Malenia's Waterfowl Dance Used to Look a Bit Different...
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 5 апр 2022
- Malenia's waterfowl dance dance is a beautiful yet arguably the most infamous attack in Elden Ring in regards to it's challenge. However, it used to look a bit different before the developers got what they were looking for. Looking forward to reviewing this boss as a whole :)
PATREON
/ amirahsouls
LINKS
Twitter - / amirahthethe
My Discord - / discord
Twitch - / amirahthethe
Elden Ring PvP Discord - / discord
#ELDENRING 
Игры
The fight choreographers proudly showcase Waterfowl to Miyazaki. And after playing through the fight one time all he says is "No, I want them to suffer."
"But sir you didn't even take damage, what will the players do..."
@@MediHusky "People play these games?"
@@MediHusky "What? Just for that question, add it to second phase too."
Miyazaki is well known for never playing his own games. I will admit he makes fantastic worlds and enemies to play through, but those gameplay designers need a fucking bonk in the head with a +25 Giant Crusher for some of the shit they’ve made
Small correction: "My feet waifu isn't OP enough yet, put disgusting frames on it and make it roll-catch 3 times. Oh and also that blossom-move? Yeah make that a roll-catch aswell that insta-kills you when you get caught."
The name "waterfowl dance" was a lot more fitting for the first version of the attack. The release version is more like the "Angry swarm of flying buzzsaws dance"
Yep there’s random attacks without her even moving, but the old version looked somewhat actually believable
@@brychaus9059 she strikes faster than you can see is all. Basically the ishin of elden ring.
The waterfowl is a reference to her hopping on one leg during the move. The reference doesn't really work, though, as in the final iteration she's just randomly flying at you for some godforsaken reason.
@@brychaus9059 have you seen one mind?
@@ucrurari3350 I haven't
Think it would've been cool if she used this calmer, more coordinated version in her first phase and only did the fully berserk slashy-slash in her second phase.
100% agree
that makes perfect sense because in the first phase she is calm
in the second phase she just want you kill you
imo if her normal moves were less telegraphed and her waterfowl dance was nerfed to this one it would make for a more fun fight. (the difficulty coming from the whole moveset combined instead of 1 move deciding the fight)
THIS. It even fits the "this is not even my full power" trope
So you have to get to her second phase for a chance at learning how to dodge it? Nah, if it was like that the move would feel really unfair, once you get to her second phase you already know how to dodge it so it feels fair
i remember going into this fight hype. she looked like another lady maria, or another sister friede. and thats how it felt, for a bit, until she started using this attack. then the flow of the entire fight was based around this move.
I can’t believe from nerfed radahn when radahn is a well balanced fight with clear and dodgable well telegraphed combos but don’t nerf this shit, 1 attack should not shape an entire fight. Could be the best or one of the best bosses in the game but some shithead at fromsoft decided to fuck over this fight with 1 shitty attack
@@chipbutty3645 I'm certain that they only nerfed Radahn because that's where a majority of players were stuck at, and they can see all the data the game was showing them. Malenia is far later in the game, so they didn't have enough people to gauge it off of.
That said, it's definitely been long enough for them to notice. They need to balance Waterfowl Dance, literally nothing else.
@@chipbutty3645 Radahn had bullshit with some of his attacks doing far too much damage - case and point: being one-shot by a single homing rock at 45 vigor in full banished knight because of a single mistake, now you need to restart the entire fight over again - and his hitboxes were all kinds of fucked (not a nerf, this was an actual FIX).
@@chipbutty3645 i beat pre patch radan with a great knife but malenia reduced me to using the mimic tear lmao
@@FleshlyDelight he’s hit boxes needed a little fixing but they fucked over his damage and he was intended to be around morgott level considering the amount of souls they both give so but then you should have a good amount of vitality
One of my biggest gripes with this moves is actually what comes after. You'd think successfully dodging one of the most infamous moves in all of fromsoftware would net you some sort of big reward, but as a pure melee build you get fucking nothing. Every time I wait out the shockwave and try to punish her, she either dashes away or hyper armors into another move immediately. It's actually a safer move than her kick or slam down stab.
Yea its pretty dumb. She has that attack where she charges up, slashes upwards + jumps and then slashes down. That attack feels like it has a longer windup than Waterfowl dance AND its so much more punishable
Or worse, she will just do it again LOL. She did it 3 times in a row for me.
@@illidank996 yeah you have waterfowl which people look up guides on how to dodge and still struggle with it. Then you have the move you described which you can just...slowly walk away from. The result is the fight becomes an rng shitshow depending on how much she uses her OP move and how much she uses the shit ones
@@dumpsta-divrr365 I won't lie, this is honestly every Elden ring boss fight ever. RNG shitshow.
You eitherway be overleveled enough to kill the boss in 10 hits or you just hope for a run where they do the moves that let you hit them.
I've had Renela boss fights where phase two was her casting the same slow moving pebbles while waving around, and I've had Renela phase two's where she'd constantly throw her staff around and jump back to not let you hit and punish you for coming close.
This thing applies to every boss in this game, either they let you kill them or they keep using the same move over and over again until you alt F4 out.
you can punish her reliably if you roll through the last air slash after her combo and use the rolling attack. i was fast enough with a colossal weapon.
Waterfowl itself is ok. The big no-no about it is that its startup is soo incredibly short and that the first attack is so lethal. This makes her fight after 75% hp super tedious, since you are hesitant to launch big attack combos because she could do it at any time, killing you if you are locked in animation when she starts it up. Meanwhile if you only launch single attacks, it firstly makes the fight take very long, which increases her chance of doing it multiple times and secondly the chance of her hitting you and healing up.
This makes the fight which should be an intense back and forth very annoying since you are afraid she could end you at any time. (Except if you use Bloodhounds step but come on...)
Guess I'm spoiling one of my criticisms here but the fact that using any animation that traps you in one place for more than a very short moment will get you killed if she decides to throw this out is pretty unfun design. This attack like a lot of others have huge windows where she simply has infinite poise(Yes, she can only be stunned here if her POSTURE(not poise) is broken or you stun her through some other bypass means(Headshot, Status effect proc etc.). So slow, heavy attacks that should pay off by doing enough poise damage to break her out of these things which are likely designed to counter careless play with light weapons, actually end up getting punished way too hard where they become unusable and only are fit to be used as punishes to the few you can have enough time to set it up for. If they JUST put a limit on her hyperarmor, this fight would be a lot more fun when using different options other than light weapons.
Couldn't have said it better. I once dodged her grab attack, launched a jump attack while she was still at the end of the grab animation, she poised through my attack and, while her healthbar still had the yellow indicator showing how much damage she took, launched waterfowl. I stood there right next to her still recovering from my jump attack animation. No chance. I hope FromSoft balances the startup a little, it really doesn't need much
You can consistently survive the combo at melee range. Roll as late as possible through her first attack, you'll take chip damage but unless you have 20 vigor you'll survive. Roll into her again for the second attack and through her for the last one, which will end up going past. The problem isn't that the attack is overpowered, the problem is that most people don't learn how to deal with it because it happens so rarely... Or just use BHS.
@@lowkey_Ioki Yeah, but that's insanely difficult. You CAN beat Elden Ring with first only, but would you want to? Still an unfun move.
@@Amir0 this is a big part of why her fight felt so RNG to me.
Let's be clear here, I didn't try and fight her honorably, I abused the hell out of flies and mimic tear, and often got myself caught in the range of the dance, where basically my entire survival depended on bleed proc. With it taking 2 fly casts to bleed for me, it was basically a 50 50 shot on whether I lived or died, which just... isn't fun lol. When I actually beat her I just sat ther for a minute disappointed because I knew the only reason I won that fight was I got lucky with waterfowl dance and balancing agro
With a few minor tweaks I'd have no issue with this attack though. I love these fast but bullyable bosses like Friede, but a big part of that appeal comes from playing aggressively, which I can't really do if the boss has an instakill they can whip out faster than I can get away from it. What could've been my number one boss sits well below my top 5 and that makes me kinda sad ngl
I remember Koji Igarashi, the creator of Castlevania and Bloodstained, said in an interview that boss designers had to defeat their own boss equipped only with the weakest dagger without taking a single hit. I wonder if From has any similar guideline.
Their guidelines are: hmmm what can we add to make this section even worse
@@petercottantail7850 I genuinely think the developers just forgot strength weapons exist around the 80% mark. With most enemies having insane hyper armor and attack so fast that slower weapons just can’t get a hit in, and they deal so much damage you can’t trade, either.
