Summer's almost here \|T|/ With Elden Ring hype settling, what are you looking forward to in the rest of 2022? 👀 Shoutout to Keeps for supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! ➤ keeps.com/demodcracy
Any one of the following: Either a list on Kirby and the Forgotten Land (which is basically where Malenia quitters go to for therapy), or something involving the Bayonetta franchise (given the third title's due this year). Also, Silksong. And Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (AKA Nioh 3: The Death of Chaos).
Judging by the overwhelming amount of “weak foe” messages I’ve seen in Malenia’s boss room after I defeated her, I’m surprised she isn’t first on the list
Fun fact: Malenia's current version of the waterfowl dance is listed second to last on her animations in terms of their naming. (I think it's like animation 36 out of 37) This basically means that it was one of the last things that they added to the boss before release. if you're wondering what the last animation is, it's the animation that she does when she gets parried which could also mean that they added the parry to her at the last second to balance out her fight with waterfowl dance
Also i believe her original dance was supposed to be a simple combo before they changed it to bullsheet version of Sekiro's Cloud Passage and became what she is now
@@malafakka8530 yup. the moment I noticed that she's literally different from everyone in Elden Ring I started to find where tf am I gonna buy a parry buckler and boy I wasn't wrong. took me just about 10 times and beat Malenia but I was bit overleveled not gonna lie.
I’m just at mountaintop of the giants right now, but Niall has been by far the most rage inducing so far. The fact that he can cover so much of such a small arena pissed me off to no end
I didn't struggle with Niall tbh once u take his knights away his moveset is very simple just play slow and let him close the distance then run away after you get your hits in a lot of bosses reward aggression he punishes it
@@tylerhippensteel3935keeping one of his knights alive also ensures that his upgraded moveset and attacks aren’t implemented until you get his health down to 50%. Before I tried that method I had a fair bit of trouble with him, but then doing that I was able to get him first try
Shoutout to the one person who gave Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella some love. Was not a forgettable boss for me whatsoever, but I did fight him underleveled so I got to see everything he had to offer. His phase 2 move-set combined with one of the coolest arenas in the game made for a very good fight and completely different from the other Dragonkins in the game.
Nokstella dragonkin was the first area where I was speechless, hie whole arena and his fight changed how i felt about fromsoft games. It was my moment where I went "this game is different from others"
Really my only strike against him was seeing the giant skeleton and expecting THAT to be the boss then being disappointed when it wasn't. It was def a cool fight though, I enjoyed it
I got lucky with the dragonkin soldiers and learned if you hide behind their left knee they can't hit you. If they try to they either push you with them and out of range of their attack, or they move their leg up in which case you know to book it because they're definitely going to hit you.
The Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella is a great fight. When I found him I had already fought the first two and was expecting a really shitty boss but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice change from the previous Dragonkin Soldiers, with the one in the Siofra River being very bland and the one in the Lake of Rot being absolutely detestable.
Voice acting in general in Elden Ring is just absolutely superb. Pretty much all of them sound amazing, although the M-line really brings it home; Mohg, Morgott, Malenia, and Maliketh.
@@hobabo9703 If you hug their hind legs and use bleed they can be taken down. Even with bleed it still takes some time cause they have way too much health.
I never understood why people struggle with bears. All you need to do is stay close, and strafe behind it when it attacks. I was beating them at level 30 with my melee build.
My least favorite part of the Malenia fight isnt that she still gains health back during her 2nd phase, but that her butterflies or whatever obscure your view of her so you can barely read her. It's really unfair
I have no idea how half this stuff got past playtesters. This is Ubisoft levels of unpolished. Okay, maybe that was a bit extreme. However, I think we all can agree Malenia needed more time in the oven and that she needs significant changes, both to make her less exploitable and to make her more fair. Because as is, the boss is kind of a tug-of-war between how much OP stuff you’re willing to abuse and how much she decides to do stuff like input reading, the clone attack, and Waterfowl Dance. Her moveset feels extremely volatile. By that I mean that it’s a roll of the dice as to whether you’re going to be dealing with mostly slower combos or if you’re going to have 2 chances to hit her over the span of a full minute of flawless dodging. Obviously I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea. RNG has a much larger presence in this fight than in most other difficult bosses from FromSoftware’s older titles. However, the worst part of her moveset isn’t even stuff like Waterfowl Dance. It’s the damn mixups. I’ve fought this boss what feels like dozens of times, and I cannot tell of a single visual or audial distinction between the end of a combo, and thus an opportunity to attack, or when she’s about to chain into another attack. A flash of her sword, a voice line, any of that would have made the mixups fine. But when there’s no real way to tell the difference between an opportunity for attack and when you need to lay off, that’s unfair because you’re forcing the player to either risk getting shish-kebabbed to attack or give up on what could be attack opportunities. Even if you know what mixups she can do by memorizing her moveset into a mental spreadsheet (which always makes the boss feel less fun than simply getting a feel for it and being better at the game, at least for me), you can’t tell whether she’s going to end her attack or keep going unless you risk losing a lot of health and allowing her to regain much of hers. Example: I talked with another dude in a comment section about this fight, and according to him, he always was able to punish Waterfowl Dance after she did it if he dodged it right. However, during all of my fights with her, even if I dodged it perfectly, I wouldn’t be able to punish because she would backstep or sidestep into another attack. If it just didn’t ever have an attack window afterwards, that would be more understandable even if it would be annoying due to how long dodging that move takes. But she’s inconsistent and that’s why she’s so terrible to fight. Even worse is that amidst all of this, once you get into the second phase, even reading her standard attacks becomes harder because of the glowing flower crap everywhere. How did this get past playtesters or QA? Were they just so enamored with the spectacle that they just went with it?
@@thegrapethief5514 idk man it took me like 200 attempts but once you learn her moveset without getting hit you will feel great I beat her with a uchigatana with blood tax
i honestly wouldnt mind malenias water fowl dance if it was only in her first phase. Sure its bs but i think bosses need a little bs to be fun and challenging and i can consistently avoid it in her first phase. In her second phase tho there is so much more stuff im looking out for to dodge and she regularly floats into the air making it less obvious when shes doing the move. Id say like 90% of my phase 2 deaths to her are just me fighting her then i realsie half a second too late shes doing the move and im just screwed.
I think it hits like 19 times, (first part is 8 then 4 then 7) because every time she swings there is both the sword hitbox and the flurry hitbox so the attack pretty much has double tap plus the last hit is not part of a sword swing. I dare you to survive every hit without a shield.
Malenia could be balanced easily if you could just block her healing with a 100 physical shield. The fact she heals on anything she hits is the ridiculous part. Waterfowl would be WAY less of an issue if she wouldnt heal from it while you block it with a sheild
Mohg disgusts me truly the most vile boss in the history of fromsoft games but I have to admit his boss fight is great and his design is cool especially when he pulls out his wings
@@KratosisGod Mogh's a creep to be sure but you can hardly blame him for being what he is even his own body is against him with his own horn gouging out one of his eyes.
@@dereklol8310 So in addition to being endless tormented by spirits in his sleep, shackled, and imprisoned in the sewers until the shattering, one of Mogh's horns grew into his eye and gouged it out and it kept growing into his eye socket. Basically he's all sorts of f_cked up even more than his twin brother.
My problem with Malenia is that she feels like a Sekiro boss in Elden Ring. There's the obvious aspect of her having a katana but, even looking at her moveset and AI, she would fit easily in Sekiro. Long pauses between attacks to allow you and/or her to regain posture, sword clashing to break her posture, even her long range thrust and hyper armour kick would translate well to being an unblockable thrust in Sekiro that you'd have to use Mikiri counter on. However, with it being Elden ring, the player has, in my opinion, less tools to deal with that moveset. Pure blocks still allow her to heal and accurately dodging quick succession of attacks is harder than just trying to deflect then like you would in Sekiro. Even waterfowl dance would have some counter with either using the grapple away or using the iron hat prosthetic to protect from 360 degrees of attacks. To me, it really does feel like a leftover Sekiro boss that ends up clashing with Elden Ring's gameplay style
Malenia would be waaaaaay too easy in sekiro. I agree she fits the aesthetic of a sekiro boss but i still think she fits more in elden ring. Most of her difficulty comes from people not getting waterfowl dance, if they removed that attack people prob wouldnt complain (besides lifesteal from shields that is dumb)
I actually almost died on Mimic Tear on my magic run. I wanted to do a fun 1v1 magic battle with him, so I kept my distance a bit to see how he'd start. I did not expect him to immediatly start spamming Rennala's Full Moon constantly. I can confirm that non-stop homing moons at you is pretty dangerous.
Same experience. For the first mimic I had my melee gear on so I curb stomped him quite easily. In the way to the haligtree I had my staff when the mimic got summoned and nearly died. Boy he sure knows how to combo spells xD. Had to give him zero breathing room with melee to take him down.
I was a full INT build as well. But I didn't wait for him to do anything. I jumped him. As soon as the 1st rock sling hit, it was pretty much over and I just spammed him to death with that. But I can see how if you let the mimic cast 1st you could be in trouble.
@@youarecorrectandiamwrong.8646 Nah, mage builds can be pretty fun and if you know how to beat them they're not that hard. Yes, magic makes the game easier but not everything easier is by definition worse. The only people calling mage-builds cancer are the 15-year olds who convinced themselves that Souls-games should only be played by handicapping yourself and make the game harder on yourself. You're better off trying to enjoy all the aspects of the game instead of limiting yourself to your own playstyle only and condemning all other styles.
Double Crucible Knights is arguably one of the most aids fights in the game for melees. Of course it's gonna be difficult when you slap 2 minibosses together with no way to really pull them apart aside from their winged moves. The way they can overlap attacks and tend to stick to each other's ass is really frustrating.
I fought them at around lv 100 and used a spirit summon and they weren’t too bad. But I can see how they’d be ridiculously difficult without any summons as aid
@@markopusic8258 Actually I feel like it is way easier than it should. If you pay close attention, you can see they USUALLY will not interfer on a 1x1 with the other knight. Even if they get close, they usually doesn't attack and just watch. Once you realize that, you start paring them without much worry and that makes the fight quite simple. Just take them on 1x1 and keep one eye on the other.
@@gustavofrederico8911 It's been a hot minute but if I remember correctly, there have been AI adjustments to significantly dial down the agressivity of the knights while both of them are alive. On release this fight was a nightmare and a slog with how hard it was to even get hits in.
I actually found Dragonkin Soldier to be somewhat difficult but it’s primarily because I’m mostly fighting the camera. Fight him from the front? He crawls over to you and does pretty decent damage. Fighting him from underneath? He spams his slam attack which you can’t see because you’re focused on his Crotch. Attacking him from behind? You can’t see what he’s doing and he hits you with an AOE.
Also, if you use a short weapon (Dagger, fist and even some straight swords, maces and axes) you just can't hit him if you stand below him. This weird thing he has hanging in front of his belly pushes you away while not being a damaging hitbox.
If water fowl dance could only be activated from a specific range it would be much less annoying it's only a real issue when she starts it right when you start a swing
Honestly its that they're 3 flurries of it and just one can kill and its superhard to completely avoid all 3 couple that that with her health recovery ability and its just super annoying.
@@dashman8499 not true. she can activate the move whenever she likes as soon as she goes below 75% health. after than its entirely random. i've had runs where she uses it once the whole fight, and i've had runs where she uses it literally 6 times before she even hits phase 2
From Software have always had this sense of pride in designing bosses to both be incredibly difficult but also not unfair. Malenia just feels like the devs one day said "what if we make a boss that's just *unfair"*
Or you've hit your limit as a player and just can't rise up to the challenge that is Malenia. I swear, if all of you spent half as much time on learning how to deal with waterfowl, as you do complaining about how this fight is OH SO UNFAIR, you would realise that the fight is fairly balanced. She is meant to be a challenge. Waterfowl has many, many ways of dealing with it, it's up to you to find a way and deal with it. She just cannot be brute forced. I am sorry that your 14 +12 empowered estus flasks can't help you chug your way through her combos, and you need to actually use your brain. If that's your definition of unfair, you should try ninja gaiden black on master ninja difficulty lol.
@@Zindril players like you is the reason this series is going to go into the gutter in the future. Championing for more difficulty without regards to balance and fun makes it a garbage boss. And you just lied through your teeth, if she does waterfowl far away, no problem but if she does on top of you, you are forced to use bloodhound step or do precise camera movements to throw her off and you have to perfectly roll every time. It has terrible feedback loop and I bet you and 99% of the playerbase had to search up how to deal with it without ash of wars. Her egregious animation cancelling is also a problem too, she performs sekiro style style blocks off rip, can cancel her wind up attacks and has hyper armor on neutral. Literally punishing you just for playing the game. There's far too much in her kit to be considered a fun challenge, she's just a challenge and not a good one. I miss the days when people cared for meaningful challenge in these games.
@@dvdivine1962 I think her waterfowl is the only thing that makes her unfair and that needs to be balanced. Outside of that, she’s a pretty fair challenge. My first playthrough I felt like she was completely broken and not designed right but after a lot of practice, she’s now a fun fight for me. Again though I agree that her waterfowl is a big problem and needs a nerf to reliably dodge on the first wave
I actually fought a few tougher bosses when I was a lower level and ended up fighting easier bosses later on when I leveled up. Elden Ring is truly a unique experience.
I actually worked to make mimic tear as hard as possible by letting it copy claws with bloodhound step, prince of death staff with ancient death rancor, fingerprint shield, and katana with thunderbolt. It actually took me quite a few tries in that scenario
Still have not defeated mimic tear, it’s the strongest boss I have ever encountered in any Fromsoft game. Also strong GigaChad Energy from this boss.. dunno why
i personally really enjoyed the rennala boss fight despite the relatively low ranking, I compare it to the divine dragon, where beauty and design outweigh make up for the low difficulty. the positive is that it has the best boss arena possibly ever and has an elegant boss that will amaze even if the actual fight isn’t proven to be that hard
The second I unlocked Kaiden Sellsword Ash, I summoned him, and he put her too work and I easily beat her. The difficulty of her boss fight is its length and those annoying singing girls that are sometimes really hard to find. It also depends on what she summons before you manage to kill her.
i remember when the elden ring March 2021 leak came out, Rennala was shown and nobody had a fucking idea on who that was. I really thought its would be a super damn difficult boss back then lol
Leoonne Begotten is kinda hard bc at first he's basically a weaker Knight Artorias from DS1, but when using those broken pillars and rocks, he gets semi stunned/glitches out of attacks.
I love seeing the community lists like this, seeing bosses like godskin duo and maliketh this high on the lost makes me feel like I made it out lucky, especially on maliketh, I got him on my 3rd try, but meanwhile, fire giant made me grind from 80 to 120 and took me a week to beat.
Honestly Malenia having heals, high movement, high damage and waterfowl dance arent problems on there own, it's when combined that she becomes a nightmare. I honestly think if any of these things were tweaked (lower the damage, remove the healing in second phase to be replaced by scarlet rot, making waterfowl dance have more windows for escape, etc.) she would be most peoples favorite fight. As she stands she is so oppresive that it feels like you either master her like a phd, or cheese her for the win.
Someone made a video showing how she breaks the boss formula by having inconsistent stagger opportunities, can cancel out of animations, has hyper armor with almost every move, and her hitbox for waterfowl dance is literally just a giant ball around her. She's what happens when the mods say "hey, lets take everything that we deny the players because it would make the game too easy, and give it to one boss, then give her health regen on top of that, and a second phase with a worse version of her unfair combo that gives you scarlet rot on top of evaporating your health bar and filling hers.
I definitely think waterfowl is THE problem and on it's own. No boss could ever be balanced with waterfowl in their moveset. I don't think not removing this move could lead to this boss being the favourite boss of more people. I tried really hard to like her having beaten her over 20 times and trying to learn how to dodge it consistently but waterfowl is just a poorly designed move. I still die instantly if I don't play a max defese character or don't predict when it will happen (which is not very consistent as she can just instantly use it at all times in phase 2).
@@enomisv9830 Yeah also a massive problem is how she just breaks stance breaking. I built a character very dependent on the mechanic and she was pure RNG, because she has a few moves that make her unable to be stance broken. Why? Probably because QA testing didn't know how the mechanic works and didn't notice how inconsistent Malenia makes it.
@@tinminator8905 and the fact she can Cancel out of stance breaking attacks to punish you. Oh you're doing a jumping attack? Guess i'll fly out of the way and waterfowl you while you're stuck in that animation.
@@enomisv9830 Oh and she is the most buggy boss too. In the many hours I spent fighting her, 2 times she spawned out of phase 2 in waterfowl killing me instantly. She also was down to 10 hp in secondn phase for some reason. I think the thing that caused it was me killing her first phase with a riposte, which is not that uncommon when you use a stance break build.
Y'know, one thing I hate about Malenia that I don't see often mentioned is how BORING her first phase can be with some bad RNG. She has engaging moves, but... sometimes she just drops everything and will slow walk for upwards of 30 seconds unless you attack her first. And when you DO attack her, she'll flip on the hyper armor and punish you for it. This is especially pertinent when she drops below 75% health and reaches Waterfowl territory, and literally just stands around baiting you to attack so she can Waterfowl your ass. I'm all for bosses who can punish greed, but when NOTHING happens in the fight and you're just having a stare off, it can really kill the pacing of the fight.
what? so you just stood there while she walked up to you? how long did your fight take? 20 minutes? You just walk up to her and bait out an attack and wait for her to close the distance w a grab/stab and then punish with a jump heavy. She has so many attacks that you can punish in the first phase its rediculous. I cant tell you how many people ive seen just walk up to her, attack her, get punished and then call the bossfight shit because they have no patience. And you can dodge waterfowl from point blank range just dodge directly under her first attack when it happens. After i adapted to letting her make the first move i soloed her w dual greatswords while only using like 2 heals,
Another complaint I have personally that is never mentioned is one particular attack, this quick slash into a slam that serves as one of very few guaranteed windows in her fight. The problem with this move is that the first slash comes out in roughly 4 frames, which is impossible to react to. Got one-shot by that during my SL1 run of her when she had one hit left in her second phase. It hurt to get killed by something I had no way of avoiding.
