Elden Ring Malenia Boss Guide (2024)

This guide will teach you how to beat Malenia in Elden Ring – one of the toughest EndGame boss fights in the game. Learn her moveset and use it to stay alive and defeat her!

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.10

Malenia, Goddess of Rot is the final boss of the Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree. As you may have heard from the talk surrounding the “let me solo her” meme, Malenia is extremely challenging. It took me over 50 attempts to defeat her without any help from Spirit Ashes or Co-op and I had to optimize my build to the best of my abilities.

Going into this fight, realistically, you should be around level 180, have fully upgraded equipment (+10/+25), optimized your stats (use Larval Tears), and obtained all other items that support your build like strong Talismans, Ashes of War, Sorceries, and Incantations.

Obviously, you can get away with less if you plan to use Spirit Ashes or co-op, but the people you see elsewhere on the internet that do it at level 1 without armor and such are anomalies and accomplishing such a feat requires hours upon hours of practice.

In this guide, I’ll be going over how each of her attacks work and how you can avoid them as well as what rewards you’ll receive for defeating one of the best bosses in Elden Ring. I’ve been playing through the game as an Astrologer (Sorcery), so my experience and recommendations will be tailored towards ranged builds, but I think there’s still a lot of info you can glean even if you’re a melee player.

Before reading this guide, I encourage you to check out How to Defeat Bosses in Elden Ring: A Beginner’s Guide. It offers a ton of generic advice on how boss fights work in Elden Ring and what you can do to beat them without the help of Spirit Ashes and co-op.

How to find and get to Malenia

Malenia can be found at the base of the Haligtree resting in a chair next to her brother, Miquella.

The closest Lost Grace is the Haligtree Roots, which is at the base of the tree, so you’ll need to make your way all the way through the Haligtree dungeon.

The Haligtree dungeon is located past the Consecrated Snowfield. You gain immediate access to this dungeon by completing the Evergaol challenge in Ordina, Liturgical Town.

In order to access Ordina and the whole western side of the Mountaintops of the Giants region, you need to obtain both halves of the Haligtree Secret Medallion and join the medallions at the Grand Lift of Rold.

Read our full guide to the Haligtree Secret Medallions, Ordina Puzzle and how to complete Latenna’s quest in Elden Ring.

How to get Haligtree Secret Medallion (Right)

The right half of the Haligtree Secret Medallion is given to you by Old Albus, an elderly Albinauric initially disguised as a jar in the Village of Albinaurics in Liurnia beneath the Moonlight Altar.

How to get Haligtree Secret Medallion (Left)

The left half of the Haligtree Secret Medallion is found lying on the ground at the very end of the mini-dungeon called Castle Sol in the northern part of the Mountaintops of the Giants eastern half.

Malenia Boss Mechanics and Strategy to beat her

Malenia’s Rune Shard enables her to heal upon dealing damage. Since her individual attacks hit so hard, this really doesn’t matter a whole lot. Your life will end long before hers if you get hit enough for her healing to be consequential, but in the moment, it might cause a bit of a panic. Don’t worry about her healing. Ignore it.

If you need to drink from a flask, it’s pretty safe to sprint away from her. She can quickly close the gap with her fancier attacks, but you have quite a bit of warning with those. She doesn’t have any sort of fast and cheap long-range stuff, so you can and should take multiple sips when needed, assuming she isn’t starting a gap-closing attack.

I think it’s wise to be topped off even if you might waste a little bit of the healing provided because her attacks can individually deal quite a lot of damage. If you’re not at full health, there’s a good chance you’ll be defeated by the end of the attack sequence.

You may need to reallocate your flasks for this fight. Typically, you want to run out of both Crimson and Cerulean Flasks at the same time. If you consistently run out of one before the other, it means you are wasting those flasks that are left over.

Malenia has 2 distinct phases with the transition taking place when you completely lower her health to 0. It does not occur around 50% HP like it does for many other bosses.

You can also follow the recommendations of my guide on how to defeat Bosses in Elden Ring. The strategies and tips apply to Malenia as well.

Phase 1: Blade of Miquella

As the Blade of Miquella, Malenia’s attacks are simpler, it’s basically just a bunch of acrobatic slashing that makes use of her prosthetic arm to pull off swings that would otherwise be impossible.

