I Read Elden Ring's Negative Reviews (So that you don't have to)
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
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0:00 Intro
0:18 Rage Comments
2:14 Cheese
2:51 More Rage Comments
4:19 People Mad About Builds
6:10 Multiplayer
7:18 Malenia, Blade of Miquella
11:44 Last One 
Игры
Just a reminder to all people struggling with Malenia (or any other boss really): Yes, you can use spirit summons. No, they are not cheating; they are part of the game. If you are not having fun trying to beat a boss alone, heck, grab a friend. You don't have to justify anything. Just enjoy the game the way you want to.
EDIT: damn I really started a war in the comments lmao
summons are a core mechanic of the game, it was balanced with using them in mind!
Yes, but that's not the kind of fun I want to have.
The feeling of accomplishment is not there if I feel like I took a shortcut.
@@Karak-_- it's not a shortcut, it's the intended path. not using summons is taking an unnecessary detour
@@Karak-_- yes and thats valid! I also prefer not using summons most of the time, but we shouldn't judge people who want to.
The game was NOT balanced with summons in mind. This is just cope from people who want to justify their struggling with the game.
See when I preordered Elden Ring I already had played Dark Souls 1 2 and 3 so I knew what I was getting into, I was ready to be killed by Dogs at level 280
Was it the bleed dogs? Consider that those had their damage extremely high thanks to a bug
@@DrunkedOwlyJust any dog in any souls game is cancer
@The-Ghost-1612 sekiros dogs are better because you can just oneshot shuriken them and you never miss.
Getting killed by birds was a pleasant surprise 😊
Died almost 10 times to the Royal Rat Authority last night. I feel this on levels
I will never forget a rage video of one guy fighting Rychard while he use the spell of the "falling skrulls" saing:" THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A RPG GAME! WHAT ROLE AM I PLAYING THE F***ING VICTIM!?" this make me laught every time it comes in my mind😂
I Mean If You Are Playing Game Like That You Sealing You're Fate.
The dude who made the video was just using a previous videos sound. They weren't actually raging🤓☝️
anyone has the link ?
Raykard and elden stars makes me think of that video every single time still.
One of my favourite clips
I think what makes mohg and malenia so frustrating for me is the fact they heal. Watching malenia and mohg’s health bars go back up fills me with some powerful emotions
you should stay away from sekiro then, imagine missing a perfect parry and it means you just threw the entire fight
my man you can just use the physik Pubble tear and it will negate some of the heal still by the time you have reached mohg you should have enough damage to the Point where the heal does not matter
For me Mogh was annoying because of how much bloodflames we spread on his 2nd phase like i can't move at all without taking damage.
@@gonzalocerieldin3975but hey, you can get an instakill riposte
Get the red physick, I consider mohg heal is just 2nd phase without cutscene
The thing that sucks about waterfowl dance is that she can just cancel her hitstun into it.
there is still tons of way to counter it, you can just bloodhound step away or cancel the attack with a freezing pot or block everything with a shield...
@@ni9274
1. Funneling players into using certain builds with Bloodhound Step doesn't sound like good balancing.
2. Consumable items are not reliable because you run into a point where you waste all of them trying to learn the fight and then have to farm for more pots.
3. Malenia heals on every hit that connects, including shields for some reason. That alongside the fact that you lose stamina by blocking it leads to defensive builds not being able to make much progress.
@@leithaziz2716 you don’t need a Build for bloodhound step just have a dagger with bloodhound step in your second slot and switch to it when she does the move.
@@CorvinHaas That's still the same idea. Why do you need to use this dagger JUST for this single move? Especially if you wouldn't use it otherwise.
@@ni9274 I just want a fight that is fair. I don't like using big shields, cheesy consumables, or "win button" stuff like BHS
Unless it's obvious that the enemy is going to do an AoE attack, "rolling into the enemy" is probably single best advice that you can give someone for these games that will increase their chances of not dying substantially.
@dakussh that is really good advice for most new players, but I feel a lot of attacks that newbies have trouble with are ones that are easier to dodge if you jump rather than rolling. I still to this day will see people screen sharing in different discord servers and they don’t get any punish windows on certain attacks due to them rolling rather than jumping. Not saying your wrong just trying to add more advice.
@@evercite1253 I totally forgot that you can actually jump in Elden Ring.
@@evercite1253it’d be nice if elden ring tried to teach you literally anything. I actually just beat melania like 2 hours ago and only just learned how to use jumps to get better punishes. Like geez they could’ve gave a simple example from a sweeping attack from soldier of godrick and I could’ve implemented that into my gameplay so much faster. Honestly upsetting
Can someone explain to me what AoE attacks are? I've tried looking it up on internet but it doesn't explain shit 💀
@@xLanzer aoe stands for area of effect. Aoe attacks are referring to attacks that have large area of effect. So big attacks that hits lots of targets because their large
"Waterfowl is more dodgeable than other attacks" shows rykards flame skull attack where you literally just have to run in any direction
I genuinely do not think I have ever seen anybody get hit by that attack
That wasn't the point. Rykard and elden beast does area denial in a way that forces you to simply not engage with the fight.
I would argue that the same logic applies to scions to a lesser degree. If you get in their face and actively dodge they can't deny you into mid-far range, but once you get into mid it become increasingly difficult to again close it. Melenia simply doesn't have this issue.
its funny he used that attack as an example when, during the god devouring serpent phase, he has a ground wave attack that is extremely hard to dodge because of its lingering hitbox. you need to use vow of the indomitable or raptor of the mists if you want to consistently dodge it.
Waterfowl can be dodged with 3 rolls once you get the timing down to your muscle memory
GinoMachino fucking dodges the first burst of attacks by just walking around Malenia 😭
@@fatusopp4739It can be dodged consistently by running forwards and dodging left
It does not work if you dodge right for some reason
The ground attack is fan shaped if my memory serves
It took me few tries to learn to dodge it too but the serpent spamming that attack sure helped me do it quickly
3:06, You know, I feel like they could've added a detail or something to smooth over that frustration. Like maybe, Margit does fall off, but he simply jumps back onto the field, or uses magic to lasso himself or teleport himself back on to avoid falling off entirely. Maybe this could be used to get players a bit of breathing room, time to heal or buff, if they managed to stagger him or hit him hard enough to push him off but not trivialize the fight.
Him just losing all momentum like he hit a brick wall is kinda janky and can feel frustrating.
Fair
You should be able to knock him off like Iron Golem in DS1, if you get a riposte at the edge. Would have been a cool... throwback.
Fair
I feel that the critique of malenia is almost entirely correct, but malenia does actually cheat. If Malenia has her posture broken in (for example) waterfowl dance, she doesn't get stunned, but the bar is still consumed.
I wouldn't call that cheating. Bosses having moves in which they have unbreakable or nearly unbreakable hyper armor is pretty normal. It only sucks so much because its on such a ridiculous move lol.
@@treybug10000 wouldn't be cheating if she wasn't the only boss that has literal unbreakable hyperarmor
@@adrijanzahner9819 And she is probably the best boss in the game... yea... i don't think it's bad she has hyperarmour.
@@michasokoowski6651 she’s mid I can see that she kinda has a really good moveset but the negatives put her back to medium she’s not great
@@adrijanzahner9819 And what are negatives in your opinion?
In my opinion the only thing you could say is that she is a bit too punishing, but it also it makes so you can't brute force her her with every other boss.
9:00 "waterfowl dance is way more dodgeable than you think it is"
first step: you run away since you can't dodge it
Yes then you dodge twice after. Crazy
@@lastdimensions638 lol, i already beat malenia and know how to dodge it cuz you actually can without running away.
i just thought it was funny how he said it that's all
Running away is a form of dodging in Souldborne games, so the statement is actually correct
I mean by running away your already dodging it, so I don't get this
wait you caint dodge it? why would they put something like that in the game? then you cant dodge it
I only used guides to know how to do npc questlines, so I didn't fuck up something important that I won't be able to right until ng+ or a whole other character
Elden Ring is the first souls game i played after playing casual rpg games like Skyrim. It was hell just defeating the Godrick Knight as a beginner. But after three days, i finally defeated him without loosing any health. It was so satisfying! Also, i love parrying although it's not so ideal
When I just started, I got an idea of beating that first Godrick Knigt in those ruins, in a fair duel (you can always cheese kill him with backstabs
etreat circle, but that felt not honorable enough) - it took 20 deaths before I switched second sword to a shield and decided to try shield parrying, which proved to be very effective against knight.
I love the overall feeling, that some nameless dude can become a fun challenge if you approach it with a proper attitude and mood. Plus pushes you to experiment with stuff.