Yeah I agree, Melania can just decide that you don’t get to play. Either with constant hyper armor attacks or input reading and dodging everything. I usually use Strength builds and when she does this it makes the fight damn near impossible and incredibly boring
I love how experiences differ from player to player is souls games. For instance I found maliketh and hourax loux fairly moderately difficult even on my first playthrough. But the Fire Giant still claps my cheeks consistently.
It all depends on the boss itself, it seems. Some bosses I feel pretty confident taking on my own, but other bosses like Malenia and the like...I always play it safe and co-op with human players.
True. Rykard was pretty low on this list, but he gave me as much trouble as the top 3. I even gave up beating him fair and square and needed to use the big spear lol. With the spear, however, he became quite easy.
@@matheussantinello1177 I think the cheese-ability of the bosses affects the votes a lot. Radahn had a fair ranking but you can also just use your horse a lot and all the summons can basically win the fight for you. Rykard as well you can just go upgrade the Serpent Hunter and absolutely destroy him.
Morgot was the best swordfight i had in the game. I wanted to beat him with waifu but after first battle fell in love with just how good the fight is so i nerfed myself extremely hard on the next runs and enjoyed the shit out of it even tho i died multiple times after almost beating him first try. He feels like he carried over the rhythm aspect of sekiro as well.
My only guess as to why some people find mimic hard is that their first playthrough was a caster spam build. I imagine a bot that endlessly casts with no regard for damage taken is probably hard to beat when the player is also only casting with the caveat of dying in 1 or 2 hits.
Another reason might be if you had a buckler equipped. Unless you know jumping attacks are periless, mimic tear buckler will legit parry almost any normal attack from the player.
Malenia was definitely a sekiro boss that didn’t make it into the game and just dropped into elden ring. Deflect would have been amazing in this fight!
@@KratosisGod would her being easier make her worse? We’re talking about quality, not just difficulty. Yes, she’s harder in this game. But is she a good fight? Or are people only defending her because of the high difficulty?
I think he is a very good boss. It's just that it is easy to over level against him since there is so much content surrounding Leyndell. Mt. Gelmir, Volcano Manor and the Altus Plateau.
@@leonardocaicedo1273 thats exactly my main problem with the game its hard to know when to fight a boss without one shot them i literally played with a guide just to know when to fight certain bosses
There's a big vanishing knight that looks like a regular enemy standing on the ramparts of the castle after you beat Commander Niall. He is a boss in sheep's clothing. His blink teleports are spammy as hell and when he catches you (he WILL catch you) he does elemental frost damage and like a quintuple thrust with his (edit) double great swords with chunks of damage for each stab, and another set of stabs right after. If he catches you with one he catches you with the rest of them. I will have to go back and see if high poise damage weapons will work on him because medium swords do not.
@@aaronbennack714 I beat Commander Niall, but never went back to kill that knight, so technically I did find him harder than the castle boss lol. Did you beat him? I posted this 2 years ago, so maybe Fromsoft eventually turned his attacks down? I wonder if he drops anything special.
@@mitch5944 Hes a banished knight w 2 swords. He is guarding some item thats on a nearby corpse and I dont remember what, but its definitely not worth the headache
@@yeembus Things like that make me hate Malenia even more. They nerfed so many bosses that could have used a little more health to become very memorable bosses, but they didn't nerf anything on what was already the hardest boss. 2 healthbars, check. Health on heal, check, makes her equiv. of 2 1/2 - 3 healthbars. High attack power and insane speed, check. Waterfoul Dance, check. Rot, check. It's not so much that she's hard that pisses me off, it's the fact that so many very COOL bosses aren't that memorable because they die too easily. This game has nothing like Orphan or Gael that are hard, but fair, and thus FUN. Maliketh, the real Godfrey, Morgott, Fortisax, Placidusax, Rykard, ect. so many bosses that are just a tad too easy and could have rivaled the greats of past Fromsoft games if they were tweaked a little more health or something. The OP ashes of war and spirit summons I suspect are mostly to blame for the poor balancing. The irony is, if you use everything the game gives you, it's far easier than Dark Souls 3. (boss wise) If you don't use spirits or most of the OP ashes of war, then this game would be by far the hardest. I know a lot of streamers suffered on and beat the bosses without summons, but they mostly spammed OP arts from Rivers of Blood and Moonveil. You didn't have those in Dark Souls 3........how many people could beat the game without summons AND without op ashes of war?!
@@yeembus I completely agree. I've been saying it for months now, but Maliketh should've just had two healthbars, Beast Clergyman phase 1 an entire healthbar, and Maliketh phase 2 an entire healthbar. Slightly, (but only very slightly) lower his damage output to balance it, and I think that would be amazing.
@@yeembus YES. I hate how Maliketh is designed for this reason and I will die on that hill. The fact that there is a phase 1 that's has 0 overlap is bad enough, but a boss that encourages you to simply burst him down before he has a chance to stomp you is bad. Think of how much better the fight would have been if it had been paced like Slave Knight Gael. You'd take fat damage, but not to the point of total absurdity. You'd have time to actually learn the moveset with each attempt as opposed to getting shitstopmed by a single attack or combo. Then you can have him go all fucky-wucky for the last leg of the fight and boost his damage. What effectively ends up happening is that you don't end up learning his moveset, you just bypass the whole ordeal by killing him quickly. This also furthers the reliance on RNG. If you get a passive Maliketh you win. Simple. On first playthrough especially, it feels like the game let you win as opposed to you beating the boss. RNG with overtuned attacks is a big issue for a lot of bosses.
Ok, Dragonkin Soldier is *not* forgettable. I absolutely remember, clear as day in my mind, when I first made it through the harrowing ant-infested caves of Ainsel River Well and came to that beautiful arena. My jaw was fully on the floor as I spent a good five minutes just marveling at what I'd stumbled upon... and I especially remember taking a step too far and having a massive dragonkin creature fall upon me from the heavens. Revisiting this boss after getting gud? Yeah, it's easy as fuck. But I will never forget that initial confrontation.
There always was an "OK that's not perfect but good enough, you paid your dues, you can beat this boss with what you know now and advance" point. Reaching that point was where the rewarding feeling of souls games used to come from, for me. I don't feel that anymore with how demanding some of the bosses are in Elden Ring. That "good enough" bar is pushed way too close to perfection for a mediocre souls fan like me.
I'm a new player so this reassures me a bit in how bad I am lol. I also feel this game is HARD but just get the usual "git gud" shit thrown at me all the time. I find it's often very demanding or exhausting to try a boss 10 times in a row because how little breathing room there is so it needs a lot of concentration. Can't beat Margit lmao. First phase is ok and fun but the second he's just in my face the whole time... like damn chill out. They don't stagger so it's like being overrrun with a tank... Some of the side bosses are very fun however and more in my skill field. Like the gladiator, trolls or crucible knights etc. I really enjoy those.
@@nokobz2624 if you can’t kill Margit then you’re not experienced in the game yet. When people talk about hard bosses. It’s people like maliketh, fire giant, commander o Niall. I don’t mean you’re bad, just inexperienced. my fight with margit was pure misery and took me a whopping 23 attempts. I had to summon my friend who was level 180 and I summoned rogier. There will never be a competitive boss fight that won’t take a few attempts. You need to learn the moves, then how to evade them your opening windows and what attacks are best. You can’t walk in and dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge and they are dead
The Nokstella variant of the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella is the best one, for sure. I remember that the arena was such an interesting sight to walk in on, it really makes you stand in awe before this ancient civilization. And yes, the second phase had my PC chugging, but it was totally worth it for the sheer spectacle. The boss in in of itself is nothing to write home about, has some of the problems most Elden Ring bosses have in that a ton of their attacks are AoEs as well. Yet again proving Elden Ring's greatest strength is the world they've built, and the exploration and unraveling of it, that's why is so fascinating to explore it in the first place. Truly, an achievement in level design, open world level design, environmental design and overall art direction I've ever seen in a videogame.
I find it weird that nobody talks about the items you can use to stun Mohg and parry Malekith, I thought those would factor into the discussion at least a little bit
the maliketh parry is worth mentioning, the mohg item is useless. it only works on his phase 1 which is easy anyways. and it only stuns him for like 3 seconds. its a joke.
My biggest problem with the difficulty is that fromsoft are always trying to push further but there isn't enough wiggle room at this point for them to push without getting into making the bosses broken
I wouldn’t say that. They could have made malenia just as hard by balancing the flurry attack to have a longer tell and adding in a third phase. Honestly I think expanding movesets and increasing the number of phases would fairly increase difficulty.
@@nathanhunt3104 wouldn't just removing the first part of the waterfowl be good enough? Either of those are enough to kill you and they're easier to dodge
I think they’re becoming victims of their own success, since they know they are expected to provide a challenge. Even Malenia has players dedicated to no-damage level 1 runs, which means they will probably be tempted to one-up her difficulty at some point. I still love this game, but hopefully they figure out how to thread the needle on challenge vs fun more consistently next time.
@@nathanhunt3104 Why should they increase difficulty? All it did is ruin many bosses and make the game feel lame and cheap. At this point they seem to care more about making hard games than delivering a good product.
Elemer of the Briar feels SO good to parry. I don't know if you can parry the flying swords themselves (if you can, this is the best game, period) but I know you can reliably parry that normal diagonal downwards swipe he does after flinging his fiery red sword around, and I never felt more like a parry dog than in that moment. Also the Greyoll's one (Bell Bearing Hunter, good Bloodborne reference) kicked my ass, I think it's that it has tons of hp.
It kind of irks me when people say Radahn got nerfed, because he didn’t. He got fixed. His hotboxes weren’t working correctly on release, and they fixed them to work correctly. Yes that made him easier, but it’s not really a nerf if that aspect of his difficulty was never the intended experience. It’s a small nitpick but I feel like a lot of people take the “Radahn got nerfed” thing way out of context
I believe another video put it best, but Malenia isn't difficult because she has strong moves. She is difficult because she outright cheats in a way other bosses do not. She can: 1) Animation cancel any attack stun that isn't categorized as a "Heavy Attack." Some attacks on large weapons don't have this attribute, resulting in very inconsistent feeling fights where she ignore hitstun that she "shouldn't" have. Furthermore, this is exacerbated by the... 2) Sheer amount of hyper armor she has. It's like the game developers wanted to make a "difficult" humanoid boss, but also wanted her to be immune to stagger. This leads to a good chunk of her moves having frame 1 hyper armor. The issue is that a lot of the wind-ups START before an animation even begins, meaning the player is forced to... 3) Play very passively. This is caused by the sheer aggression Malenia can output. Combined with her ability to ignore low and medium hitstun, it makes anything but specific end-lag on attacks completely unsafe to try and punish with more than a single light attack into an immediate backstep or roll. Is she a hard boss? No. She just cheats. Using cheat engine to remove her hyper armor makes her a joke. Likewise, removing her ability to animation cancel hit stun with cheat engine makes her a joke. For her to be "difficult," they sacrificed the satisfying dance of Dark Souls combat for a spastic, rng-controlled fight where your ability to be aggressive is ENTIRELY controlled by the enemy's ai and not your intelligent positioning. Proof of this can be seen in "Let Me Solo Her"'s videos. The man has spent an ungodly amount of time mastering the fight. When the ai goes in their favor, the boss dies VERY fast. When the boss is hyper aggressive and doesn't use moves with endlag, they spend long periods of time just sitting back and WAITING for their turn to hit. If the best player in the world at this fight can't exploit a consistent weakness and has to be purely defensive while they try to manipulate the ai to use one of a very small set of safely punishable moves, the design is the issue.
Exactly. She's a one trick pony that ultimately comes down to RNG. Does she combo endlessly? Does she waterfowl more than a couple times? Does she waterfowl immediately after hyper armor?
i find it weird how dark souls fans have bragged about gitting gud and all that for over 10 years now, then when they can fight a boss they cant beat naked with a club then they cry about how the boss is unfair, even though first time players of a souls game beats her solo and enjoy fighting her. you might have heard this before but this is unfortunately a case of git gud.
@@yvindvego9404 it's not a skill check. It's RNG. If you haven't played another game, go play BB or DS3. Fight the Orphan or Gael. You can't luck your way through their movesets. If you beat them, it's because you actually got good.
@@yvindvego9404 First Off: I beat NG+7 Malenia. She isn't hard. Second: "Git Gud" was derived from a boss that required learning. While Malenia has some learning to her boss fight, the learning is that she is a gimmick. You wait to play. There is no other way to beat her unless you like insanity and want to pull the lever.
It’s wild to me how much people say red wolf of radagon is an easier boss. That wolf destroyed me a lot longer than like godrick did for example. It does have pretty low health to be fair and I went straight to the academy after godrick my first playthrough tho. So I can see I guess
A lot of the challenge depends on if you are over or under leveled in this game. For example I did some power leveling for Malenia and was like lvl 135 after her fight. But I did not beat fire giant yet, so for me he was extremely easy.
The rankings are seemingly based on being "overleveled". The boss ranking would look a lot different if people fought them without summons and less strong equipment/stats. Not criticising, I just noticed that I dont agree with a lot of picks, simply because I played the game differently.
A lot of bosses have had wild difficulty swings for me based on my playthrough. Several of the easier bosses proved much more challenging. Meanwhile, Radahn has always been fairly easy if I use anything with rot.
I personally put Radahn ad my number one mainly because on my first playthrough I fought him pre nerf with a Melee build and without using Torent. I didn't realize on my first playthrough that you could even USE Torent in that fight.
I never used Torrent to fight him period, I'm just not comfortable with trading my I-frames for added mobility. Also there are 2 things that further discourage me from using it against Radahn. 1. You can't dodge his arrows on horseback, you have to jump on foot every time he winds up one. Now of course, normally he only ever uses his bow at the start of the fight when you're far away, but it's still annoying. 2. The dismount mechanic. Getting dismounted usually means guaranteed death because you often take the initial damage that dismounts you, and THEN you're completely defenceless for several seconds afterwards, against a boss who can 3/2 shot you at 30 vig which is a lot at that point in the game. I just don't think it's worth it to use Torrent against Radahn, the negatives are just too severe.
I really like Waterfowl dance, it's one of the most lore teased attack of the boss. And it's clear knew perfectly that it would be the most memorable attack of the boss (many npc talk about how Malenia is "airborne" and that her blade flow through the sky). the heavy attack of the flowing curved sword is clearly meant so that player remember instantly of this attack (it shows how Malenia perfected the style of her master). And finallly they gave it to millicent. Not only to show the proximity she has with Malenia but also to illustrate the state of "bud" she's in compared to her.
hoarah loux was my favourite fight, it felt fair enough that I didn't feel the need to pull out mimic, yet was still really challenging. My other standout fights was Radagon, which is good, as I had to fight him a bunch with the elden beast behind him
Good tip for Niall if your struggling. Bait out his jump attack, dodge into it then immediately do a jump attack. His backstab with miss and you will have all the time in the world to dodge his next attack, for dealing with his spirit summons instead of rolling away from him roll around him, his sword strikes will wiff and you can attack eventually.
All Malenia needs is a bit wider window to dodge through her waterfowl flurries (especially the first one) so players don't need any gimmicks or need to be at a far enough distance to run away from it to be able to survive as she tends to use it in point blank in the middle of our attacks when we fight aggressively
Going through my first play through, I've allowed myself a summon if I'm fighting a duo. For that reason, Godskin Duo was by far the easiest main storyline boss I've ran into so far (currently at Maliketh). Them and Morgott have been the only ones that have taken me less than 3 attempts.
I haven't understood how ppl struggle against them. In my first playthrough I beat them first try and used like 2-3 flasks. I used bloodhound fang and raped them. Edit: with no summons
From what I can tell the only folks struggling with godskin duo must've been trying it without summons, because if you can split aggro they go down pretty easily
On the topic of Malenia, someone actually did a video breaking down and proving how she outright breaks the games rules to be more difficult than she should be, specifically she’s able to cancel out of stagger animations in order to punish you in return
Pretty sure they also made a follow-up video as well from people pointing out something specific they got wrong, only for the true explanation to actually just reinforce their point even further
I kind of figured that. I just learned to not spam attacks, get a couple in and then back off. This was also due to my fear of the waterfowl dance, but it worked out okay.
Yea she has hyper armor on basically all of her strong attacks, she can only be stunned out of her super attacks by bleed and maybe frost, she basically can nope her way out of any attack combo she doesn’t wanna be in (excluding stun-lock), and she heals HP even when you don’t actually take any damage from her attacks (blocking with shield)
The malenia and mohg areas and fights would have been a great expansion for DLC. It would have been a great concept to hunt down the last shard bearers. In addition that would have given fromsoft more time to iron out and balance malenia's move set.