Don’t be fooled by the relative mundanity, her attacks are often fatal if they land.

Waterfowl Dance Attack

This is one of Malenia’s most lethal attacks and is, in my opinion, the most difficult attack to dodge in the game, perhaps even in all of From Software’s games. It seems to be one of her favorites as well because she does it very often, especially in the first phase.

The Waterfowl Dance has 3 segments, each with a small gap in between, and features dozens of swipes. If you get hit by a single full segment, it’s basically lights out even from full health, and it’s very hard to evade the next segment if you’ve been hit by the former, though each segment seems to deal less damage than the last. Thankfully, if you have a shield, you can block this attack.

The wind-up to her dance has her leap into the air with her sword arm wrapped behind her. This opening animation is shared by a number of her attacks and indicates that she will be doing something fancy.

The first series of slashes contains the largest and most damaging swings. She will lunge at you with the initial flurry, but the lunge isn’t very far so it’s ideal to be completely out of range by sprinting away or dodging back repeatedly. It’s pretty impossible to dodge the attack if you’re not already outside of its hitbox.

If you are confident you’re already out of range, you can use a ranged attack during the first part. Try to stay as close to her swipes as you can because you’re gonna have to charge at her and dodge past her as soon as the first segment is done.

As soon as she stops swinging and the white lines disappear, run at her and dodge through her. You have to be mentally prepared to do this. It doesn’t really work to dodge in any other direction because she will almost certainly be close to you as she starts the second flurry.

You might not make it completely past her and that’s fine. You’ll be inside the eye of the hurricane. This second segment is about half the length of the first one. With the first, she starts swinging in the air since she jumped, then she does one hop and stops swinging when she lands. The second segment takes place only over the time it takes her to hop once.

There’s an even shorter delay after Malenia finishes the second segment where she’ll hop up for a downward slice and then jump past you. There doesn’t seem to be a clear range for how far she jumps with this slice. I’ve had her be so far in front of me that she whiffs the first 2 segments and then jump clear past me for the third.

This is the most difficult portion of the attack to dodge, but you don’t get stunlocked into the next swing as easily as you do with previous segments, so it’s usually not a big deal if you get hit once or twice.

Your best bet seems to be to dodge to the side so you can evade the initial swipe and then roll around back from where you came as Malenia does her sword acrobatics behind you.

At the end of the Waterfowl Dance, there’s one final anime-style blade tornado that appears without her swinging her sword at all.

This shouldn’t be too much of a concern if you’ve evaded everything thus far, but it will definitely finish you off if you got hit by another part of her third sequence or forget about it and try to get a quick swing in if you think the attack is over.

In summary, the Waterfowl Dance attack has 3 segments. Try to be out of range of the first by running away during the wind-up, but dodge back if necessary. As soon as she stops swinging, run at her and try to dodge through her. For the third segment, dodge to the side and then continue dodging away from her.

Lunging Stab Attack

Malenia will occasionally jump into the air and then do an extremely fast lunging stab attack.

The wind-up is unique, you’ll see some orange sparks coalesce at the base of the blade on her sword alongside a little ringing noise. As soon as her foot touches the ground, she instantly lunges, extending her sword forward so fast she effectively teleports.

This attack was hitting me for 80-90% of my max HP. You will likely not survive if you’re not at full health. Dodge to the side as soon as you see her about to touch the ground.

Malenia’s Kick

Malenia has this little kick attack. It doesn’t do much damage, has a wind-up, and has much shorter range than her sword attack. I don’t even think it heals her if she actually lands it.

Dodge backwards or forwards. If you get kicked, no big deal. At least from what I saw, she doesn’t even follow it up with anything. It’s possible that this attack breaks blocks, but I didn’t use a shield, so I can’t confirm that.

Quad Slash Flurry Move

Malenia will slice back and forth, swinging 4 times in total. You’ll know she’s starting this attack because there’s a clanking sound as she locks the sword in position to utilize the unique flexibility of her prosthetic arm.

The attack has pretty short range, but it’s also fast and fairly lethal. Since the slashes are horizontal, dodge backwards or forwards to evade them. The fourth and final slash has a bit of a delay, don’t think you’re safe after only 3.