Ahh, the almighty one - Soldier of God, Rick
Malenia cheating is lore accurate, seeing as that's how she walked away from her fight with Radahn
who is malenia
@@FreeAimDog Blade of miquella
@@suham5132 i was following the waypoint and a buff guant bear came from behind and killed me when i was in the menu trying to figure out how to get the horse
@@FreeAimDog and i picked a fight with sentinels because I thought I could kill a horse. Lived to regret it
@@suham5132 i let my mother watch me get my ass kick and she dint understand the game, she said he cheats because it takes you 20,000 times to hit him but it only takes him 1 hit to kill you, at the point i knew there was no reason explaining stuff to her.
I mean, the thing about Malenia is that literally everyone likes everything BUT Waterfowl Dance, and yes, the fact it does infinitely more damage and instantly kills if you don't dodge it is what makes it more annoying than the other hard to dodge moves 💀
Dude once you’ve learned how to avoid Waterfowl, it immediately becomes more fun
At least it did for me, it became something I both feared and got excited for
I feared getting caught in an animation and being forced to take damage or fucking up and dying to it, but excited when I didn’t get caught off guard and just dodging it like a badass
Her lifesteal is so much worse imo because it cancels any of the progress made chipping her hp. As if dodging and running around looking for so little opening isn't already hard enough she can heal up to full hp in just a few hits.
Oh i don't mind Waterfowl but it's bollocks that she heals even when you block her.
Still.... One of the best games ever made
@@excalibro8365 I'd be more fine with it, were it not for it even healing when you block. Have it be a percentage of the damage done to you, so if you block with a 100% shield, no healing. And it's not like you can block forever to begin with. At this point in the game, you should have the damage to outpace her healing with practice--especially if you use stuff like bleed or frost.
@@excalibro8365 the more you learn to dodge the attacks the less health she recovers and besides its only small amount of health per hit, translation get good
The moment you beat Malenia is probably the most satisfactory moment of your whole Elden Ring playtrough.
I went with Mimic and GreatSword and we were just jumping on her and I killed her on 1st try
@@danielsmid3777Based greatsword user
1st tried her. 1st souls like game for me. Game is easy
@@danielsmid3777 Bruh wow...
@@bluvdmssiahyeah sure man 😂😂😂
9:33 just a tip, you can use thops's barrier on elden stars (dont know for rkyards skull though)
so many people already said malenia has a messed up stance system but my other problems with her is
1. Waterfowl dance can be started from neutral. You have to play this boring waiting game for it in the first phase and I think it'll have been better if she dashes away before starting it to prepare you for it, even if it has a shorter windup
2. There's no limit on her 2nd phase. In my first playthrough, after she did her flower bloom move, she went straight into waterfowl and then her butterfly clone attack right after. The second phase is just a mess because there's no cooldown or health limit for those long attacks you have to run from or be prepared for with stamina
Other than that I really like her but a few tweaks would have put her in the legendary ranks with Gael, Glock Saint Isshin and Lady Maria
the second point is true, but I'd say this constant tension makes her more fun for me. After all, dodging the attacks perfectly is equally as fun as getting attacks in, and continuously managing to avoid them instills me with an adrenaline rush unlike no other boss
and for waterfowl, might sound a bit elitist but... just run? Waterfowl can be perfectly avoided by simply running and jumping even from close range. And just don't go for heavy attacks from neutral on any boss, it is always a bad idea. An r1 or rb will be enough, which allow for a proper escape.
For point 1 in my personal experience, the opposite is the case. The most effective strategy is to be aggressive and engage with her other combos that have guaranteed attack Windows. Do one hit at a time and always be prepared to run away from Waterfowl. That way you'll do plenty of damage in a short time and also have good odds of evading Waterfowl.
@@EmissaryOfStuff But one hit at a time is not being aggressive. That is just regular gameplay. You cannot get aggressive just because the possibility is there that she could waterfowl at 80%. It is really inconsistent when she does, which makes it RNG dependant and I get downright angry when she doesnt waterfowl me because she is wasting my goddamn time.
@@tinminator8905 What I mean with being aggressive is closing the distance, taking the Initiative and not waiting for Waterfowl Dance. Passively waiting for her to make the first move is what creates the boring waiting game described by the original Comment. And when I said "one hit at a time" I mean one hit per opening. Within an attack string that can easily add up to 4-5 Hits.
@@EmissaryOfStuff That is not so smart. When she gets below 80%, she can staggercancel into WF. If you try to get your windows in according to the stagger there is a good chance you will just get punished. Of course you can take the risk but then chances are that you will not enjoy yourself at all, because you are getting punished randomly. You really have to do one hit at a time, unless you are specifically switching to a dagger when she can WF, which prevents her from staggering but wouldnt recommend that either since fighting Malenia without staggers is kinda shooting yourself in the foot. You fix a problem just to create new ones. Thing is: If I am playing a run with no healing and using a sub par weapon, I cannot rely on chance, so the fight is really boring until she uses WF. Of course it goes back to being boring once her cooldown is over.
If I have to look up how to dodge an attack consistently then I don’t think it’s a good attack
HARD TRUEEEE
i didn t look it up and beat her @ lvl 100 - 125 tho. In a later (new) run at lvl 45.
@@seventyfour8256 sorry. That was rude. I edited the message
But can you dodge waterfowl consistently
@@swootproonce634 yes, as long as I don't choke
Tbh my biggest issue I had with Elden Ring was getting used to rolling being on release of the button instead of on press 😂
The number of times I died while holding the dodge button.
Not gonna lie, Ds3 habits made me die in miserable ways in the first 20 hours.
If you are on PC, AHK can be used to simulate press then release with a single press, I use that all the time because I find the dodge on release bs
I don't trust anyone that played Dark souls and thinks Elden ring is on the same level.
"You run away from the first part", showing a clip of you being half the arena away from her and she instantly zips to a meter away from you even when you where running at the start of her attack. Meaning if you are in melee range and she does that attack (which she can and will do) you cannot run away because even without armor you cannot get that far away from her in that time span. You cannot expect the attack because after around 75% health she can do waterfowl whenever she wants. You might be able to run away in time when you start running the frame waterfowl starts but I haven't been able to test that for obvious reasons.
So if you are a melee build you either have to exploit her AI by being so close to her that she zips through you and makes some distance herself or use the freezing pot which is an consumable that you need every single time she uses that attack multiplied by every time you redo the fight because she has a lot of other moves aka no player will have enough materials to craft that amount without grinding or getting extreemly lucky on one of their first attempts. I dont find neither of those options acceptable. There is also the third option of popping by Renala and respecing to magic for one fight...
The reason why people find elden star or the skeleton party more acceptable is because to some extend you can survive by face tanking while spamming dodge. There are better ways of doing it but if you are caught in the wrong spot it isn't an instant reset like Rot waifu.
I actually completely agree with this. As a player who enjoys strength and Dex builds, I feel like I’m locked into one of two options. Either I can use unsheathe or giant hunt to stun lock her, which sucks because it doesn’t feel like I’m fighting the boss. Or, I and fight be boss and be punished because in order to deal damage I have to be in her face and she can use her almost unavoidable waterfowl. I don’t have a problem with her being punishing for mistakes, but I don’t like that it feels like my build is being punished for the way I’m even supposed to deal damage.
@@noahturner9515so true, i hate that they never consider all the builds for our characters. i haven’t fought malenia yet but i can say for Rykard, wow they gave us an OP sword for us to kill it with but never consider that i am an int/dex build that HAVE NO EQUIP LOAD TO CARRY THAT. i was a pure mage but thank god i switched to int dex so i can actually wield it, provided i take off everything else of course
@@wasabichips97 tbh you can beat rykard but pretty much just spamming the AoW, plus you can upgrade the weapon easily with the bell bearings
Waterfowl dance is cooldown and hp based. She can only do it bellow a certain hp, and after she does it once she can't do it until its off cooldown. Knowing this, you can just play extra safe when you're expecting the move, and leave yourself tons of distance. If you stand in her face meleeing her regardless of whether her waterfowl is off cooldown or not then you deserve to die to the boss. It's perfectly predictable
@@htwo1 that’s true but the issue is she can do it any time after 75% health and any time in phase 2 so like me you can hitless phase one and the get waterfowl right into phase 2 3x in a row
(this is not a hate comment) "it won game of the year the year it came out" gives of the same energy as "i was born at a very young age"
It's true; it feels redundant to say both "Elden Ring" and "game of the year."
@@kaijuge6934 “corporate needs you to find the differences between this title and this title”
“It’s the same title”
As someone who just finished a 70 hour seemless coop run it’s the only way to play coop in my opinion it makes the game so much fun and it scales with you depending on how many people there is present in the session(can have up to 6 with everyone having spirit summons) plus the amount of funny things that happens is insane. And now me and the boys have started a randomized run of seemless coop which so far has been rough but fun
I'm going to have to agree with the review at 3:00. ER's enemies in general are pretty bad with "rules for thee but not for me". Margit having a magic invisible wall to protect him from falling off the edge is a perfect example. Enemies being able to hit you through solid objects and walls is another.
Elden Ring's not a perfect game, IMO this is one of the major problems keeping it from being a true masterpiece
I like how you didn't show how to dodge Malenia's waterfowl up close.
