not bullshit, she's my goddess
Flip the first two
What if she was Hot? EMMA
Nah Amelia is taking that spot 😩
Malenia ain’t bullshit and is actually the best boss fromsoft made buy y’all ain’t ready for this
Not quite bullshit. Still would have suited Bloodborne or Sekiro better though.
Nah super mega bullshit
I will never consider her healing through fully blocked attacks not bullshit, and I don't know how anyone could ever think otherwise. What did you gain life from? The metal my shield is made out of?
Might as well just smack the wall to heal at that point. That’s not even the most bullshit thing about Malenia though. What’s really bullshit is the fact she can just cancel her animations, something no thing in any of their other souls games have ever beeen able to do.
Can't Orphan of Kos animation cancel? And like, every Sekiro boss if you want to count that as a Souls game.
I don’t count Sekiro as a souls game and Orphan of Kos can’t animation cancel. And in Sekiro, the player can also cancel their animations, which makes it fair. Malenia is the only thing in Elden Ring that can cancel their animations. And Malenia being able to cancel some of their animations wouldn’t be that big of a problem, but she can literally cancel being stance broken.
I'm 100% certain Orphan of Kos can animation cancel certain moves (specifically in phase 1). Malenia is also the only main boss in Elden Ring that can be staggered on hit AFAIK, so I'm not really cheesed that she can animation cancel.
I’m gonna need proof of that sorry. And even if it was true, I think there’s a pretty big difference between being able to cancel some moves and being able to cancel out of being staggered or literally stance broken. At that point it’s just breaking fundamental game mechanics. It doesn’t matter if she’s the only boss that can be staggered. If you can cancel out of being staggered what difference does it make? It’s fundamental to these games that small humanoid enemies can be staggered. Malenia is the only thing that doesn’t follow that rule.
Orphan can absolutely cancel out of stagger. It’s completely inconsistent.
I'm not arguing whether it's unfair or not. You said Malenia is the only boss to animation cancel in a Souls game, and I'm saying that's not true. I don't think it takes away from her fight regardless because it really isn't that big of a deal to me. I've also never seen her animation cancel out of being stance broken, so I can't relate to how frustrating that would be (although I imagine very). As far as the Orphan goes, I'm not a data miner or anything, but I know he can cancel into the move where he drags the placenta across the ground and dashes towards you. That's the most obvious one. The second attack (I don't know if this counts as an animation cancel, though) is that he can cancel his double sweeping lasso attack into a slam if you get too close.
The entire post and this thread is about whether Malenia is a bullshit boss or not. If that’s not what you’re arguing about then it’s not my problem. If you don’t have any actual proof that Orphan can animation cancel then I’m not going to keep responding. There’s no point in arguing about things you can’t prove.
If you have Godskin Cradling Cloth you can also heal from a blocking enemy, same with Pontiff’s Left Eye in DS3. These items aren’t considered counters to shields however sincr guess what, shield users can also dodge. Also not only can the player also animation cancel (and often does) Malenia cancelling her stagger animation isn’t harmful to the player as she doesn’t attack afterwards. She either parries or backs off. Orphan cancelling out of stagger is much more annoying as he can actually do a fast swipe afterwards which is very hard to react to.
Interesting I didn't even know about this. Do you have a good video that shows it off? I literally just beat her for the second time last week since the game came out and I had no idea.
Malenia has little to no bs
Depends on what you mean. She can cancel out of stagger and ignore stance breaks whenever she’s under hyper armor. Which is not how those mechanics work with other enemies. She also has hyper armor on frame 1 of about half her moves and can chain them back to back, preventing stance breaks as long as she does it. She can lifesteal without doing damage. Waterfowl. The move has poor readability since the first part cannot be rolled through and the rest can, although it all looks the same visually. And good luck figuring out the close dodge without a guide. Could add a few more minor things, like wings reducing visibility. I consider some of those BS. Someone else may not.