@@hithere5553 I honestly liked Malenia's fight, except for Waterfowl Dance. Her regen about hit was annoying, but I can deal with that. Her Phase 2 phantoms can be dealt with via rather precise dodge timing. Her Scarlet Bloom requires good dodge timing and then running away to avoid the explosion. All moves aside from WD are fair in my eyes.
It's the fact that her WD will hit you at least once, regardless of what you do (unless you have precognition and avoid the attack entirely, which I've yet to do). And then she can pull this move out at random, even if what other people say about her pulling it out at 75%, 50%, and 25% health is true, since she can simply regen and go past that threshold again.
But this single move had me actively hating her fight. This single move can hit you from across near the entire arena, is undodgeable most of the time (You'll be at least nicked by it), and can be pulled out at random. And she can use it in both phases of her fight.
@@hithere5553 I've noticed in Elden Ring especially that there are a lot of bosses where you just have to learn the 2 or 3 moves that you can safely punish with a slow weapon. I think all the bosses have at least one opening long enough for a fully charged R2. The learning process is particularly slow and frustrating though, because there are a lot of attacks that you will get away with punishing 75% of the time, depending on how fast the windup for the next random attack is, and how much hyper armour it will have. Until you learn exactly which attacks have a consistently slow recovery you'll keep getting caught with your pants down from these unpredictable pseudo combos.
@@fnorgen I hate the fact that you're right, you either fight bosses by spamming parry or learn specific attacks with high recovery, and wait for the boss to do this attack until it dies
I'm 100% convinced that parts of Malenias moveset originate from the scrapped Sekiro Tomoe DLC. The way she hops on one foot for the original attack is super reminiscent of the Okami Warriors (which Lady Tomoe was supposed to be) and the nature of the flurry attacks makes it a perfect challenge for Sekiro's parry system.
in sekiro the 9 points skill that has tomoe in the description and design its exactly this "malenia" move. So many references for tomoe in the whole game for nothing....well at least we got tomoe as malenia :(
I really prefer the older version, since it actually looks like a graceful dance, it looks pretty elegant, like malenia’s fighting style
maybe sped up a notch and there you go. Best fight in the game. But no, they had to go with the anime slash flurry that's near impossible to dodge without bloodhound's step or some other gimmick AoW that gives you (next to) no punish time at all.
Old version actually seems harder to dodge at melee range
That's why they have to change it to 3 swoops instead of like 6 swoops.
Do ppl honestly think old version is easier cuz it looks slower?
It has 6 waves of attacks all tracking, so the only way to dodge is keep running out of her.
They change it cuz they know ppl cant dodge it completely at melee range whereas new version you only have to dodge 3 times correctly.
Ppl already complaint about the new version being 3 waves, imagine if they keep the 6 waves version and they do the same damage.
More importantly… it’s actually like a waterfowl. She is hopping on one foot.
All I want from that attack is for her to only use it if you're over a certain distance from her. That single change would make that fight so much more bearable.
after helping a few friends beat her and getting used to it it really isnt too difficult to dodge. when you see her sitting in the air you just sprint away and dodge through the second burst and run from the 3rd
This, the amount of times I've tried to get in melee range only to have her wipe out this move an delete me is insane.
@@Jo_Rogan Your acting like it doesn't just occasionally break it's almost perfect battle flow by having this attack trigger randomly. I learnt how to dodge it pretty early, but it didn't really make any less annoying to deal with. I hate running 30 feet away from the boss every 15 seconds.
@@wax3825 def still a fart mechanic but idk i honestly feel like her health regen was way harder for me to deal with especially if she catches you with the Weapon art
more interesting would be to reduce tracking on the first flurry and/or change the spherical hitboxes so they don't hit behind her.
Right now there exists a difficult dodge which involves running around her ~270 degrees before rolling twice which just barely outspaces her, this should be made more accessible. It's way more interesting than purely having to run away.
I like the hopping version of her dance. She moves carefully and precisely trying to hit you when you're off-guard and isn't trying to give you a chance to retaliate since she's watching you, and is still doing a bunch of blade flurries to show how fast she is. The game one mirrors this since she now moves fast and erratically, covering much more ground to strike you again, but it's your turn to watch her movements and catch her out. If they toned that move's speed or aggression down by a point or two, it'd be perfect.
it feels a lot like Okami clan enemies from sekiro
@@BigDBrian that’s what I was thinking, it looks kinda good ngl
@@BigDBrian she is just a massive Sekiro reference in and of herself, with the attack clearly being a reference to the Floating Cloud Passage which Genichiro uses, which was taught to him by his teacher, an Okami warrior which I forgot the name of
@@popeneiad7968 Tomoe
Haha "watching you" ;p
Y'know because she's blind... ?
What if she wasn't °-°
The worse part of it is that you get no reward for dodging it. If you dodge an insta kill move that has multiple parts where you can die instantly, you’d think you get something. No, she lands and can immediately start attacking again. Imagine if she fell to the floor for like 4 seconds and took more damage as she recovered from such an attack.
Yea. You know, like Midir did with his gigalaser in phase 2.
the reward is not being dead lol
not every boss move needs a punish, you can punish literally every other move she has and this one is weighted to be pretty rare (2-3 times per fight)
@@empty5013 Nope. You can't punish her spirit attack either. Another mega attack with no punish window, lmao. Half of her attacks in phase 2 she can just decide nope, you don't get to punish. You have to wait for her to do a little tornado on the ground or her counter kick to have a guaranteed opening. Garbage fight.
@@empty5013 I'd love to see footage of you "punishing literally every other move she has."
I'll gladly wait for you to upload it without you using Bloodhound Step or a bleed build.
@@empty5013 say you're a casual without directly stating it lmao. the fact that you think it's "weighted to be pretty rare" shows you have no idea. it's entirely rng. I've had fights where she literally never used it once and some where she used it 6-7 times.
also "the bigger a move is the more punishable it should be" is a basic rule in action games since the dawn of time. dodging the single most punishing move in the game and getting virtually no reward is nothing short of bad design.
Dev: *Shows first version to Miyazaki*
Miyazaki: Looks cool but you think you can make people go through an existential crisis with that?
Dev: **Sighs** On it sir
Old version actually seems harder to dodge at melee range
That's why they have to change it to 3 swoops instead of like 6 swoops.
Do ppl honestly think old version is easier cuz it looks slower?
It has 6 waves of attacks all tracking, so the only way to dodge is keep running out of her.
They change it cuz they know ppl cant dodge it completely at melee range whereas new version you only have to dodge 3 times correctly.
Ppl already complaint about the new version being 3 waves, imagine if they keep the 6 waves version and they do the same damage.
I really like the early animation, it looks like something an actually hyper-skilled sword-user would do, keeping mobile and dancing around, ready to hop in any direction at a moment's notice, like an actual technique, rather than simply an impossible anime-rush flurry of attacks.
ok you massive nerd lmao
Same here
I agree, but the hopping on one leg doesn't really go well aesthetically with the rest of her moveset. They wanted her to float like a butterfly. If her half-brother Radahn is able to fly into fucking orbit without wings, it makes sense that she can defy gravity as well.
@@Big-Papa-Smurf But that’s the thing. Radahn actually went to Sellia and learned gravity magic. Malenia didn’t learn any of that, which is why hopping on one leg makes more sense
@@slicedolives9902 to be fair a lot of bosses have jump attacks where they stay suspended in the air for a couple seconds (Margit/morgott, godrick, maliketh, godfrey, godskin fatty and Radagon come to mind). It's clearly an artistic choice to make the attacks look cooler and has nothing to do with gravity magic or the lack of it.
Is it just me or does the first version look a lot more like... well... a waterfowl. Particularly a crane jumping through shallow water or something along those lines. The retail version... I don't even know what to compare it to.
ANIME. Just anime. She even stops mid air
@@julianswinton5355 I like anime but that move is bullshit on this type of game.
a flying buzz saw
Tasmanian Devil.
It resembles the bird dance you're describing a lot more when the player character gets to do it. You get to actually see how you do the one footed steps and position, as opposed to the "oh shit" feeling you get when the actual boss goes for it.
"You can't deny how aesthtically well this move fits in"
Yes I can :(
its just some random slashes with some white lines around, the okami and genichiro had better moves that actually look like a dance without making any anime shit like her
It does in fact not aesthetically fit at all, at least not better than the older version.
