Hey, peeps! Please read the description, as there’s loads of additional info that had to be cut from the video, to keep it from being an hour long. Also, I try to leave you guys alone with the “Like & Subscribe” stuff, but as this video took me a couple of weeks to make, if you enjoyed it and found it useful, give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more Elden Ring stuff! As always, thanks for watching!

I sincerely hope that along with pvp arena's being added to the three coliseums that they add the ability to fight bosses like they did in the Sekiro update.

This is my thanks, not much but your wisdom have brought me my victory going solo against Malenia. Your parry series, especially Malenia video, I know took a lots of time to make so again, thanks so much.

I started Malenia two nights ago and have been watching countless parry guide videos for her, and yours are by far the most in-depth and the answer to my prayers lol. Not gonna give up on this boss, well worth the adrenaline rush!

Finally managed a no-hit run on her - thanks largely to this video. Incredibly well-done and with a level of detail that most others lack. Thank you! I’m damn near 50, so my reflexes aren’t as sharp as they once were. This was super helpful in getting me there. Fwiw, I went with something like solo her’s approach on phase 1 with slightly less aggressive dual katana attacks (I would often get clipped when trying to pull off 2 power stance attacks, so I would do 1 then just an R1) then used parrying for phase 2.

Here's a couple things I figured out myself- hope it's useful to someone! -If you're playing solo and throw any kind of projectile at her (like throwing knives), Malenia will instantly dodge to the side, then dash towards you and aggro. This is great for making sure she's always in the middle of the arena, but it's _also_ good for provoking a waterfowl from a relatively safe distance. As you get a feel for how often she does the move, you can start to bait it out. She'll _almost never_ do two back to back, if you're dealing normal amounts of damage - I certainly never saw that happen. So once you bait it, you can feel safe enough to go back in. -I was playing with a Main Hand Nagakiba and an Off-Hand Moonveil for my build, and found that if I aggro her with a knife and try to R1 as she approaches, she would 90% of the time respond with a kick, which I could roll backwards, R1 to stagger her out of the follow up, and then R1 or L1 until she blocks and jumps away... at which point she's at a distance, so I knife again, the kick comes again, etc. Obviously, this A) isn't a hard AI loop, you still have to pay attention to what she's doing, and B) isn't going to work for you, depending on which weapons you're using, either due to a lack of range or lack of speed. -If you're not playing Parry Style, then you're not going to be interrupting her combo strings, so it's good that you know: this lady can combo her moves in almost any combination she wants, and she can do it for a long, long time, sometimes strings that are 5~6 moves long, many of these with multiple swings. Don't heal until you're certain she's back to neutral, and use trial and error to learn what you can safely punish, and which moves have limited or no follow-ups. All in all, I recommend patience. This isn't really a boss you can style on on your first run, so just pay attention and play methodically. Never greed.

Never in a million years would I have thought I could solo Malenia, let alone parry the majority of her attacks. Yet here I am, wearing her winged helm. Thank you so much for putting together this guide. Needless to say, it was instrumental in my (eventual) victory. Truly the definitive guide. One interesting thing I came across that maybe others going for a parry win might like to try: If you're using the Misericorde and have the Assassin's Crimson Dagger Talisman equipped (the one that restores HP with criticals) you get a double healing effect. Once right as you stab Malenia and another as she's thrown to the ground. No other weapons seem to have this double heal., only the Misericorde. Not sure if this is common knowledge, a glitch, or maybe I was doing something else that caused this. Either way, if you're going for a parry approach this is an excellent way to conserve your flasks.

I am not even anywhere close to beating her yet, but I am still having fun figuring her out. She isn't as frustrating if you view fighting her as a huge challenge, and go into the fight knowing you aren't winning, but practicing for the time when you will have the skill to win. Honestly sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break. Go for a short walk, have a meal, watch a video, just clear your mind. Sometimes if you go too long 'practicing' you will get burnt out. Giving yourself some time away to contemplate without the pressure of battle is sometimes just the edge you need.

You can get the Barricade Shield Ash of War by killing the Night's Cavalry just beside where you get the Turtle Shield, he only spawns at night. The advantage is you can put it in a 100% physical shield with higher Guard Boost, like the Brass Shield. With this you can tank most of the clone attack, but the last clone can usually get you by your side, so dodge roll it.

