Elden Ring RL1 - Malenia, Goddess of Rot (Rune Level 1, Melee Only)

Equipment used is shown at the end of the video.

This is easily the hardest boss I've fought so far at level 1 across DS1/DS3/BB/ER (haven't fully finished BB though). Malenia leaves very few openings, especially for curved swords which don't have the most stagger or range as compared to say, the Serpent Hunter. So a lot of the fight is waiting for just a few attacks which I can (somewhat) safely punish. Additionally, as we all know, her Waterfowl Dance is extremely bullshit (but flashy!). I tried for a while to dodge it without Bloodhound Step, but I just wasn't getting consistent results. Her first flurry was practically impossible for me to dodge at close range and the third flurry would sometimes randomly hit me even when I thought I was doing it the same every time. So I bitched out and abused BHS for the whole attack lol.

Phase 2 wasn't pretty but I was nervous. She gains hyper armor at seemingly random times so that's why I got kicked a lot. I would queue up a 2nd attack, but she would hyper armor out of the 1st attack and start her kick before my 2nd attack. So it's really only safe to get one attack in, I was just impatient. The only attack other than Waterfowl that I was afraid of was her clone attack, which I didn't even bother trying to decipher. I just made sure to spam BHS away from her while changing direction each time in order to avoid one of the clones swiping me from behind.

I think Malenia is a bit overtuned and doesn't provide the same level of fair challenge that previous FromSoft bosses have. She would be a much more fun fight if it were easier to consistently dodge Waterfowl and her clones without relying on a pretty broken ash of war. Additionally, she has so few recovery frames after a lot of her attacks that even when you perfectly dodge a combo, you're punished for trying to attack her in what would normally be a safe window to punish her.

All I have left for my all remembrances run is Radagon/Elden Beast, which I've already gotten some decent practice in. So hopefully this run will be done soon!

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