It's simple, you just run in circle below her, dodge 3 o'clock the moment she drops on you.
just go watch let me solo her do it, you can pick up timings from there
@@maizewindu.4827 lmsh uses light roll, meaning he can judge dodge through it because of its distance.
Most people aren’t light rolling on their first play through
@@BBQcheese Use big shield and profit
@@magicoddball1452 you're acting like medium load is so much harder, nope. still have to dodge at about the same time.
if this many people have to look up how to dodge malenia's waterfowl because its not clear enough. thats a game design issue
I figured it out the same as described here myself. I'd say it wasn't too obscure, but perhaps that's just me, and I did have hazy memories of reading some tips on it, though I actually gave up on them because they weren't working for me.
nah, the actual dodge mechanic is kinda unclear, sure, but like he said, you can quite literally just run away. That's it. Even if she gets you with the last one, if you're not being and idiot and healing, you'll live. Not to mention that she is a completely optional boss. One single boss being a little fucky isn't a game design issue.
Nobody HAVE to, people are just lazy and do it because don't want to learn the freaking game and then complain in the internet looking for minds alike.
You forget that this game has the largest playerbase of all the Fromsoft games, and let's be real here. A lot of gamers are whiny babies who are too lazy to think and really should stick to games where everything is pretty much done for them
@@apophis7712 Its criminal how you people keep defending this attack, high skilled players like lilaggy or distortion had no clue how to dodge the attack, they had to either use bloodhound step or summons to avoid the attack, i played all the fromsoft games beat every single boss, beat all off elden ring bosses with a dogshit build and not once did a move, not a boss, a move make me question what the fuck am i supposed to do, i love fromsoft games they are my fav games off all time, but waterfowl is the most bullshit attack in all their games
the worst part about malenia was that she life steals with every hit.
It's not life steal, it's life generation, because even if you block ALL of her damage she still gets health.
As far as I'm concerned it's her only objective flaw, other then that she's just squirrely.
AND I DONT EVEN LIKE THESE GAMES!
@@deusexmachina101 i love the games and ive beat all of them (except ds2 and demons) i just didnt think elden ring was as great as everyone said it was, yea it was good but not a flawless 10/10 best game of the decade
Bloodhound step is really useful for those who have a hard time dodging the waterfowl dance, you can just dash through it without a care in the world
I do have a lot of gripes with malenia personally. I was using a single giant crusher build and most of the other bosses in the game weren't too much trouble (both Maliketh and Godskin duo I beat on my first try) but Malenia took me around 32 hours of exclusively fighting her to beat. A big part of the problem I had was not specifically with waterfowl (although with giant crusher's attack end-lag you were basically rolling the dice on whether a hit would knock her into the animation without you being able to get away fast enough), but with the near complete lack of openings in the second phase with the bait attacks she does and the aggression she could put out. I was getting to the point where I could hitless her first phase and when I finally beat her after several thousand attempts it just felt like I'd been lucky with the set of attacks she'd done rather than any improvement from me. With the particular build I was using she felt extremely inconsistent when compared to the rest of the game and it certainly didn't feel like great design from that perspective. The rest of the game was a lot of fun, but spending several months fighting just one boss kind of made the end game anticlimactic.
Don't bullshit me ain't no way you first tried maliketh
@@kirayoshikage1735 Giant crusher does such an insane amount of damage and stagger that if you can afford to tank a hit or two he dies extremely fast.
@@kirayoshikage1735i think i did but i did use rob before nerf so like i sound go kms right now
The game is kind of designed so you can change your build on a whim... If you want an extreme boss, it's going to make a few builds not viable. Honestly, why she is extremely difficult, this is on you for spending 32 hours trying to beat malenia without even trying to adapt your build.
@@osmium7738 I would agree if it felt necessary to frequently swap builds at any other point in the game, but it's literally just with her. Also I didn't want to beat her with a different build I wanted to beat her with big hammer.
I only really have three criticisms I can think of for Elden Ring:
1. The sections that require precision platforming are legitimately awful.
2. Almost every elevator has an instakill pit below it, despite it not really making sense in most cases from a world design standpoint.
3. Some of the bosses' delayed attacks look incredibly unnatural and feel like they're just designed to get a cheap hit on the player.
Since when did bosses attack look natural in souls games ? They are all delayed since demon souls, that's the only way to make it interesting and not just about pressing B.
They're designed to roll catch the player, that's not cheap, if you panick roll you're the one at fault.
@@ni9274 The problem isn't that they're delayed, it's that said delayed attacks often aren't intuitive to dodge even if you know not to panic roll.
Mogue is a perfect example of delayed attacks implemented correctly because he's both consistent and has proper telegraphs. Though, the blood fire in his second phase is a whole other issue.
Stuff like Margit and the Magma Wyrms holding their weapon over their head for an awkward amount of time before quickly swinging it down feels less like the game's asking the player not to panic roll and more like it's asking you to memorize unintuitive timing through trial and error, which isn't very fun.
@@ni9274 You can make delayed attacks look natural and intuitive to the point that the player can react on instinct alone. Gundyr, Nameless King, Soul of Cinder, Gael, etc. Heck, Mohg's attacks look natural despite all of them being a little delayed. But he's the exception to the rule in that example.
It also should be worth noting that the issue with Elden Ring is that nearly every boss has an attack like this, which leads to a lot of the learning-process against most encounters feeling like trial and error. Delayed attacks are fine to throw out every once in a while (kinda like a curveball thrown at the player that forces them to adapt. The Dancer in DS3 is a great example of this), but with ER it's hard to find a boss that doesn't rely on them.
4.AFK farmers (but flying with marika's hammer and killing them was really damn fun)
i don't like the balancing of the game, but you cant hold it against the game too hard, as it's a giant open world game and that's really difficult to balance. just the fact that you can kill bosses in 20 seconds with a "decent" build is so stupid imo.
I feel what really nails the souls like combat system is a game where you relatively have fairly simple attacks, at most maybe a 2-3 hit combo that you can realistically get off, where the primary game play is the monster has multiple abilities that can near one shot you, and the main objective of the game play is to time important dodges to than counter attack.
Once you beat one souls like game, the majority of them follow the same rythem of. Dodge, 2 hits, dodge, wait, 2 hits, dodge.
"a small mistake doesn't mean the end" he says, as maliketh (the one boss that will rock you into hell if you mistime a single dodge) footage plays in the background
this guy is literally trolling. for starters if you arent maxing out your poise the 9 piece combos are essentially one hit because you get stunlocked. not to mention how fast the bosses move versus how fast you do. you have a really slow dodge roll. positioning is so important in this game because you can easily dodge one hit but then get hit by the other 3 attacks coming at you in succession at mach speeds, the game demands passivity which is so annoying.
I played a little bit of DS1 a few hours ago and if you get caught up in a group of enemies, if you don't perfectly dodge out, you're dead.
I like Malenia now. But I cannot deny how unfair she is. She can chose to be staggered or hyper armor through it and counter attack leaving you not enough time to respond. She shares this with Morgott and Beast Clergyman. And don't get me started on Waterfowl Dance. Sure, you can definitely dodge it. But at close range it's usually instant death. There are ways to dodge it at point blank but it's too hard as it does not come that frequently to practice and too punishing to tank. And my favorite is when she punishes you WITH Waterfowl Dance and you are stuck in your animation.
The point about Malenia “choosing to not be staggered” is just not true. She only has a couple moves throughout both phases which are unstaggerable those being her sideways dodge (which she only does when she is strafing to the side instead of edge walking forwards), her kick which has a huge telegraph and can easily be dodged, waterfowl dance, and scarlet clone. That’s four attacks, all of which have very noticeable telegraphs. ALL of her other attacks ARE vulnerable to light staggers!
And as for Waterfowl Dance, the dude in the video IS right! It is a MUCH more consistent and fair attack to dodge than it seems at first glance! If she starts it when you are far away from her it is VERY EASY to dodge. And dodging at close range can be learned if you just watch a couple short tutorial videos on the subject.
My preferred method is running away from the first flurry, jumping right before it hits you to give yourself extra i-frames, then rolling through the second flurry, and letting the final flurry go over you. This method is VERY consistent and works most times I try it, even when she initiates waterfowl from point blank range.
As someone who has fought Malenia solo literally hundreds of times I can tell you that it is a very learnable and consistent fight if you put the time in.