@@ArchibaldClumpy Nokron and eternal cities would have same argument. Atleast Faram is forced after Fire Giant fight so its much more canon in the game progression.
malenia doesnt need balancing i can dodge every attack of hers close range. the only attack that needs balancing is her clone attack since it allows for zero reflexive dodging as one of them jumpscares you and you need to learn what direction you need to be walking in to dodge it. Its possible to dodge it but it isnt fair and gives zero chance to a person seeing it for the first time
@@mr.downgrade185 Nah, Malenia needs balancing lol you just learned how to be sweaty and dodge her unfair moveset, literally doesnt mean anything. Across the industry not only gamers but actually fighting game devs have chimed in and gave their personal opinions and each one has shared same conclusion, her boss fight is simply tailored to not follow any precedent set from other bosses in the game and is purposely over-tuned, her moveset is purposely unbearable. The boss isnt balanced in the slightest. It was made to be bullshit unbalanced.
Malenia was the most fun boss for me. Her moveset is so satisfying to dodge - and you have to dodge because she heals on hit. It felt like every move mattered and getting through the first phase untouched is very rewarding - favourite boss
Imho, instead of removing Waterfowl, I feel Malenia's first phase could have been shorter so it's not such a grind to get another crack at phase 2. I felt the length of phase 2 was fine. One tweak could be to remove her lifesteal from phase 2 in favor of Scarlet Rot. It makes sense since it deteriorates her body too, so fully embracing it will affect her ability to heal.
My biggest issue with Niall was that I think I was running into a bug, where he would full aggro into his second phase before I'd killed the spirit knights. Despite me killing them relatively quickly. I think it happened in roughly half my fights with him.
His second phase is both health-gated AND triggered by the death of his summons, if you get him low enough he’ll go second phase even without killing his knights
I got annoyed by his frost wind. He spams it constantly. If your a melee build, there was no way in hell you could land a good attack on him without getting hit by that stupid frost wind. Quick small attacks only and chip damage. I took out his spirit knights, got his health at 50% then summoned the mimic. Lol..The rest of the fight was in a never ending cloud of frost wind that consumed the entire fighting arena. I couldn't see shit the whole time... luckily target lock helped me get the last few wacks on him to end that stupid fight. Really stupid boss IMO.
Niall's hilariously easy if you just use the item that makes his knights turn on him. Enchant them both and then just sit back and watch the carnage, then clean up the mess.
Honestly I can deal with Waterfowl (on light load no idea how tf you're supposed to manage on medium) from Malenia, but the super armour kills the whole fight especially since you can TECHNICALLY trigger a stagger as she does it which resets her poise completely. Feels like a massive oversight to me.
I had a lot of trouble with Godfrey/Hoarah Loux. Don't know why, but his ground aoe's are my bane. I never really learned how to fight his two phases, just survived. On the opposite Maliketh wasn't that big of a deal to me. His first phase hit me more than his second phase and was defeated within 5 tries. Malenia... it took a long time but I got relatively good at her first phase. Then I had trouble to dodge her opening in the second phase. But after a long, long time and nightmares of me dying with the final words I hear being 'I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella.' she got to know defeat.
Every boss after Malenia seems easy. After taking 10 hours to beat her with a pure strength, no buffs great masse build… well she honed my skills. She is my master. Then I did Godskin duo in 2, Maliketh in 6, Hoarah Loux in 6 and tried the radagon / elden beast fight twice. The first time not getting hit vs Radagon… Malenia too stronk but also good trainer.
(Almost) every boss in the fromsoft games since demon's souls comes down to one word: patience. Patience is the only way you'll be able to really overcome the hardest fights without cheese strats
I *REALLY* like the Malenia fight. The atmosphere, the music, the high pressure, and that "oh shit" moment every time she winds up a waterfowl just do it for me. That said, Waterfowl really needs a change, particularly the first wave of slashes. I'm careful to say change and not nerf. It's simply way too difficult to actually learn how to deal with the attack. Once you find out how, it's not the worst thing in the world, but the game simply does a terrible job at teaching you what to do when she uses waterfowl up close. It's kind of the opposite of Margit in that respect. Margit's entire moveset does an excellent job at testing your ability to recognize your own mistakes and learn from them, while dying to Waterfowl Dance just doesn't even give you the opportunity to recognize what you should have done instead. I bet you the VAST majority of players had to look up tips, if not downright detailed video guides, on how to survive waterfowl dance. For a game that otherwise does an excellent job at teaching you what you're doing wrong, this one move is a sad mark on that quality. Simply too much of her difficulty is packed into one single move, and that's really impressive given that the rest of her moveset isn't exactly easy either.
I think her fight would be nearly perfect if it were just possible to dodge the first flurry of slashes in the waterfowl dance by rolling towards her (and slightly to the side) the way you can for the next two waves. I don't know why they chose to have the first wave play by different rules than the rest of the attack; I hate resorting to using a shield to block that part, but it just doesn't feel worth it to try and dodge it in any other way.
@@bunklypeppz Yea exactly! You can technically dodge it by running under her, circling her very close and then dodging diagonally away from her facing direction when you're sort of behind her, but that's just abusing her slower turn rate, it doesn't seem like an intentionally designed way to dodge the attack since you're essentialy having to release lock on and look away from her to pull it off. Feels super janky and it looks like you should be getting hit.
biggest issue about malenia to me was *entirely* her lifesteal proccing even when shielding. I've always liked the safety of blocking so i generally fight almost every boss just shielding, unless its an obvious que like her thrust. she forces me to play the game in a way ive never had to, and her 40% holy resist was a big fuck you to me running a holy damage on a greatsword. i guess that's my issue for being a shield scrub since ds1-3, but whatever
If she didn't heal off blocks that would still not make her fair. I have beaten her many times already and I must defnitely say. Unless I am playing an unfair build, she is just not fun. It all comes down to: Did you guess the time she would waterfowl right or not. If I didn't, I die. If I did, I win. There should not be such a massive inbalance in a bosses moveset. It makes her so RNG dependen that I don't understand how nobody in their team told the guy designing the move that he is a fucking idiot.
Honestly i think that the best nerf to waterfowl would be just a slight increase to the cast speed of the first part of the attack. The issue a lot of the time is she will cancel her stagger into waterfowl making the first part of the attack functionally impossible to dodge especially with larger weapons.
When I use a large weapon, I just 2 hand it if dual wielding and block most of her first waterfowl/roll through it. That makes it so that I take about 25% of my health as damage only, and then just roll through the rest of it. It's very consistent and allows me to go all in on her.
Okay, I had went through my first Elden Ring play through with a strength build and got clapped by Malenia twice. Then I switched to an arcane dex bleed build and beat her first try with rivers of blood after the weapon was nerfed 😂🤷🏼♂️
I don’t think Maliketh was the hardest boss, but I do think he was the most difficult boss fight I have ever experienced in videogames. When fighting Malenia I don’t rage I kinda just get annoyed and then repeat. I think knowing Maliketh is a story boss makes me think he is much more difficult than he is. Like I know I don’t need to beat Malenia so I don’t really care as much, but knowing I need to beat Maliketh to progress makes it much worse for me I don’t know why
I would parallel malenia to similar bosses in the souls entry like sister friede and lady maria, you can kinda tell with those bosses when their hyper armor starts. Malenia seemingly randomly starts up hyper armor when she feels like it, she can also resist poise break/stance break when she feels like it( the poise health gets pinned to 1 until she decides to stop having hyper armor). Waterfowl dance can stay but they really could've executed that attack in a way that would've made it feel memorable and fair. The difficulty just comes from the random and unpredictable nature of the attack and unreliable dodging due to rng. The fight is just rng hell to the nth degree depending on how unlucky you get.
Agree, i would say that she respect the heavy stagger ( make stagger him with a greatsword is ideal ) still bs how she can cancell light stagger, she can chain hyperarmor attacks, she have way, too many hyperarmor attacks, the clones attacks is bs As Well, insane damage in some attacks, this bossfight and even the maliketh and radagon/elden beast took the dificulty too far, maliketh is the Battle with more one shot scenarios, even more than malenia, radagon/ elden beast deals Big damage and the Battle is longer than a macht of tenis, making 13-15 heals not enought ( almost nobody ends Up getting all the flask) and malenia is just put everything together and more in the same battle
Godfrey and maliketh are peak difficulty. They both feels difficult, but with clear pattern, behavior and attacks. they are both spectacular to look at and amazing to fight. i can consistently do them hitless, often finding myself quitting before the final blow just to have a remtch. malenia on the other side pushes the limit to an unnecessary degree, has a disappoitnigly mediocre moveset, repetitibe attacks and pattern, 18hp per phase nesuring you see each move 90 times per fight, making it one of the most difficult yet boring fight in videogame history.
Malenia's first phase has one difficult move that requires precise timing and skill to not just be deleted and to add insult you don't even get an opening after the attack This added to her many gimmicks makes her an absolute slog unless you abuse busted weapons and skills like Rivers of Blood and Blood Hound Step. I especially just love the fact she can cancel out of a stagger right into a Waterfowl Dance while you're still in your animation
Couldn't agree more! Though I find Maliketh's first phase as the Beast Clergyman leaves wayyy too few openings but his second phase is still really well done.
@@joaofaria7404 Maliketh is one of the single most telegraphed bosses in the game, in first phase you can bait out a guaranteed punish opportunity by exploiting his basic combo, and in 2nd phase you dont even need to dodge most basic attacks because his hitboxes dont reach close to his body.
It's not really a fair comparison because she isn't that difficult. The randomness to her moveset is what makes her hard. Otherwise she's much easier than Orphan or Isshin.
@@scottbecker4367 i actually found both isshin and orphan to be waaay easier than malenia, my first play through of the old hunters edition was in ng+6, and even then orphan only took me 5 hours, isshin only took me 3 hours and I could’ve beaten him in less than an hour if I didn’t activate the bell demon for my first play through of sekiro, but malenia took of me 12 hours, and i beat her without complete mastery of the fight especially the 2nd phase, she is by far the hardest boss in games for me
@@scottbecker4367 Even without waterfowl, I think malenia cleans Oprhan and especially isshin, who I find hard, but less so than 90% of the fromsoft rpg "hard bosses"
I think most players just complain about Malenia because they can't be bothered to learn. There's a reason Let Me Solo Her actually solos her easily now. There's nothing so unfair in her kit that you can't just learn to get around, even waterfowl dance. Hell she feels easier to me than Maliketh.
Malenia is the hardest boss for me. She's also top 5 for my favorite boss, I think mechanically shes actually super amazing once you get how to deal with waterflow. Having a no hit first phase against her gives me the same feeling that having a perfect phase against Isshin does. They both feel like a true skill test. The fact that you can dodge waterflow without getting touched makes the move 100% not bullshit imo. There is a level of predictably with that move as well, about 50-60% health and she always triggers her first flow for me. So yes I love that fight in all aspects, sue me lol
I agree. Waterfowl dance is by no means an impossible or even necessarily unfair move to deal with. And when you do learn how to deal with it, it feels amazing.
Freeze pots are what I use to counter waterfowl, I only dodge if I'm far enough to outrun first 2 flurries and roll thru the third. Currently stuck on her on my RL1 character 🙃
The constant threat of Waterfowl Dance brings a tension and alertness to the fight that would be lost without the move. If you ever don't have Waterfowl Dance in the back of your mind, you're going to get shredded, which I think is awesome
I still find Mohg, Lord of the Blood the most difficult. I just can't cope with the second phase. His move set is too hectic and the extra flames just makes it so RNG for me. At least Melania can be mastered. She rarely kills me when soloing now, but Mohg is still a coin toss for me.
Agreed, the blinding colors in his arena make it hard to see where exactly all the bloodflame is, not to mention that a lot of the time when he flies up in the air you can't even see the floor if you're locked on. That and his ridiculous roll catches just make him a big nope for me.
Your comment just reinforces that it's important to listen to various people's perspectives. Also we will never know if they fought Mohg with normal weapons or bleed/status effects or magic/incantations.
I tried being polite & doing Mohg normally - I’m a STR/INT build so I’ve normally got Ruins or Darkmoon in hand. However, he kept doing some attack that insta-killed me from wherever he was & so I was like, “Fuck it, staff out, Terra Magica & Comet Azure, infinite FP potion” & just killed him before he even triggered whatever he did to kill me the first few times I got him under half health. I guess if you’ve got morals, Mohg is hard, however sometimes I just say the staff is mightier than the colossal sword.
Mentioning "mohg's rng" and then talking about Malenia is laughable, if not ironic. I agree on his difficulty, he's straight up hard as fuck. Great range and space control, quite heavy damage, though not ridiculous. His chungus health is somewhat offset by all the free damage you can get in his countdown. I believe that the hardest thing about Mohg, and the main reason many players struggle with, is the positioning, since in most boss fights you can simply focus on the boss and move accordingly. Mohg demands that you also be mindful of f your surroundings and the elevation -which you can use against him-, but should you master that, he's just a very hard boss. Compared to maliketh that randomly one-shots 50 VIG chars, godskin duo or malenia, Mohg is the most honest boss of the really hard ones. In direct contrast, and since you brought it up, Malenia just isn't. Whilte most of her moves are very punishing, but decently fair, she has a TOD , that can instantly and randomly end the fight. The need for spacing in her fight is extremely more unforgiving, since in mohg's case, if you fuck up, you are punished with bleed buildup and minor damage, or at worst ~600-800 damage. Staying close to Malenia when she waterfowls means instant death. Unless you're talking about using some fat shield or BHS. Then I guess comm nial can be mastered as well, even without ever entering his boss arena.
I hated his fight so much, for me his attacks all felt disjointed with how they somehow hit me when I'm at his side or rolling through them. Plus he leaves fire that stacks bleed rapidly on the ground so there's very little you can actually move. And of course Nihil requiring a special tear just to mitigate- not negate- is asinine since the alternative is to burn three flasks of health to survive. Malenia might've taken me a couple tries to beat, but I had to cheese Mogh's AI in my first playthrough just to beat him. He was not fun and even now that I can beat him consistently he's still not fun.
Literally just beat Maliketh 10 minutes before watching this. Tried about 10x solo, then gave up to help others beat him/practice for about 10 hours, found a decent strat, and only about 5 tries after finally got em. Hit em with scarlet rot once phase 1, then use rivers of blood or katana with seppuku, phase 2 rot again, then lightning or whatever projectile, then hide behind pillars when hes flailing. Or use Carian Retaliation 3x and hes toast lmao
Do the Tree Sentinels not count as bosses? The placement of them is what makes them so difficult to me. You have one at the beginning. One before you get into Lyndell. One before Malikith. All of the placements of them makes them frustrating and difficult.
It's not too hard to see why there's some variation in people's perception of the mimic tear fight difficulty, since it's quite literally a different 'boss' for every different build, and some are easier than others to fight against-- and there's one way in which it is stronger than your character: larger health pool. That being said, I'd definitely say it's one of the easiest bosses in the game; especially since you basically have the option of making the boss weak from the get-go if you choose to.
I'll have to agree that the Foreskin Duo was the only fight in ER I did not enjoy a bit. I died a lot to Placidusax, Malenia, Maliketh... but they were fun bosses whose move sets were interesting to learn. The Duo though... bs.
Yeah, I honestly wasn't a fan of most of the end game (specifically post capital) bosses myself. Morgott the Fell King was my favorite boss, but Maliketh and Placidusax were also great ones. The Duo was an awful fight (great nickname for them, I like it). Miss me with Malenia though; she felt like an attempt at Lady Maria from Bloodborne, but it was a swing and a miss for me (yes, Maria is easily top 5 favorite FromSoftware bosses for me). Get rid of Waterfowl Dance, and I think the fight becomes much better balanced. Slightly off topic, but my biggest criticism of Elden Ring (and one of the two reasons I traded it in after finishing it) was the post capital gameplay. It felt like I had jumped into New Game Plus difficulty, but with only New Game stats, once you beat Morgott. All of a sudden my damage output stopped being enough for common enemies, and those common enemies that took 7-8 hits to kill me started killing me in 2 hits. It's an enormous spike in difficulty with no warning. It pretty much invalidated my Dex/Magic build once I took the next lift. I took it in immediately after I got locked out of the Ranni ending because I got bugged out of the summon sign; I then tried to leave after hitting the bonfire without actually selecting an ending, and when I loaded the game again I was locked out of the end room. I finished the game but didn't get to decide an ending, and so no achievement for me. Top 5 angriest I've ever gotten at a video game, and I'm old enough that I took on Sephiroth in KH1 on the PS2.
I'd honestly be kinda sad if they removed Waterfowl Dance from the fight altogether. Instead, I think they should have her hop backward before using it so the player is guaranteed the time and space needed to avoid it
@@stianlavender1683 His complaint is legit tho. When fighting her in melee she just doesn't give much time to react to Waterfowl if she suddenly decides to use it.
@@akiraigarashi2874 Which is what makes her so great. I wish she used it more often, and the timing of dodging it was even worse. I also wish all summons and spirit ashes were disabled from the fight. and while we're at it make her immune to bleed/rot. I want From Software to *actually* make a boss that hardly anyone can defeat. Anyone can beat Malenia with spirits and bleed easily. Guys like Ongbal destroy her 10/10 times with RL1 wretch builds. Looking at PSN, more than 30% of users have beaten her. Which is like 6 million people. That is way too high. How about designing a boss that only 0.3% can beat? (60 000 people or so) So here's me waiting for a DLC boss to make Malenia look easy.