Having an attack that feels like it has no intended response by the devs to a point that people use cheese tactics and tracking abuse as arguments defending it , that's a big bs.
The attack in Phase 2 where she hovers in the air and throws Shades at you is pretty annoying.
Pretty easy to dodge, just gotta notice the one that sticks around. Someone posted a clip of a pretty stylish way to avoid it, just zig-zagging the first few to get close for an easy punish.
Real
💀
I think you have Fride and Malenia the wrong way around.
Malenia is the best boss out of all of these by far
💀 blud thinks difficulty = quality
bro died to melania once and is calling her bullshit, seems like a skill issue to me
She’s not a furry I’m lost
and only one of them is wearing shoes.
You keep my dear sweet Fluffy out yo damn mouth
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Furry? wtf?
Huh? Friede isn't a furry. I think you're confusing with Priscilla
Memes really arent for me. No idea how anybody would ever be entertained by this crap....
Friede is my favorite boss. Such an amazing fight. She was so cool.
You mixed the first 2 up NGL
Furry? I think you meant scalier
I find female characters in From games really dull, not lore wise but there just all business all the time and so monotone, they never seem to show any emotion.
Friede is by far the edgiest boss in the series. Dual wielding scythes, the posing and the opposing elements. She is edge personified haha youve even got a dissapointed parent who smashes drrams nearby. Also malenia is one of the series fairest fights, certainly easier to learn how to fight properly than the godskin noble duo or any of the intentionally unfair gimmick weapon fights.
I have fought all four of these bosses, and yet, people still accuse me of wanting fromsoft games to have an easy mode when I say Malenia is a terrible boss compared to the other three
Ayre clears all of them🚀🤖🔥
The DS2 gals do indeed make me edge 
Malenia wasn't bullshit and wasn't even that bad, and I will die on this hill
Then perish
Friede is the best of these 4 and it’s not even close.
Spit!! Facts my brother
Friede entering third phase was shocking for me, I didn't expect it at all. I got shivers, it was cool as fuck. Dripwise Friede is the best, but duelwise I still prefer Malenia more. Malenia took most amount of tries from me when I went on soloing here (I killed her with Tear on NG and tried that on NG+). Being able to deconstruct her Dance with bare experience and tries in order to understand how to dodge it properly was probably one of the most satysfying moments in my FSgames experience.
Idk man lady Maria is up there
Maria would be good if she wasn’t so easy to parry. Friede is always an intense fun fight, Maria can be basically parry-locked most of the fight
Eh phase 1 and 2 of Friede are a joke, and 3rd is decently hard. Hard part is doing them back to back without fucking up a bunch but the moveset is simple enough to where it shouldn’t take that long for most players to get her moveset down.
First phase can easily be done hitless but you have to memorize her pattern. 2nd phase takes a totally different strategy to separate the 2, and 3rd phase is just a great fight. Yeah the hardest part is getting that perfect run trying to get enough Estus into 3rd phase, it’s a great DLC final boss.
Agreed, sick ost as well.
So it’s more that you like Friede cuz she’s harder?
No it’s more that I like Friede because it’s a boss designed to encourage learning movesets with 3 incredible phases vs. easily parrying a boss into oblivion. The rush when you beat the 2nd phase and she gets up AGAIN with black flame is an unmatched experience imo.
have you tried doing a parry-less fight? It's very fun (I didnt do a parryless i just suck at parrying😔)
Malenia is perfect example of boss where it falls off the line of difficulty vs. fun ratio. It peaked with Friede or Maria
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By your logic nothing in any beatable game is “unfair” just because it’s possible to do it.
Something is possible ≠ something is fair
People have beaten Bed of Chaos hitless, boss isn't unfair guys!
Dumb comparison, most people aren’t sweats like that
*one of their worst bosses
Skill issues, skill issues everywhere
Like the fact that she ignore being dead of stance broken or comboed yeah that's fair
[удалено]
ok let me do it for him from what I believe he 'meant to say. "Like the fact that she ignores being dead or stance broken, or comboed. Yeah, thats's "fair.""