Malenia could still have been a difficult boss if she had no heal on hit or waterfowl dance. I think Malenia is just downright unfair to the player(took me more than 60 tries and I still struggle without bleed and frost buildup)
@@GaiusJuliusCaesar02 I’m glad someone actually agrees with me on this, I’m so tired of people saying ‘because you can dodge it it’s ok’ or ‘the boss is well designed, just use spirit summons or get good lol’. Nobody is going to figure out how to dodge waterfowl dance up close without watching a RUclips video on it or already knowing how to do it through the internet. I think Isshin is a harder boss fight, but he’s also somehow less bs to fight against, you can do fine even with bad RNG without looking up a RUclips video on Isshin, because all the stuff he has feels fair, and you are given the tools to interact with every move he has in a meaningful way. When you have the wrong positioning, or attack at a time Melania decides to hit you, you are basically dead lol or if you don’t die, because you have 70 vigour, then she heals back the progress you’ve made to her. Which is what makes the boss frustrating and unfair. Also she got nerfed, people were likely complaining about pre patch melania which the solutions outlined in the video mainly wouldn’t actually solve. People who say the start up for waterfowl dance is reasonable fail to include that many attacks with heavier weapons, even light attacks, can lock you into an animation which makes it impossible to go through the dodge cycle required to beat waterfowl dance. She would probably be the best boss in the game, arguably all fromsoft games without both the vampire thing, and waterfowl dance, and still be a challenging fight
@@harronator-2670 people just love gatekeeping. I agree Ishin is a more difficult boss and he seems fair(sekiro has the smoothest combat system of any game). Ive been in situations vs malenia where i use “crucible horns” incantation which usually flings her up and lays her flat, sometimes that never happens(even though i have charged the incantation up). I would rather remove the healing aspect of malenia than the waterfowl since she usually only waterfowls once or twice and you can use bloodhounds step
I will never forget that dumb DS3 review where they complained that the enemies are stronger than the player character. And then complained that it's unplayable just like the two games before it. Imagine buying an entire game trilogy one by one expecting the next game to be fundamentally different.
I mean, then came Sekiro which was fundamentally different :D
It never fails that between various challenge videos and stuff like this, you still learn new little mechanics here and there about games from this series
Gonna go stock up on frost pots
Wait... the dodge-rolling is a selling point? A basic game mechanic that exists in countless other games - some good, some bad. Yeah, that's not much of a selling point. That's like saying jumping is a selling point, which, while some games inexplicably exist which do not allow you to jump, this most basic of functionality should not be considered a selling point, but a must-have basic piece of any game ever.
(Edited to further explain my reasoning cause I keep getting the same argument that I've already relplied to. Marikas tits just read the replies. Also dam people are way to defensive of this game and its flawless, it's funny.)
From persona exp, my main critiques of Malenia is that her already agressive move set (that I have no issue with in P1,) means you constently have little to no stamina and when combined with her lung attack wind up not being long enough for you to heal or attack. Then add to this that the attack will still hit you while up close even if your roll to her side or behind her. Though even worse is how it can reach you from over 2/3rds of the map in such a short time (not long enough to heal) and then she immidiety goes into her quick swipe attack or waterfowl, which are hard to dodge. Although my biggest critique is just how argessive she is in Ph2 and that she has no cooldown after using Waterfowl. At least in Ph1 she gives you enough of a window to back away, attack or heal but she's go straight onto said lung attack, the quick slashes, flower or Waterfowl again & cuple this with her 3 shotting u and said stamina issue... anyway that's what I find most unfair.
You just gota rely on rng that she uses that rot burst attack, it's like your only window in P2 unless you don't interupt her attacks/stager her at all in the fight and wait for her to cycle back round to the bloom. Though if your doing that than are you really fighting her or just waiting for an ai to cycle through its movesets to the 1 or 2 single opportunities it gives you to play the game? I know this is remedied by ''getting good'', but when those are your only options, it just seems like ''bad'' desighn.
(I still love fighting her, but from a pure game mechanic pov it just seems needlessy unfair).
Ok, it seems it is the classic of people not understanding the heal punishes in the game. I think these mostly come from DS3 where against most bosses you could heal in the bosses face most of the time without getting punished. In earlier souls games you couldnt do that as well. Malenia has a healpunish thrust move. She uses it consisitently from a certain range and it will counterhit you dealing bonus 30% damage, which is massive. Do not heal infront of Malenia in her neutral state. All your issues with that move will be eliminated instantly. It is not that there is no windup, actually it is pretty long compared to even her own fastest move out of neutral, you are probably just spamming heal in her face in neutral. I know this is probably news to new players of the souls games, but the inteded gameplay is that you dodge their attack before healing up. After getting hit you gotta get a successful dodge in or you will get hit again.
@@tinminator8905 Thnks for your comment but it's unnecessary. (I don't usually like to state this but when you so aimlessly assume me to be in the wrong and being a newb that I am inclined to say. I am a long time Souls born (&Sekiro) player, so do have experience and I don't (usually) act like a dum shit, like you assumed I was in your comment. Now I disagree with you EMPHATICALLY, as you say that move is designed to be a heal punish, than do pray tell, WHEN THE ACTUALL F*** ARE YOU MENT TO HEAL IN PHASE 2?! She gives you NO opportunity and when you think you have one, she hits you from across the map with this attack in less than the time it takes to use 1 heal AND God help you if your anywhere near her when you try this as you can't even dodge the attack from in front of her because the attack animation itself is broken as WILL STILL HIT YOU if you have perfect timing snd dodge behind her or to the side when she's about to perform the attack. And even then when you are at decent range and have bated out BOTH lung attacks, she will immediately go into flower bloom which will track u across the map if u bsck up to heal or she'll use waterfowl (and by this point of you dodging for 3 consecutive minutes, you have no stamina and low health so you cannot dodge waterfowl and even if u did, you would have low stamina and health as which believe it or not the majority of people, me included cannot dodge it perfectly. You are then left with two choices: A you gain distance and pray she doesn't immediately combo into another fowl or the quick slashes, which again remember you don't have the stamina for, also thst attack can also reach you across the map.
OR B, you run to the very far side of the map to try and heal and by this point you haven't even been given the chance to press the button to heal as she's already readying the thrust attack and you lack the stamina to dodge, and now I am dead again, for the 301st time.
You may as well have said NO YOUR NOT SUPPOSED TO HEAL IN PHASE 2 you newb! That move is designed to punish you for having survived, AND for expecting the decency of being able to use the core game mechanic that is the core reason 98% of the player base is able to survive against such aggressive bosses, or in Malenia's case, 2 shot you unless you have more than 70 in health.
@@esgown4184 or maybe utilize the openings as healing windows?
@@ivanchaki372 I can't tell if your being sarcastic or just dumb, regardless I'm not even gona entertain what you said when I've already explained what you've asked.
@@esgown4184 Why is it unnecessary, you just confirmed I am right? You just heal after you dodge and get a healing window, not in her face from neutral. In phase two there are tons of them after the flower smash moves. I am sure you know what I mean. In phase one you either run away or you again just heal after slamdown finishers or the triple slash follow up, or thrust or grab, etc. There really aren't that few windows.
Can you read the negative reviews of Inscryption? This is a card game and 4th wall psychological horror game created by Daniel Mullins. And they have a robot that half of the fandom hates and the other half finds hot, and an easter egg that turns a goat into a maid so... it should be interesting
3:24 1.3 hrs and 0.8 lol
I have never played dark souls but I instantly loved elden ring because I felt like I got my moneys worth. Most single player games I can breeze through in a day and at the end its just like that was cool but I spent 60 bucks on a game that could only entertain me for a day. I have been playing elden ring for a week and have only beaten like 2 bosses.
Souls veteran here, so I had a little bit more luck, and am stuck on either Malenia or the final boss, and I basically just go back for the fun of the fight, awesome music, and don't try at that point, until I do want to try and finally finish the game for the Age of Stars Ending that I went through the trouble to do. So I am a Ranni Simp, don't judge me. But yeah, the game is aweseome, and that feeling of satisfaction for beating a boss after numerous failures is real.
Malenia is fun, despite my litany of failures to her, BECAUSE of how difficult she is. And while Waterfowl Dance is complete BS, she doesn't spam it. Radagon is also fun, but the Elden Beast right after is... interesting. Not the worst fight of the game, but I really feel that it should have been properly set for after Radagon, rather than immediately after him. It makes perfect sense thematically and lore wise, but I defeinitely would prefer it to be a completely separate fight, rather than the phase 2 of the last fight of the game. Minor gripe, though.
An advice for other games in general: try to do everything in a game if you like it, most of the 60$ games will keep you busy for a week or two and you'll feel that you get your money worth of content. It works well for me, I never been dissapointed of buying any game.
Waterfowl Dance itself isn't the problem, it's just a scary move to catch you off guard until you finally figure out how to counter it, every boss in the series has one of those to some extent. The issue with Malenia is the culmination of a lot of (relatively little) things that build up to become a rather frustrating whole, but it's okay, because it's canon that she cheats to win, just look at Caelid and poor Radhan.
The thing that pushes Malenia into "From Software crossed the line" territory for me is her ability to life steal through a 100% physical block shield. Like how the hell is she regaining health back when causing no damage? At that point what's to stop her from running up to the wall of her arena, smacking at it a few times and going back to full health? There's no logical gameplay or in-universe explanation for this, it just screws over a certain playstyle for no reason.