I've actually been thinking about this for a while between Morgott and Mohg. They're exact opposites in their personalities and motives, sure. But nobody talks about their different fighting styles that both deliver difficulty and quality in their own way. Morgott puts pressure on the player by non-stop aggression. Constantly hounding you with attacks that may not do a lot of damage in singles, but devastating in combos and can string some in blistering speed. Mohg on the other hand deals slow blows with plenty of time to observe and dodge. Yet it's the force of his weapon that makes Mohg truly terrifying. Just wanted to point out that little detail.
bro what godskin duo was so free. Only first try ive ever had and i did it right after mohg which took forever. also no summons or sleep was used in the godskin fight
Someone made a point about Malenia that's really stuck with me. You'll have attacks like waterfowl dance and find a way to dodge it without taking damage. But even if you play perfectly, you'll get nothing. As soon as the attack is finished Malenia will most likely dodge away and start another one. That's what feels pretty unfair about it, just the fact that you aren't rewarded at all for playing perfectly around her
But one poke and run strats aren't that fun or engaging. You're either constantly fighting an uphill battle trying to get the consistent dodging down for dreaded Waterfowl or hoping she doesn't break it out and trying to bait attacks when you're trying to punish her and get locked in an animation as she menacingly floats above your head
That's almost every boss. In previous games you were able to attack the boss 24/7 as long as you were good but bosses in Elden ring are so aggressive and fast all we can do is dodge and poke if the boss allows it. This completely ruined the replayability of the game for me since it made all melee builds feel the same. Roll 6 times then poke before the boss either starts another 30 hit combo or leaps away. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes.
Malenia is so punishable if you learn her right, especially on dex builds. You kind of have to just learn which of her attacks have hyper armor, and which of her moves trigger what moves. She is easy to parry too
Melania is such a beautifully difficult boss. I know everyone harps so much on waterfowl dance but the fact of the matter is there are consistent ways to avoid taking damage completely from the ability as well as all her other moves. This added with the fact she is an optional boss that you don't HAVE to fight to complete the game make me appreciate just how difficult she was. I hope they never change her.
well said. I was surprised by the amount of people who think she needs multiple nerfs, but her extreme difficulty is one of the main characteristics of her fight. removing that would make her a much less interesting boss, and in my opinion less entertaining as well
@@luvdie The problem isn't her difficulty, per se, its that she's incredibly inconsistent and breaks a lot of rules set by the game in ways that are unfair.
1. No she isn’t. Isshin is a beautifully difficult boss. Midir is a beautifully difficult boss. Comparing an unbalanced mess like Malenia to them is an insult to the very idea of rewarding difficulty. 2. Yes. You can dodge Waterfowl consistently in certain scenarios. However, at close range it’s almost impossible unless you resort to Bloodhound’s Step. And despite the fact it’s easily her most powerful and hard to avoid move, it’s almost impossible to punish since she will almost always lead directly into another attack if you try to punish. That’s stupid and unfair no matter what way you try to twist it. I dodged the whole thing for six seconds, I deserve an opportunity to deal some damage. 3. That is single-handedly the dumbest excuse for a boss’s difficulty I have ever heard in my life. What’s next, Omega from FFXV Royal Edition isn’t a bad and unfair boss just because he’s optional in the DLC? And before you start whining, I’m one of only 0.35% of Xbox FFXV players who have ever beaten him. He still sucks. 4. I get you’re a masochist, but basically everyone else, even people who like her, agrees she needs tweaks and needed more time in the oven to begin with.
Ok, I gotta say this. Godskin Duo is by far the most overhated boss in the game. First of all, I really don't understand why people think it's an unending assault. Their AI is pretty passive and the fireballs do little damage and are trivial to dodge. Sure when they buff up they are annoying but like this fight is so much easier if you just fight them right after one another. And doing so gives you control of the fight in a way you don't get with other duo fights (looking at you crucible knights and triple crystalians). You should never be in a situation where you are facing 2 of them buffed up. I found it trivial (with a bloodhound fang +9) to kill them one before the other respawned, so the only challenge is attacking the getting down the first kill, which as I mentioned isn't an issue while you have the pillars as cover as they are pretty passive in their normal form. Add on top of that the fact I already fought these 2-3 times each beforehand and knew how to dodge every move, this fight was one of the easiest in the late game imo. And as far as gank fights go, this is not even top 3 most annoying in the game. TLDR; People are just bad at fighting this boss and massively overestimate its abilities. Just take one down and go full aggression mode to ensure they don't respawn before the kill the other. It makes the fight an adrenaline-filled rush against the clock and imo quite fun and rewarding
As someone who fought them pre patch 1.04: - Both bosses are designed to read your heal input and throw a black fireball that almost always hits by the time you heal, negating it entirely, and will do it consistently. - Both bosses are considerably fast, especially the fat Noble, making it weirdly hard to properly space them out. Not to mention their phase transitions have insane range and speed alone, let alone if they both trigger at the same time. - Before the patch, they would stick together like glue and attack you together with one not falling back for better enemy positioning and management like every other gank fight did before Elden Ring. - You wouldn't really know Sleep works for them in the first run because Sleep is so negligible as a status since little to no enemies or weapons inflict it, so having that crutch isn't common knowledge to some. I don't find them as hard now, but I think the flak they've received is more than fair.
@@EthanSchmethan I guess Im lucky duo bosses got nerfed in the patch But theres many pillars to stop fireballs or attacks, just like the status vs dragonslayer armor, if you use it, it gets easier
Here's my Malenia tweak list! Make Waterfowl take a second or more longer to come out, it's easier to dodge now while still not being utterly useless. She should not heal off shields, but should be able to break your shield immediately with her kick or other moves. Dodge, stunned or hit are your options on these moves. Or just make some moves do it but not others. That way you know which to block and which to dodge, adding a layer to the fight so you can't turtle the whole time but also dodging is riskier in some cases. Scale her healing down a bit, and for the love of god change her clone attack to not be another jump in the air! Don't give her so many of those damn moves! She has like 5! And they all look similar! Also. Finally. The dodge was fine as her get out of jail free card. Why'd you give her that and the kick?! Why can she do both?! One or the other! Fuck!
About Malenia's random hyperarmour moves and kick, Fromsoft has already made a balanced version of that: Lady Maria from Bloodborne has a couple of slow hyperarmour moves that need to be doged or negated with 2 transformation attacks. They are Identifyable and way more balanced. Those could have been in Malenia's fight to make it better. But, even if Malenia had a much more balanced moveset, she still doesn't have quite the "wow" factor that bosses like Maria and Friede have.
On Malenia: if the only thing they did was remove her ability to heal from hitting an opponent, the fight would immediately become more balanced. All of her moves already do significant damage, punishing any mistake with a hefty hit to your HP bar... but adding a healing effect on top of that, making the progress that you have made so far in the fight meaningless, makes her a grossly imbalanced and overly difficult boss.
It's just a shitty way to stop people from turtling with greatshields. The heal mechanic would have been fine if she healed if you actually took damage, but she just heals when she lands any hit which makes zero sense.
@@zsDUGGZ there was even a glitch for a bit where she healed from hitting nothing. It made her fight downright impossible. She heals whenever her hit collided with a hit box, not when she deals damage, which makes zero sense.
I feel like all the whining about Malenia is just "souls veterans" being salty about having to adapt their playstyle with Elden Ring's new features rather than relying only on their old formula. To me, she's a great example of a boss that can be as easy or as hard as you want her to be - which is Elden Ring's thing in the first place. If you decide to use your two handed greatsword and movement and nothing else then sure, she's as difficult as it gets (waterfowl can be dodged reliably though, it just takes forever to learn and is very precise). However, From Software gave you spirit summons, magic, weapon arts and lots more for a reason. You can use a tanky summon and spam taker's flame and she's a cakewalk. You can use a great shield with barricade and tank waterfowl. You can stunlock her with Prelate's Charge. There are SO many ways to play this game, and I think having a boss that asks the player to diverge from the classic "stick and move" formula was a *good* design decision.
I don't think they should Remove waterfowl dance from malenia They should fix it which is actually very easy Just decreasing the damage It should be a healing attack for malenia more than a “oh I guess im dead” attack for us
I've summoned buddies for just about any bits in the series, and I honestly think that crucible knight and misbegotten warrior ate one of the best 2v2 bosses in the series. They have really good tracking for multiple people, and they sometimes mix up moves in very interesting ways. Hard af solo though dear God, unless you're way over leveled
Radagon and elden beast was the hardest for me since I’d always be low on heals. It made it so if I didn’t perfectly kill Radagon without taking almost any damage I couldn’t even challenge the elden beast. Torrent definitely should’ve been in that fight.
ik this is a year later but if u had both torrent and mimic tear or black knife tiche then it would’ve been such an unenjoyably easy fight, and fromsoftware doesn’t want you to have that experience as a final fight. they want ur ending to the game to feel good
If they ever removed waterfowl from scarlet witch, that fight becomes like 50% easier, that move killed more players on her fight then most of her move set, and being shes an optional boss I'm perfectly fine with her being this difficult and hope they never change her.
Totally agreed. I think it's awesome that Orphan of Kos has finally been outdone and it's been shown that every move of hers can be dodged with enough precision. And as you said, most importantly she's optional. If you don't want to fight her, you don't have to.
@@boshwa20 I can totally grant you that Melania is not completely fairly balanced like many other great fights in the soul's series. But, I kinda like having a few fights where the advantage goes to the boss's favor. It feels great to overcome those. I never had a problem with her hyper armor kick, and the clone attacks and waterfowl dance, while extremely unforgiving, CAN be overcome. And it's fun for me to overcome those kinds of odds. I'm glad she's in the game as is and the only thing I might change if it were up to me would be the hyper armor kick and even that's a maybe because it stops you trying to spam her to stun lock her.
The damage on waterfowl could use a slight tweak. I think it's fine to keep the move, but it shouldn't be instant death if you're caught by the first flurry.
The issue with waterfowl dance is that if you're not lucky enough to not be attacking when she triggers waterfowl then you're just effed. Make it so a few hits knocks her out of WFD and it's an infinitely higher quality fight.
Oooor... just 2 hand your weapon, block first couple of hits and roll through her whole waterfowl dance, with like 25% of your health damage taken at most lol.
After 2 hours of fighting and eventually beating Melania I did notice something. She hard punishes people that rely too much on defensive armor, large heath/vigor pools and overall slower builds. She gains heath every time she hits you and if your not getting in your hits in fast enough before she can hit you, then your done for! A shield won't help because the rot will still affect you. So what's the solution? Be faster and stager her! She does not have a whole lot of poise or even the highest heath pool herself. This is pretty much her only weakness. There are Ashes of War that can stunlock her like Black Flame Tornado. A few strong hits will stagger her and she can get knocked on her back as well. Other than that just don't get hit by wearing the lightest armor or none at all. Let Me Solo Her hears your plea! I got tired of doing it with armor and just YOLOed and went naked using Takers Flame on the Blasphemous Blade to knock her on her back. I would used it again before she got up and repeat. I dodged her attacks as best I could restoring health when I could and kept my distance. Sure enough it worked! I felt Melania falls into the category of souls bosses where you need to just need to get in there a taker her out before she overwhelms and kills you. If you don't have the damage just try your best and dodge it all and don't get hit. Reminded me a lot of Lady Maria and Orphan of Kos from Bloodborne. Does that make her a hard boss? Yes! Does it make her an easy boss that you can BS by stunlocking her? Also yes! Is that fair though? That's debatable.
I remember the first time I fought the Mimic Tear during the Ranni Quest, my only thought was, "Am I really this strong?". Afterward, though, it kinda became more a nuisance. I also spent my first two playthroughs not realizing that I did get the Mimic Tear summon, so now I'm my own backup in a lot of fights.
![Ranking the Elden Ring Bosses from Easiest to Hardest - Part 2 [#1-15]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jzIPFAlItVw/mqdefault.jpg)
![Ranking the Elden Ring Bosses from Easiest to Hardest - Part 2 [#1-15]](/img/tr.png)
![Community Ranks: Elden Ring Bosses from Worst to Best [#33-12]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/byN6IMBAfSk/mqdefault.jpg)
Summer's almost here \|T|/ With Elden Ring hype settling, what are you looking forward to in the rest of 2022? 👀 Shoutout to Keeps for supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! ➤ keeps.com/demodcracy
One word.
Silksong.
I rest my case.
Any one of the following:
Either a list on Kirby and the Forgotten Land (which is basically where Malenia quitters go to for therapy), or something involving the Bayonetta franchise (given the third title's due this year). Also, Silksong. And Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (AKA Nioh 3: The Death of Chaos).
I just bought a ps5 after so long so I'm looking forward to all the exclusives on that! Nothing specific though
Are we just going to forget Black Bird Kindred?
I really hope you see my comments in bold at the beginning like:
*Hardest*
*Easiest*
*Worst*
*Best*
The fact that Solider of Godrick wasn’t on this list means he gained so many votes, Modcracy is going to make him his own video
Yes I was wondering why he wasn't on here lol
Was wondering why we didn't see the "GIGACHAD" himself
@@GhostyCnt69 If you're looking for a serious answer. Soldier of Godrick is a miniboss, not a boss
@@tim97bakkertje I believe you mean GIGABOSS
@@tim97bakkertje Correction; he's such a powerful boss that in comparison to him, all other bosses are minibosses.
Judging by the overwhelming amount of “weak foe” messages I’ve seen in Malenia’s boss room after I defeated her, I’m surprised she isn’t first on the list
Nice joke
Memers
I mark down each one
She is weak. I 0 hit her. It's on my channel. Only took me like...40 hours?
@@Cogexkintrue ,
Fun fact: Malenia's current version of the waterfowl dance is listed second to last on her animations in terms of their naming. (I think it's like animation 36 out of 37) This basically means that it was one of the last things that they added to the boss before release.
if you're wondering what the last animation is, it's the animation that she does when she gets parried which could also mean that they added the parry to her at the last second to balance out her fight with waterfowl dance
Also i believe her original dance was supposed to be a simple combo before they changed it to bullsheet version of Sekiro's Cloud Passage and became what she is now
@@ashleyjuantan4129 she's originally a Sekiro boss
@@eetfuk3571 she certainly feels like one.
@@malafakka8530 yup. the moment I noticed that she's literally different from everyone in Elden Ring I started to find where tf am I gonna buy a parry buckler and boy I wasn't wrong. took me just about 10 times and beat Malenia but I was bit overleveled not gonna lie.
Given that she doesn't do anything to imply those anime sword slashes animation wise and it feels very cheap and tacked on I believe this
Regal ancestor spirit is once of the most memorable fights for me because the boss fell through the floor and died
Same I was like ah thank you free runes.
@@biotoxin6280 Lmao that's actually hilarious
@@T4TheTidePod I went into the boss room and was immensely confused when it didn’t show up then it showed that it died and I was even more confused.
@@biotoxin6280 Was it during your first playthrough?
Same I was so confused 🤣
I’m just at mountaintop of the giants right now, but Niall has been by far the most rage inducing so far. The fact that he can cover so much of such a small arena pissed me off to no end
Yeah Nial is easily within the top 10 hardest bosses in the game
Bewitching branches helped me with the two knights, not sure if that's cheesier than this fucker summoning the two of them in the first place
I didn't struggle with Niall tbh once u take his knights away his moveset is very simple just play slow and let him close the distance then run away after you get your hits in a lot of bosses reward aggression he punishes it
@@tylerhippensteel3935keeping one of his knights alive also ensures that his upgraded moveset and attacks aren’t implemented until you get his health down to 50%. Before I tried that method I had a fair bit of trouble with him, but then doing that I was able to get him first try
No way, with blasphemous blade it’s easy to kill 😂
Shoutout to the one person who gave Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella some love. Was not a forgettable boss for me whatsoever, but I did fight him underleveled so I got to see everything he had to offer. His phase 2 move-set combined with one of the coolest arenas in the game made for a very good fight and completely different from the other Dragonkins in the game.
Nokstella ver had me screaming and jumping from how fucking cool it was I didnt expect it at all
Nokstella dragonkin was the first area where I was speechless, hie whole arena and his fight changed how i felt about fromsoft games. It was my moment where I went "this game is different from others"
Really my only strike against him was seeing the giant skeleton and expecting THAT to be the boss then being disappointed when it wasn't. It was def a cool fight though, I enjoyed it
I got lucky with the dragonkin soldiers and learned if you hide behind their left knee they can't hit you. If they try to they either push you with them and out of range of their attack, or they move their leg up in which case you know to book it because they're definitely going to hit you.
The Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella is a great fight. When I found him I had already fought the first two and was expecting a really shitty boss but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice change from the previous Dragonkin Soldiers, with the one in the Siofra River being very bland and the one in the Lake of Rot being absolutely detestable.
Props to con o'neill for being such a great actor and voice actor, mogh's voice is so cool
Voice acting in general in Elden Ring is just absolutely superb. Pretty much all of them sound amazing, although the M-line really brings it home; Mohg, Morgott, Malenia, and Maliketh.
@@inciaradible7144 You forgot rykard and the narrator
@@KratosisGod They are also absolutely phenomenal. Let's just say they did it TOGETHAAA!
Shocked when I realized he was also in Our Flag Means Death and The Batman
@@KratosisGod Definitely. Although I think by the 'OHHHHH' Narrator might have enjoyed his performance more than we did...
The bear that drops larva tear in consecrated snowfield is harder than a lot of bosses
Same for the crucible knight type enemies. I died more to the one in Azula than 90% of the bosses.
