Elden Ring’s already a punishing game filled with tough bosses that’ll break your spirits, but patch 1.04, which changed the game balance in late April, makes one of the hardest enemies even harder. Players are reporting the late-game boss Malenia, Blade of Miquella is totally busted now. There seems to be a bug in FromSoftware’s new update that lets Malenia self-heal unconditionally, making the fight more gruelling than before.
You probably know Malenia by now. She’s an optional boss you can fight late in the game, and as one of the most powerful demi-gods in the lore, Malenia is one tough jerk. She’s also the fiery redhead shown in trailers battling the Starscourge Radahn, and if you bought the collector’s edition of the game, most of the goodies are themed around her as well. Armed with a long katana, fast strikes, and a second phase, she’ll snatch you by your edges and drag you right to hell. It doesn’t help that on top of dealing massive amounts of damage and having a large health pool, she self-heals whenever she lands a hit. This makes her fight especially tough for even the most skilled of players. All of this has given her a reputation of somewhat of a troublemaker, so no wonder she has made a celebrity out of one badass Tarnished who was inspired to make his entire mission helping other players defeat her by “solo-ing” her.
Malenia was already a nuisance, but with patch 1.04, she’s just broken now. According to players online, Malenia apparently self-heals whenever. She doesn’t have to strike you to heal. She can just swing her sword at the air, hitting absolutely nothing, and still somehow regain some of her health.
The bug is so powerful that even our nude legend Let Me Solo Her was having a tough time. In a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Klein “LMSH” Tsuboi took 15 minutes to take Malenia down, calling her “a nightmare to fight” thanks to the self-heal BS. LMSH still won. Don’t get it twisted. But it does say something about the strength of this bug if even LMSH, who told IGN it took him some 242 times to get good at beating Malenia before solo-ing her for other players pre-patch, had trouble taking her down with her new-found BS powers.
Kotaku has reached out to Bandai Namco for comment.
While the patch may have accidentally buffed Malenia, it did adjust one tactic players have used to beat her before resorting to summoning Let Me Solo Her. The Swarm of Flies incantation, which releases a black-and-red mass of bloodflies, has had its blood loss build up decreased. It still staggers but no longer rapidly fills up an enemy’s hemorrhage metre. Malenia is weak against hemorrhage, but since Swarm of Flies isn’t as effective, players will have to find other ways to build up that blood loss.
Ugh FromSoftware, you’re really making this boss a menace.
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