I think the answer to that last part os obvious, its just a shame. Blocking her attacks wouldnt be hard enough, so they didn't allow it. But you're right its very silly and makes no sense at all
I hate the life steal even when she doesn't do damage.
But I would say that my problem with waterfowl is that she can just do it whenever she wants to a point where you can get fucked just by attacking when it's supossed to be secure or if it catches you turning or whatever
You're thinking of it as life steal instead of life gain. She's like an anime protagonist who gets hyped up when she lands hits.
Then it isn't lifesteal. Idk what the hell it would be called, but it can't be called life steal if she's not stealing life.
@@htwo1 Just make it a guard breaking attack then instead of lifestaling metal
You can’t show Malenia without showing a clip of “Let Me Solo Her”. This is outrageous!
"THIS IS OUTRAGES.
THAT'S UNFAIR." - Anakin Skywalker ©
you cant flumping show the shitty boss without showing a clip of the epic meme shit player babysitter spammed by unfunny obnoxious people on reddit!
@@user-dd7hv2sx5b”This is outrageous! It’s unfair! How can you be on the council, and not be a master? It’s insulting.”
First part was messed up.
for the people that are playing dex and are stuck at malenia: Use a +10 blood katana and a +10 clone summon
hidden cerulean tears and 10+ tiche really is an easy mode and it's fine if everyone use it
Even the Orphan of Kos thinks the waterfowl dance is a bit much
My problem with Malenia is literally just waterfowl dance. That's it. That's the only thing I would change to make her go from A to S tier for me. I like overly aggressive melee builds and committing to my attacks. She staggers easily, so that's fine. Occasionally, she will do that stupid little kick that puts her out of stagger. That's fine too, honeslty. I just *hate* that if I commit to an attack, there's always the chance she'll just immediately waterfowl and I can't run away in time. Here's how I would fix waterfowl:
1. Increase its wind-up
2. Make it so she only does it once per phase at half health
3. Make its tracking worse
4. Make the first flurry shorter so you can i-frame through it with a roll
5. Replace it with he scrapped version of it
melanias kick is there to stop combo spamming her (basically most of bloodborne lol), many enemies in ds3, sekiro and ER have that "get away and stop brainlessly spamming" attack. i like those since they keep you on ur toes.
@@flamingmanure Yeah, I know. I think it's fine for her to have it.
Just get more agressive lol. hen i first met Malenia, i literally stun-locked her to death with Phantom slash combo, she couldn't do a thing, couldn't even start Waterfowl due to bleed animation cancel XD
Waterfowl dance is what makes her S tier for me
@@victorprati7908 explain.
I’m gonna be honest, fire giant is a horribly unfun boss besides a handful of spells, which YOURE probably not going to try without proper knowledge that they melt him. Too much health, too much damage, and is just unfun, to me, anyway,
Yeah I don't disagree, fire giant is relatively tedious to fight because of the giant health pool and him constantly running away and zoning you out. BUT I wanted to make a dumb joke so. Lmao
He was annoying my first try, and I don't like running so much and using my horse for I frames
For Malenia you either have to be really close to her or really far to dodge the Water Fowl. For close range you just have to dodge under her right arm with her first attack, then panic trying to remember what to do with the second flurry, and after that, you have to dodge from her.
You learn something in every death. Like I’m bloodborn I learned right away that the combo system is there to leave you open for an attack. And that every fight is going to be a slow passed fight where the opponent (no matter how weak it is) is the one in control of everything.
gotta disagree on the malenia point, I do really hate her because of a single move. and you cannot run away from it if you're in melee range as she starts it.
the worst part is that she's such an INCREDIBLY FUN FIGHT OTHERWISE. SERIOUSLY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MY FAVORITE
The funny thing is that if Malenia could be consistently staggered out of her pressure, it would make her agression completely fair since you can interrupt it. Sister Friede and Lady Maria use this same philosophy. VG Mathew talked about this in his Elden Ring boss critique.
Malenia having armor on some of her attacks and being able to pull out Waterfowl Dance (which is also extremely damaging and can be pulled out in a scenario where you're at low stamina) in spite of her posture throws that approach out the window. She's that close to being a great fight, but one single move ruins a lot of that potential.
@@leithaziz2716 nah I would love her even with infinite hyper armor, her fight can be so dynamic exchanging hits back and forth
Counterpoint: The answer is still what was presented in the video. Running away from Waterfowl Dance at point blank range is not how you dodge it. There is a very consistent and fairly easy method to dodging the first attack of Waterfowl Dance when she starts it from melee range, which is tightly circling around her while underneath her before she actually begins the attack. The other two dodges are the exact same as usual.
And that's only if you don't want to use the light roll, because it goes so far that you can just spam it away from her three or four times and you'll be out of range of the first attack.
@@Spaze47 My problem with that strategy is that it looks a lot like manipulating the AI tracking so that she misses you, rather then naturally dodging the attack. The best way I can summarise it is that it's very counter-intuitive.
@@Spaze47 you're right, there's always a way to do it, and I did.
but it wasn't fun whatsoever, at the very least for me. waiting to dodge a single move takes away from the fun
The thing about the Waterfowl Dance is that you don't need to do the "run away, dodge, dodge" thing, you can just dodge forward three times and you'll get hit for like a single tick even if you slightly mess it up.
yep, its not this impossible move that can only be dodged with light load and shields that people think it is. sure those are the easiest ways to do it, but with a little bit of practice, dodging waterfowl isn't crazy hard. its only three dodges, also if you use the method of running around her while she is in the air and she just goes past you. making you only have to dodge twice.
Or, you can summon Tiche, or summon a Gold-bro, and basically just bumrush Malenia before she can even use Waterfowl dance, at all. xD
Doesn’t the first flurry wrap back around if you dodge into her?
@@uglahboi6074 it does. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
4:35 this, just this. On my first run of the game I just used and upgraded the katana, and my big upgrade and change to playstyle was simply getting, a SECOND katana, then putting seppuku weapon art on both of em and causing every boss to simulate what its like to but chug blood thinners.
Souls veterans watching people freak out over Malenia while Vietnam style flashbacks of Dark lurker, Nameless King, Lady Maria, and Black Flame Friede flash before their eyes: “first time?”
In my own experience, I think the only reason Malenia is "broken" is because she can heal. I'm not gonna pretend that I'm the super mega ultimate player, I'm really far from that, but if it wasn't for her healiing ability, I'd have defeated her in my second try (It was a really hard fight, I used my mimetic tear, all my healing and was screamming for my life, but after dying in the second phase, I realized that the health she had left was less than the total damage I did, meaning that if she hadn't heal with each hit she gave me I'd have won).
Every bosses have their weakness, it's about player who can exploit it or not. Problem with Malenia is most people just panic rolls when fight again her. Malenia's weakness is same with sister Friede in DS3 : Her poise is super low. So if you suck and can't dodge her attack then just do anything to break her poise : - Heaviest weapon with + Stonebarb Cracked Tear + Spiked Cracked Tear + Charge attack Talisman, Godfrey + Alexander Talisman then you can break her poise + riposte her like in every 2 charge attack
@@StrawberryCalcite peak fromsoft boss moment be like :
If i need to go check how to dodge a move then its a bad move
cope, seethe, mald +skill issue + no maidens + git gud + roasted toasted packaged up and posted + just learn to adapt and dodge an attack instead of telling everyone that you're just bad and need help like a lost baby at daycare
Malenia can animation cancel, none of the other bosses can animation cancel.
And That's Actually Fair.)
For someone that's played video games my entire life, I'm really mediocre at them. So I did level myself way up until I could start breezing through some areas.
But tougher bosses still took several attempts. In a lot of cases it went from dozens to like 10 or less. The grinding still sucks, but it made the difficulty more reasonable to me
Malenia isn't balanced. If you are using an ultra greatsword her recovery is so fast that I had to resort to parry chaining her. However, there is no indication on how to dodge waterfowl dance. I know you can run away or runn at her feet but the annimation should make it more obvious that that is what you needed to do.
No there is no indication. Waterfowl's weakness is literally the same thing Dark Souls has been trying to change for years, which is to circle around the boss like an idiot and stand in a "magical" spot that nullifies the first part of the attack completely, and then just roll throu the second and third part which is a lot easier. And also they made her ignore her own staggers and regen HP. There's a reason bosses don't regen HP, I don't care if she's optional and endgame. You're gonna make a multi-hit lifesteal boss? For what fucking purpose other than to inflate game time.