Honestly most bears are harder than most bosses, I still don't think I've killed a single big bear and I'm finishing my second playthrough soon
@@hobabo9703 If you hug their hind legs and use bleed they can be taken down. Even with bleed it still takes some time cause they have way too much health.
Yeah, rune bears absolutely suck. I just avoid them in the overworld. Just insane amounts of health and crazy attack spam and speed.
I never understood why people struggle with bears. All you need to do is stay close, and strafe behind it when it attacks. I was beating them at level 30 with my melee build.
My least favorite part of the Malenia fight isnt that she still gains health back during her 2nd phase, but that her butterflies or whatever obscure your view of her so you can barely read her. It's really unfair
This is an issue almost no one mentions but is 1000% true.
My second least favorite part is that she doesnt step on me during either phase
@@Sykroid nice
I have no idea how half this stuff got past playtesters. This is Ubisoft levels of unpolished. Okay, maybe that was a bit extreme. However, I think we all can agree Malenia needed more time in the oven and that she needs significant changes, both to make her less exploitable and to make her more fair. Because as is, the boss is kind of a tug-of-war between how much OP stuff you’re willing to abuse and how much she decides to do stuff like input reading, the clone attack, and Waterfowl Dance.
Her moveset feels extremely volatile. By that I mean that it’s a roll of the dice as to whether you’re going to be dealing with mostly slower combos or if you’re going to have 2 chances to hit her over the span of a full minute of flawless dodging. Obviously I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea. RNG has a much larger presence in this fight than in most other difficult bosses from FromSoftware’s older titles. However, the worst part of her moveset isn’t even stuff like Waterfowl Dance. It’s the damn mixups. I’ve fought this boss what feels like dozens of times, and I cannot tell of a single visual or audial distinction between the end of a combo, and thus an opportunity to attack, or when she’s about to chain into another attack. A flash of her sword, a voice line, any of that would have made the mixups fine. But when there’s no real way to tell the difference between an opportunity for attack and when you need to lay off, that’s unfair because you’re forcing the player to either risk getting shish-kebabbed to attack or give up on what could be attack opportunities.
Even if you know what mixups she can do by memorizing her moveset into a mental spreadsheet (which always makes the boss feel less fun than simply getting a feel for it and being better at the game, at least for me), you can’t tell whether she’s going to end her attack or keep going unless you risk losing a lot of health and allowing her to regain much of hers. Example: I talked with another dude in a comment section about this fight, and according to him, he always was able to punish Waterfowl Dance after she did it if he dodged it right. However, during all of my fights with her, even if I dodged it perfectly, I wouldn’t be able to punish because she would backstep or sidestep into another attack. If it just didn’t ever have an attack window afterwards, that would be more understandable even if it would be annoying due to how long dodging that move takes. But she’s inconsistent and that’s why she’s so terrible to fight. Even worse is that amidst all of this, once you get into the second phase, even reading her standard attacks becomes harder because of the glowing flower crap everywhere. How did this get past playtesters or QA? Were they just so enamored with the spectacle that they just went with it?
@@thegrapethief5514 idk man it took me like 200 attempts but once you learn her moveset without getting hit you will feel great I beat her with a uchigatana with blood tax
i honestly wouldnt mind malenias water fowl dance if it was only in her first phase. Sure its bs but i think bosses need a little bs to be fun and challenging and i can consistently avoid it in her first phase. In her second phase tho there is so much more stuff im looking out for to dodge and she regularly floats into the air making it less obvious when shes doing the move. Id say like 90% of my phase 2 deaths to her are just me fighting her then i realsie half a second too late shes doing the move and im just screwed.
Easy to avoid when you learn how to dodge it
I think it hits like 19 times, (first part is 8 then 4 then 7) because every time she swings there is both the sword hitbox and the flurry hitbox so the attack pretty much has double tap plus the last hit is not part of a sword swing. I dare you to survive every hit without a shield.
@@Person-tz1tkif you manage to get far away you can avoid the first 2 parts and with the right positioning you can dodge the 3rd part.
Malenia could be balanced easily if you could just block her healing with a 100 physical shield. The fact she heals on anything she hits is the ridiculous part. Waterfowl would be WAY less of an issue if she wouldnt heal from it while you block it with a sheild
Yea I feel like you have to get really lucky with her rng in 2nd phase and just hope she uses her other air attacks
The greatest collective achievement we've ever done is getting Mohg to 69% in the difficulty ranking
Miquella gettin some ptsd from that
Mohg disgusts me truly the most vile boss in the history of fromsoft games but I have to admit his boss fight is great and his design is cool especially when he pulls out his wings
@@KratosisGod Mogh's a creep to be sure but you can hardly blame him for being what he is even his own body is against him with his own horn gouging out one of his eyes.
@@Terminalsanity ….what
@@dereklol8310 So in addition to being endless tormented by spirits in his sleep, shackled, and imprisoned in the sewers until the shattering, one of Mogh's horns grew into his eye and gouged it out and it kept growing into his eye socket. Basically he's all sorts of f_cked up even more than his twin brother.
My problem with Malenia is that she feels like a Sekiro boss in Elden Ring. There's the obvious aspect of her having a katana but, even looking at her moveset and AI, she would fit easily in Sekiro. Long pauses between attacks to allow you and/or her to regain posture, sword clashing to break her posture, even her long range thrust and hyper armour kick would translate well to being an unblockable thrust in Sekiro that you'd have to use Mikiri counter on.
However, with it being Elden ring, the player has, in my opinion, less tools to deal with that moveset. Pure blocks still allow her to heal and accurately dodging quick succession of attacks is harder than just trying to deflect then like you would in Sekiro. Even waterfowl dance would have some counter with either using the grapple away or using the iron hat prosthetic to protect from 360 degrees of attacks.
To me, it really does feel like a leftover Sekiro boss that ends up clashing with Elden Ring's gameplay style
Literally u could just swap demon of hatred and melania
Malenia would be waaaaaay too easy in sekiro. I agree she fits the aesthetic of a sekiro boss but i still think she fits more in elden ring.
Most of her difficulty comes from people not getting waterfowl dance, if they removed that attack people prob wouldnt complain (besides lifesteal from shields that is dumb)
@@JonoBogano Doubt it. Bosses with much less are seen as problems to Sekiro players.
@@Hidden_lvl like which bosses?
@@JonoBogano Lady Butterfly, Genichiro, Owl, Isshin.
I actually almost died on Mimic Tear on my magic run. I wanted to do a fun 1v1 magic battle with him, so I kept my distance a bit to see how he'd start. I did not expect him to immediatly start spamming Rennala's Full Moon constantly. I can confirm that non-stop homing moons at you is pretty dangerous.
When you realise mage builds are cancer from yourself lol
Same experience. For the first mimic I had my melee gear on so I curb stomped him quite easily. In the way to the haligtree I had my staff when the mimic got summoned and nearly died. Boy he sure knows how to combo spells xD. Had to give him zero breathing room with melee to take him down.
I was a full INT build as well. But I didn't wait for him to do anything. I jumped him. As soon as the 1st rock sling hit, it was pretty much over and I just spammed him to death with that. But I can see how if you let the mimic cast 1st you could be in trouble.
@@youarecorrectandiamwrong.8646 Nah, mage builds can be pretty fun and if you know how to beat them they're not that hard. Yes, magic makes the game easier but not everything easier is by definition worse. The only people calling mage-builds cancer are the 15-year olds who convinced themselves that Souls-games should only be played by handicapping yourself and make the game harder on yourself. You're better off trying to enjoy all the aspects of the game instead of limiting yourself to your own playstyle only and condemning all other styles.
I’m bad…I stripped naked and then just fought him with a dagger
It’s cool to see how many people list can differ from each other. My personal hardest boss in this game was the double crucible knights.
Double Crucible Knights is arguably one of the most aids fights in the game for melees. Of course it's gonna be difficult when you slap 2 minibosses together with no way to really pull them apart aside from their winged moves. The way they can overlap attacks and tend to stick to each other's ass is really frustrating.
I fought them at around lv 100 and used a spirit summon and they weren’t too bad. But I can see how they’d be ridiculously difficult without any summons as aid
@@markopusic8258 Actually I feel like it is way easier than it should. If you pay close attention, you can see they USUALLY will not interfer on a 1x1 with the other knight. Even if they get close, they usually doesn't attack and just watch.
Once you realize that, you start paring them without much worry and that makes the fight quite simple. Just take them on 1x1 and keep one eye on the other.
@@gustavofrederico8911 It's been a hot minute but if I remember correctly, there have been AI adjustments to significantly dial down the agressivity of the knights while both of them are alive. On release this fight was a nightmare and a slog with how hard it was to even get hits in.
Havent met them but that sounds like hell. The garogyles are that for me, only boss in the game I have skipped
I actually found Dragonkin Soldier to be somewhat difficult but it’s primarily because I’m mostly fighting the camera. Fight him from the front? He crawls over to you and does pretty decent damage. Fighting him from underneath? He spams his slam attack which you can’t see because you’re focused on his Crotch. Attacking him from behind? You can’t see what he’s doing and he hits you with an AOE.
Standing behind his knees
It’s somehow pretty common that people don’t turn off the lock on with big enemies. After that I don’t think the camera is ever a problem
Also, if you use a short weapon (Dagger, fist and even some straight swords, maces and axes) you just can't hit him if you stand below him. This weird thing he has hanging in front of his belly pushes you away while not being a damaging hitbox.
also on PC I had 15fps when he spammed lightning all over the screen XD
Just play lock-off and it gets much easier
If water fowl dance could only be activated from a specific range it would be much less annoying it's only a real issue when she starts it right when you start a swing
My buddy showed me that she only does it when she’s at 3/4s or 1/4 health and that a helped me with it a ton
Honestly its that they're 3 flurries of it and just one can kill and its superhard to completely avoid all 3 couple that that with her health recovery ability and its just super annoying.
@@dashman8499 not true. she can activate the move whenever she likes as soon as she goes below 75% health. after than its entirely random. i've had runs where she uses it once the whole fight, and i've had runs where she uses it literally 6 times before she even hits phase 2
@@dashman8499 when I fought her with Tiche, it was her 3rd attack.
That’s the game’s input reading at work unfortunately
From Software have always had this sense of pride in designing bosses to both be incredibly difficult but also not unfair. Malenia just feels like the devs one day said "what if we make a boss that's just *unfair"*
Or you've hit your limit as a player and just can't rise up to the challenge that is Malenia. I swear, if all of you spent half as much time on learning how to deal with waterfowl, as you do complaining about how this fight is OH SO UNFAIR, you would realise that the fight is fairly balanced.
She is meant to be a challenge. Waterfowl has many, many ways of dealing with it, it's up to you to find a way and deal with it. She just cannot be brute forced. I am sorry that your 14 +12 empowered estus flasks can't help you chug your way through her combos, and you need to actually use your brain. If that's your definition of unfair, you should try ninja gaiden black on master ninja difficulty lol.
@@Zindril players like you is the reason this series is going to go into the gutter in the future.
Championing for more difficulty without regards to balance and fun makes it a garbage boss.
And you just lied through your teeth, if she does waterfowl far away, no problem but if she does on top of you, you are forced to use bloodhound step or do precise camera movements to throw her off and you have to perfectly roll every time.
It has terrible feedback loop and I bet you and 99% of the playerbase had to search up how to deal with it without ash of wars.
Her egregious animation cancelling is also a problem too, she performs sekiro style style blocks off rip, can cancel her wind up attacks and has hyper armor on neutral. Literally punishing you just for playing the game.
There's far too much in her kit to be considered a fun challenge, she's just a challenge and not a good one.
I miss the days when people cared for meaningful challenge in these games.
@@Zindril 🤓💬
@@Zindril someone is a magic abuser 😂😂
@@dvdivine1962 I think her waterfowl is the only thing that makes her unfair and that needs to be balanced. Outside of that, she’s a pretty fair challenge. My first playthrough I felt like she was completely broken and not designed right but after a lot of practice, she’s now a fun fight for me. Again though I agree that her waterfowl is a big problem and needs a nerf to reliably dodge on the first wave
I actually fought a few tougher bosses when I was a lower level and ended up fighting easier bosses later on when I leveled up. Elden Ring is truly a unique experience.
Yeah I fried radahn because I was level 110 to 140 I don't remember.
@@SaintsFan09-z3s how is that even possible?😂
@@Victor-km9krfarming maybe?
I actually worked to make mimic tear as hard as possible by letting it copy claws with bloodhound step, prince of death staff with ancient death rancor, fingerprint shield, and katana with thunderbolt. It actually took me quite a few tries in that scenario
Still have not defeated mimic tear, it’s the strongest boss I have ever encountered in any Fromsoft game. Also strong GigaChad Energy from this boss.. dunno why
Just wait til you get to the Soldier of Godrick. I've been stuck for a week straight with no luck.
No one told me he would be so handsome. I was completely caught off guard.
@@kartikayysola yeah, that third phase is disgusting
I see what you did here
@@-_-5470 he has a third phase? First phase took me 1 month before I uninstall and now I don't regret it knowing he has a third phase.
Fire Giant: "I CAN'T SEE SHIT" the whole boss fight summed up in 4 words.
I’m in my first play through on a mage build and he absolutely kicked my ass this weekend
On the plus side, it is interesting to see how far From has come with giant bosses. From Tower Knight to Fire Giant.
i personally really enjoyed the rennala boss fight despite the relatively low ranking, I compare it to the divine dragon, where beauty and design outweigh make up for the low difficulty. the positive is that it has the best boss arena possibly ever and has an elegant boss that will amaze even if the actual fight isn’t proven to be that hard
The second I unlocked Kaiden Sellsword Ash, I summoned him, and he put her too work and I easily beat her. The difficulty of her boss fight is its length and those annoying singing girls that are sometimes really hard to find. It also depends on what she summons before you manage to kill her.
i remember when the elden ring March 2021 leak came out, Rennala was shown and nobody had a fucking idea on who that was. I really thought its would be a super damn difficult boss back then lol
I find Rykard a harder version of the Divine Dragon. They are similar in many ways.
Goes to show that difficulty ≠ quality. *Something I think this fandom would do well to learn.*
Leoonne Begotten is kinda hard bc at first he's basically a weaker Knight Artorias from DS1, but when using those broken pillars and rocks, he gets semi stunned/glitches out of attacks.
I love seeing the community lists like this, seeing bosses like godskin duo and maliketh this high on the lost makes me feel like I made it out lucky, especially on maliketh, I got him on my 3rd try, but meanwhile, fire giant made me grind from 80 to 120 and took me a week to beat.
Honestly Malenia having heals, high movement, high damage and waterfowl dance arent problems on there own, it's when combined that she becomes a nightmare. I honestly think if any of these things were tweaked (lower the damage, remove the healing in second phase to be replaced by scarlet rot, making waterfowl dance have more windows for escape, etc.) she would be most peoples favorite fight. As she stands she is so oppresive that it feels like you either master her like a phd, or cheese her for the win.
Someone made a video showing how she breaks the boss formula by having inconsistent stagger opportunities, can cancel out of animations, has hyper armor with almost every move, and her hitbox for waterfowl dance is literally just a giant ball around her. She's what happens when the mods say "hey, lets take everything that we deny the players because it would make the game too easy, and give it to one boss, then give her health regen on top of that, and a second phase with a worse version of her unfair combo that gives you scarlet rot on top of evaporating your health bar and filling hers.
I definitely think waterfowl is THE problem and on it's own. No boss could ever be balanced with waterfowl in their moveset. I don't think not removing this move could lead to this boss being the favourite boss of more people. I tried really hard to like her having beaten her over 20 times and trying to learn how to dodge it consistently but waterfowl is just a poorly designed move. I still die instantly if I don't play a max defese character or don't predict when it will happen (which is not very consistent as she can just instantly use it at all times in phase 2).
@@enomisv9830 Yeah also a massive problem is how she just breaks stance breaking. I built a character very dependent on the mechanic and she was pure RNG, because she has a few moves that make her unable to be stance broken. Why? Probably because QA testing didn't know how the mechanic works and didn't notice how inconsistent Malenia makes it.
@@tinminator8905 and the fact she can Cancel out of stance breaking attacks to punish you. Oh you're doing a jumping attack? Guess i'll fly out of the way and waterfowl you while you're stuck in that animation.
@@enomisv9830 Oh and she is the most buggy boss too. In the many hours I spent fighting her, 2 times she spawned out of phase 2 in waterfowl killing me instantly. She also was down to 10 hp in secondn phase for some reason. I think the thing that caused it was me killing her first phase with a riposte, which is not that uncommon when you use a stance break build.
Y'know, one thing I hate about Malenia that I don't see often mentioned is how BORING her first phase can be with some bad RNG. She has engaging moves, but... sometimes she just drops everything and will slow walk for upwards of 30 seconds unless you attack her first. And when you DO attack her, she'll flip on the hyper armor and punish you for it. This is especially pertinent when she drops below 75% health and reaches Waterfowl territory, and literally just stands around baiting you to attack so she can Waterfowl your ass. I'm all for bosses who can punish greed, but when NOTHING happens in the fight and you're just having a stare off, it can really kill the pacing of the fight.
what? so you just stood there while she walked up to you? how long did your fight take? 20 minutes? You just walk up to her and bait out an attack and wait for her to close the distance w a grab/stab and then punish with a jump heavy. She has so many attacks that you can punish in the first phase its rediculous. I cant tell you how many people ive seen just walk up to her, attack her, get punished and then call the bossfight shit because they have no patience. And you can dodge waterfowl from point blank range just dodge directly under her first attack when it happens. After i adapted to letting her make the first move i soloed her w dual greatswords while only using like 2 heals,
I totally agree. Second phase is more interesting with the rot status and clone attack. Her first phase however after a few deaths can feel repetitive
Another complaint I have personally that is never mentioned is one particular attack, this quick slash into a slam that serves as one of very few guaranteed windows in her fight. The problem with this move is that the first slash comes out in roughly 4 frames, which is impossible to react to. Got one-shot by that during my SL1 run of her when she had one hit left in her second phase. It hurt to get killed by something I had no way of avoiding.