Oh my god the jumping swirling attack had me pulling my hair. I use golden parry, could never get it regardless, and assumed it might be due to elevation or something messing it up.. Thanks so much. Also, never use the flask when at midrange and she isn't locked into an attack. She reads your input and will immediately start the lunging attack. Tested a million times, it's always perfectly on sync with my input.

Thanks for keeping us RL1 lunatics in mind! I’m about to start Malenia attempts on my RL1 play through. Another excellent video!

I've been doing a parry-focused run of Elden Ring and these guides are really top-quality. This one in particular is spectacular. Malenia is the only (major) parryable boss I have yet to beat. This definitely deserves more views!

Thank you so much for this guide! At this point I've fought her for 300+ attempts (100+ on RL150 with one victory, and the rest on RL1), but this video has still taught me a few new strats. 18:40 I actually did tank all the clone attacks (but NOT the final Malenia stab, I think that's what saved me) with Barricade Shield on an RL150 character with like 40 END. I will probably try outrunning it on my current RL1 playthrough, though -- but I've yet to survive that long, lol. Thank you for this guide. I don't really like using Ashes of War OR blocking, but I've found myself forced to Barricade Shield her 1st couple of flurries all the same, which is massively annoying. :C I guess at this point I might as well Bloodhound's Step and deny her the heals. Fun fact: the first time I beat her after like 15 hrs of parrying @ RL150, I just silently put down the controller, went to my apartment balcony to have a smoke, and cried a little bit. Man... What a boss fight.

I really appreciate this video. I doubt I will actually try to parry Malenia. However, many KZfaqrs show footage where they make the fight look easy, because they are only showing the bits where everything went to plan. It makes normal people like me believe that we just suck at FromSoft games. However, here you are quite clear about how long it took you to work out a lot of this, and how many times you fought Malenia before it went well. That sense of "Anyone can do it, it just might take a while" really helps people like me who sometimes believe certain bosses are impossible without some non-reflex based advantage.

That quick spark-dash-flurry drives me up the wall. She just keeps chaining it.

For Scarlet Aeonia (the phase 2 opener), there's a much easier way to dodge it. 1. Disregard Thingfishy's advice and un-lock-on (just bear with me) 2. Sprint almost straight at her, but slightly to one side. I favor the left (her right). You'll know you're far enough to the side if you don't hit the invisible pillar beneath her. 3. As soon as you're past her, turn so you cut behind her (if you passed on the left, turn right). Doing this will make her fly off in the wrong direction.

@6:38 - I found that contrary to moving during this attack to parry, just totally letting go of the analog stick (provided I was close enough) was a far easier and more consistent way to parry it. ANYTIME she twirls, I just stood still. If it's a kick, no biggie, thing barely does damage. If it's the strike, I could parry it at the last second without moving. The only thing is this requires you to be right in her face. I religiously perused this guide multiple times over the 10 hours it took me to learn to parry Malenia. It's an incredible guide, beautifully put together and so aurally pleasing.

This fight can go from "This is the coolest thing in video game ever" to "I'm going to throw my controller through my TV" really quick. I'm with you, Fishy. When I beat her in my first playthrough, it was an incredible moment and I just wanted to get back into it. I'm now fighting Malenia in Ng+ and man do I remember how frustrating this can be. Your video was super helpful for timings as a Dex/Strength player. Waterfowl is manageable once you get the hang of it, and the whole fight can feel like a dance when it's right. But phase 2 is another animal. You just have to find the balance between aggression and keeping your distance. So challenging, so rewarding.

Thank you so much for the guide. Gonna watch this a bunch of times while I do this with the "Let me solo her" build + parry shield XD

Doing this with the Assassin's Crimson Dagger Talisman made it so I never had to heal in phase one, which is pretty amazing. Excellent tutorial !