Beat her other times since i posted this, yeah phase one can just be cheesed with high stance damage, but it still doesn't take away from the fact this was one the most infuriating first time experiences, I'd rather do Bed of Chaos blindfolded
My problem with malenia ( after defeating her 14 times) is the first phase only, I love the second phase and it's one of the best fight when I actually reach it, the first phase takes forever to finish because of her massive health and life stealing and mainly because she is way too passive like a Sekiro boss she wait for you to get close to her and do something only unlike Sekiro you can't counter her if she does something like waterfowl dance you can't counter it, most of my deaths in with the first phase were because she did waterfowl while I was trying to bait her out into attacking, and honestly it's just drags it becomes boring after 2 or 3 tries especially since she doesn't have that much variety in her moveset
Second phase solves that , she has less health she is far more aggressive meaning I don't have to Bait out attacks meaning I won't get waterfowl up close and I will have safe distance to dodge it, she also does that follow up jump after many of her attacks which leaves her vulnerable for and I quite like the intensity of the fight it doesn't feel boring
So first phase I would rank it 6 out of 10, second phase 9 out 10, if the whole fight was like the second phase she would be in my top 3 but right now she is on late top 10
Huh that’s interesting, because I struggle with the second phase and can easily no hit the first phase.
@@jackcooper7247 well I managed to beat the entire fight no hit and I would say that the first phase is what took me most attempts to no hit but second phase I did no hit first try although it was unintentional no hit because I was doing a no heal run instead but I manged to beat her without getting hit somehow got good RNG with waterfowl
@@lordofcinder8884 damn nice job, yeah lol to this day melania is one of the only bosses I’ve done no hit, along with godrick lol
@@jackcooper7247 yeah the only other bosses I beat no hit were Margit, godrick, fire giant ( unintentional), placidusax ( also unintentional) so yeah malenia is one of the easiest bosses to no hit
I agree.
Phase 1 is always such a drag. It's so slow. And it's literally impossible to end 1st phase quickly without employing some cheesy strat which I ended up doing on my 3rd playthrough(with summon)
Nice backround Music, especially at the start!
I only followed a guide to get runes and some weapons, but stopped watching before Magrit so I could learn on my own. Is that bad or good? 1:54
I think elden ring actually fails at the "you can use any weapon to beat the game" more than any of fromsoftware's other game - while a game like dark souls feels like it was balanced around the average weapon as you upgrade it, and magic is just kinda OP, elden ring feels like it was balanced around the OP magic (or the OP weapon skills and 20 buff combos). Trying to play through the game with *just* a normally upgraded weapon has become a challenge run!
Actually tried this on my first character. It went smoothly for the early and mid game, but it becomes one hell of a slog towards the later half of the game.
@@cheesymonday8162 exactly!
I don’t think any of the Fromsoft games actually succeeded in this, there are plenty of weapons that just have no use or are straight up bad, I found much more variety in ER than any other From game, the only exception is probably Bloodborne but I’ve yet to finish it to truly confirm.
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 I think the issue is moreso clear disadvantages with general builds this time. Melee builds can't really keep up with how agressive a lot of the later bosses get. It's not just about a specific weapon.
In DS1, fists and whips were the obvious outliers. Since I was playing with NG+2 in DS3, I tried out a variety of builds. I would say most of them were more than viable, but I'm not an expert to say with full certainty. I haven't played Bloodborne so I can't judge there.
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 elden ring absolutely has more variety, but if you just pick up a random (and not obviously terrible, like a broken sword) weapon and try to beat the game with it you'll have a harder time in this game than any previous fromsoftware game imo. boss health bars get too big and damage numbers get too high to not feel like you need a fully planned out build with the best in slot weapon stacking 20 buffs imo
The sheer happiness and pride I had after beating the owl father in hirata instate is absolutely incredible
Your point about the starting weapons was great. I blasted through 90% of the game just upgrading dual scimitars cause heavy bleed damage go brrrr
It baffles me how these people don't appreciate the beautiful world and the great lore. Elden Ring was my very first souls game, and I finished my first run as a full on mage using keyboard, which was quite hard at the beginning (I learned how summons work like halfway through too lol) cause I didn't look much stuff up really - I wanted to explore the world on my own etc., and that way I created a lot of my own cheese strategies, which I would most likely be judged for by some, but honestly I finding tricks/easy strategies on your own is really fun.
Anyway, fast forward a bit, I am on my third playthrough, finally doing proper close combat at most times cause I got a gamepad (maybe some people prefer the keyboard but as someone who played over 400 hours with it, I can say gamepad is so much easier for me), and honestly I don't entirely suck, sometimes I summon spirit ash when I wanna get a boss over with to get to my favourite area but I also do boss fights by myself, with hitting dodging and using ash of war efficiently. Not to say mage builds based on more distance fighting aren't valid, sometimes you really gotta get creative and be wary of your timing, FP limits etc., but it's a different way to play.
Now I enjoy both playing styles, and I actually feel like the game has pretty good balance. It is hard so some effort is needed but not so hard it would ruin your experience. Gameplay is one thing and people have different preferences. While I do like a bit of challenge the reason I enjoyed Elden Ring (even at the very beginning as a noob who generally isn't happy with losing to this day) is because of the vast world, the overall atmosphere and most importantly - the storytelling. Unlike many fantasy games, Elden Ring is more vague when it comes to the lore. I actually did some research trying to understand all the details. Even with all that vagueness you can see things are connected. We rarely get stories like these in any kind of media. So yeah, honestly...I feel like some people get stuck on the fact that it is a "hard game" and the only point is to deal with some bosses , but Elden Ring is so much more than that.
4:44 bro catch flame with like 50 faith is seriously one of the best incantations for absolutely no reason and it's freaking hilarious
tbh my bad expierence from malenia is due to her healing
Yeah, if you try to go defensive, you just don't win
@@DrunkedOwly Shield counter still does way more damage than she can heal so idk
Exactly my issue with her, too.
"You're not trying to outscale every boss"
Moon beam cannon says hi.
I actually agree. Nothing is more frustrating than watching a boss jump at an edge to be saved by an invisible wall but you fall and die. Its dumb, easy solution just take out edges in boss fights generally.
I disagree with malenia, she does have some bullshit. Like for exemple, why does she heal through shields? Or if you're close to her and she pulls up waterfowl, it will be really hard to dodge it, like, you can't run away, you could be out of stamina, etc.
for the shield thing, if you're relying on standing still behind a 100% physical block shield instead of actually learning how to dodge attacks then thats literally just you being bad at the game and complaining that you're being punished for being bad. and for the point blank waterfowl its also just as easy to dodge as every other method there is to dodge every attack, even with heavy roll its possible. cope, seethe, mald +skill issue + no maidens + git gud + roasted toasted packaged up and posted
She enjoys hitting things, including your shield. Don't get hit.
@@laventelinsusi Who ever said i stand around holding the shield? I actually just dodge most of the time, im saying it kinda just doesn't make sense. Her attacks would probably break your poise through the shield really fast anyway. I did like your roasts tho.
Don't run or of stamina right in front of her, then.
About elden stars, it's actually trivially easy to deal with:
Option A - Run back a bit and start running sideways, if the star gets near you then go forwards or backwards and run the other way. If the boss attacks you then you can either keep running (for certain attacks) or let go of sprinting and roll before sprinting again.
Option B - Just use the Crimsonwhorl (?) bubbletear that makes you heal from spells. Start drinking the physick about 3 seconds after elden stars casts and you can COMPLETELY ignore it and getting knocked down by the explosion at the end will just give you i-frames. I personally prefer this option since it lets you get way more damage in while Elden Beast is casting it.
Option C - Literally just ignore it. If you have ANY sort of holy resistance, then the damage is laughable. If you're below NG+3, the damage is laughable. If you use Golden lightning fortification, the whole fight's damage is laughable. If you have a light equip load, the whole fight is laughable. Yet people still think this attack ruins the entire boss somehow and keep dying to it. I even used a combination of these to get the mini stars that come off the main star deal just 8 DAMAGE. EIGHT.
*WHY DO PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS ATTACK*
I have a theory. As a challenge runner I can guarantee you that Elden Stars is incredibly easy to avoid compared to stuff like waterfowl, there is just less insentive to learn it. I think people just dont try because the damage isnt that huge and it is at the end of quite an easy fight (or at least compared to Radagon before it). So they will probably die once or twice, not getting to know the attack and then beat it after tanking Elden Stars thinking it was impossible to avoid. I do find it quite funny how he literally shows himself dodging the 90% of the move before running back into it mindlessly while talking about how "bullshit" Elden Stars is when compared to Waterfowl. I have many dozens of hours practicing Waterfowl dogdes and can dodge it very consistently when I am ready, but I can still tell you that my success rate of beating the boss in challenge runs is heavily correlated with how often she uses the move. Even if you like avoiding an attack that needs 4 precise dodges, you do have to admit that it is so far removed from how much weaker the rest of her kit is.
I think the complaints come from the elden beast version of the move being annoying while the version you learn being shitass.
@@MothmanOfficialWva They're both shitass
People be talking about waterfowl dance as though one attack of one optional boss makes the entire game terrible
it's one broken attack that ruins the whole fight regardless how well you're doing, and there's no "optional" boss in a game you bought you stupid bastard (if you're a kid sorry, didn't mean to insult)
2:30 will be a trio after I find them
Okay the one about margit not being able to fall is so valid 😂 it’s still perfect tho
What are you doing reading the negative reviews? Watch the video already!