I mean her first phase moveset is just "skilled swordfighter 08/15" while waterfowl just feels very out of place with its "I can stay in the air for the entire duration of the attack for no reason" gimmick.
It just feels silly.
I like the old one a lot more, it makes actual sense instead of anti gravity mindlessly flailing a sword but oh it covers her whole hitbox and homes in on you like 3 times followed by an extra attack in case you might've been able to punish it
I don’t even care about how fast or deadly it is, or even how the unused version looks more interesting from a visual standpoint. If the low-poise, fast attack lady goes in the air and I anti-air her with my boulder chuck on reaction, she oughta fall on the floor. It’s how it be on Sekiro, it’s how it be on Elden Ring bosses with similar criteria, like the Black Knife Assassins. Simple as.
I have hit her out of it but only when triggering a bleed
Ahh but you see... you saw a pattern of behavior in something and thought to counter... but players are not allowed to do that, only the developers are!
there is a seriously annoying tendency for bosses to just be kitted out to say "no, fuck you. Relearn everything. I play by different rules"
If you want to do that, you have to chuck a status pot like freezing to knock her out of it.
@@shdowdrgonrider That's exactly it. The bosses seem deliberately designed to make you _re-learn_ mechanics you previously learned _specifically_ for this one boss. Just becuase this time, it works different.
I must also add, imo, this same thing applies to delayed swings/dodge timing. In all DS games I could reliably tell when to dodge, often even by instinct, because the animations communicated *when the attack would come.* This is not the case in Elden Ring. The animation only indicates _that_ an attack is about to come. However, having n enemy hold their weapon in the air, unmoving, for _seconds,_ doesn't feel natural at all, it goes against every instinct of having a real fight. Yeah, I know DS doesn't have realistic fights, but still the animations made sense at least. Here, the animations are completely detached from any semblance of sense - they are there to deliver spectacle over mechanical clues. This results in the same thing as above - rather than relying on something you have learned throughout the game, you simply _have_ to see moves twice, thrice or more often to be able to tell when a move is actually coming. I despise that *gotcha!* design choice.
@@shdowdrgonrider good old Greatsword Crucible Knight comes to mind. The imput reading tail swipe is kinda silly
Ok so this confirms something to me. At some point in development they added the spirit ashes and then went back and rebalanced the game around their existence. Or they just decided they wanted to make the game harder.
That is why the latergame scaling gets stupid, that is why the game is so absurdly hard compared to previous entries unless you cheese it. And now here we see they have an unused animation that is much more fair and more fitting to the name of the move replaced with a spammy slash animation because that would be harder.
I feel it's less about ashes specifically, and more with them designing areas somewhat simultaneously and noticing the strength curve of the player in a world much larger than they're accustomed to. I might be wrong on that one, though.
I think it's fine, it's not like Melania is a required boss. If she's too hard for you, just skip her.
I wish spirit ashes didn't exist in this game,
@@molybdenumrose its not about being hard, its about being unfun, orphan took me way longer but was way more fun and fairer.
@@davidcirovic8620 This I temperately quit elden ring when getting to her after thinking:
Could I kill her: yes?
Would I have Fun: Lol no
Are there any more fun bosses left for me to fight: (looks up elden beast): lol no
In previous games the hardest bosses where also the best and most fun bosses. Having high speed, damage, and a nice blend of projectiles to keep you on your toes. Friede, Gael, Nameless, Orphan of Kos, Maria, hell Isshin pulls out a gun. But in this game that isn't the case. Malenia has no projectlies (except for her abosolute bullshit clone attack) to keep you ready 24/7 so if you keep your distance you're pretty much safe. If you play melee you just have the random chance of being instakilled when she feels like it.
Opposed to previous games where a boss was hard because of their whole moveset, she is hard because of 2 TWO specific attacks. She's a hard fight but for the wrong reason and it's not fun.
I've played a load of these games and beat BL4 Bloodborne the week before Elden Ring came out. I feel as if I'm good enough to have a valid stand on this.
Friede and Gaël are funs ? What are you trying to prove ? These boss are pure bullshits in my eyes
@@diohoum1394 Gael has long wind ups and easily read attacks. Making him a great back and forth if you learn his attacks. Friede has no poise so if you land a hit you are guaranteed another 1 or 2 as well. She is also capable of being backstabbed which if you experiment and learn the spacing on her attacks means you can punnish her for doing what are seemingly unpunnishable.
Malenia has none of these opennings or weaknesses present(except poise, but she seemingky randamly gets hyper armor), making her unnecessarily hard compared to past games hardest bosses.
@@diohoum1394 then you just suck hard. Gael is the best boss fight ever because of how many attacks leave openings he gives. This means constant interaction with the fight
@@berzerk-_-fury5470 Ancient Dragon disagrees about being hard + best and fun. There's always some unfair bosses once in a while, they're the wrong kind of "hard"
@@Alex-ub1zv notice how I never mentioned a DS2 boss. That's because most of the bosses were unfun. Made by b team it had a different philosophy thus not being counted.
This attack in combination with the life steal makes this fight a super shallow one trick pony. I'm sad that there's soooo many fights like this in Elden Ring, especially coming off of Sekiro.
I like the old on more, maybe make it a bit faster. It proves to be a bit more fair but a good attack to use if she wants the players off of her. A more defensive attack, not the most bullshit thing in existence.
They literally made Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance more insane than Sephiroth’s Octaslash.
"bullshit" lmao
Genuinely think they went overboard with her moveset to punish late game colossal weapon users into re-examining their play-style
Thank god there's people who think like This and see How broken and stupid her hitbox are
Instead of Just OLD toxic "git gud GG try THIS Op cheese build git gud Just use summon"
@@pedrootenio4225 It’s because FromSoft has really done it this time. I don’t know what it is but Elden Ring just feels unfair. One second you stomp on a boss and the next second you’re fighting Malenia. They really, REALLY messed up the balancing this time. Hard but fair? Pah! Elden Ring is simultaneously neither of these, depending on who you’re fighting at the moment.
@@jooot_6850 People said this when other games came out: whilst enemy dmg is a bit much after beating it a few times ill say I can now beat the bosses consistently having learned their mechanics. Malenia is now no harder than say Friede because ive spent hours fighting her.
@@jooot_6850 thats my biggest problem with elden ring, its not 'hard but fair' nor is it just 'unfair'. the difficulty and level of 'fairness' is extremely inconsistent across the board. likely a result of the open-world nature of the game which was, in my opinion, not a good trade as the open-world isnt particularly well made/fun to explore
Its possible with an ultra: beat her doing only jumping attacks and fully charged heavy attacks.
How good it feels to slip through waterfowl, immediately loses 80% of health to a poke.
IMO, Waterflow is the only Souls Boss move u have to be ready for _even before it starts_ : if u are not _already running away_ the moment she raises into the air, u gonna get hit by the first flurry. Bullshit.
Just give me a way to avoid it at short range with a well-timed roll and without using gimmicky mechanics (Ashes and the like).
you can, you have to time the dodge correctly
Only way you'd get caught by it is if you stay withen melee range when she goes up in the air. Obvious solution is that you shouldn't, instead run back and forth baiting attacks and punishing her with jump attacks or going for one or two attacks with light weapons.
With that strategy I never got caught by the first wave. If you're using a heavy weapon that locks you into an animation, you should also be wearing heavy armor and at least using boiled crabs to make that attack survivable.
The first part of the dance is the one that can kill you without giving you a chance to avoid it, but the second and third parts can be avoided by rolling.
@@Sharkamfss it makes the fight boring when I learnt her moveset can attack, dodge, parry. Only to instantly die when she starts waterfowl and i dont have enough time to run cause i was too close due to being aggressive.
So i eventually gave up on being aggressive. 1-2 hits, wait, if waterfowl, run. Rinse and repeat. Boring... tedious.
There's a non-gimmick close range dodge and no, it's not just perfect roll timing (which is impossible if you understand the hitboxes&frame data)
However you still need to be able to move as soon as she starts it while being in melee range, it's also a lot harder than just running away.
Some of her melees can only be reliable dodged away from her, too.
@@popdogfool I don't understand why it would instantly kill you. You should have enough time to run away and roll to scrape by with some health left and be able to roll the rest of the combo.