On my first playthrough I watched this video when looking for a way to dodge waterfowl. I found my own method of dealing with it, and beat her using a mimic to power through phase 2, after I got consistent enough to beat phase 1. But I got inspired. And after I beat the game, I started my own parry build. This very weekend I was there again. Me vs her. No Summons. No Help, just me, my Buckler and Reduvia. I died about 200 times. And then I did it. In the final fight I dodged 6 Waterfowls, 4 Scarlet Bloom attacks 2 clones and landed a total of 30 parries, ending the fight with a riposte. I had a hell of fun. Thank you

Thank you so much for the guide. I really wanted to pass a lot of bosses using parry, but I didn't understand anything about it. After watching your videos I had nothing, but after many attempts I was able to parry a boss once and after that I started to understand how it works. And after killing many bosses through parrying I ended up on the "How To Parry Malenia, Blade of Miquella" video. I didn't even think I could kill her with parry, but you explained it so well and after a few hours of practice I was able to do it. The feeling of victory I experienced was only because of you, thank you so much. When you know all the boss's attacks and don't even give him a chance to win, that feeling is inexpressible

I finally did it boys! I beat this nightmare with a dagger/parry build! I even did it without frost and blood too! Thanks so much for your work Thingfishy. This video was my bonfire that I'd return to in times of doubt. 🔥 🏆

Great video dude! The music, editing, footage and info, all top notch. Especially the intro 🤌

Pretty late, but I haven't tackled Malenia up until now. For the stationary twirl attack, you can actually just walk forward and to the right when parrying (slightly more right than forward), this also allows for more time to react to the 1-2 Combo.

That spinning attack you said was so troubling is so easy, just parry right when she’s about to land always works it’s easy

This video almost got me emotional tbh, very beautifully put. I love the commitment to getting us all the info, this was truly an amazing video 🙏

I’m addicted to parrying in souls games, which is why I love your videos! Thanks for all your hard work my guy!

Watched just about every Malenia tutorial & video by now, here almost a year after release, and this one is by far my fav. It covers so much detail and has a great audio track to back it. It really helps you appreciate the boss, more than just fight & beat it. Amazing job.

I know you have more recent videos, but it's thanks to you Thingfishy, and this video, that now when my friends and I have finally gotten to Malenia in our Seemless Co-op playthrough, I was able to make an impressive clutch after the other three had died. Parrying and dodging through the waterfowl dance, I felt better than ever before. Thanks for helping me be a chad for a night ThingFishy c:

I’ve finally started my solo attempts at Malenia (having used summons successfully), and this guide is extremely useful. Very high quality work, as always!

This has to be your best boss breakdown to this day, and I'm even willing to say it'll remain your best video for a while. Can't wait to see how you top this one off. Analysis and script aside, I want to congratulate you over the editing. The music choice and overall "storytelling" felt really engaging. And those shots were exquisite. I didn't expect to get emotionally invested in a parry guide, lol You've encouraged me to go try soloing her again and your breakdown has given me a better idea of the timings and the windows I can punish. I'll let her live though. Gotta wait for my hommie to get there so we can fight her together.

It's here! It's finally here!

Hey fishy, not sure if you knew this but both the stab attack and the charged slash can be parried. For the charged slash I noticed that the key was to look at the height of her sword, the moment she zooms in your direction and slightly raises the blade, it’s safe to parry just as she’s inches away from you. For the thrust attack, I time it right as she finishes her little hop. There’s one small problem with this one though, it has the same kind of hitbox issue that the stationary twirl has, where if you’re just slightly off course to her line of sight or too close, the parry can fail and chip you. Personally I use golden parry to sort of mitigate that. Great guide by the way, very detailed! Cheers! 😁

I've been smashing my head against Malenia (not a parry build), and your 1 o'clock-1 o'clock-6 o'clock was a REALLY useful cue for the final flurry. I was able to beat her earlier in part due to that, because it doesn't matter how good you are against the rest of her moves if you have no reproducible strategy against Waterfowl, which I didn't. Appreciate it very much.

Beautiful intro, she really is like a dancer, her move is aptly named. Honestly, I wish it was possible to do a custom version of this fight. Its so cool, with so many great moves, I wish it was possible to do it in slow motion, just to enjoy it.

I want to thank you for this awesome video! I've beaten Malenia once; with a 'roll & dodge' approach... That took me so many tries, that the second time i'm facing her now I wanted a new approach... And here I am, thanking you for this video! I haven't beat her yet, parrying. But i'm getting there :) It feels awesome! Only parry I can't get,is the one when she floats to the right and then attacks ("when she nods her head")... Don't know why... Thank you so much!

