I fought malenia for 3 days. It took me almost 20 hours, and I died 496 times. She was not ready for attempt #497

I swear to god the night I beat her, I literally heard “I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella” in my dreams on repeat. That was a few days ago and I still have ptsd from that fight

Here’s some perspective: I died to the Godskin Duo twice. I died to Malenia 119 times.

Godfrey and Horah Loux is such an epic fight. The man literally created us and is the leader of the tarnished. When you die to him he compliments you on your strength and when you defeat him, he’s like good job bro here’s your crown. 10/10 boss imo.

"Heed my words... I am Malenia, blade of Miquella. I have never known defeat." "Heed *my* words. My sword shoots lasers and now there's two of me."

Took me about 3 Hours to finally beat her and then i realised she had a phase 2, and struggled for another 10

So interesting how your build can influence the difficulty so drastically. Morgott I beat on my second try, while Rennala violated me with her staff for hours.

For me it's insane to rate the golden spirit of Godfrey and his real form so close together. The golden spirit was two tries for me, Hoarah Loux tossed me around for at least an hour

Little fun thing: In the godskin duo battle, i've managed to get both of them dead at once, and no, it doesn't end the battle, one of them just ressurects to keep the thing going.

"I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella" "Hesitation is defeat" "Good riddance, starving wolf" Oh, how the words burn into the inside of your skull

Malenia killed me sooo many times that finally made me swallow my pride and start using summons. With mimic bro i could finally down her in an unending four-katana barrage of slashes

Not sure if you've already learned this since uploading this video, but you can completely cancel Malenia's super attack if you hit her with a frost pot during her wind-up

I heard "I am Malenia blade of Miquella" so many times from her . that when I finally got her I my self became malenia at the end . and my god her weapon is op .

I wear my Malenia armor set with pride. The fact that she's 100% completely optional adds to the sense of victory that I got when I finally bested her after about 4 hours worth of attempts.

There’s a tear you can get from an invader that is in a church on the Altus plateau that completely nullifies Mohg’s blood ritual, allowing you to get quite a few hits in while denying his damage and healing. Makes the physik basically nessarcary if you’re going for a no damage run of his fight

I fought Malenia and struggled with her for roughly 1 week. She is by far the most difficult video game boss I have gone against across every genre of game i have ever played.

Malenia was the hardest boss I’ve ever faced in a soulsborne title, she nearly broke me and absolutely deserves that #1 spot. Still a phenomenal fight, though.

Maliketh is one of those fights that I don’t know how I won. I spent the entire encounter getting knocked down constantly but I somehow did enough damage to kill him.

Elden ring felt like the first game where some bosses couldn’t be no hit. But then I see no hit runs on those bosses. It’s incredible…

On my third journey, I vowed to solo all the main bosses, so no mimic tears or summons. Bosses I found easier before were suddenly a lot harder, such as Mohg and Godfrey. However the hardest for me by far was Radagon and the Elden Beast, if you take both together as one fight. - even harder than Malenia. I let out the biggest sigh of relief when I finally bested it. Never want to experience that again.

I was literally rewatching Part 1 thinking to myself "Damn, when is he gonna drop the next video"

It’s crazy how different runs are for everyone , Godskin duo was a one run for me, but near the beginning of your list is commander N with the lightning peg foot and him and his ghost buddies did unspeakable things to me for hours .

I appreciate how you actually acknowledge that you were a bit overpowered for some fights or got lucky, and actually see a battle's nightmarish potential even if you don't fully live through it yourself. Good video.

Fun fact about the Godskin Noble, it can be quite easy to avoid the roll attack after the initial dodge if you just run behind them and follow them. They can’t turn fast enough to actually get you and you’ll be in a advantageous position to hit them when they come out of the roll.

Not even gonna lie, Malenia was the most abuse I ever took in a fight, period. I already had Black Knife Tiche at +10 and was level 160 and still took a solid 8 hours to beat her. That being said, it was the most glorious victory I've ever had in a long time.