9:30 its really funny that in every example of you dodging "the attack" successfully you were far away when Malenia was starting it, curious
The moment I beat malenia is sooooo good and I even celebrated it! Been there for 2 days and the moment I finished her is so good. Those kind of feeling is rare at least for me and the games I'm playing that I get from souls like games.
people praise Malenia are those kind of "elden ring is my first souls game"
Yeah, although Malenia was a pretty fun fight, she has nothing on almost the entire dlcs of DS1, DS3, and Bloodborne.
She is among my favourite bosses and ER in not my first souls. I thinks it's the opposite, people who never played souls hate her because they use summons and they don't work on malenia, except maybe mimic tear pre nerf
@Elven Bubblegum tbh I've only played through most soulsbornes once, so all my rankings are very sketchy.
Looking back on my previous comment, I think I did her a disservice, she might rank higher after another playthrough.
I see her as kind of like Artorias, very fun, but very difficult, and also kind of broken (idk wtf is happening with artorias' damage frames, they seem to last forever)
@@aperson1754 I don't know if immersion means anything to you but it does to me. Throughtout the entire game we find clues about malenia and her feats. Her title of undefeatable and other things. Upon meeting her I didn't know what to expect, then she used waterfowl. After dying to it like 10 times I started doubting if it is even possible to avoid it. Maybe it was fromsoft's goal to make her seem almost impossible to defeat so that she lives up to her lore. In that case they succeeded.
@Elven Bubblegum I only got elden ring at the end of last year, so I knew what I was in for before I started playing, as much as I tried to avoid spoilers.
My favourite boss from Elden Ring would have to be Morgott, and I think he's got some of the best lore in the series.
Being able to complete the game with any build by upgrading it is one of the features I love the most about souls games, and I really wish other RPGs did something similar
It's honestly insane how people think that just having a high level character will immediately make the game easy. Even on my max level character mid-game bosses will still shred me if I don't take it seriously.
0:57
That Seems Like a Skill Issue To Me :D
I heartily laughed at the part explaining how Malenia is fair. The boss ignores stagger mechanics when it suits her, cancels animations to dodge, input reads like a love child of a Godskin Apostle and Psycho Mantis and heals even through attacks that are completely blocked and/or otherwise deal no damage to the player character. No other boss in the game, nor similarly difficult encounters from other Souls games (Sister Friede for instance) does all this, and if they do, they're similarly bashed for it, cue the aforementioned Apostle. But sure, the fight is completely fair and plays by the rules. Is she doable? Sure. Can she be cheesed? Absolutely. Is it a fair fight? Hell no.
Beyond all that, the boss is simply overtuned. Waterfowl dance is absurd to learn (but surprisingly manageable once you do), rot buildup is annoying, self heal is stupidly punishing, lightning fast telegraphs are horrifying and the damage of Malenia's swings is downright absurd. But those elements are fine... on their own. My main issue with the boss is that she has *ALL OF THIS* and the some more stuff. This turns a difficult but fun fight into a nightmarish chore where one mistake can and frequently does mean death, and it almost invalidates certain builds due to the need to play it nigh perfectly or losing hard earned progress even if you do survive a swing. The boss is incredibly unforgiving and an insane difficulty spike even for people who already defeated every other encounter in the game, including the runner-up to the throne, Mohg - who is actually a good example of a difficult fight done right, but that is beside the point. He has his issues, but nowhere near as many at once.
Also, saying that Waterfowl is fine because it's easier to dodge than Elden Stars or Rykard's bullshit skulls is like saying that slapping a child is fine because you could do a lot worse things to one. While technically correct, it's not as good an argument as you believe if it has to be compared to such extreme examples.
cope, seethe, mald +skill issue + no maidens + git gud + roasted toasted packaged up and posted + the shield thing is the game punishing you for literally being bad and not learning to dodge anything and instead just being a brainlet oh and her hyperarmour is there so that you cant stagger her out of attacks, atleast not easily, and why? because it forces you to learn how to dodge them and find weakpoints where you can get free hits on her... just get good honestly
@@laventelinsusi How many times did you copy paste that...?
@@scotaloo77g73 a lot
@@laventelinsusi Given the amount of time I saw you copy paste this same lame ass retort, I'm not sure it's me seething here, fella. You okay there? Wanna talk about what's got you upset?
@@laventelinsusi is beating malenia the only achievement in your life or smth?
I left a negative review for elden ring.
Some of my achievemnts on steam didn't work. I wanted to 100% the game since i like to do that but some (most notably melania and godskin duo) didnt register at all. I had to fight them again while also having a backup save file outside of the game folder so i could retry the fight in case i didnt get it again. I did get 100% in the end but it was pretty annoying
5:00 I haven't played Elden Ring yet, but have dabbled in Demon/Dark Souls and will work my way through the series over time.
As weird as it sounds, I love the upgrade system because I like to run the porcupine defense - shield + quick spear stabs.
Yeah if you expect her to Waterfowl dance you can run away but otherwise you won't be able to run away from the first flurry which is literally the only problem with the move insane tracking, insane damage and a medium attack wind up.
If you have light rolls you can roll backwards 3-4 times and be out of its range. You can also run a circle around her point blank and then dodge roll outwards twice to dodge the first part too
@@htwo1 yeah but in a normal run you won’t light roll and if you have to change up your build just for one move the bossfight is fundamentally flawed
@@adrijanzahner9819 Most builds can light roll with very little change, you don't NEED to light roll it just helps, since you can spin the first attack at point blank. But with talismans even heavier builds can light roll
@@htwo1 only if you predict it you can run away dodging it at point blank is just tricking her ai to redirect her tracking which is very likely not the intended way to dodge it even without waterfowl her fight is flawed
@@adrijanzahner9819 What? It being unintentional (which I don't think it is) is irrelevant, it works and is a way you can dodge the move point blank. The fight isn't at all flawed if you ask me
they're right about Malenia though
As someone who understood how to dodge her attack, it's a bad boss
htwo: just get distance between you and first waterfowl dance
players that are mostly melee: guess I'll die
The music during "the last one" (at 11:51), it reminds me of something I knew but I can't remember what.
Help me! Please!
The Malenia take was pretty bad. In every clip you showed where you said it's dodgeable you were like across the room from her.
Agreed
I'm surprised you didn't include any reviews about the dog-ass optimization the game had on launch and for a pretty long time after. Was that fixed?
I don't think it was ever fixed really, and it's a shame cause Sekiro and DS3's ports were pretty great (barring the jank with DS3's online).
Yeah he even shows videos scrolling through the reviews and one of the top reviews are "Elden ring? more like Stutter Ring" and it appears on 0:14 and 11:16
runs fine on my currently lopsided setup. Good CPU, old GPU. Don't get a steady 60 past lower settings due to the GPU but I didn't notice bad stuttering
I can remember I got stuck on godskin duo for 6 days before I knew about sleep
Even running away from the first I still get caught by the first flurry (and die most of the time) it's literally the only move that kills me in her fight anymore
Never got to that point yet but myself but isn't Malenia also optional?
Yep, she is literally entirely disconnected from the main line of the game. Just like her divine tower is way out in the middle of nowhere, she is actively the furthest place from where you need to go to beat the game.
@@kempolar9768 I find this reply so funny, I don't know why lmao
1:03 biggest skill issue
Malenia is also staggerable and that small fact completely trivialises the fight when you realise that
i agree and thats a good thing. malenia is a human boss with human poise and yet dispite that she is the only boss that can just decide not to get staggered with her hyper armor waterfowl is super fucking easy to manage but the hyper armor is straight cheating
I thought the same about just getting better weapons when I first started the game. Nowadays after almost 300h I use the Lordsworn's Straight Sword and the Gilded Greatshield, both found in the Gatefront Ruins. And don't ask about my armour. Everything the footsoldiers drop plus a bandit mask. And I killed pretty much everything with it.
Im quite happy to see that a lot of comments are disagreeing on the Malenia point, since it means I’m not the only one. Malenia is far from a well designed boss.
Point 1. Waterfowl:
The way that waterfowl works is that it’s mostly aggression based. So if you relentlessly (by relentlessly I mean more than once) attack her during one of her openings she is likely to use it. So if you simply get 1 hit in and then start walking away from her you’ll have enough time to get away from the first part of waterfowl. In theory the attack is fair but that’s like making a boss have a chance to punish you if you use a specific weapon class and not telling anyone about that. The only way you’ll every find out that the attack works like that is by googling it or searching for it on RUclips. If you want to experience the game blind then you only have 2 options.
Option 1: go duck yourself
And
Option 2: try the boss gains and again and again and again and again until you finally realize how the attack works.
Obvs trying a boss again and again is the way souls games work but when doing so it’s never about finding out WHAT you have to do. It’s always obvious what you have to do to win the fight, get good at dodging. It’s never about finding out what you’re supposed to do cause that’s just not fun. When trying a FAIR Boss again and again you slowly improve with each attempt, getting closer and close to beating the boss. With Malenia each attempt looks the exact same way. You try and find a reliable way to trigger waterfowl, you can’t, and then you die.