Excellent info and unbelievable efforts on these vids. Thanks!

I’m working on my parry defeat of her right now. One thing to point out, is the footage of those guys doing it, have been mainly light rolling. When I switched to light rolling is when I could first avoid waterfowl completely. I don’t know if that’s necessary, but that’s what all those guys seem to be doing. It really helps a lot in this fight in particular, although I would like to be able to do it with medium roll too,

Dude amazing video, it's so informative and you even managed to make it somewhat emotional.

Just coming back to this to say this video helped me parry Malenia into an early grave. It still took me a long time but it was worth it. Invaluable video.

Turn off ads blocker just for your videos. I defeat her with my pals, after this video I will solo her, thanks for the inspiration and effort into creating this guide.

Your videos are almost as fun as playing the game! Nice job.

5:35 "more consistent one to parry" this serie of slash is the one I'm having more trouble to parry

Thank you fishy!!! I finally did a parry fight against her and won thanks to your guide and uploaded it

I personally didn’t want to watch parry videos before I take on bosses with my parry style gameplay, but once I defeat them it’s nice to come and watch and see how many moves I managed to figure out!

I have never played a fromsoftware game before this is my first, and I decided to do a parry playthrough for my first becuse apparently im a masicist or somthing. and THanks to you i was able to beat malania at level 90. Thanks for you help!

note: the air thrust attack is parryable, but you cant be too close or too far from malenia (just did it) amazing videos man

Thanks for this Bloodborne guide

The video quality is outstanding! Narration, editing, music choice... Impressive! And then you got all the good tips to top it up :D

After cheesing her with Mimic Tear + Blasphemous Blade at launch and never attempting her again until NG+7, I finally did it with Golden Parry. I’m playing a very strict paladin build with Banished Knight Shield and Miquellan Knight Sword (so 40% of my holy damage was absorbed and no status effect could be procced) so it felt like hell for the first few tries But you gave me the motivation to do it and my mentality quickly went from thinking this was impossible to believing I could do it! Thanks a lot Thingfishy, for what is probably my proudest achievement in video games

"As I know you guys are waiting on this for your RL1 playthroughs" Yes that's why I'm here, gotta do it in the most stylish way possible

ik im a year late, but malenia gets one waterfowl every 25% of her health. a throwing weapon WILL trigger it. bring fan knives or something of the sort. dodge waterfowl by running backward, away from the first burst. dodge into the second. dodge backwards (or into, i forget, i have it in muscle memory moreso than normal memory) on the third, then run (or dodge) away from her.

Bro that outtro gave me chills…awesome video thank you for the help

I feel like the freezing pot is the most mild and borderline level of cheesing, if it's cheesing at all. It requires you to not have frostbite already in effect, so it essentially either locks you out of using this useful status on her or requires you to carefully track and manage the status. It also only works at close range, maximizing risk in case for some reason you can't get off the throw in time or it doesn't proc frostbite. I feel a similar way about Bloodhound's Step, though that's a little more cheesy than the pot IMO. In the end, WFD is a deliberately cheap move and singlehandedly responsible for why she's hard in the first place. The threat of it defines the fight and turns what would be just a standard hardcore mechanical one-on-one into a much more frustrating and low-success encounter.

I recently did melania on a level 10 with +0. I gave up on trying to parry her. Either way thank you for this. I'm loving the series.

First, fantastic video. That said, "possibly hardest in gaming history" is extreme hyperbole. I can name SO many bosses that are harder than Malenia. Sans and Lingering Will come to mind, for two well-known options.

you might be aware of this already, but if you quit out right after beating her (before receiving the rune), and spawn back in outside the arena with her still alive and healthy. I've done this hundreds of time now, one of my favourite fights for sure. Once we are comfortable enough with her moves, we can use basically any weapon to fight her.

person 1: "hey we got this boss thats just a lady with a sword... How hard should we make the fight?" person 2: "yes."