Malenia broke me, respeccing into Rivers of blood did not feel like a win. We both died in that arena.

The night I beat Malenia after 6 days of attempts and hundreds of deaths, I screamed so loudly that my roommate thought my mom just died or something. Probably the first time a game physically exhausted me to the point where I felt lightheaded when going out to dinner with my girlfriend after. Easily the most memorable boss I have ever fought, with the sole exception being Zant from Twilight Princess for extremely personal and sentimental reasons

So strange when I hear people struggled with Morgott-- beat him on my first try in a strength build and assumed he was some sort of mini-boss reskin of Margit because he died so easily. Took me a while to realize he was a very significant character in the lore of the game.

I fought malenia for 3 hours My winning run was literally me with cold nagakiba on my left hand and a dagger with Bloodhound step on my right hand Only doing 1 or 2 hits per opening The fight was so slow and excruciating. After I beat her I had lost al my sanity. I respecced my character into full dex build Changed my character from male to female Copied malenia appearance Wore her armor and weapon And now..... I am malenia Blade of miquella

Hourah loux has to be my favorite fromsoft fight ever. He’s not the hardest but I was not ready for that phase 2 I saw him run at me and mistimed the dodge early and my god getting thrown 30+ feet in the air then primary lotused was the most insane and hilarious things I’ve ever seen. Needless to say I also died instantly lol

I fought Mogh, Lord of Blood at his palace WAAAAY before fighting Morgott. Didn't even encounter his other version in the sewers till endgame. Unbelievable fight that tested my limits. Only boss that I'd put on the same level is Malenia - though, she took twice as long. Loved them both

Don't forget that Mohg gets a strenght buff everytime a blood loss occurs in the area basically one shoting you with his downward slam if he bleeds you before once

Placidusax is one of my favorite bosses. His name is derived from the Latin Placidus, meaning peaceful/gentle/calm; we basically walked in while a dragon was sleeping/regenerating and killed him. If you inspect him closely the wings look ragged and there are scars everywhere. at 13:45 you can see a stump where a neck and head should be, then just after that around 13:50 when he rears up you can see 2 limp necks with missing heads(one is hanging down on our right, and one is wrapped under the arm on our left, pointing up). We fought him like 40% power if we're just talking head count, and that makes this fight all the more incredible to me. This Dragonlord was nowhere near full strength and still pulled out enough lightning to make Gwyn shiver; just imagine him at full strength.

"Difficulty shoots up for the final six, as I have died AT LEAST 15 TIMES to each of these bosses." *Me, who spent 3 hours killing Tree Sentinel and needed 27 tried to kill Margit* - 😅

While Malenia is without question the hardest, I still wonder what Radahn would have been like if he hadnt lost his mind by taking her bio-bomb to the face. From what I understand, all we ever saw was a fraction of Radahn's power.

I’m glad that Margit is considered one of the hardest bosses, because I always struggle with him

Can we also appreciate how this man fought all these bosses with no summons or ashes so he can have accurate reviews on the bosses

I don't like the massive amount of Duo bosses, but I think it's relevant to consider that spirit ashes are a core mechanic that fights were balanced around.

It amazes me how these bosses' difficulty seems to depend on the build. For the first 30 or so hours, I used a sorcerer/spellblade build and I didn't really run into many issues until I ran into Mogh. Mogh easily killed me 40 or so times before I called it quits and respec'd into a bleed build. I still then only just managed to beat him because I got the purifying tear. The only other boss that gave me issues aside from Mogh was Malenia. I first tried my Int build and she killed me 7 or so times before I had enough and I came back respec'd in a Bleed build with a fully upgraded Rivers of Blood. The weapon art on it absolutely punishes her when she leaves you openings and her phase 1 was pretty much a joke for it. Phase 2, on the other hand, yeah it took me a few more tries to beat her phase 2. I really did enjoy fighting Melania because it felt like a dance between two blade masters.