The final slice has a longer range and is accompanied by another clank and some sparks.

Other Basic Swings

Malenia will do other minor attack sequences with 1-2 swings. All of these can be parried. The key idea with her basic attacks and any other swings in the game is that the direction of her swing determines which direction it’s safest do dodge in.

If the boss swings horizontally, like swiping or slashing, dodging forward or backward will be the safest. If the boss swings vertically or otherwise not horizontally, like with slicing or stabbing, dodging to the side (right or left) will be safest.

When trying to decide between forward and backward, dodge in the direction that you prefer to be in with your attacks, so ranged should dodge back while melee dodge forward. When dodging to the side, it doesn’t matter quite so much, but try to stay consistent so you’re further away in case of non-seeking follow-up attacks.

In most cases, you can survive by dodging in any direction, but you rely more on the immunity frames of your dodge and may not put yourself in a good position for future attacks (both yours and hers).

Phase 2: Goddess of Rot

When you manage to beat her as the Malenia, Blade of Miquella, she transforms into Malenia, Goddess of Rot. As the Goddess of Rot, she adds several new attacks to her arsenal and applies Scarlet Rot with many of her hits, including with attacks from the first phase like her Waterfowl Dance.

Make sure you have some Preserving Bolluses handy or mix the Speckled Hardtear into your Flask of Wondrous Physick. The Speckled Hardtear can be found by defeating the large sickly worm face enemy at the base of the Minor Erdtree on the Atlus Plateau.

You can tell if you have to worry about Scarlet Rot for an attack if the flower is involved or her sword glows orange.

It seems that if you attempt to block her Scarlet Waterfowl Dance, you will become afflicted with Scarlet Rot, so be prepared to cleanse it.

Thankfully, the Goddess of Rot doesn’t have very much health in the second phase, so you likely won’t experience all of her attacks.

Scarlet Aeonia Divebomb

Malenia always begins Phase 2 in the air and always opts to divebomb you immediately.

Wait to dodge until the moment she begins to accelerate towards you. If you dodge too early, that’s almost a guaranteed defeat, but the timing is fairly lenient on dodging late. Any direction is fine; you can only bank on your immunity being active during this attack.

Stay on your toes because you’re not out of the woods yet! Once she’s on the ground, she immediately follows up with an explosive bloom of her Scarlet Aeonia flower. If you get hit by this, there’s also a good chance you’ll be defeated because it deals a ton of damage outright and fills up your Scarlet Rot meter.

The explosion itself is difficult to dodge because there isn’t a great tell as to when it’s going to happen. The blast radius is pretty small and you have about 2 seconds to get away, so it’s best to just either sprint as soon as you finish dodging the divebomb or keep rolling back.

Again, dodge back from the divebomb as soon as you see the acceleration, and then keep dodging or run away from the impending explosion.

Once the explosion is over, Malenia has an insane amount of end lag. This is the best chance in the whole fight to deal damage to her. It’s long enough that I was able to consistently drain my full magic bar by channeling Comet Azur during the opening, which was enough to chew through literally over half of her health bar.

If you can afford it, try get yourself topped off before dealing the final blow in the first phase so you can maximize the amount of damage you deal during this opening. It’s possible that being near the flower applies Scarlet Rot, so you might need to use ranged items if you’re a melee build.

As a final note for this attack, she can do it more than once during the phase; it’s not just some special transition, so keep an eye out for that flower on her back.

Flying Swipe and Stab Attack

Melania will fly up into the air, do a little wind-up where she flys back slightly and then swoops in with a big swipe across followed by a stab. The wind-up is pretty similar to what the Crucible Knights will do with their golden wings once they drop below 50% HP.

This is your tell that she’s doing this attack. Next, she’ll do a sweep. Dodge back to avoid it as soon as you see the acceleration.

Finally, just when you think you’re safe, she stabs at you. If you’re far enough away, you can dodge back, but I think it’s safest to dodge to the side as soon as you see the acceleration.

To summarize: look for the fly up, dodge back for the swipe, then dodge to the side.