I would have loved this fight if they had just kept that other version of the attack. The one move made the fight pretty unbearable
That first version looks so much more graceful and, more importantly, dodgeable. Would have been a lot more fun to fight against than what's currently implemented.
For real, the original animation actually looks like a dance: with her spinning around and swinging gracefully. The current one is just her jumping around and swinging wildly
@@finnagarf743 she is supposed to be chaotic evil so it is fine
i disagree the final animation has more movement that actually matches the sword effects and looks way less stilted
@@ryanm0910 thats because the new one is simply too fast for you to notice or care. the first version just needs to be sped up a bit and it would be good
@@tomsin1417 true, I guess a move called the waterfowl dance doesn't really fit someone called the goddess of rot
1:20
It's not very satisfying to avoid this idiotic attack and be rewarded with a single hit as showcased here. You can try hitting again, but good luck not seeing a super armor dodge. When the only reward is being allowed to continue the fight, it's not a great feeling.
*You're rewarded with a single hit if you're lucky and have a fast weapon
i mean she barely has any health so its not that big of a deal
@@user-rj4pq7lm1n try without bleed of frost build
@@temnodushnyi she still has a low hp bar, i have killed her without either of those and have killed her as a caster a katana dual wielder and as a double greatsword wielder
Oh boy, that move, i spent 2 days with a total of like 4 hours of playtime trying to figure out a way to dodge the first flurry from melee range, i got to a point where i had all her other moves pretty much down that i managed to go hitless for large chunks of her health bar (50% being my best) if she didn't use the dance, until i gave up and looked up how ppl are doing it on youtube, only to find out that there is only one way to do it with light load rolls with very specific and precise juke of the tracking, and that almost everyone else doing it with either barricade shield or bloodhound step.
i immediately put on bloodhound step and only used it to dodge the dance and never used it for any other attack as it seems too cheap, took me 2 hours of extra playtime to learn her phase 2 attacks before i beat her.
this is the first time across all soulsborne we encountered a move that needs specific equipment or skills to bypass, i'm not really sure if this is intended by them with all the emphasis on ashes of war and weapon skills in the rest of the game, if it is, i really disagree with it.
what i would change about it is either increase the wind up so we have a chance to run (or add a distinct animation before she jumps up in the air), or make the tracking a bit more forgiving in very close distance, or add a predictable trigger to that attack, either health points or as part of another series of attacks so we could see it coming if we learn her patterns.
or make it parry-able 😀
You can also use vow of the indomitable, or any shield to block the first flurry then dodge the rest. Completely doable as every build can get a shield. Every build can use vow or bloodhound step, every build can just time their roll to get behind her first flurry
yeah every build can get means to dodge it,
and the well timed roll only works for light load builds, tried it for for like 5~10 attempts with no success and had confirmations from other people, medium roll will NOT get you through the tracking hitless.
yes there are many ways to bypass the move, but this is the very first time in a souls game that we couldn't bypass a move with anything more than good timing and prediction with medium rolls.
my NG+ run with her i will probably practice the light load rolls as using the ashes of war / shields mentioned above not only makes it possible, it makes it trivial, which kinda leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
@@TheDuskpaladin dodging attacks in general is kinda trivial once you figure them out, waterfowl dance shouldn't be any different. I don't see any issue with this being the first souls boss to have this minds of attack. I honestly hope to see more in the future. Hopefully not of the same nature though, or the technique to counter it will be the same as this
i guess we agree to disagree,
still salty tho, since this is a first and i wasn't expecting something like this ,i spent a lot of failed tries trying to figure out a way to dodge it without any other skills from melee range, i thought that i was either too stupid to figure it out or my execution was bad.
@@TheDuskpaladin also, are you replying to yourself? I'm not getting notifications when you reply because you don't @ me, something that usually happens automatically when you hit the reply button
I feel like there’s a really simple way to fix this move and its:
1. Increase the time of the jump before she starts the slashes so you can actually finish the animation of your attack and be able to dodge in time.
2. Put a delay between the first and second flurry, because right now these two are just one single long attack that lasts longer than your roll does. I feel like if they added just a tiny bit of delay between them you could dodge the move without running away from it by timing your rolls with flurry 1 and then immediately rolling the second.
This makes me think the the reason the version of the move we got feels overtuned compared to everything else in the game is that it was changed and not tested enough before the release of the game. It's a great move and boss fight, but imo waterfowl and to an extent the lifesteal are overtuned and need to be slightly altered to make the fight truly the best it can be. If they do that then I believe it could be one of the best bosses they've ever made.
Old version actually seems harder to dodge at melee range
That's why they have to change it to 3 swoops instead of like 6 swoops.
Do ppl honestly think old version is easier cuz it looks slower?
It has 6 waves of attacks all tracking, so the only way to dodge is keep running out of her.
They change it cuz they know ppl cant dodge it completely at melee range whereas new version you only have to dodge 3 times correctly.
Ppl already complaint about the new version being 3 waves, imagine if they keep the 6 waves version and they do the same damage.
Damn it actually looks like a dance unlike the current version
This single move makes the fight go from the best one to the worst
They literally made Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance more insane than Sephiroth’s Octaslash.
I think I'd rather fight 3 Bed of Chaos back-to-back then fight Malenia again.
@@FleshlyDelight git gud
This single move made this fight go from average to the best boss fight i have seen yet. Fell in love with malenia, would paint her nails 10/10 again.
@@pancakke08 -🤖
I still can’t believe they nerfed Radahn but not this bs or the elden beast homing bs. Radahn only needed his hitboxes to be fixed and even after the buff he is still overly nerfed.
It feels like all their good enemy designers were working on Sekiro, cause the quality of the enemies are night and day between these two games.
This is the only time where a move simply *existing* has ruined a fight for me. I would love to play aggressively and embrace the dance that this fight is supposed to be, but the fact that she can pull this move out whenever she wants actively discourages me from doing so. If I play aggressively like the game wants me to, I might be punished with, at best, losing half my health, or at worst, death. Having a move to create some distance between the player and the boss is fine, but having it delete 50-100% of your health just encourages you to play super defensively, which makes the fight a boring slog.
I know this fight can be amazing, as when I pretended Waterfowl didn't exist and played aggressively, it was a blast, but doing so is just not advisable when a move this punishing is available at all times.
learn to dodge it
@@FrogHood genuinely not possible for some people due to input lag on consoles and the like, since it has tight inputs
Completely agree. I manage to get good enough to attack, dodge and parry. Kept real close to her.
But once she does waterfowl, being in melee range leave no time to avoid the first flurry. Insta death.
Ended up having to poke, back off, poke, back off. Boring....
@@jooot_6850 The input lag for this game is so fucking bad compared to like ds3
@@deedumeday518 yeah. It feels. Slow.
I used vow of the indomitable to dodge it, it was so gratifying to learn how to dodge it without looking online
chad move, just sitting staring at melania while she is aggressively trying to turn you into sushi
Doesn’t she heal off that? Never used it so I wanted to know.
@@cekojuna6930 she does not
@@borgl_2.
Melania: WHY WON'T THIS FUCKING TARNISHED CUT DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????
*chibi tarnished on cutting board smiling adorably*
Vow of the indomitable active.
Chibi tarnished: hi would you like to hear about your sword's extended warranty mam????
Melania: just turn into sushi 🍣🍣🍣🍣🍣 already!!!!!!!!!!!!😡.
Melania wraps chibi tarnished into seaweed wrappings and attempted to bite down only to get a dagger in her gum.
Melania stares at the chibi tarnished with righteous fury as she turns around and unsheathed her sword slowly with a gleeful smile on her face and twinkle in her eyes.
Melania: if I can't have my sushi than I'll just make do with tarnished kabob's!!!!!!!!!!!!
*Waterfowl dance straight thrust*
*Chibi tarnished smile falls slowly*...........
*Vow of the indomitable ends*
To be continued.
Will Melania get the chibi tarnished kabob's find out on the next episode of tarnished adventures.
I used bloodhound step on the claws, when I saw her prepping up I quickly changed to the claws and did a dodge forward, one backwards and another forward. I felt pretty good to come up with it on my own.
They could've had the cut WF dance act out like the current one; as it feels much less painful to dodge away from while still being at close range.
And have the giga WF dance trigger ONLY while trying to run away from her.
Ironically, waterfowl dance isn't that much of a risk, if you're at baiting range for her "punish me for free" attacks. Only if you're too close to run, or too far, so she skips to you first.