It is now day 3 of non stop Malenia. I can get her to phase 2, dodge the clones, and waterfowl. The 1-2 combo is the _only_ attack I can't consistently parry. Once I get it figured out I know I'll mop the floor with her. Wish me luck boys.

A man this literally came out 1 day after I beat her. I didn’t really too much trouble. Tbh when waterfowl came I just spammed rolling until it’s over. There’s so many opportunities to punish her and stagger her. I mean she’s hard, but not one of the top hardest bosses for me. It took me 3 tries and the first 2 were just experimenting with bad strats. Still a very useful video.

thx for the lesson fellow tarnished! I just beat malenia and i did it with style and elegance!

just solo'd her for the first time using this as my bible. THANK YOU

You can actually parry the far lunge attack and also the stab attack. However for the stab attack, unless you know you're going to stagger her it's best to dodge since you get a good long window for damage if you dodge it well.

Thx for the vid, i was waiting for it since i saw your first parrying guides. Few days ago i decided to try to beat her only with parries and repostes, and i find myself in a point in which i can consistently parry her attacks, but the waterfowl kills me if she does it at point blank range (btw i'm doing this in NG+5). Hope i can manage to dodge her attack now after seeing those strats. One last thing, i found myself more confortable using golden parry rather than using the buckler since i can land the parry even if i'm not close to her and i have more frames to do it. Keep it up with the vids, ur killing it!

Easist way for me to do phase 1 (NG+1 for me now) In short: Spam R1 I use the goat armor set for the balance points Greataxe "anchor" (bleed) with the pierce damage type buffing trinkets for massive damage Melina gets staggered for every status you put on her. Walk at her and throw a frost pot. When you are close enough, she either iniciates a dodge but is too close and gets hit, frozen and staggered (20% more damage in the future) Then you spam R1 with no regard of her actions. She get staggered on almost every hit until she retreats. Repeat. Its really easy. Phase 2 idk yet. I don´t want to watch a tutorial since I wanna beat her on my own. I got no idea what you do on her spin to win move. Guess you are just dead if she starts it while you next to her.

A couple things I noticed in my run fighting her, which wasn't parry style, instead opting for double twinblades: -If you aren't parrying her spark swipe, it doesn't have hyperarmor (at least for the first few swipes) so dodging at 11 o'clock and then hitting to stagger is fairly reliable, or you can follow up the dodge with another dodge to avoid the slower post 3 swipe finisher. Jumping into a jump attack to stagger should work on level ground, as should jumping forward into a roll, but since very little of the arena is level ground this strikes me as unnecessarily risky, but worth noting in case the specifics of jump invulnerability changes. -At least for me, bloodhound step was more reliable when doing a variant of the circle roll strategy than in making distance. Walking to one side of her and using BH step to get to her other side as soon as she starts drops down would reliably cause her to completely whiff everything but the final two flurries, and those are easy enough to roll through.

Great job man, this tutorial was amazingly easy to finally understand hers moves... Ty♥

In the DLC it'll be Miquella himself. His attack will be a nuke that has a 5 mile radius, does 10,000,000 damage, and cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried.

My comment to feed the algorithm! Great work, as usual! ✌️

Really useful video. Started playing again recently without leveling or upgrading. Haven’t beat her this way yet but getting close. You can walk to her right or left instead of back and parry her jumping swirling slash. Right seems to work best for me.

Gehrmen's theme fits way too perfectly with malenia...

My quick process update: took one day off and beeing found right back at day one .. nearly.. but seriously, the 1-2 attack , we say Der Wischer in german, and the stationary swirl give me constant death…

Oh, about her Aeonia Scarlet move in the start of phase 2, actually we can just unaimlock and run toward behind her, she will just slam on somewhere else behind you, you know it's right when you run toward her at the place she's floating on, you will get lightly strafed to other side because of the game hitbox, this is pretty consistent for me since it works everytime

In my opinion, the hardest boss is Queen of Valkyries from God of War 2018 on the hardest difficulty because she has so many different attacks and abilities, also she chooses them randomly (so even with the best gear you don't have options other than learning how to deal with each of her attacks). Malenia is as difficult as you want her to be. There are so many tools and strategies to deal with her (like bleeds/frostbite/ash summons/human summons/magic/cheese/parry/ash of war for dodging/etc). Of course, you need to learn something but anyway there are options to kill her very easily. P.S. Great guides!