It's fun that some off Malenia's mechanics look like they would work wonders in Bloodborne. Fast paced hits, huge combos, healing by causing damage

FYI: Each of the Godskin Duo is susceptible to sleep. The final fight against both of them is made much, much easier if you can sleep one and focus on the other. The one that is asleep will stay asleep for a tremendously long time unless you hit him.

A tip with Mohg, you can find a crystal that you mix in your wonderous flask that stops him for taking your heath when he does the life steal move(he still gets health). You could also use the Mohg shackle item to lessen the health health he has left or even skip his second phase if you deal enough dmg, but this is not very reliable.

The interesting thing about Godskin Duo is that although killing one doesn't "do anything" because he respawns after a while, the respawn timer is long enough to allow you to kill or mostly kill the other one, as long as you play somewhat aggressive. So even though it's not my favorite fight mechanically, I admit that I like the concept a lot of rewarding aggression. Aside from the beginning which was tough, I seldom had to fight two of them at once after the first kill.

I'm someone that tends to learn fast. Bosses don't take me that long since i can kinda memorize their moveset early on and then it's just having patience until a good opening appears... Until Malenia. Jesus, i have NEVER suffered as much as i did with that attack. I forgot to keep a tally, but i'd say 70 deaths is a good guess. It got to a point where i could do a perfect battle just to perish at the Waterfowl Dance move. It was infuriating yet, the rest of the fight is so good (Both in moveset and overall ambience as well as music) so i just kept going (Stubborn as a mule) decided to beat her. I learned how to dodge it. I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO DODGE THE WATERFOWL DANCE "Let me solo her" STYLE. And you know what? that felt both horrible for making me go above and beyond conventional means to defeat a boss, but really rewarding when i finally pulled it off. Hands down the hardest boss in the series just for the healing on impact and Waterfowl Dance alone. Literally screamed so hard when i beat her my neighbours called me to see if i was doing ok.

fun fact: even if you kill both of the godskin duo at the same time, they still will respawn one at a time! figured this out in my new game+ run and was immensely disappointed.

I've come to the conclusion that all the gank bosses are meant to have you use the spirit ashes. Only thing that makes sense to me.

Dark Souls II looking at the gank montage in Elden Ring like "why don't he love me man :("

can’t wait to see where he puts the last boss of the dlc because that shit is insane

For how many gank bosses Elden Ring has, it's hilarious that none of them are deliberate duo designs. You don't have an Ornstein/Smough or a Friede/Ariandel situation in the game, it's ALWAYS two minibosses thrown together without thought put into it.

Mohg is hard, but he is a lot easier if you grab his two items. There is a crystal tear that blocks his triple ring blood loss attack and there’s another item that stuns him like his brother morgott Edit: Purifying Crystal Tear and Mohg’s Shackle for anyone who cares

As a sorcerer, the most difficult bosses are the aggressive ones. This made a fight like Godskin Duo actually kinda easy, but Leonine misbegotten was hard.

Watching this and your "unbalanced difficulty" video really made me realize I had a lot more fun with the "easier" bosses. I felt accomplished when I beat them. Not because they were easy, but because they felt more fair. Bosses that instantly get out of an attack, leave no down time, and attack again are not fun. If some of the "easier" bosses had some more HP I think they would have been challenging but fair. The fact that most of these bosses almost require a summon if you want to beat them in less than 30 tries just feels wrong in a series that is about challenging, but fair, 1v1 fights. I died dozens of times to some of these "harder" bosses before summoning others. The result was usually that we would get much closer to a win due to the aggro being split. Winning after summoning 10 different people did not give me that sense of accomplishment, because it felt like I had to summon or waste an entire weekend on the boss. I never felt the need to summon in any other Souls game, rather summoning in those games felt like a way to just beat the boss faster if I wanted to get to a certain item/spell/whatever. Also I personally dislike how many bosses are bigger than my screen. I died so many times because I could not see the boss attack because their arm was off my screen. You can use sleep jars on the Godskin Duo boss. I did not know those items existed until I looked at the Duo's Wiki page. Personally I would not rank them that high if you use those items.