@@qwormuli77 I've beaten her 8 times, it's one of my favorite fights in the game. Still, this being my favorite fight or me avoiding all her attacks successfully doesn't take away from the fact that this one move is very questionable.
In a boss fight if all it boils down to avoiding a single move or dying- it has a potential risk of falling under artificial difficulty. That's a big no in Fromsoft games.
@@qwormuli77 also what's with RUclips’s notification system tho, I got the notif of your comment just now
@@EyesOnTheInside Can't agree more on both comments. The worst part about WF dance isn't even the bs part (which is already bad), but the fact that it's existence makes fun ways of fighting her way too risky for their benefit, in favor of boringly baiting her freely punishable moves. The entire fight is designed to be an aggressive exchange of dodges and punishes, but WFD invalidates proactiveness completely.
YT comment section, on the other hand, has become really wack in the last few months. Now all links get shadow deleted too, unless they are those endless scam links. You can't seem to mention certain terms (not just swears or such, but actual brand names and stuff) or your comment doesn't show to people and sometimes your stuff just randomly gets shown to others weeks after the posting, if at all.
The fact that you have to develop a 'feel' for when she can do this move, so you're being careful to keep your distance, and that slower weapons with long recovery animations get absolutely shafted by wdance, makes this attack fundamentally broken for me. What could be a fun fight against an aggressive enemy becomes a boring, tedious waiting game for heavy weapon users.
An easy fix is to just make the attack health-gated. make her to do it at 75% and 25% hp and that would be fine.
@@illidank996 it *is* health gated, every 25% of her total health.
The problem is she has Regen, so she can put herself above the threshold and then do it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
@@illidank996 It already is. She can do it at 75, 50 and 25%
@@michaandrzejsigismundfreih7900 do you have a source for this? i have had fights where she does it waaaay more than 3 times and nowhere near those heath ranges.
@@kynlem If she heals it back the cycle re-sets. I've fought her plenty and she only does it for every 25% of her heath bar missing. Once you learn that you're golden.
This one single move completely ruined an otherwise very well designed and nicely balanced fight.
It turns an enjoyable dance of swords between two opponents into a constant fear of that one single super-move.
Congrats fromsoft, you ruined your most well designed fight in the game by changing it last minute.
It actually looks more serious and actually avoidable with any setup, unlike what we got.
The earlier waterfowl seems to just be waterfowl but actually balanced well. I see why it was cut.
Mediocre, too easy to dodge for what is the 'hardest' boss.
I wish they'd stuck with the first one. it could be a 4k damage combo, have hyper armor, it could cause bleed and/or rot, it could even block magic. itd still feel more fair than her current dance which chases you across the entire zone and makes or breaks the whole boss fight.
kudos to the people who figured out how to dodge it. but that one attack makes the boss either that strongest challenge in the game or mediocre. I'm saying this as someone who beat her through good RNG. after double digit attempts, during my winning attempt she didnt use it a single time.
What's really blowing my mind is how many bones are in that flower. That must've been an utter nightmare to animate.
This attack is my only problem with the boss. It's very easy to start attacking melania right when she starts the waterfowl dance animation then just get half your HP destroyed by the first combo. I got close to beating her without summons but gave up because I was getting killed by it 90% of the time. The boss design other than that is some of Fromsoftware's best work!
I see this opinion a lot and it would help but personally i think the main issue is the hp pool and regen, if playing safe to avoid this abomination of an attack didn't drag the fight out 3 more minutes just to get to the second phase only to die first phase any way to her super armoring your opening isn't tedious idk what is.
@@petercottantail7850 hp pool can be drained with the rivers of blood move set, the hp regen was quite tough and once she got to 2nd phase it was funny enough easier for me to damage her than her 1st phase
@@Kami-Sama197 Rivers of Blood and Bloodhound step invalidate any opposition in this game, so using it as an example is only pitting broken against broken. But I agree that her second phase is easier for me than the first phase.
Late in development would explain why it's a shit move.
They only have about 18 listed testers.
It's not satisfying to dodge, it's just "ok good thing I was more than 8 feet away from her"
Git gud buddy
@@marcuskane1040 that's what I said to the developers
Clearly they didn't playtest it much.
clearly skill issue
@@mikemiles2241 on the developers side
@@user-ce9fm4bs1i developers' skill in deducing the players' lack of skill
they didnt even had to playtest it that much, the fact that an attack has far more active frames than your roll and covers such a huge area while having massive tracking should have been already enough for them to know this was some cheap shit without even facing her
Oh my God... That first version is... actually possible to dodge. You don't have to read a goddam article or watch an entire video to understand how to fucking dodge it! IT'S PUNISHABLE! And looks actually normal!!! And doesn't make the fight feel like luck based crap! Jesus Christ, just get From to get this old version back and Malenia fight is immediately top tier. Straight up. It's clear they didn't playtest that new move enough.
its not even "luck based". the attack triggeres at SPECIFIC HP thresholds, 70% and 30%. its also not bullshit as you can dodge it EVEN up close: when you are up close and she does the attack: once she's in the air, unlock the lock on, run around her, then double roll forward, that throws her off and she misses with ther first part of the attack, entirely, then its a cake walk from there as the second part only has to slashes and the third is even easier as she jumps over you and based on your positioning, you either roll once backward or twice. this is hard to do, but once learned, the attack becomes a joke and a half. this i found out on my own, not videos watched. people just need to learn to be more patient.
The unused one looks so cool!! She actually looks like a crane jumping on one leg instead of some dumb anime bullshit
I picked out a shield for this one attack, I never used it again either. Even that meant she just got free heals whenever she wanted.
That’s the only move that kills you
when you are up close and she does the attack: once she's in the air, run around her, then double roll forward, that throws her off and she misses with ther first part of the attack, entirely, then its a cake walk from there as the second part only has to slashes and the third is even easier as she jumps over you and based on your positioning, you either roll once backward or twice. this is hard to do, but once learned, the attack becomes a joke and a half. the attack is not bullshit but hard to memorize for dodges.
This attack and the fact that she randomly gains poise for no reason, makes this fight one of the worst in my opinion
Have a good day to everyone that sees this
On a serious note, the devs did have reasons for the places they put poise, however a lot of them feel unintuitive and its literally just no poise or infinite poise, I don't get why they don't implement ds3 style hyperarmor instead of just passive poise + infinite poise on some attacks.
But yeah fighting lots of things in this game and the other souls games I think to myself 'And this time on 'Attacks that have hyperarmor for no fucking reason!''".
And some people dare compare Malenia to Friede.
The fundamental flaw with Malenia is that she has too many HPs (like everything in this fucking game from Leyndell onwards) and, apparently, low poise; she also heals while hitting you btw. So the player might think they need to pressure her in order to win, it sounds like the most logical tactic.
And this would have been good boss design: understand the boss's weakness and use it to your advantage. But no, it's an end game boss, so frame 1 random hyper armor on random attacks! And if you're daring enough, she'll teach you not to pressure her with her waterflow attack.
So you're presented with two choices:
- You either try to pressure her anyway, but random hyper armor or waterflow will end your life. So you're trying the fight over and over until you get good rng.
- You hit and run from her all the time, turning it into a war of attrition (which is not in your favor) where one mistake could cost you 15 minutes of your real life.
Or, you know, you can cheese her. Which is what 90% of players did to deal with her bullshit design
@@DXYS95 Friede is probably the worst boss from DS franchise imo
@@Amir0 Pretty much spot on for me, too. I like that with good initiative you can poisebreak her from her attacks to keep on the offensive, but then she every so often breaks out that light attack kick combo, that out of all her other light combos just somehow happens to have infinite poise for some reason. I just repeated "and there goes the poise kick" in my head over and over again, when repeating her fight with save resets. Honestly, at the moment I'm thinking that that decision came from her being airborne during it and them not wanting to animate a new stagger or have her be knocked down.
BTW, have you ever noticed her health ticking randomly up outside of her self heal procs? At first I thoughtI was going mad, but every now and then her health just ticks up like 700 hp without the SFX animation or hp bar animation. It's rare and not really a problem, but really weird. At first I was thinking it was some sort of engine queue holding up her normal attack regain, but then she did it during neutral, while just circling around me. It might also be something, somehow, affecting her hard health values for some reason I cannot fathom.
@@qwormuli77 Were you using any of the Blackblade abilities/WA like Maliketh's or the Black Knife? It lowers their max HP for a time and will then appear to "heal" the boss when it goes back to normal.