GG bro, just GG

I'm slowly getting the hang of it but I gotta say her 1-2 combo is kicking my ass real good. it happens so quickly that I don't even try parrying it after a while and just dodge out of the way.

Woohoo, this is what I have been waiting for.

My brain, in it's infinite wisdom, read "How to Marry Malenia"

Appreciate the video very informative and extremely helpful

Thanks for these parry guides cause all my time on this game I just gave up on shields or blocking done farely well just stuck on malenia and the elden beast

Am I the only one who can’t parry the 1-2 combo? I’ve gotten the parry timing down pretty well for pretty much every other move. I can even avoid water flow consistently. Despite this though I’m never fast enough to parry her 1-2 combo. Any tips?

The video is so good that u immediately earned a sub even though i haven't played elden ring! I'm still exploring sekiro now but I'll surely check out all ur elden ring videos when i get the game

For Waterfowl, I ended up just using a shield with Carian retaliation and really high stamina (188) which allows me to simply block first wave of attacks and then roll subsequent ones. The first wave uses roughly 75% of stamina, so if it's not full, I'll get stagger. But if not being too aggressive to survive, it's very hard to get low on stamina on this boss. Of course not RL1, so the turtle shield approach still makes a lot of sense.

Beatiful guide, I solod Malenia level 125!

i don’t know if someone already pointed this out but the charging attack from 5:49 can be parried and the parry input is around 5:59 (i could be slightly mistaken on the input but this is where i always press L2 ) . watched Ongbal did this and it worked just fine, and i found it slightly easier to parry rather than the 1-2 slash after the kick and the stationary twirl. hope this helps on my fellow rl1 malenia in 1.09

I'm sorry but how do i parry the very fast 1 2 combo i just cant get my head aroud it

Bro it’s the hand up fast slash for me. It gets me almost every time… it’s like my 30 year old reaction time is just a millisecond too slow

Im trying to do her hitless with parry. This Video is so incredibly helpful, thank you so much!

The Standing Jump-Whirl (7:00) can also be parried more reliably if you circle to her right side (left from your view-point)

After seeing ongbal's world first no hit with my favorite weapon (ghizas wheel) i knew that was going to be how i beat this boss. Once you get the step back reaction for her spin, the 1,2 combo for me became the move i seemed to get hit by every time she did it. After getting in the zone i could parry it consistently, i had the one eyed shield for the waterfowl, my character had 12 faith for flame cleanse me in case something went wrong in phase 2, and i just threw my head at the wall for 25-35 hours and eventually beat her like a month ago. She and mohg are my favorite bosses that i have beaten with consistent, low damage strategies and now that im progressong into rl1 runs, im excited to fight them both again

Hello Thank you very much for the guide! Great work man!

another one in the books for ya. this was awesome!. i know im probably a ways from her, but will be really helpful!

Thanks a lot of the guide. It is super insightful. But for me I occasionally still get clipped after the 2nd or 3rd roll during waterfoul, and I found that the best method that worked for me personally was to dodge forward towards right once during her initiation on the 2nd part of waterful then hold right to walk a bit then dodge right. I still haven't got my first victory against her at this point but I think I'll try out your parry method since I'm running on 9 vit as astrologer and using shaq's flagspear and if I don't use the weapon's buff then anything she does one shot me xD

The kick is also easily avoided with just walking- no need to roll when you are at proper fencing distance. When you see her approach with it (shuffling into the lunge and spin) just walk backwards. Gives you a chance to punish, and she won't be following up on it since she'll get staggered.

Note for newcomers is that her charging slash at 5:49 can be parried but if you aren't confident, just roll away.

Did you know, if youre close to her, you can actually parry the long stab attack?

"This fight is without a doubt, the HARDEST thing I've accomplished in a video game" I'm floored by this comment.

i was able to pull off a PARRY/R1 NO HIT against melania and i wanna say thank you for teaching me how to parry her attacks and how to dodge her waterfowl. huge appreciation for your content!!!!

Actually learnt the run around strat for water fowl dance and it feels so good to pull off. I would recommend practicing it if you got the time.