Not only that but waterfowl is genuinely TO HARD. It’s such a strong attack that dodging it from up close is practically impossible (especially since it’ll kill you each time you fuck up, and force you to restart the WHOLE FIGHT) and the only actual way to dodge it is to literally run away from it. A concept for an attack that’s never been seen before and is (once again) never explained to the player.
Point 2. The Damage
I don’t really have to explain why a boss with already difficult attacks dealing enough damage to 1 shot you with more than half of her attack is not good design now have I?
Point 3. Phase 2
Phase 2 somehow lends itself to being WORSE than Phase one.
For one the Aggression based trigger seems to be removed from waterfowl which is dumb.
Secondly the Ghost attack Malenia uses has seemingly no actual cooldown meaning that she can use it CONSTANTLY, which is awful since she can’t be hit during the whole attack, grinding the fight to a hold for the duration of the attack. Another thing is that she gets a poise boost which causes some smaller weapons to loose previously available openings.
Point 4. Poise bullshits
Unlike any other boss if Malenias poise bar is lowered to 0 during one of her hyper armor attacks (which she has many of) instead of her poise being set to 1, her whole poise bar gets reset, as if she did get poise broken. This can lead to situations where you never poise break her during the whole fight, even when using heavy as duck weapons.
I could honestly go on and on about how Malenia is a god awfully designed boss but you get the idea. This Videos stance on Malenia is genuinely stupid and I hope criticism like this isn’t what From Soft looks at when designing future bosses, lest we get more malenias in the future.
Btw I didn’t mean to hate on the guy who made the video when I called the video stupid, I meant this as actual criticism. I’ve watch many of his videos and seeing this one be so much worse than any of the other ones he’s made is disappointing, especially for a game I care about quite a bit. Like seriously with any other video like this you look at different kinds of bad reviews and even some good ones, whilst sprinkling in some insider jokes here and there. Yet this whole video was just laughing at (admittedly very stupid) reviews about one thing. People complaining about the difficulty. This doesn’t cover bad elden ring reviews, it just covers one type of review thrown at the game that isn’t even specific to Elden ring itself. Any Souls game has the exact same Reviews as these and any game that’s pretty hard, such as Cuphead has these reviews. It would have been very interesting to see other kinds of bad reviews covered. A cool one could have been the bad, but kind of understandable reviews of certain souls vets. A lot of souls vets i watched played the game in a way you would play any other souls game. Find a boss and try again and again until you beat them. This is unlike how Elden ring works. In Elden ring you have a whole world to explore! You can come across legendary weapons and talisman simply by looking around a bit. You don’t need to use a small basic sword to win the game and you’re not suppose to. Bosses are the strongest they’ve ever been and you have to keep up, or you’ll end up dead.
It’s what I mean by „understandable“. On one hand those vets are obviously wrong about the game, but on the other it’s not because they’re bad, or because they’re morons but because they fundamentally didn’t understand the game.
TLDR: Malenia is dodo and this Video is meh
The poise breaking mechanic is a thing I genuinely had no idea about, and I agree that it's very dumb. But the rest of it? I just don't agree. Having an optional boss that's incredibly secluded do things that punish you incredibly hard is, in my opinion, completely fine. You can make lots of similar arguments of being "poorly designed" about Mohg. "Oh he has an attack in his phase change that is literally undodgeable AND heals him? Poorly designed". And yet his fight doesn't get the hate malenia's does because it's not as hard. Having an optional boss be harder and more heavily punishing to your mistakes is completely ok in my opinion, and the hidden nature of the boss makes it even more fine to me. Because it's not unfair at all, it just makes your mistakes hurt more
@@htwo1 on that note I can agree that as an optional boss she can be very punishing, but it never really felt like she was one. Malenia is a mayor character that the player hears from through out all the lands between and seems like a much to big deal for her strength. Usually in most games a super difficult boss is someone you can only meet through a very complicated manner and is someone who you may have only heard of a hand full of times. Something like a long forgotten legendary Knight.
Malenia felt much to mayor to be that boss since from soft put so much money into her and her lore.
I guess that just goes to show how insane from soft is.
But also I still think they could have handled Malenias Waterfowl better. Look at Mogh for an example. If he wants to use his NIHIL he has to first summon it by making 3 very weak and extremely predictable stabs into the air. During these you can get a charged heavy on him guaranteed for each of them. And with Moghs pretty shit poise he can be knocked down consistently during the whole fight. Not only that but if you’re strong enough Mogh might not even be able to physically keep up, forcing him to spam his 3 stabs in very short succession, opening him up for even more poise damage. And even while performing the move you can still attack him during it, giving the opportunity to lower his total health.
Not only that but even if you as a player don’t capabilities of of moghs openings he still doesn’t get a whole second health bar, unlike Malenia. Meaning that no matter what Mogh has a massiv price to pay for having that NIHIL ability.
And in the end it’s a one time use ability that forces you to simply use 3 flasks, on a late game boss that should be fought when you already have 15 total flasks. Compare that to Malenias waterfowl simply killing you instantly it’s simply not as fun for me. Waterfowl has on easy counter (run away) and has no interesting interactions or counterplay for the player baked into it.
In the end Malenia is a very weird cookie. While she’s theoretically well designed over 99% of all players who played Elden ring (souls vets included) don’t like fighting her. Is it possible that no mater how well designed, a boss can be TO difficult. That there is a limit to how strong a boss can be before it’s genuinely unfair to human nature (I mean things such as Human error. Can you still be called at fault for loosing a fight against Malenia, after making one mistake during a Minutes long fight, when errors are part of us?). And of course when from soft put thousands of hours and Millions of dollars into designing Malenia and her area, does her being only really accessible to the 1% make her a well made investment into the game, or could that time and money have been spend on something that benefited everyone who played Elden ring as a whole.
Lastly is there any chance you plan on making a part 2 to you’re Elden ring video? I genuinely think there are many more interesting reviews about the game that could be covered in a great Video.
Still sorry if a was use during my first comment. I was commenting it late Night and was a bit grumpy. Have a nice day Htwo.
@@anidiot8845 "but it never really felt like she was one" ur feelings dont really mean anything, fact is she is optional.
"While she’s theoretically well designed over 99% of all players who played Elden ring (souls vets included) don’t like fighting her." ahhh souls veterans, you guys seem to really need validation by making up fictional and generalizing stats like that in order to make u feel better, speak for yourself and yourself only, i do agree that shes too hard for my taste but plenty of ppl love fighting her and i dont need made up stats to prove that.
@@flamingmanureYes she is technically optional but I don't get why thats used as an excuse for actual bad boss design. Don't get me wrong I love malenia shes top 5 boss in elden ring for me. But she has so much lost potential. She can just pull her waterfowl dance out of her ass whenever and I think its bullshit that she can just do it randomly at close range and skip one of her openings. If she did it after she backed off from you as some sort of counter itd be so much better. Or had some more consistency with it (like guaranteed after a certain hp threshold.) I just wish it was more predictable it would make the fight more fair and introduce interesting dynamics
@@SebbyIsYummyin general the fight is theoretically fair, but a lot of things the fight could have had were removed for the sake of difficulty. By far the most fun I have with bosses in video games is when I get to be on equal grounds with them. The way most bosses do this is, for an instance, with „attack weight“. Essentially the stronger a bosses attack is the more you get to punish them for messing it up. Malenia doesn’t do this well. After dodging waterfowl (the hardest attack in the entire game) you get ONE jumping heavy opening. That’s it. Not even a charged R2. There are other things she does badly to but you get the idea.
Man i really wish Malenia was in Sekiro
I didn't have to get good, just level my ashes.
i preordered the game played for 12 hours in feb 2022 so i did not play it for a while and revisited it in august 2022 with a friend and took it as a challenge and later finished malena in 2 months after that in only 14 tries xD ( used the moonviel xD ) and then changed to double hammer xD
The problem with Malenia, apart from the ones mentioned in the other comments, is just a bad balance. 90% of the time you die from a single attack, it makes the fight extremely boring when you learn all of her moveset and take almost no damage, but then you die because of the waterfall just because you were too close to her to have time to run away.
Rykard's Skulls fall into that territory as well for me. Normally, he can actually be dogpiled on pretty easily aside from some really akward delayed attacks, but the Skulls come off as really unnecessary bloat.
What happens most of the time is that you're running around for 30 seconds trying to avoid the skulls with limited Stamina (that can also fly at you from offscreen), while Rykard keeps attacking the whole time. You can try to attack Rykard and just tank the skulls, but trying to find breathing room for heals isn't really feasible. I really don't understand how a move like that and Waterfowl Dance didn't raise any eyebrows when made. These moves are cheap, but what makes them problematic is that it's easy to lose most of your health from one mistake off of these moves alone. So you could do really well for most of the fight, but getting hit by them alone will usually snowball into getting killed.