I 0 hit her check it out
Yeah I agree, Melania can just decide that you don’t get to play. Either with constant hyper armor attacks or input reading and dodging everything. I usually use Strength builds and when she does this it makes the fight damn near impossible and incredibly boring
I love how experiences differ from player to player is souls games. For instance I found maliketh and hourax loux fairly moderately difficult even on my first playthrough. But the Fire Giant still claps my cheeks consistently.
yeah really, i found mogh,lord of blood really easy, but then again i fought him after i beat Malenia
It’s so true tbh everyone says Rykard is easy but I get destroyed by him every single time I fight him while I beat the fire giant in like 5 tries
It all depends on the boss itself, it seems. Some bosses I feel pretty confident taking on my own, but other bosses like Malenia and the like...I always play it safe and co-op with human players.
True. Rykard was pretty low on this list, but he gave me as much trouble as the top 3. I even gave up beating him fair and square and needed to use the big spear lol. With the spear, however, he became quite easy.
@@matheussantinello1177 I think the cheese-ability of the bosses affects the votes a lot. Radahn had a fair ranking but you can also just use your horse a lot and all the summons can basically win the fight for you. Rykard as well you can just go upgrade the Serpent Hunter and absolutely destroy him.
Loved the horrah loux fight. One of my favorites fights.
Morgot was the best swordfight i had in the game. I wanted to beat him with waifu but after first battle fell in love with just how good the fight is so i nerfed myself extremely hard on the next runs and enjoyed the shit out of it even tho i died multiple times after almost beating him first try. He feels like he carried over the rhythm aspect of sekiro as well.
My only guess as to why some people find mimic hard is that their first playthrough was a caster spam build. I imagine a bot that endlessly casts with no regard for damage taken is probably hard to beat when the player is also only casting with the caveat of dying in 1 or 2 hits.
I'm 99% sure it's a joke. because you're fighting yourself. so saying it's the hardest fight is saying you're really good at the game.
Another reason might be if you had a buckler equipped.
Unless you know jumping attacks are periless, mimic tear buckler will legit parry almost any normal attack from the player.
@@emmabori my brother in Christ he copies your build it’s just saying you’re bad not him💀
@@paulwin9036 I discovered that the hard way.
@@sludgewave4786 same, I thought we'll parry each other to see who's better.
I was definitely not better
Malenia was definitely a sekiro boss that didn’t make it into the game and just dropped into elden ring. Deflect would have been amazing in this fight!
If somebody could somehow mod her into Sekiro, I’d love to see it.
I don't know man I feel like she would not be that hard in sekiro she would be on the same level as those purple ninjas in terms of difficulty
@@KratosisGod Oh I agree, just like how the Demon of Hatred would be easier in Bloodborne. I’d still like to see it.
She is whats left/or finished from lady tomoe.
@@KratosisGod would her being easier make her worse? We’re talking about quality, not just difficulty. Yes, she’s harder in this game. But is she a good fight? Or are people only defending her because of the high difficulty?
Honestly Morgott is my fav boss- people just fight him at high levels and just out damage him
Same
Based
Same
I think he is a very good boss. It's just that it is easy to over level against him since there is so much content surrounding Leyndell. Mt. Gelmir, Volcano Manor and the Altus Plateau.
@@leonardocaicedo1273 thats exactly my main problem with the game its hard to know when to fight a boss without one shot them i literally played with a guide just to know when to fight certain bosses
Dlc boss ranking coming later this year, can't wait!
There's a big vanishing knight that looks like a regular enemy standing on the ramparts of the castle after you beat Commander Niall. He is a boss in sheep's clothing. His blink teleports are spammy as hell and when he catches you (he WILL catch you) he does elemental frost damage and like a quintuple thrust with his (edit) double great swords with chunks of damage for each stab, and another set of stabs right after. If he catches you with one he catches you with the rest of them. I will have to go back and see if high poise damage weapons will work on him because medium swords do not.
Yeah that guy is a major pain! Harder than the actual boss fights in castle Sol IMO
@@aaronbennack714 I beat Commander Niall, but never went back to kill that knight, so technically I did find him harder than the castle boss lol. Did you beat him? I posted this 2 years ago, so maybe Fromsoft eventually turned his attacks down? I wonder if he drops anything special.
Ik what dude ur talking about lol
@@mitch5944 Hes a banished knight w 2 swords. He is guarding some item thats on a nearby corpse and I dont remember what, but its definitely not worth the headache
I’d say Maliketh is less of a “glass cannon” and more of a “Plastic Type 94 Naval Gun”
Perfect metaphor, I think. Still not much hp, but plenty of firepower maliketh
@@yeembus Things like that make me hate Malenia even more. They nerfed so many bosses that could have used a little more health to become very memorable bosses, but they didn't nerf anything on what was already the hardest boss. 2 healthbars, check. Health on heal, check, makes her equiv. of 2 1/2 - 3 healthbars. High attack power and insane speed, check. Waterfoul Dance, check. Rot, check. It's not so much that she's hard that pisses me off, it's the fact that so many very COOL bosses aren't that memorable because they die too easily. This game has nothing like Orphan or Gael that are hard, but fair, and thus FUN. Maliketh, the real Godfrey, Morgott, Fortisax, Placidusax, Rykard, ect. so many bosses that are just a tad too easy and could have rivaled the greats of past Fromsoft games if they were tweaked a little more health or something.
The OP ashes of war and spirit summons I suspect are mostly to blame for the poor balancing. The irony is, if you use everything the game gives you, it's far easier than Dark Souls 3. (boss wise) If you don't use spirits or most of the OP ashes of war, then this game would be by far the hardest. I know a lot of streamers suffered on and beat the bosses without summons, but they mostly spammed OP arts from Rivers of Blood and Moonveil. You didn't have those in Dark Souls 3........how many people could beat the game without summons AND without op ashes of war?!
@@yeembus I completely agree. I've been saying it for months now, but Maliketh should've just had two healthbars, Beast Clergyman phase 1 an entire healthbar, and Maliketh phase 2 an entire healthbar. Slightly, (but only very slightly) lower his damage output to balance it, and I think that would be amazing.
@@yeembus YES. I hate how Maliketh is designed for this reason and I will die on that hill. The fact that there is a phase 1 that's has 0 overlap is bad enough, but a boss that encourages you to simply burst him down before he has a chance to stomp you is bad.
Think of how much better the fight would have been if it had been paced like Slave Knight Gael. You'd take fat damage, but not to the point of total absurdity. You'd have time to actually learn the moveset with each attempt as opposed to getting shitstopmed by a single attack or combo. Then you can have him go all fucky-wucky for the last leg of the fight and boost his damage.
What effectively ends up happening is that you don't end up learning his moveset, you just bypass the whole ordeal by killing him quickly. This also furthers the reliance on RNG. If you get a passive Maliketh you win. Simple. On first playthrough especially, it feels like the game let you win as opposed to you beating the boss.
RNG with overtuned attacks is a big issue for a lot of bosses.
Mohg is definitely my favorite fight. He nails atmosphere, build up, theme, challenge, and his attacks and aesthetics are metal as hell.
Ok, Dragonkin Soldier is *not* forgettable. I absolutely remember, clear as day in my mind, when I first made it through the harrowing ant-infested caves of Ainsel River Well and came to that beautiful arena. My jaw was fully on the floor as I spent a good five minutes just marveling at what I'd stumbled upon... and I especially remember taking a step too far and having a massive dragonkin creature fall upon me from the heavens. Revisiting this boss after getting gud? Yeah, it's easy as fuck. But I will never forget that initial confrontation.
Also it's mental that Spirit Godfrey, Godrick, Rykard, Margit and Fire Giant are all somehow in the "meh, blah" portion of the video.
There always was an "OK that's not perfect but good enough, you paid your dues, you can beat this boss with what you know now and advance" point. Reaching that point was where the rewarding feeling of souls games used to come from, for me. I don't feel that anymore with how demanding some of the bosses are in Elden Ring. That "good enough" bar is pushed way too close to perfection for a mediocre souls fan like me.
I'm a new player so this reassures me a bit in how bad I am lol. I also feel this game is HARD but just get the usual "git gud" shit thrown at me all the time. I find it's often very demanding or exhausting to try a boss 10 times in a row because how little breathing room there is so it needs a lot of concentration. Can't beat Margit lmao. First phase is ok and fun but the second he's just in my face the whole time... like damn chill out. They don't stagger so it's like being overrrun with a tank...
Some of the side bosses are very fun however and more in my skill field. Like the gladiator, trolls or crucible knights etc. I really enjoy those.
@@nokobz2624 if you can’t kill Margit then you’re not experienced in the game yet. When people talk about hard bosses. It’s people like maliketh, fire giant, commander o Niall. I don’t mean you’re bad, just inexperienced. my fight with margit was pure misery and took me a whopping 23 attempts. I had to summon my friend who was level 180 and I summoned rogier. There will never be a competitive boss fight that won’t take a few attempts. You need to learn the moves, then how to evade them your opening windows and what attacks are best. You can’t walk in and dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge and they are dead
The Nokstella variant of the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella is the best one, for sure. I remember that the arena was such an interesting sight to walk in on, it really makes you stand in awe before this ancient civilization.
And yes, the second phase had my PC chugging, but it was totally worth it for the sheer spectacle. The boss in in of itself is nothing to write home about, has some of the problems most Elden Ring bosses have in that a ton of their attacks are AoEs as well.
Yet again proving Elden Ring's greatest strength is the world they've built, and the exploration and unraveling of it, that's why is so fascinating to explore it in the first place.
Truly, an achievement in level design, open world level design, environmental design and overall art direction I've ever seen in a videogame.
I find it weird that nobody talks about the items you can use to stun Mohg and parry Malekith, I thought those would factor into the discussion at least a little bit
the maliketh parry is worth mentioning, the mohg item is useless. it only works on his phase 1 which is easy anyways. and it only stuns him for like 3 seconds. its a joke.
@@jamesnesran2348 If you use it right before his phase transition you can hit him continuously for like 15 seconds straight
@@jamesnesran2348 you can use it twice, And 6 seconds of free damage is a LONG time
@@dashman8499 ....in phase 1
A respected player doesn't fight Maliketh with that. If you let Malenia do her dance, let Maliketh do hers.
My biggest problem with the difficulty is that fromsoft are always trying to push further but there isn't enough wiggle room at this point for them to push without getting into making the bosses broken
I wouldn’t say that. They could have made malenia just as hard by balancing the flurry attack to have a longer tell and adding in a third phase. Honestly I think expanding movesets and increasing the number of phases would fairly increase difficulty.
@@nathanhunt3104 wouldn't just removing the first part of the waterfowl be good enough? Either of those are enough to kill you and they're easier to dodge
I think they’re becoming victims of their own success, since they know they are expected to provide a challenge.
Even Malenia has players dedicated to no-damage level 1 runs, which means they will probably be tempted to one-up her difficulty at some point.
I still love this game, but hopefully they figure out how to thread the needle on challenge vs fun more consistently next time.
@@nathanhunt3104 Why should they increase difficulty? All it did is ruin many bosses and make the game feel lame and cheap. At this point they seem to care more about making hard games than delivering a good product.
@@scotaloo77g73 man... it's souls game from from software. Elden ring did his job with a bang. If you are a casual gamer, you don't belong here.
I’m glad me and my entire friend group of 10+ who all play elden ring contributed to this list
Wish I had friends
@@runningoutofnames3CS me too
man's flexing out here
@@kelakogreenaddict1888 just trying to show the scope of our impact, crazy we were like 1/900 of the vote
I wish I had time to wish for friends.
Elemer of the Briar feels SO good to parry.
I don't know if you can parry the flying swords themselves (if you can, this is the best game, period) but I know you can reliably parry that normal diagonal downwards swipe he does after flinging his fiery red sword around, and I never felt more like a parry dog than in that moment.
Also the Greyoll's one (Bell Bearing Hunter, good Bloodborne reference) kicked my ass, I think it's that it has tons of hp.
It kind of irks me when people say Radahn got nerfed, because he didn’t. He got fixed. His hotboxes weren’t working correctly on release, and they fixed them to work correctly. Yes that made him easier, but it’s not really a nerf if that aspect of his difficulty was never the intended experience. It’s a small nitpick but I feel like a lot of people take the “Radahn got nerfed” thing way out of context
I believe another video put it best, but Malenia isn't difficult because she has strong moves. She is difficult because she outright cheats in a way other bosses do not. She can:
1) Animation cancel any attack stun that isn't categorized as a "Heavy Attack." Some attacks on large weapons don't have this attribute, resulting in very inconsistent feeling fights where she ignore hitstun that she "shouldn't" have. Furthermore, this is exacerbated by the...
2) Sheer amount of hyper armor she has. It's like the game developers wanted to make a "difficult" humanoid boss, but also wanted her to be immune to stagger. This leads to a good chunk of her moves having frame 1 hyper armor. The issue is that a lot of the wind-ups START before an animation even begins, meaning the player is forced to...
3) Play very passively. This is caused by the sheer aggression Malenia can output. Combined with her ability to ignore low and medium hitstun, it makes anything but specific end-lag on attacks completely unsafe to try and punish with more than a single light attack into an immediate backstep or roll.
Is she a hard boss? No. She just cheats. Using cheat engine to remove her hyper armor makes her a joke. Likewise, removing her ability to animation cancel hit stun with cheat engine makes her a joke. For her to be "difficult," they sacrificed the satisfying dance of Dark Souls combat for a spastic, rng-controlled fight where your ability to be aggressive is ENTIRELY controlled by the enemy's ai and not your intelligent positioning. Proof of this can be seen in "Let Me Solo Her"'s videos. The man has spent an ungodly amount of time mastering the fight. When the ai goes in their favor, the boss dies VERY fast. When the boss is hyper aggressive and doesn't use moves with endlag, they spend long periods of time just sitting back and WAITING for their turn to hit. If the best player in the world at this fight can't exploit a consistent weakness and has to be purely defensive while they try to manipulate the ai to use one of a very small set of safely punishable moves, the design is the issue.
Exactly. She's a one trick pony that ultimately comes down to RNG. Does she combo endlessly? Does she waterfowl more than a couple times? Does she waterfowl immediately after hyper armor?
i find it weird how dark souls fans have bragged about gitting gud and all that for over 10 years now, then when they can fight a boss they cant beat naked with a club then they cry about how the boss is unfair, even though first time players of a souls game beats her solo and enjoy fighting her. you might have heard this before but this is unfortunately a case of git gud.
@@yvindvego9404 it's not a skill check. It's RNG. If you haven't played another game, go play BB or DS3. Fight the Orphan or Gael. You can't luck your way through their movesets. If you beat them, it's because you actually got good.
@@yvindvego9404 First Off: I beat NG+7 Malenia. She isn't hard.
Second: "Git Gud" was derived from a boss that required learning. While Malenia has some learning to her boss fight, the learning is that she is a gimmick. You wait to play. There is no other way to beat her unless you like insanity and want to pull the lever.
It’s wild to me how much people say red wolf of radagon is an easier boss. That wolf destroyed me a lot longer than like godrick did for example.
It does have pretty low health to be fair and I went straight to the academy after godrick my first playthrough tho. So I can see I guess
Me too, the first time I was running a sorcerer and didn't level vigor. Got whopped by his magic spam+sword slash combo many times.
Same for me. It was in this boss that I realized leveling up vigor to 40 was not an option in this game, regardless of the build.
A lot of the challenge depends on if you are over or under leveled in this game. For example I did some power leveling for Malenia and was like lvl 135 after her fight. But I did not beat fire giant yet, so for me he was extremely easy.
The rankings are seemingly based on being "overleveled". The boss ranking would look a lot different if people fought them without summons and less strong equipment/stats. Not criticising, I just noticed that I dont agree with a lot of picks, simply because I played the game differently.
A lot of bosses have had wild difficulty swings for me based on my playthrough. Several of the easier bosses proved much more challenging. Meanwhile, Radahn has always been fairly easy if I use anything with rot.
I personally put Radahn ad my number one mainly because on my first playthrough I fought him pre nerf with a Melee build and without using Torent. I didn't realize on my first playthrough that you could even USE Torent in that fight.
I never used Torrent to fight him period, I'm just not comfortable with trading my I-frames for added mobility.
Also there are 2 things that further discourage me from using it against Radahn.
1. You can't dodge his arrows on horseback, you have to jump on foot every time he winds up one. Now of course, normally he only ever uses his bow at the start of the fight when you're far away, but it's still annoying.
2. The dismount mechanic. Getting dismounted usually means guaranteed death because you often take the initial damage that dismounts you, and THEN you're completely defenceless for several seconds afterwards, against a boss who can 3/2 shot you at 30 vig which is a lot at that point in the game.
I just don't think it's worth it to use Torrent against Radahn, the negatives are just too severe.