Old version actually seems harder to dodge at melee range
That's why they have to change it to 3 swoops instead of like 6 swoops.
Do ppl honestly think old version is easier cuz it looks slower?
It has 6 waves of attacks all tracking, so the only way to dodge is keep running out of her.
They change it cuz they know ppl cant dodge it completely at melee range whereas new version you only have to dodge 3 times correctly.
Bro the attack itself is manageable to dodge, it’s just the fact that it completely slows down the fight to a crawl simply because you are at risk of dying at any second if you use a move with too much end lag. Hell, even small attacks have too much. Just make the windup longer and the move would be perfectly fine.
Why didn’t they just make her run out of stamina or get stunned to land a critical hit like when Niall does his huge spin 7 hit combo AOE instead of her completely ignoring the fact she just swang a sword blindly (she’s literally has no eyes) like 60 times in the span of 5 seconds and hovering in the air in the entire process. Oh yeah don’t forget the hyper armor after and the nonstop cancelable combos that she can do. This was the only boss that I couldn’t solo, literally had to summon because of that one bullshit move that she can do. Then proceed to heal half her health or a big chunk of it even if she hits you once through it.
That first version would be really good if they sped it up. Then there could actually be a rhythm to dodge rolling it, a tough but consistent solution. Unlike what we have now
Am I the only one bothered with her life grab thru shields ability? Imagine playing 90% of the game using a shield (which is completely viable) to then face Malenia who essentially invalidates what the game has been encouraging you to do. Now, adaptability and changes in strategy are crucial in Elden Ring, in fact it’s one of my favorite things about the game. However, forcing someone to change their build entirely for one boss is unfair and contradictory to the game’s entire ethos.
Yep, I second this. What a shitshow.
I disagree. I know a lot of people feel this way, but I liked being forced to change my strategy here. I’m really really glad they managed to pull off a fight like this once, cuz y’all are gonna force them to make the next game ds3 easy lol
@@maninblack3410 There's a difference between having to make adjustments to your strategy and having to rework entire aspects of your build to handle a boss
@@sethseth916 sure. That’s pretty objectively true, there *is* a difference. Nice statement there lol
But she has never known defeat do you think she cares about your precious build?
Malenia's Waterfowl move is universally hated for being a bullshit unpunishable move
Let's nerf Radahn again lol
Actually, her waterfowl dance can be countered before it starts by delivering heavy attacks or some offensive ashes of war at her...but the timing must be perfect or you'll certainly be dead.
They buffed him back up last patch, does more damage now
it's hated by people who are bad.
@@mikemiles2241 "wah, you don't like it so you're bad" that's what you sound like
@@cynicalgold9992 They are bad but too shy to admit LMAO. All they want is ez pz bla bla. They dont want to use this and that becaus it's unfun and cheese and shit and crap but they are so noob as fuck LOL.
can they change it back please?
not going to happen, learn to dodge it, or just skip the fight, its optional.
@@foulXD why the fuck should i have to learn speedrun tricks to even beat the boss.
She does do the hopping version on patch 1.0 on PS4. But only sometimes.
The way I beat her was having a dagger equipped with bloodhound step. See her do that and swap to the dagger immediately
You know what's worse than the Waterfowl Dance?
*2 WFD in a row.*
And you know what's much worse than 2 WFD in a row?
*3 MORE wfd in a row.*
Pretty upset they cut a nice-looking attack like this and went with the flurry of blades that is nigh-impossible to dodge if you don't start running the picosecond she rises into the air.
you dont even need to run when you're upclose during the launch of the attack:
when you are up close and she does the attack: once she's in the air, unlock the lock on, run around her, then double roll forward, that throws her off and she misses with ther first part of the attack, entirely, then its a cake walk from there as the second part only has to slashes and the third is even easier as she jumps over you and based on your positioning, you either roll once backward or twice. this is hard to do, but once learned, the attack becomes a joke and a half.
This looks somehow even more insane to dodge when you are close to her when she initiates it...
Fun fact, the release 1.0 version of the game had Malenia doing this version of the attack in both phases, and the weapon art was originally called Malenia's Blade.
That attack alone ruined a good boss for me, even after learning all her patterns and managing to avoid all other attacks, that one is just "if you're mid-animation and I use this u dead".
Even after beating her it still makes me dislike the fight cause it was not a question of skill, I jsut tried till I got good RNG so she didn't use the attack.
The old one matches the description of the move a lot better. Especially the hopping.
Man breaking down the animation data was cool af, you should keep doing that
This is some good stuff fr
I feel like Fromsoft could have taken some notes from some of the most popular Sekiro mods (e.g. Resurrection and LMTSR) when designing the "super move" for Malenia. In its current state, the only difficult part to dodge for the Waterfowl dance is the first combo because of its insanely long-lasting hitbox with no indication of any period where you are able to dodge during it. This makes it so that dodging the first part is almost completely guesswork if you're too close (unless you use the extremely inconsistent and difficult method of unlocking target and running a precise circle around her to dodge it) whereas the other 2 combos are very easy to dodge once you know what direction you're supposed to dodge.
In the Sekiro mods I mentioned, Isshin is dialed up to 11 and some of his moves have crazy long strings with delayed attacks, fast attacks, sweeping attacks - the works. Yet despite that, they are very clearly avoidable with practice because every single hit has an obvious indication of when and where it will hit. Malenia's first combo of her Waterfowl dance just simply doesn't have any of that so it feels like absolute bullshit trying to dodge it.
What they should have done is make this attack utilize everything the player has learned so far - delayed rolls, jumps to avoid sweeps, chain rolls, rolls in a specific direction rather than just having 1 section feel like guesswork and the other parts a cakewalk after knowing what to do.
My proposed rework:
1. First attack is an extremely fast sweep that passes through the player that requires you jump it to avoid it.
2. Second combo is an extended chain requires you to chain roll through her to dodge it.
3. Final combo requires you to roll to the right or to the left depending on her position and pose - create left/right variant pose to keep players on their toes.
I think these changes would still make the attack difficult and you would need to pay attention to Malenia's animations to avoid it, but it would no longer be guesswork for the first combo and you could dodge it consistently with practice.
you arent meant to dodge the first wave, you're meant to create distance by running away or have a tanky shield that wont get guard broken during the flurry
@@empty5013 Okay, thanks for telling us the deep meaning behind the clearly stupid move, Miyazaki san. So we're meant to run away or instantly die, even though half the time we can't be running because we are standing right next to her, possibly stuck in an animation. Or maybe we're forced to use a heavy shield, even though our builds can't use one. So it's a lesson: ignore your build, just go online and look up a viable build that can cheese the whole game in the most boring way possible. Thank you, Miyazaki san.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS i'm using the carian shield and i block the first flurry and roll the second and third. people have shown it's possible to avoid the entire attack with midrolls if you are actually good enough, and if your build is heavy rolling frankly, you are a moron.
this boss isn't meant to be easy
The original version of this move looks perfect and completely natural. It also looks fair and dodgeable. Maybe speed it up a little bit and this would probably be my favourite fight in the game. But the current version of this move is garbage and ruins the fight entirely. Atleast for me. And yes, I did beat her. Multiple times actually and its still not fun to deal with. Too much RNG involved. Luckily every other fight in the game is not like that.
i'd argue all bosses in elden ring have to some degree, bullshit rng involved in them. the fact that their openings is mostly dependent on rng as they can chain into a new attack asap or just give u an opening is completely decided randomly. it ruins most of the fights in the game for me honestly. dark souls 3 still has the best bosses, dodging every single attack gave u a reward, an opportunity to get back at the boss and create openings for urself, essentially if u were good enough u could control the flow of the battle. in elden ring however u literally have to beg the bosses to give u a small opening just so that u can at least do a single r1. can't say i agree with that design decision
@@devilhunter1383 I know where you are comming from. I may have worded it wrong but what I actually meant is that not a single boss has a move like Malenia. Sure RNG is also a part of other bossfights such as Radagon + Elden Beast but its nowhere near as bad as in Malenias case. I too think that DS3s bosses are better than in ER, they have been balanced around 1v1 combat and have fair moves and combos. Even the super hard ones like Friede or Gael. Every fight is fun, same with Bloodborne. But in Froms defense, Elden Ring is so massive, they probably ran out of time when balancing some of the bosses which is why they already start rebalancing bosses (Radahn). Lets see what the next big patch does.
