Most Elden Ring players have at least heard about the difficulty of Malenia. She can recover her own health when she hurts the player, she has a lengthy set of moves making her difficult to predict, and she has a string of sword slashes known as the Waterfowl Dance that is incredibly difficult to survive. Despite her difficulty, players have found ways to defeat her and conquer yet another grueling trial in the game, even if it takes hours to figure out how this fearsome foe works.
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In the video posted to Reddit by user “Lancenfstr,” an Elden Ring player uses a strategy focusing on parrying. The weapon skill used is called the Buckler Parry and is actually one of the easiest parry moves to obtain in the game; the player starts with it equipped to their Buckler Shield if they chose the Bandit class at the start of the game, or it can be purchased from Gatekeeper Gostoc at Stormveil Castle, the first major story dungeon in Elden Ring. All of Malenia’s attacks can not be parried, though, which forces the player to learn strict timings and dodges in order to avoid seeing the infamous “You died” screen in her arena.
After parrying the majority of her attacks, the player is able to deal a ton of damage, but they have also spent several weeks figuring out her patterns and getting timings down for the entire fight. Parrying in Elden Ring is also a bit different than the Dark Souls games, requiring even Souls veterans to re-learn how to parry consistently.
Malenia, Blade of Miquella remains one of the most difficult boss encounters that developer From Software has ever created. At one point during development, Malenia was even more difficult than she currently is. With players finding unique ways to combat this fearsome foe months after release, there truly is a lot to discover and learn in Elden Ring.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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