I really like Waterfowl dance, it's one of the most lore teased attack of the boss. And it's clear knew perfectly that it would be the most memorable attack of the boss (many npc talk about how Malenia is "airborne" and that her blade flow through the sky). the heavy attack of the flowing curved sword is clearly meant so that player remember instantly of this attack (it shows how Malenia perfected the style of her master). And finallly they gave it to millicent. Not only to show the proximity she has with Malenia but also to illustrate the state of "bud" she's in compared to her.
hoarah loux was my favourite fight, it felt fair enough that I didn't feel the need to pull out mimic, yet was still really challenging.
My other standout fights was Radagon, which is good, as I had to fight him a bunch with the elden beast behind him
Good tip for Niall if your struggling. Bait out his jump attack, dodge into it then immediately do a jump attack. His backstab with miss and you will have all the time in the world to dodge his next attack, for dealing with his spirit summons instead of rolling away from him roll around him, his sword strikes will wiff and you can attack eventually.
All Malenia needs is a bit wider window to dodge through her waterfowl flurries (especially the first one) so players don't need any gimmicks or need to be at a far enough distance to run away from it to be able to survive as she tends to use it in point blank in the middle of our attacks when we fight aggressively
Going through my first play through, I've allowed myself a summon if I'm fighting a duo. For that reason, Godskin Duo was by far the easiest main storyline boss I've ran into so far (currently at Maliketh). Them and Morgott have been the only ones that have taken me less than 3 attempts.
I haven't understood how ppl struggle against them. In my first playthrough I beat them first try and used like 2-3 flasks. I used bloodhound fang and raped them. Edit: with no summons
From what I can tell the only folks struggling with godskin duo must've been trying it without summons, because if you can split aggro they go down pretty easily
On the topic of Malenia, someone actually did a video breaking down and proving how she outright breaks the games rules to be more difficult than she should be, specifically she’s able to cancel out of stagger animations in order to punish you in return
Pretty sure they also made a follow-up video as well from people pointing out something specific they got wrong, only for the true explanation to actually just reinforce their point even further
I kind of figured that. I just learned to not spam attacks, get a couple in and then back off. This was also due to my fear of the waterfowl dance, but it worked out okay.
Just like Kos could cancel his attacks into new attacks sometimes. But worse.
@@pohja4552 for whatever reason that didn’t feel nearly as cheap as the stunts Malenia can pull
Yea she has hyper armor on basically all of her strong attacks, she can only be stunned out of her super attacks by bleed and maybe frost, she basically can nope her way out of any attack combo she doesn’t wanna be in (excluding stun-lock), and she heals HP even when you don’t actually take any damage from her attacks (blocking with shield)
The malenia and mohg areas and fights would have been a great expansion for DLC. It would have been a great concept to hunt down the last shard bearers. In addition that would have given fromsoft more time to iron out and balance malenia's move set.
Haligtree and Faram Azula kind of feel like DLC areas, now that you mention it.
@@ArchibaldClumpy Nokron and eternal cities would have same argument. Atleast Faram is forced after Fire Giant fight so its much more canon in the game progression.
malenia doesnt need balancing i can dodge every attack of hers close range. the only attack that needs balancing is her clone attack since it allows for zero reflexive dodging as one of them jumpscares you and you need to learn what direction you need to be walking in to dodge it. Its possible to dodge it but it isnt fair and gives zero chance to a person seeing it for the first time
@@mr.downgrade185 Nah, Malenia needs balancing lol you just learned how to be sweaty and dodge her unfair moveset, literally doesnt mean anything. Across the industry not only gamers but actually fighting game devs have chimed in and gave their personal opinions and each one has shared same conclusion, her boss fight is simply tailored to not follow any precedent set from other bosses in the game and is purposely over-tuned, her moveset is purposely unbearable. The boss isnt balanced in the slightest. It was made to be bullshit unbalanced.
Malenia was the most fun boss for me. Her moveset is so satisfying to dodge - and you have to dodge because she heals on hit. It felt like every move mattered and getting through the first phase untouched is very rewarding - favourite boss
Waterfowl being removed would make the boss pretty easy tbh. The attack just needs a longer windup if you're in close proximity.
Or you could use a great shield with barricade and tank the first flurry.
Imho, instead of removing Waterfowl, I feel Malenia's first phase could have been shorter so it's not such a grind to get another crack at phase 2. I felt the length of phase 2 was fine. One tweak could be to remove her lifesteal from phase 2 in favor of Scarlet Rot. It makes sense since it deteriorates her body too, so fully embracing it will affect her ability to heal.
My biggest issue with Niall was that I think I was running into a bug, where he would full aggro into his second phase before I'd killed the spirit knights. Despite me killing them relatively quickly. I think it happened in roughly half my fights with him.
His second phase is both health-gated AND triggered by the death of his summons, if you get him low enough he’ll go second phase even without killing his knights
that one was an absolute borefest. AoE after AoE. Unpunishable special move spam. Needed to parry that one to not to fall asleep mid battle
I got annoyed by his frost wind. He spams it constantly. If your a melee build, there was no way in hell you could land a good attack on him without getting hit by that stupid frost wind. Quick small attacks only and chip damage.
I took out his spirit knights, got his health at 50% then summoned the mimic. Lol..The rest of the fight was in a never ending cloud of frost wind that consumed the entire fighting arena. I couldn't see shit the whole time... luckily target lock helped me get the last few wacks on him to end that stupid fight. Really stupid boss IMO.
Niall's hilariously easy if you just use the item that makes his knights turn on him. Enchant them both and then just sit back and watch the carnage, then clean up the mess.
Honestly I can deal with Waterfowl (on light load no idea how tf you're supposed to manage on medium) from Malenia, but the super armour kills the whole fight especially since you can TECHNICALLY trigger a stagger as she does it which resets her poise completely. Feels like a massive oversight to me.
Funny how sometimes, difficulty can be so high, people start calling it unfair. Even though those 2 terms are unrelated.
I had a lot of trouble with Godfrey/Hoarah Loux. Don't know why, but his ground aoe's are my bane. I never really learned how to fight his two phases, just survived.
On the opposite Maliketh wasn't that big of a deal to me. His first phase hit me more than his second phase and was defeated within 5 tries.
Malenia... it took a long time but I got relatively good at her first phase. Then I had trouble to dodge her opening in the second phase. But after a long, long time and nightmares of me dying with the final words I hear being 'I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella.' she got to know defeat.
Every boss after Malenia seems easy. After taking 10 hours to beat her with a pure strength, no buffs great masse build… well she honed my skills. She is my master. Then I did Godskin duo in 2, Maliketh in 6, Hoarah Loux in 6 and tried the radagon / elden beast fight twice. The first time not getting hit vs Radagon…
Malenia too stronk but also good trainer.
That's so true.
Elden Ring bosses are so much more easy in comparisson to Dark Souls bosses.
And then there is Malenia...
(Almost) every boss in the fromsoft games since demon's souls comes down to one word: patience. Patience is the only way you'll be able to really overcome the hardest fights without cheese strats
I *REALLY* like the Malenia fight. The atmosphere, the music, the high pressure, and that "oh shit" moment every time she winds up a waterfowl just do it for me.
That said, Waterfowl really needs a change, particularly the first wave of slashes. I'm careful to say change and not nerf. It's simply way too difficult to actually learn how to deal with the attack. Once you find out how, it's not the worst thing in the world, but the game simply does a terrible job at teaching you what to do when she uses waterfowl up close. It's kind of the opposite of Margit in that respect. Margit's entire moveset does an excellent job at testing your ability to recognize your own mistakes and learn from them, while dying to Waterfowl Dance just doesn't even give you the opportunity to recognize what you should have done instead. I bet you the VAST majority of players had to look up tips, if not downright detailed video guides, on how to survive waterfowl dance. For a game that otherwise does an excellent job at teaching you what you're doing wrong, this one move is a sad mark on that quality. Simply too much of her difficulty is packed into one single move, and that's really impressive given that the rest of her moveset isn't exactly easy either.
I think her fight would be nearly perfect if it were just possible to dodge the first flurry of slashes in the waterfowl dance by rolling towards her (and slightly to the side) the way you can for the next two waves. I don't know why they chose to have the first wave play by different rules than the rest of the attack; I hate resorting to using a shield to block that part, but it just doesn't feel worth it to try and dodge it in any other way.
@@bunklypeppz Yea exactly! You can technically dodge it by running under her, circling her very close and then dodging diagonally away from her facing direction when you're sort of behind her, but that's just abusing her slower turn rate, it doesn't seem like an intentionally designed way to dodge the attack since you're essentialy having to release lock on and look away from her to pull it off. Feels super janky and it looks like you should be getting hit.
biggest issue about malenia to me was *entirely* her lifesteal proccing even when shielding. I've always liked the safety of blocking so i generally fight almost every boss just shielding, unless its an obvious que like her thrust. she forces me to play the game in a way ive never had to, and her 40% holy resist was a big fuck you to me running a holy damage on a greatsword. i guess that's my issue for being a shield scrub since ds1-3, but whatever
If she didn't heal off blocks that would still not make her fair. I have beaten her many times already and I must defnitely say. Unless I am playing an unfair build, she is just not fun. It all comes down to: Did you guess the time she would waterfowl right or not. If I didn't, I die. If I did, I win. There should not be such a massive inbalance in a bosses moveset. It makes her so RNG dependen that I don't understand how nobody in their team told the guy designing the move that he is a fucking idiot.
Soldier of Godrick not being the hardest is proof that he’s so hard that those that face him haven’t come back to tell the tale.
Honestly i think that the best nerf to waterfowl would be just a slight increase to the cast speed of the first part of the attack. The issue a lot of the time is she will cancel her stagger into waterfowl making the first part of the attack functionally impossible to dodge especially with larger weapons.
When I use a large weapon, I just 2 hand it if dual wielding and block most of her first waterfowl/roll through it. That makes it so that I take about 25% of my health as damage only, and then just roll through the rest of it. It's very consistent and allows me to go all in on her.
Should do a most memorable boss fight list next. Sooo many solid choices, but my favorite boss fight by far is Godrick
Sorry did you mean to write Soldier of God, Rick?
Okay, I had went through my first Elden Ring play through with a strength build and got clapped by Malenia twice. Then I switched to an arcane dex bleed build and beat her first try with rivers of blood after the weapon was nerfed 😂🤷🏼♂️
I don’t think Maliketh was the hardest boss, but I do think he was the most difficult boss fight I have ever experienced in videogames.
When fighting Malenia I don’t rage I kinda just get annoyed and then repeat. I think knowing Maliketh is a story boss makes me think he is much more difficult than he is. Like I know I don’t need to beat Malenia so I don’t really care as much, but knowing I need to beat Maliketh to progress makes it much worse for me I don’t know why
I would parallel malenia to similar bosses in the souls entry like sister friede and lady maria, you can kinda tell with those bosses when their hyper armor starts. Malenia seemingly randomly starts up hyper armor when she feels like it, she can also resist poise break/stance break when she feels like it( the poise health gets pinned to 1 until she decides to stop having hyper armor).
Waterfowl dance can stay but they really could've executed that attack in a way that would've made it feel memorable and fair. The difficulty just comes from the random and unpredictable nature of the attack and unreliable dodging due to rng. The fight is just rng hell to the nth degree depending on how unlucky you get.
Agree, i would say that she respect the heavy stagger ( make stagger him with a greatsword is ideal ) still bs how she can cancell light stagger, she can chain hyperarmor attacks, she have way, too many hyperarmor attacks, the clones attacks is bs As Well, insane damage in some attacks, this bossfight and even the maliketh and radagon/elden beast took the dificulty too far, maliketh is the Battle with more one shot scenarios, even more than malenia, radagon/ elden beast deals Big damage and the Battle is longer than a macht of tenis, making 13-15 heals not enought ( almost nobody ends Up getting all the flask) and malenia is just put everything together and more in the same battle
@@jajasking9652 If only they nerfed her healing it would not be too unfair of a fight. She heals way too much per hit currently.
Godfrey and maliketh are peak difficulty. They both feels difficult, but with clear pattern, behavior and attacks. they are both spectacular to look at and amazing to fight. i can consistently do them hitless, often finding myself quitting before the final blow just to have a remtch. malenia on the other side pushes the limit to an unnecessary degree, has a disappoitnigly mediocre moveset, repetitibe attacks and pattern, 18hp per phase nesuring you see each move 90 times per fight, making it one of the most difficult yet boring fight in videogame history.
Malenia's first phase has one difficult move that requires precise timing and skill to not just be deleted and to add insult you don't even get an opening after the attack
This added to her many gimmicks makes her an absolute slog unless you abuse busted weapons and skills like Rivers of Blood and Blood Hound Step.
I especially just love the fact she can cancel out of a stagger right into a Waterfowl Dance while you're still in your animation
Malenia is tuned to where she does the same attack, but the opening is very slight.
Maliketh ha a clear pattern??? Behavior???
Couldn't agree more! Though I find Maliketh's first phase as the Beast Clergyman leaves wayyy too few openings but his second phase is still really well done.
@@joaofaria7404 Maliketh is one of the single most telegraphed bosses in the game, in first phase you can bait out a guaranteed punish opportunity by exploiting his basic combo, and in 2nd phase you dont even need to dodge most basic attacks because his hitboxes dont reach close to his body.
I wonder how far malenia broke past the average difficulty, like how o&s avrg was 10.48 and orphan of kos was 10.53 and isshin was 10.60
It's not really a fair comparison because she isn't that difficult. The randomness to her moveset is what makes her hard. Otherwise she's much easier than Orphan or Isshin.
@@scottbecker4367 she is a million times Harder than Isshin for me. I can kill him 9/10 times now. But Malenia?? No chance without spirits
@@scottbecker4367 i actually found both isshin and orphan to be waaay easier than malenia, my first play through of the old hunters edition was in ng+6, and even then orphan only took me 5 hours, isshin only took me 3 hours and I could’ve beaten him in less than an hour if I didn’t activate the bell demon for my first play through of sekiro, but malenia took of me 12 hours, and i beat her without complete mastery of the fight especially the 2nd phase, she is by far the hardest boss in games for me
@@scottbecker4367 Even without waterfowl, I think malenia cleans Oprhan and especially isshin, who I find hard, but less so than 90% of the fromsoft rpg "hard bosses"
@@scottbecker4367 as a person who regularly perfects Isshin, that’s absolutely not true. Malenia is harder than him for all of the wrong reasons.
I think most players just complain about Malenia because they can't be bothered to learn. There's a reason Let Me Solo Her actually solos her easily now. There's nothing so unfair in her kit that you can't just learn to get around, even waterfowl dance. Hell she feels easier to me than Maliketh.
Interesting how different the experience is.
Maliketh was so incredibly easy for me and Mogh also.
But Placidusax is driving me crazy
Malenia is the hardest boss for me. She's also top 5 for my favorite boss, I think mechanically shes actually super amazing once you get how to deal with waterflow. Having a no hit first phase against her gives me the same feeling that having a perfect phase against Isshin does. They both feel like a true skill test. The fact that you can dodge waterflow without getting touched makes the move 100% not bullshit imo. There is a level of predictably with that move as well, about 50-60% health and she always triggers her first flow for me. So yes I love that fight in all aspects, sue me lol
I agree. Waterfowl dance is by no means an impossible or even necessarily unfair move to deal with. And when you do learn how to deal with it, it feels amazing.
I zero hit her it's on my channel. Check it out and leave a like #GitGud #SigmamaleGrindset #Ohmangoddamn
Imo Isshin the sword saint is a way better fight.
Freeze pots are what I use to counter waterfowl, I only dodge if I'm far enough to outrun first 2 flurries and roll thru the third. Currently stuck on her on my RL1 character 🙃
The constant threat of Waterfowl Dance brings a tension and alertness to the fight that would be lost without the move. If you ever don't have Waterfowl Dance in the back of your mind, you're going to get shredded, which I think is awesome
I still find Mohg, Lord of the Blood the most difficult. I just can't cope with the second phase. His move set is too hectic and the extra flames just makes it so RNG for me. At least Melania can be mastered. She rarely kills me when soloing now, but Mohg is still a coin toss for me.
Agreed, the blinding colors in his arena make it hard to see where exactly all the bloodflame is, not to mention that a lot of the time when he flies up in the air you can't even see the floor if you're locked on. That and his ridiculous roll catches just make him a big nope for me.
Your comment just reinforces that it's important to listen to various people's perspectives. Also we will never know if they fought Mohg with normal weapons or bleed/status effects or magic/incantations.
I tried being polite & doing Mohg normally - I’m a STR/INT build so I’ve normally got Ruins or Darkmoon in hand. However, he kept doing some attack that insta-killed me from wherever he was & so I was like, “Fuck it, staff out, Terra Magica & Comet Azure, infinite FP potion” & just killed him before he even triggered whatever he did to kill me the first few times I got him under half health.
I guess if you’ve got morals, Mohg is hard, however sometimes I just say the staff is mightier than the colossal sword.
Mentioning "mohg's rng" and then talking about Malenia is laughable, if not ironic.
I agree on his difficulty, he's straight up hard as fuck. Great range and space control, quite heavy damage, though not ridiculous. His chungus health is somewhat offset by all the free damage you can get in his countdown. I believe that the hardest thing about Mohg, and the main reason many players struggle with, is the positioning, since in most boss fights you can simply focus on the boss and move accordingly. Mohg demands that you also be mindful of f your surroundings and the elevation -which you can use against him-, but should you master that, he's just a very hard boss. Compared to maliketh that randomly one-shots 50 VIG chars, godskin duo or malenia, Mohg is the most honest boss of the really hard ones.