@@EldenLord. ye, malenia is definitely elden ring's most unbalanced boss fight. and yes i do agree that it's because of the whole elden ring being massive. i think fromsoft experimented with too many things when it comes to bosses in elden ring and it just didn't work as well as it did in dark souls 3 or bloodborne. and it's clear that due to the massive size of elden ring, they ran out of time for endgame. this video proves it, that the current version of waterfowl dance was a last minute decision and was not playtested. same with a lot of other endgame bosses. i do hope they patch this stuff in an update soon because the endgame bosses are literally my only gripe with elden ring
If it was a scripted move at certain thresholds of HP I would have been fine with it. It's the fact that this move is completely RNG dependent meaning she either never does do it, or can do it 4 times back to back, has literally no start-up or gives time to react, and blocking it is extremely buggy with Malenia more often than not going through you and hitting you in the back. And don't even get me started on colossal weapons against her....
It really breaks and frustrates an otherwise amazing fight and bring it (personally) from what could be one of the best to downright one of the worst. She really is the only boss I have complaints about, still do not understand they nerfed Radahn who (aside from a few hitbox tweaks) was in no need of anything, while Melania definitely could use some more fine tuning.
I guess you missed what was in the 1.03.3 patch this past Monday (April 4th) then, I don't know by how much, but From confirmed the damage nerf was a bug with the original 1.03 patch
@@Kaijudomage they undid the damage but kept his health nerf from what I could gather.
@@Kaijudomage they nerfed her??
Pls Tell me they did it
To be fair, Malenia is a optional hard boss, a small tweak or two to the first flurry of her waterflow is more than enough
@@pedrootenio4225 they didn’t nerf her, they nerfed Radahn (made his hitboxes smaller, nerfed some of his orb spells, lowered his hp a lot) but left Malenia untouched. They buffed Radahn now which is good but Radahn was, from the start, SO much better tuned than Malenia ever was! It boggles my mind.
As someone who has beat her twice with a STR build, the hardest part of this boss is accepting that the only viable way to kill her is through boring baits (unless you can tank it). The rest of her kit is amazing and really fun though. This move could be really good too, but it needs to be dodge able.
Awesome shit man.
I think it would have been really cool to do the hopping one during the first phase, but once she gets the wings from the second phase, she does the current game waterfowl dance since she can now fly. It would be extremely cruel gameplay wise as it would come out of nowhere in the second phase and merc you, but it would be so cool looking.
This fight has taught me that even if a boss created by fromsoft summoned a spirit in real life to punch your balls every 10 seconds some fans would still call it masterpiece design.
The game has a lot of good points already, learn to be a little bit critic of it please.
WF Dance is the only problematic move with Malenia, the fight isn't ruined cause of this (in my opinion)
@@diohoum1394 true, the ball crushing demon was pretty cool too, except that one move
Well they are maidenless so they have no need for them anyway lol
well to me Waterfowl dance is a lame move, but
1. I know how to deal with it, I needed probably over 70 tries to beat her but waterfowl was not really a big issue.
2. It in no way dismisses the rest of the incredible fight which is easily the best fight in this game and among my favorites in all their games.
@@zireael9797 dumb take
Her waterfowl dance bumps her from one of the best bosses in the game to one of the worst
Ah, waterfowl dance.
One of the few moves I have no idea how to survive except just not being there and hoping Malenia targets my summon with it.
She's not impossible to beat but i kinda expected that the 'hardest' Elden Ring boss will also be the most enjoyable, much like Sekiro's Isshin or Ringed City's Gael.
Sadly, even after beating her 3 times with 3 different builds, she's not going into the memory folder of 'best FromSoft fights ever'.
She wouldn't even make top 10.
I think Radahn and Radagon are much more memorable.
@@xenopath8069 Godfrey/Horah loux as well if u have a non busted build he is the funnest fight in the game, he’s combos are hard while being intuitive and well telegraphed, he is beatable with all weapons, he has cool and unique attacks, he is fast paced and he just has a good design
If they removed waterfowl from the game entirely I would immediately bump Malenia from a 3/10 to a 10/10. Every single boss in the game, even the annoying ones, have telegraphed attacks and predictable moves that you can deal with through repetition, skill, and generally just studying their moves. Malenia has all of that except for one move, waterfowl, which she can quite literally use whenever she feels like. The thing that made this move, and by extension Malenia herself, undeniably unfair was when I was helping a friend of mine fight her and she continued to spam attacks combos that she couldn't be knocked out of, and wouldn't allow us to get close enough to try and parry. She quite literally spammed Waterfowl back to back three times alongside her dodges and other quick slashes that prevented us from being able to get close for *two fucking minutes* and got my host killed the second we tried to take advantage of what we thought was a window of opportunity to attack. He now refuses to return to the Haligtree and is already on ng+3 and refuses to acknowledge Malenia at all.
nothing is RNG based in the case of when she does the attack. she does it at 70% and 30% of her remaining HP, and if you do enough dmg you can even skip the 70% waterfowl. the attack is even dodgeable upclose even when its sudden.
when i am up close and she does the attack: once she's in the air, unlock the lock on, run around her, then double roll forward, that throws her off and she misses with her first part of the attack, entirely, then its a cake walk from there as the second part only has to slashes and you many s and the third is even easier as she jumps over you and based on your positioning( close or mid range), you either roll once backward or twice. this is hard to do, but once learned, the attack becomes a joke and a half.
people who call the attack BS and unfair, are just ignorant and want to stay that way.
also in the case of the back to back waterfowl: once she heals up above one of the thresholds (70% or 30%) she can do it again once the thresholds are reached. so like when she heals above 30% to like 40% and one of you attacks her and brings her down to under 30%, she can do it again. so no, its not random.
and yes i tested it in my RL1 runs.
@@foulXD that's an interesting way of defending a broken move. It's one thing to need to be patient and adjust how you fight, as you do with every boss because every single move they have only requires a tiny bit of adjustment and patience to learn, and it's another thing to completely need to learn how to move and react for one single move that even the slightest mistake will be guaranteed death.
I get it, people can learn it, that doesn't change the fact that she has one specific move you need to completely change how you think and react to in order to survive it when every other move she has is manageable.
@@Pie_Smacker i dont what to tell you, man. if it can be learned then its not bullshit or unfair, its all about the individual who want to learn it or spend hours on forums to rant about it.
Subscribed. I like this content
> dodges the entire Waterfowl Dance perfectly
> gets hit by the telegraphed single stab
*insert generic "the cut one looks better" here*
but seriously, the cut-move looks and fits better. It would have still been deadly, but way more manageable. Also, it looks more like something that fits the word "Waterfowl" way better than the final version...
I'd be fine with the attack if it didn't require me to hair trigger turn off target lock. That shouldn't be a requirement for any move.
Have you tried getting good
I never needed to turn off target lock.
@@ipotato95 haha nice one dude
You don't need to lock off just dodge into her second attack and run a little to right under her when she jumps for the third attack
Really it's just the first flurry that makes this move broken as to my knowledge it's literally undodgeable without bloodhound step
@@ipotato95 have you tried bashing your head against a brick wall until it falls over?
This exact attack is why I hate this fight, and also phase 2. This fight goes from being difficult and fun, to unfun and stupidly brutal with this attack, to just way too easy in phase 2. I don't know what went wrong here, but this fight would've benefited greatly from an improved phase 2 and just, not having this attack.
They really forgot everything good they did with litteraly every hard souls boss they made before this lmao
Should have had both added. The close quarters one and the jump up one haha
"Learn how to slip through this attack" I love how the video is just you running for your life.
The problem is due to delay on sprinting on keyboard you cant really escape it if u play really close.
Perfectly dodges a water fowl and lands a follow up - proceeds to be hit by the dash attack
Interesting that the weapon art description lends itself more to this cut "step,/hop" version of the move
I honestly can’t believe the boss released like this. Did anybody playtest this absolute shitshow? I honestly want whatever dev lead in charge of the Malenia fight to stream themselves fighting her with a Greatsword.
git gud lmao
@@TehKoolaidkid
From what I hear, this boss in particular actually has unfair design.
Can't git gud at something that's unfair.
@@TehKoolaidkid shes literally just unfair for certain builds, nothing to do with being actually good at the game
Super easy with greatsword. Practice the fight abit more.