Butterfly Clones

Malenia summons 4 butterfly clones that each attack you before disappearing. The attack begins with Malenia plunging her sword into the ground, creating a pink, multi-helix geyser of butterflies to spring from the ground.

After she’s done with the geyser, she can fly back up into the air with a butterfly geyser and begin unleashing her butterfly clones. It seems that she doesn’t always do this immediately. I’m not sure what the initial geyser is for. It might just be a separate attack for melee to avoid. The leap up looks quite similar to her double swipe, but she’s accompanied by a lot more butterflies this time.

The clones from her body one at a time in quick succession, it’s quite overwhelming if you find yourself in the middle of it. All 4 of them only do a single attack each to start. The first and third disappear immediately after their swing is done while the second and fourth stick around and do an additional stab sequence after all of them have done the initial swing. Finally, Malenia herself joins in for a final stab once all the clones have disappeared.

Since they all disappear automatically, you don’t have to worry about trying to defeat the clones and you shouldn’t even worry about attacking at this point. It’s super overwhelming to be in the middle of them, but since they come from her body and she stays in one spot for all of them, it’s best to try and get as far away from her as you possibly can.

This attack seems to be pretty rare, I only encountered it a couple of times across all of my attempts. The key thing is to run as away from her as you can as soon as you see her rising with a butterfly geyser.

Ranged-Specific Tips for Defeating Malenia

Keep your distance. You want Malenia to chase after you because that means more time where she isn’t hitting you. She doesn’t have any ranged attacks or cheap ways to get into range other than with her attacks.

Get out of the entrance alcove to the arena as soon as you finish your opening attacks as she gets into range. You need a lot of room to work with in order to reliably evade her sword.

You should only need 4-5 Cerulean Flasks. Malenia doesn’t have a whole lot of health herself, and while she can heal, you won’t be able to survive if you let her hit you enough that she’s able to heal that much.

Use fast and homing attacks only. She’ll dodge just about everything if she isn’t in end-lag from one of her attacks, including the Comet spells. I opted to primarily use the Stars of Ruin alongside Lusat’s Glintstone Crown to further boost the damage of that spell specifically. The Moon spells are also great at the beginning of the fight because she starts far away, so you can apply the debuffs before she gets into range and they’ll still hit because they home in pretty hard.

Comet Azur is excellent for using when she’s in her endlag after her Scarlet Aeonia Divebomb attack. I’ve also found the Nebula Skill from the Wing of Astel and Bastard’s Stars can throw her off a little bit when she tries to go in for one of her normal flurries as she has trouble trying to dodge the AoE.

What Spirit Ashes to use against Malenia

I can’t offer great recommendations on spirit ashes since I haven’t been using them much at all. From what little I know, I would think you’d likely be better off with ranged damage or healing-focused ash. Since Malenia’s attacks just hit so ridiculously hard and heal her, I think a melee or tanky ash probably wouldn’t survive for very long and possibly work against you by giving her health back.

If she can’t heal off of dealing damage to ashes, especially if they can survive for a while, you might be okay with a melee or tank ash too.

What Rewards you get for defeating Malenia

There are the usual default rewards you get for beating Malenia, but if you have been doing Millicent’s quest, you can get an additional special consumable item!

Standard rewards for defeating Malenia

Defeating Malenia rewards you with 480,000 Runes (!), Remembrance of the Rot Goddess, and Malenia’s Great Rune.

How to get Miquella’s Needle and what to use it for

If you have retrieved the Unalloyed Golden Needle from Millicent, you can deposit that in Malenia’s flower and get Miquella’s Needle in return (what am I saying?)

Miquella’s Needle is a consumable item in Elden Ring. It can be used to undo the Frenzied Flame ending of the game. To use it, you have to be in the Dragonlord Placidusax’s arena. You do not have to fight or defeat Plasidusax.

Malenia Secret Achievement

Beating this boss will grant you one of the secret achievements in Elden Ring – “Defeated Shardbearer Malenia”.

How to get Malenia’s Armor Set

Malenia’s armor set becomes available at the Finger Maiden Enia at the Roundtable Hold after you have defeated the boss.

If you are looking for more Elden Ring Armor Sets, check out the full catalog here on VULKK.com. It contains high-quality images and instructions on how to get each armor set and individual peace.