Malenia was the first souls game boss that broke me. I didn’t throw my controller in rage, I pressed it to my forehead in despair. I did finally beat her after going with a summon, but damn. I did my best on my own.

In case anyone didn't know: you can use a mixed physick tear to negate almost all of mogh's damage when he does his phase 2 charge up siphon attack thingy. You get it from an npc invader in one of the churches on the altus plateau

Malenia was deffo the hardest for me aswell. Out of all the move sets in the entire series, that leap into the air into the combos is the one attack i've never figured out how to actually handle. So my strat basically became to stunlock her with a gs + lions claw, throw everything to prevent her from even doing the attack, then second phase abuse takers flame while she is in the flower.

More in-depth advice for Malenia since I know I wouldn’t have minded knowing these things when I fought her: Malenia is weak to bleed and fire. As such, Rivers of Blood is an excellent weapon for Dex/Arcane builds like myself. Strength/Quality Build, just use Bloodflame Blade, I guess, because I’m not aware of a comparable weapon. Bleed/Bloodfire/Godskin incantations such as Swarm of Flies, Bloodboon, and Black Flame are also highly recommended. For non-magic builds, whatever arrows/bolts/throwing weapons you can find to accomplish the same effect are fine, just watch that stamina and be careful not to leave yourself open.. She’s also weak to Frostbite, so builds with the ability to use that effect will also have an easier time than those without. Her semi-instakill Vergil copycat combo, while incredibly dangerous, can be mitigated if you book it to the furthest possible point from her as quickly as possible. She’ll likely still get at least one hit in, but most builds with an at least decent amount of HP (~1000) should be able to survive. You can also dodge it if your brain isn’t an under-inflated beachball, but godspeed you on getting that timing down. Parrying her, while possible, isn’t really recommended since only every third parry is viable for a reposte. The other two will trigger a backstep instead. The Scarlet Aeonia (scarlet rot flower) she uses at the start of her second health bar and several times thereafter is *very* exploitable for ranged attacks *cough* swarmofflies *cough* dragonice *cough* due to its stupidly long recovery, so just book it to the left and behind her, then let loose. Her Scarlet Rot Shadow Clone Jutsu is extremely annoying and the clones probably last longer than you’re thinking they do, so just try not to have her use that attack. If she does, just do your best to dodge their swipes and thrusts while keeping an eye on Malenia for her dropdown attack. Her False Yamato combo gains a Scarlet Rot effect, as if she used a Rotten Grease on her sword, but it’s largely the same attack as her first phase. Just make sure to watch that Scarlet Rot bar. For Mixed Physick, I recommend Speckled Hardtear and Crimson Crystal Tear. Crimson Crystal Tear because no duh, Speckled Hardtear because Scarlet Rot isn’t fun and I don’t have the recipe for Preserving Boluses. For Talismans, I recommend the Mottled Necklace, Immunizing Horn Charm (Both for staving off the Rot), Flock’s Canvas Talisman (if using incantations. If using sorcery, use the appropriate counterpart), Erdtree’s Favor (Because extra stamina and equip load), Viridian Amber Medallion/Arsenal Charm/Great Jar’s Arsenal (Replacement for Flock’s Canvas/Sorcery Counterpart, if your build isn’t a magic user). Spirit Ash (specifically mimic tear) can be extremely helpful if you don’t mind the hit to your pride. Finally, don’t get greedy but don’t be a coward, because Malenia exploits both.

I spent a week on the gargoyles because they did the exact opposite of what happened to you. whenever they both showed up the either comboed me into the ground at the same time or spammed so many layers of poison I died instantly to 4 or 5 layers of it. The fight was so much more obscenely difficult than any other fight in the entire game was for me.

"Malenia is the hardest boss, but that's just my opinion" That's not an opinion, he's speaks the truth for everybody

Malenia: "I've never known defeat" let me solo her: You sure about that?

As stated by more viewers here, the difficulty is heavily dependant on your build. I defeated Morgot last night, only dying once. I use a Sorcery build so I pretty much always have a window to attack him when he is still in animation, but I can imagine he is an absolute pain when full melee. He almost leaved no openings.