@@Renameless bosses are designed to get you out of your comfort zone. Radabeast can't bleed, so that's unfair to bleed builds?? Or maliketh is 80% resistant to holy so paladin builds are fucked. No build should be able to easily beat all bosses in a game, that would be bad design
I imagine what would've probably got a lot less people complaining is if she had a larger range of staggers with her using one of her animations where she gets knocked onto the floor depending on the weapon you're using; the more slow and powerful the greater the effect. I say this as from my own experience Melania's challenge is to punish both players who are too cowardly to fight her or too confident, realizing the fine line between the two was what at least in my case made me win. The issue is that she recovers way too fast to the point where players with slow heavy weapons do not get a window to follow up and begin chaining attacks, instead you have to take the fight way too slowly. The only leg up slow weapons get is stance breaking, but I doubt it happens enough to compare and jump attacking every single time is boring and hardly intended as a means of primary attack.
Waterfowl Dance on it's own isn't bad, but it's annoying that you're giving a very obvious window to attack her and stagger her preventing her attack, and the game instead says "no". I think the attack will also teach players to back off way more often, which leads to her just doing that very fast swiping move she does outside of Waterfowl Dance when the player backs off too much, effectively teaching players the wrong conflicting lesson.
Well, she's easy to pancake, which gives free heavies and ripostes, which is a massive boon for heavy weapons. But heavy weapons also runs the risk of her deciding to use the move with infinite poise and wrecking you with an attack of opportunity damage boosted waterfowl dance and killing you, without any legit answer. Pancake capable weapons are really strong against her, but also so risky in an incredibly stupid way.
@@qwormuli77 I'd say you're not correct about it being easy to pancake since I don't remember the great mace being able to pancake her on any attack, but maybe colossal weapons can. Either way I'd completely forgotten that an ash of war like Stamp (Upward Cut) would probably guarantee that she kicks knocked up into the air at least, AND has the benefit of being able to cancel out of it hopefully giving you just enough time to avoid the waterfowl attack. I do know that the Golden Land ash of war will let you cheese the first phase, no idea why but she and many other enemies in general just try to pretend the projectiles don't exist and so will just get hit with no reaction, so as long as you keep distance she won't attack or close the distance.
1:39 the one missing petal coming from the underground... is weirdly funny for some reason
The thumb is so funny because it looks like she's dabbing and mocking you
Makes sense that the move was added later on, because it's legit one of the only two things that make this fight go from amazing as it should be to outright annoying and much less enjoyable, anime tier attacks like this that can only be dodged by running away 20 kilometers and dodging perfectly after watching a guide on youtube don't belong in the game, no matter how skilled you are, the first time you fight Malenia you will NEVER beat her because of attacks like this that destroy your health, come out incredibly fast, and must be dodged perfectly or with too much luck.
I really don't like bosses with a slow, slog of a first phase with one move that makes the fight trivial for the player. Her waterfowl dance would be fine if there was a definitive time to dodge, but I've only been able to dodge it once. Other comments I've seen are like "yeah get hit by the first barrage then dodge the second, ez" but its not that simple. And people often say "well you don't have 50 vigour, you're doing it wrong" I don't think you're really meant to tank the first barrage, otherwise she gets enough health to do the same move again because she seems to gain a charge every 25% health segment, making you lose the fight if she keeps getting the chance to heal and use the move. Having 50 vigour is overkill, especially considering that area is a 100 to 150 area, meaning almost a third of your points are dedicated to health alone. It's not designed well, it should be clear when to dodge and not made necessary to take the hit. I'll admit, I'm not great at the game and I had to use tiche, but only because of that move and a lack of chain ending indication(wasted a quarter of my flasks getting hyperarmoured after 13 consecutive attacks) did I struggle on this boss. In the end I did kill her but it wasn't all that rewarding or fun. Feel like the original animations would have been better and other combos should have been added. I would absolutely love a rework of this boss to be rewarding but challenging to fight, rather than it being guess work and getting lucky with positioning.
I haven't updated my game from version 1 and the older waterfowl version does happen along with the newer version
Mitsubishi san was drunk on feet sweat when he designed this fight.
him talking: "learn how to SLIP through this attack!"
his character: hauling ass away from malenia hoping he doesnt get nipped in the ass and get shredded.
yeah real smooth there, graceful, slipped right through.
.
Im gonna be real, Malenia is my new #1 over Bed of Chaos for most technically bad fight Fromsoft has ever made.
The Bed of Chaos, design-wise, is just trash, plain and simple. But its CONSISTENT trash. If you know where the holes are, and the timings on her sweeps, you can do it in one attempt every single time with a bit of save/quit to skip some BS.
Malenia is just an absolute dice roll of quality. She bounces between having such nonexistant poise a dagger could stunlock her to god-tier botomless poise pools that can tank three people simultaneously hitting her with charged ultra greatswords, and there's zero warning as to which mode she's going to be in, nor are the actual attack visuals at all representative of said switch.
Her Waterfowl has no consistent trigger and can be used between only once to over seven flipping times over the course of a fight, and even if you know EXACTLY how it works, it can still clip you during a recovery frame and stunlock you to death on the spot at any point. Not only that, but there's zero punish afterwards, since she recovers during her final swipe, meaning she can use it COMPLETELY free of charge as many times as she wants with no consequence. And since it has such a short windup, even slightly overdedicating to an attack ONCE can mean instant, guaranteed death on the spot. Quadruply so if you DARED to use an ultra-class weapon for this fight.
In the same vein, I have seen her flower attack instakill SO many hosts because unless you can sprint out of range in time, it perfectly tracks your rolls to slam down right on top of you and explode. Equally, just like her Waterfowl, you BARELY get a punish for it, since she recovers so fast and can just dodge out of the way before you do anything decent to her. The only way to punish her on her LARGEST ATTACK is to actively take damage and suffer scarlet rot buildup just to get maybe one or two hits in.
Some of her attack combos are so tight that you literally cannot dodge through them point blank properly, her charging multiswipe after adjusting her blade being a prime example, where the ONLY way to escape damage is to get out of her range, and nothing else, and she can literally just chain the attack back-to-back if she really hates you to delete your ranged advantage, close the gap, and decide to hit you anyways.
And to top it all off, Fromsoft gave her THE WORST gimmick a boss has EVER had in their games, the ability to non-stop self-heal 24/7 off of EVERYTHING. Get hit? Thats a heal. Blocked? That's a heal. Fun fact, during the death animations of a friendly phantom or spirit ash, if she hits them with an attack, SHE STILL HEALS. And due to the Fromsoft AI, which doesn't stop targeting an enemy until its fully despawned, she'll keep attacking a dying enemy repeatedly, often gaining back 25% or more of her HP from a single death, making summoning spirit ashes an ACTIVE DETRIMENT to your success since none of them can survive multiple Waterfowls because they won't dodge it. Trying to survive Waterfowl by using Barricade Shield? You just gave her 50% of her entire healthbar back, and she can just do it again in 30 seconds.
If Fromsoft just addressed these issues, she would instantly go from a gimmicky, technically disgusting mess to an utterly phenomenal experience instantly.
But its genuinely flabbergasting that Fromsoft already had a PERFECTLY REASONABLE Waterfowl dance already made and ready to go, then decided to replace it last minute with a heat seeking missle that does over 4,000 damage if the full combo lands and still does 2,000 in just the first swipe. This reminds me of the story behind Halo 2's release and its infamously near-impossible Legendary difficulty, because apparently the developers thought Legendary "wasn't hard enough" at the 11th hour and cranked up several enemy values just before the game released to the public without EVER playtesting it, resulting in the ungodly tanky enemies, every attack instakilling, and omnipotent 5-millisecond reaction times of Jackal Snipers.
The attack after she adjusts the blade can be dodged if you roll into her.
@@afrovarangian Unless she doesn't dash far enough and all you do is end up directly in her blades. Dice roll.
thats a lot of text of you saying: "i'm shit at the game".
@@foulXD I have 100% completion in every Fromsoft game since Demon's Souls, including Elden Ring. You know nothing, and are not worth any further of my time.
@@OGXenos "Her Waterfowl has no consistent trigger "
this alone tells me that you know fuck all about the game, but hey, keep spreading bullshit.
and no, 100% is NOT an indicator for knowing everything or being good at the game, 100% ing the game is easily done, no need to be a pro.
"this is too balanced lets speed it up by 5 times"
Bro this just reminded me that the dream i had last night was of me fighting Malenia but she had 3 stages :(