In direct contrast, and since you brought it up, Malenia just isn't. Whilte most of her moves are very punishing, but decently fair, she has a TOD , that can instantly and randomly end the fight. The need for spacing in her fight is extremely more unforgiving, since in mohg's case, if you fuck up, you are punished with bleed buildup and minor damage, or at worst ~600-800 damage. Staying close to Malenia when she waterfowls means instant death.
Unless you're talking about using some fat shield or BHS. Then I guess comm nial can be mastered as well, even without ever entering his boss arena.
I hated his fight so much, for me his attacks all felt disjointed with how they somehow hit me when I'm at his side or rolling through them. Plus he leaves fire that stacks bleed rapidly on the ground so there's very little you can actually move. And of course Nihil requiring a special tear just to mitigate- not negate- is asinine since the alternative is to burn three flasks of health to survive. Malenia might've taken me a couple tries to beat, but I had to cheese Mogh's AI in my first playthrough just to beat him. He was not fun and even now that I can beat him consistently he's still not fun.
Literally just beat Maliketh 10 minutes before watching this. Tried about 10x solo, then gave up to help others beat him/practice for about 10 hours, found a decent strat, and only about 5 tries after finally got em.
Hit em with scarlet rot once phase 1, then use rivers of blood or katana with seppuku, phase 2 rot again, then lightning or whatever projectile, then hide behind pillars when hes flailing. Or use Carian Retaliation 3x and hes toast lmao
Just learn to parry bro 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@mahmud7645 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
After watching many hours of invasions, I can no longer tell whether this is a serious comment or not. Tons of people unironically play like this.
In phase 2 if you are close to him he'll use fairly easy to dodge attacks most of the time so you can punish him a bunch.
Do the Tree Sentinels not count as bosses? The placement of them is what makes them so difficult to me. You have one at the beginning. One before you get into Lyndell. One before Malikith. All of the placements of them makes them frustrating and difficult.
It's not too hard to see why there's some variation in people's perception of the mimic tear fight difficulty, since it's quite literally a different 'boss' for every different build, and some are easier than others to fight against-- and there's one way in which it is stronger than your character: larger health pool. That being said, I'd definitely say it's one of the easiest bosses in the game; especially since you basically have the option of making the boss weak from the get-go if you choose to.
I had the golden parry on while fighting mimic tear and he was a monster for about 20 seconds until I remembered how to do anything but r1 spam
I'll have to agree that the Foreskin Duo was the only fight in ER I did not enjoy a bit. I died a lot to Placidusax, Malenia, Maliketh... but they were fun bosses whose move sets were interesting to learn. The Duo though... bs.
Ever since Orstein and Smough. From have tried to recapture the same feeling and I think have failed every time.
@@pious83 Sadly, that's true. At this point I think they should move on.
Yeah, I honestly wasn't a fan of most of the end game (specifically post capital) bosses myself. Morgott the Fell King was my favorite boss, but Maliketh and Placidusax were also great ones. The Duo was an awful fight (great nickname for them, I like it).
Miss me with Malenia though; she felt like an attempt at Lady Maria from Bloodborne, but it was a swing and a miss for me (yes, Maria is easily top 5 favorite FromSoftware bosses for me). Get rid of Waterfowl Dance, and I think the fight becomes much better balanced.
Slightly off topic, but my biggest criticism of Elden Ring (and one of the two reasons I traded it in after finishing it) was the post capital gameplay. It felt like I had jumped into New Game Plus difficulty, but with only New Game stats, once you beat Morgott. All of a sudden my damage output stopped being enough for common enemies, and those common enemies that took 7-8 hits to kill me started killing me in 2 hits. It's an enormous spike in difficulty with no warning. It pretty much invalidated my Dex/Magic build once I took the next lift. I took it in immediately after I got locked out of the Ranni ending because I got bugged out of the summon sign; I then tried to leave after hitting the bonfire without actually selecting an ending, and when I loaded the game again I was locked out of the end room. I finished the game but didn't get to decide an ending, and so no achievement for me.
Top 5 angriest I've ever gotten at a video game, and I'm old enough that I took on Sephiroth in KH1 on the PS2.
Godskin duo is very easy
I'd honestly be kinda sad if they removed Waterfowl Dance from the fight altogether. Instead, I think they should have her hop backward before using it so the player is guaranteed the time and space needed to avoid it
Geez, would you like them to refill your flasks mid fight as well ?
@@stianlavender1683 lol
@@stianlavender1683 His complaint is legit tho. When fighting her in melee she just doesn't give much time to react to Waterfowl if she suddenly decides to use it.
@@akiraigarashi2874 Which is what makes her so great. I wish she used it more often, and the timing of dodging it was even worse. I also wish all summons and spirit ashes were disabled from the fight. and while we're at it make her immune to bleed/rot.
I want From Software to *actually* make a boss that hardly anyone can defeat. Anyone can beat Malenia with spirits and bleed easily. Guys like Ongbal destroy her 10/10 times with RL1 wretch builds. Looking at PSN, more than 30% of users have beaten her. Which is like 6 million people. That is way too high. How about designing a boss that only 0.3% can beat? (60 000 people or so) So here's me waiting for a DLC boss to make Malenia look easy.
I've actually been thinking about this for a while between Morgott and Mohg.
They're exact opposites in their personalities and motives, sure. But nobody talks about their different fighting styles that both deliver difficulty and quality in their own way. Morgott puts pressure on the player by non-stop aggression. Constantly hounding you with attacks that may not do a lot of damage in singles, but devastating in combos and can string some in blistering speed. Mohg on the other hand deals slow blows with plenty of time to observe and dodge. Yet it's the force of his weapon that makes Mohg truly terrifying.
Just wanted to point out that little detail.
bro what godskin duo was so free. Only first try ive ever had and i did it right after mohg which took forever. also no summons or sleep was used in the godskin fight
Someone made a point about Malenia that's really stuck with me. You'll have attacks like waterfowl dance and find a way to dodge it without taking damage. But even if you play perfectly, you'll get nothing. As soon as the attack is finished Malenia will most likely dodge away and start another one. That's what feels pretty unfair about it, just the fact that you aren't rewarded at all for playing perfectly around her
Wrong, as long as you avoided it you have a free hit.
But it all depends on how you did it.
But one poke and run strats aren't that fun or engaging. You're either constantly fighting an uphill battle trying to get the consistent dodging down for dreaded Waterfowl or hoping she doesn't break it out and trying to bait attacks when you're trying to punish her and get locked in an animation as she menacingly floats above your head
That's almost every boss. In previous games you were able to attack the boss 24/7 as long as you were good but bosses in Elden ring are so aggressive and fast all we can do is dodge and poke if the boss allows it. This completely ruined the replayability of the game for me since it made all melee builds feel the same. Roll 6 times then poke before the boss either starts another 30 hit combo or leaps away. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes.
Malenia is so punishable if you learn her right, especially on dex builds. You kind of have to just learn which of her attacks have hyper armor, and which of her moves trigger what moves. She is easy to parry too
Melania is such a beautifully difficult boss. I know everyone harps so much on waterfowl dance but the fact of the matter is there are consistent ways to avoid taking damage completely from the ability as well as all her other moves. This added with the fact she is an optional boss that you don't HAVE to fight to complete the game make me appreciate just how difficult she was. I hope they never change her.
well said. I was surprised by the amount of people who think she needs multiple nerfs, but her extreme difficulty is one of the main characteristics of her fight. removing that would make her a much less interesting boss, and in my opinion less entertaining as well
@@luvdie The problem isn't her difficulty, per se, its that she's incredibly inconsistent and breaks a lot of rules set by the game in ways that are unfair.
1. No she isn’t. Isshin is a beautifully difficult boss. Midir is a beautifully difficult boss. Comparing an unbalanced mess like Malenia to them is an insult to the very idea of rewarding difficulty.
2. Yes. You can dodge Waterfowl consistently in certain scenarios. However, at close range it’s almost impossible unless you resort to Bloodhound’s Step. And despite the fact it’s easily her most powerful and hard to avoid move, it’s almost impossible to punish since she will almost always lead directly into another attack if you try to punish. That’s stupid and unfair no matter what way you try to twist it. I dodged the whole thing for six seconds, I deserve an opportunity to deal some damage.
3. That is single-handedly the dumbest excuse for a boss’s difficulty I have ever heard in my life. What’s next, Omega from FFXV Royal Edition isn’t a bad and unfair boss just because he’s optional in the DLC? And before you start whining, I’m one of only 0.35% of Xbox FFXV players who have ever beaten him. He still sucks.
4. I get you’re a masochist, but basically everyone else, even people who like her, agrees she needs tweaks and needed more time in the oven to begin with.
@@thegrapethief5514 holy based
Ok, I gotta say this. Godskin Duo is by far the most overhated boss in the game.
First of all, I really don't understand why people think it's an unending assault. Their AI is pretty passive and the fireballs do little damage and are trivial to dodge. Sure when they buff up they are annoying but like this fight is so much easier if you just fight them right after one another. And doing so gives you control of the fight in a way you don't get with other duo fights (looking at you crucible knights and triple crystalians). You should never be in a situation where you are facing 2 of them buffed up.
I found it trivial (with a bloodhound fang +9) to kill them one before the other respawned, so the only challenge is attacking the getting down the first kill, which as I mentioned isn't an issue while you have the pillars as cover as they are pretty passive in their normal form.
Add on top of that the fact I already fought these 2-3 times each beforehand and knew how to dodge every move, this fight was one of the easiest in the late game imo. And as far as gank fights go, this is not even top 3 most annoying in the game.
TLDR; People are just bad at fighting this boss and massively overestimate its abilities. Just take one down and go full aggression mode to ensure they don't respawn before the kill the other. It makes the fight an adrenaline-filled rush against the clock and imo quite fun and rewarding
I 100% agree. People are just complaining because they don't know how to kite multiple enemies.
As someone who fought them pre patch 1.04:
- Both bosses are designed to read your heal input and throw a black fireball that almost always hits by the time you heal, negating it entirely, and will do it consistently.
- Both bosses are considerably fast, especially the fat Noble, making it weirdly hard to properly space them out. Not to mention their phase transitions have insane range and speed alone, let alone if they both trigger at the same time.
- Before the patch, they would stick together like glue and attack you together with one not falling back for better enemy positioning and management like every other gank fight did before Elden Ring.
- You wouldn't really know Sleep works for them in the first run because Sleep is so negligible as a status since little to no enemies or weapons inflict it, so having that crutch isn't common knowledge to some.
I don't find them as hard now, but I think the flak they've received is more than fair.
@@EthanSchmethan
I guess Im lucky duo bosses got nerfed in the patch
But theres many pillars to stop fireballs or attacks, just like the status vs dragonslayer armor, if you use it, it gets easier
Here's my Malenia tweak list!
Make Waterfowl take a second or more longer to come out, it's easier to dodge now while still not being utterly useless.
She should not heal off shields, but should be able to break your shield immediately with her kick or other moves. Dodge, stunned or hit are your options on these moves. Or just make some moves do it but not others. That way you know which to block and which to dodge, adding a layer to the fight so you can't turtle the whole time but also dodging is riskier in some cases.
Scale her healing down a bit, and for the love of god change her clone attack to not be another jump in the air! Don't give her so many of those damn moves! She has like 5! And they all look similar!
Also. Finally. The dodge was fine as her get out of jail free card. Why'd you give her that and the kick?! Why can she do both?! One or the other! Fuck!
About Malenia's random hyperarmour moves and kick, Fromsoft has already made a balanced version of that:
Lady Maria from Bloodborne has a couple of slow hyperarmour moves that need to be doged or negated with 2 transformation attacks. They are Identifyable and way more balanced. Those could have been in Malenia's fight to make it better.
But, even if Malenia had a much more balanced moveset, she still doesn't have quite the "wow" factor that bosses like Maria and Friede have.
On Malenia: if the only thing they did was remove her ability to heal from hitting an opponent, the fight would immediately become more balanced. All of her moves already do significant damage, punishing any mistake with a hefty hit to your HP bar... but adding a healing effect on top of that, making the progress that you have made so far in the fight meaningless, makes her a grossly imbalanced and overly difficult boss.
It's just a shitty way to stop people from turtling with greatshields. The heal mechanic would have been fine if she healed if you actually took damage, but she just heals when she lands any hit which makes zero sense.
@@zsDUGGZ there was even a glitch for a bit where she healed from hitting nothing. It made her fight downright impossible. She heals whenever her hit collided with a hit box, not when she deals damage, which makes zero sense.
That healing definitely needs a nerf.
I feel like all the whining about Malenia is just "souls veterans" being salty about having to adapt their playstyle with Elden Ring's new features rather than relying only on their old formula. To me, she's a great example of a boss that can be as easy or as hard as you want her to be - which is Elden Ring's thing in the first place. If you decide to use your two handed greatsword and movement and nothing else then sure, she's as difficult as it gets (waterfowl can be dodged reliably though, it just takes forever to learn and is very precise). However, From Software gave you spirit summons, magic, weapon arts and lots more for a reason. You can use a tanky summon and spam taker's flame and she's a cakewalk. You can use a great shield with barricade and tank waterfowl. You can stunlock her with Prelate's Charge. There are SO many ways to play this game, and I think having a boss that asks the player to diverge from the classic "stick and move" formula was a *good* design decision.
I don't think they should Remove waterfowl dance from malenia
They should fix it which is actually very easy
Just decreasing the damage
It should be a healing attack for malenia more than a “oh I guess im dead” attack for us
I've summoned buddies for just about any bits in the series, and I honestly think that crucible knight and misbegotten warrior ate one of the best 2v2 bosses in the series. They have really good tracking for multiple people, and they sometimes mix up moves in very interesting ways. Hard af solo though dear God, unless you're way over leveled
It’s amazing how this list is so different to my own experience. The game experience can really differ insanely depending on your build and skills
Radagon and elden beast was the hardest for me since I’d always be low on heals. It made it so if I didn’t perfectly kill Radagon without taking almost any damage I couldn’t even challenge the elden beast. Torrent definitely should’ve been in that fight.
ik this is a year later but if u had both torrent and mimic tear or black knife tiche then it would’ve been such an unenjoyably easy fight, and fromsoftware doesn’t want you to have that experience as a final fight. they want ur ending to the game to feel good
If they ever removed waterfowl from scarlet witch, that fight becomes like 50% easier, that move killed more players on her fight then most of her move set, and being shes an optional boss I'm perfectly fine with her being this difficult and hope they never change her.
Totally agreed. I think it's awesome that Orphan of Kos has finally been outdone and it's been shown that every move of hers can be dodged with enough precision. And as you said, most importantly she's optional. If you don't want to fight her, you don't have to.
Nameless King is optional
He's still a better designed boss than Malenia without any bullshit
@@boshwa20
I can totally grant you that Melania is not completely fairly balanced like many other great fights in the soul's series. But, I kinda like having a few fights where the advantage goes to the boss's favor. It feels great to overcome those. I never had a problem with her hyper armor kick, and the clone attacks and waterfowl dance, while extremely unforgiving, CAN be overcome. And it's fun for me to overcome those kinds of odds. I'm glad she's in the game as is and the only thing I might change if it were up to me would be the hyper armor kick and even that's a maybe because it stops you trying to spam her to stun lock her.
The damage on waterfowl could use a slight tweak. I think it's fine to keep the move, but it shouldn't be instant death if you're caught by the first flurry.
@@scottbecker4367 you can survive her first flurry with 40 vigor and 45% dmg reduction (scaled armor set and dragoncrest greatshield talisman)
The issue with waterfowl dance is that if you're not lucky enough to not be attacking when she triggers waterfowl then you're just effed. Make it so a few hits knocks her out of WFD and it's an infinitely higher quality fight.
Oooor... just 2 hand your weapon, block first couple of hits and roll through her whole waterfowl dance, with like 25% of your health damage taken at most lol.
@@Zindril and she heals for 300 hp per hit
After 2 hours of fighting and eventually beating Melania I did notice something. She hard punishes people that rely too much on defensive armor, large heath/vigor pools and overall slower builds. She gains heath every time she hits you and if your not getting in your hits in fast enough before she can hit you, then your done for! A shield won't help because the rot will still affect you.
So what's the solution? Be faster and stager her!
She does not have a whole lot of poise or even the highest heath pool herself. This is pretty much her only weakness.
There are Ashes of War that can stunlock her like Black Flame Tornado. A few strong hits will stagger her and she can get knocked on her back as well. Other than that just don't get hit by wearing the lightest armor or none at all. Let Me Solo Her hears your plea!
I got tired of doing it with armor and just YOLOed and went naked using Takers Flame on the Blasphemous Blade to knock her on her back. I would used it again before she got up and repeat. I dodged her attacks as best I could restoring health when I could and kept my distance. Sure enough it worked!
I felt Melania falls into the category of souls bosses where you need to just need to get in there a taker her out before she overwhelms and kills you. If you don't have the damage just try your best and dodge it all and don't get hit. Reminded me a lot of Lady Maria and Orphan of Kos from Bloodborne.
Does that make her a hard boss? Yes! Does it make her an easy boss that you can BS by stunlocking her? Also yes!
Is that fair though? That's debatable.
I remember the first time I fought the Mimic Tear during the Ranni Quest, my only thought was, "Am I really this strong?". Afterward, though, it kinda became more a nuisance. I also spent my first two playthroughs not realizing that I did get the Mimic Tear summon, so now I'm my own backup in a lot of fights.