Radagon was such an incredible fight

Funny how the Mimic ash can neutralize most of the difficulties for these bosses. But not Malenia… she is just too op with that heal.

I can hardly imagine how anyone on earth can find another boss than Malenia at the first place of the most difficult boss in Elden ring. She's BY FAR the most difficult boss even designed by Fromsoft. In fact, I'm convinced she's almost impossible to beat with certain builds. I love this boss. My favorite in Elden ring, in fact, but I've got to admit, her Waterflow dance is utter BS. If she does it from a distance, fine. It can be tricky to dodge everything unscathed but it's doable. If she does it at close range, however, you're screwed unless you're a master who can circle around her and perform a pixel-perfect roll when the first flurry comes out. And this thing does so much damage too. If you've got scratched before or thought it wouldn't be necessary to heal that tiny bit of health you were missing before, well, bad news because just the first flurry does 1500+ damage (which is more than 75% of your health even with 80 vitality). And things don't even get easier if you summon since you essentially give her a free boost and a wandering HP dispenser to drain from. There's nothing, in any Fromsoft games, that comes even close to that.

I struggled with Death Rite Bird more than any of the bosses on this list lol.

I defeated every boss in this list just in a couple of hours max each during my gaming sessions... Except two demigods: Radahn took me one day and Malenia was literally worth a whole week of retries.

The insane thing is it took me like 3/4 hours WITH the Mimic Tear to beat Malenia. It was a close thing too towards the end of those hours. Then I remembered that you beat them all without summons. Respect man, I don't think I could do that.

For Malenia you need to wear light armor to be able to evade her, for her infamous attack roll back the first 2 waves and for the third one roll to the front, with practice it can be completely evaded, best of luck tarnished!

It took me literal weeks to do it, but I beat Malenia with a Caestus. No summons, no bleed, no BHS, just my blazing fists and an undying desire to win.

Malenia is without question the hardest boss I've ever fought across all of the Soulsborne games, beating out Ebrietas from Bloodborne who was the prior hardest for me. I didn't want to cheese her or use summons and I nearly went insane. Took me 86 tries over 2 days 7 hours (3 on day 1, 4 on day 2) to finally conquer her and nearly a third of those were just on phase 1. There were so many times where she would get me with her scarlet rot and then curbstomp me with her flurry attack. I was nearly crying from relief and joy at finally beating her and finishing my first playthrough.

The longest I spent on a boss was just under 2 hours, except malenia, who took me 12. So yeah, she might be slightly hard, just a tad.

My god, I've died so many times to Soldier of Godrick it's crazy!!! Makes me so mad, spent 420,690 hours on him, still cant beat him.....

Elden ring is one of the greatest creations by man ever

The real hero against Malenia is a random summon with generic knight armor. They did so well and we did great as a team. Amazing what a pair of strangers can accomplish.

It’s so interesting how what level you are changes difficulty so much. Radahn was the hardest so far and I’ve just entered mountaintop. Meanwhile i dumpstered Morgott in two tries.

Just think of your ash spirits as your 2nd phase. So if the boss has a second phase, 2nd phase as well with an ash spirit. Bests ash spirits in my opinion. -Mimic tear 🔮 (what else can I say?) -Black knife Tiche 🔪 (Very evasive) -Latenna the Albinauric 🏹 (Great to take agro off you from afar)

The top ten all have one thing in common, they noticeably read inputs.

One of my favorite things about Elden Ring is how wildly different everyone's experience is. Some of the bosses higher on this list were a piece of cake for me, while bosses that were towards the bottom of this list stumped me for days. I love it.

Fun fact, if you apply rot to Morgott in the first phase, you can skip his second phase entirely if you don't hit him again after the point in his HP bar where it would trigger.

For the last tenth of my playthrough, I was basically playing as Tiche's squishy helper. There's your easy...ier mode guys. Granted, you have to get past through Alecto to get it, and that's not a simple undertaking, but it's worth the pain.