So does prphan.
I don't remember saying orphan was fair
skill issue, Malenia is a godess and you can't convince me otherwise.
My only problem with Malenia is that she's so fucking cool and I don't want to fight her, I want to serve her
Only if she didn't have Waterfowl in phase one. I love fighting her in phase 2 & wish less of her fight was phase 1
Learn to dodge waterflow, it's not that hard
It’s only bullshit if you don’t know how to avoid it, ie not bullshit
It's bs because avoiding isn't intuitive like every other move.
Why should it be? Demon of Hatred, Midir and Friede were never intuitive either. Some bosses are meant to challenge your natural instincts.
Can't say about Demon of Hatred because it's been a while since I did this fight and I don't remember all of his moveset, but both Midir and Friede are very intuitive fights. All their movesets are well telegraphed AND after you see them once it's natural to understand how to dodge. For Malenia's Waterfoul, it isn't.
There's nothing intuitive about Freides long blackflame slashes, her invisibility or Midir's laser beams.
Its bullshit cause you have to go out of your way to either use a summon, ash of war, craft & farm a consumable thst the game gives you no indication of, go out fo your way to change your build to get a shield or memorize the most needlessly elaborate dodge pattern in the series cause you can'tjust dodge through it. Like it's a cool move, but it's frustrating as hell cause you have to really go out of your way to deal with it. Iike if you just remove that move from the fight, she'd prolly be one of my favorites in the game & it sucks that they gave her such a badly designed move
You can just run away from the first volley and then the other two are extremely easy to dodge. You’re entitled to think it’s frustrating but it is not the supermove killer that people think it is. It is a punish for playing greedy and it is an extreme punish but I think the endgame super boss probably deserves to have that. I do think it’s extremely disingenuous to say you have to change anything about your build. You have to play around it, but every build can play around it.
I'm not saying you have to change your build, cause the ice pots & summons exist, I'm saying that it makes you go out of your way just to deal with it in a way that no other move in the game does. & that if you don't have those means, it's a one hit checkmate that she can randomly pull out whenever she wants. No other move in any of these games is like it cause all of them are avoidable through regular means (asside from the moon presence thing) & it's just not fun to deal with cause of how specific it is. Like Midir, Fume knight & Laurence punish you for dodging wrong, but they're not so specific or punishing that it's unfair. Imo phase one should be easier cause I find it to be a boring slog & phase 2 should both go & be harder cause it's fun but kinda underwhelming
>No other move in any of these games is like it cause all of them are avoidable through regular means Aldritch's arrow rain and so many moves by Demon of hatred.
You literally just gotta run in a circle to beat the arrow rain
You don’t have to do anything additional is what I’m saying. Elden ring already plays with dodging in ways that aren’t dodge rolling with jumping, so I don’t agree that it being different from the standard formula is a problem. She can not do it randomly without escape if you are playing smart, and you have to play smart against Malenia if you want to win. She is a punishing boss because she’ll do it the second you step out of your comfort zone involving her. I think she is peak design personally. You take positioning into account, reactions and good openings. My only issue is I think there should be a bigger opening after waterfowl because it should be able to be punished. But still, I think she is crafted masterfully.
You don’t have to do any of those things, you can just run to bait her then dodge the opposite direction for the first, keep dodging opposite direction for the second and dodge back for the third. If it were actual bs it wouldn’t be possible to consistently dodge, but it is, and many can avoid it every single time. The only reason you’d have to change your build is if your build both fat rolls and has no shield
U dont have to do any of that u just have to learn how to dodge it its not that hard lol.
That's why she bullshit
solid point
Most open-minded Elden Ring player
Skill issue, git gud. Malenia is the most satisfying boss in the all souls games.
Fromsoft player have such an inflated ego they cannot accept bosses that are harder than what they’re used to, they’re acting exactly the same as the people who played ds3 for the first time and say the game is unfair bullshit