Came back after my first play through. Elden Ring plays by the logic that the bigger something is the faster it should be…which is odd. Had to use spirit ashes several times though oddly not on Malenia, my great sword strength build didn’t have too much difficulty, it took me about 10-12 attempts before I eeked out the win. The biggest issue for me was timing the Dodge of her Scarlet Aeonia…

Its insane how different of an experience everyone had with these bosses. I downed Morgott on my first attempt and it was one of the most rewarding moments in the game for me, but got my absolute ass handed to me by Godfrey/Hoarah Loux, taking over 20 attempts.

Can’t wait for the quality ranking

I beat Melenia on my second try using the rivers of blood and a mimic to match strength. She went down like it was nothing!!!

Fun fact about the Godskin Duo fight! Even if both are dead at the same time, the fight will NOT end! In one of my (failed) attempts, I managed to have both dead at the same time. There were a few seconds of silence before the one that died first popped in and then a bit later the second one came back. Still had to kill the other one and a half afterwards

You wanna know what my biggest issue with Hoarah Loux is? They had the perfect opportunity to give us an awesome fist weapon reward, they could have made you combo kicks and punches, with big attacks like roundhouse kicks or flying knees. Instead you get one of the lamest Axes ever or the most underwhelming Ash of War ever seen...

Malenia is the only boss where I had to throw my greatsword build out of the window and just grab up a bleed weapon. The greatsword was too slow to get good damage on her before she would just heal it all back up. But bleed is just busted and takes chunks out of her health bar.

I love how Morgott is essentially a 3rd and 4th faze of Margit

I feel validated for the Misbegotten/Crucible Knight ranking. I thought I must just be bad because they kicked my teeth in. They are so difficult if you can’t stagger the Mistbegotten.

crazy how everyones experience varys wildly. he put Godfrey first elden lord so low. in my own playthrough he was like number 5 i would say if not 4th hardest. i killed godskin duo in 3 attempts and godfrey took me like 25attempts lol.

Malenia was one of those fights that made me glad I chose to try a magic build. Still wasn’t easy by any means but man I did not envy melee builds for that one.

they’re just staving off the inevitable by defeating you, knowing you’ll be back in a few minutes or a few hours…wondering and dreading, will this finally be the time that I die instead? Which one would you rather be?

I always find these lists fascinating, because everyone's experience differs. Like for me, I went into Malenia expecting an insane grind, so I came in with a bleed build and +10 mimic and beat her in 12 tries. I beat Margott on literally the 1st try (after dying for hours to Margit). The Valiant Gargoyle duo on the other hand, I spent HOURS on and had to eventually quit, and had to come back at level 155ish to beat them. I actually felt guilty enough that I had kinda just blasted through the Malenia fight, that I've spent a couple weeks helping in co-op

Morgott is easily my favorite boss in the game. He has so much character.

In all of the souls borne bosses, I never experienced such a struggle until I met malenia. Definitely wasn’t “fun” but dammit it was rewarding killing her. I put her in the same spot as the evil within akumo mode. Basically saying, it’s a nice ride but I’m definitely not getting on again

I never fought the dragon bosses on this list... I'll have to go searching for them later

This just shows how good summons can be for boss fights.

A quick tip for fighting Mohg: There is a crystal tear for your physick flask that you find along Yura's questline that negates the damage from his phase transition. He'll still heal, but this gives you an opening to chip him down a bit and save you some flasks.

Malenia is one of the few bosses in any game where I felt 10000% satisfaction when I finally beat. What a fucking monster of a boss she was.

I couldn't believe but I defeated Malenia on my first try which is peculiar because I've generally die at least 1 time even for mediocre bossies and I've heard she was the hardest boss in the game. And yes I was using Rivers of Blood and Mimic but still, it felt it was too easy.

So fun fact, #15 the twins can actually jump to their deaths, just stick close to the water fall near the building you came in from and eventually they end up "accidentally" jumping to their deaths. This actually makes their boss fight more of an endurance test if you're using a sheild that blocks 100% psychical damage.