This page offers a guide on how to beat Malenia, Blade of Miquella, who can be found in Epheal, Brace of the Haligtree.

Where to Find Malenia Boss Fight in Haligtree¶

Malenia is a Demi-God type boss and her arena is found down some stairs from the Haligtree Roots site of grace in Ephael, Brace of the Haligtree. Ephael, Brace of the Haligtree is found north of Miquella’s Haligtree.

Guide for Malenia Attack Moves¶

Below, you’ll find a breakdown of Malenia’s attacks, both in her first and second phase. It can be difficult to define her attacks as she will use her sword in very quick and agile flurries. But below you’ll find some of her more powerful attacks that are more definitive and can therefore be anticipated and (hopefully) avoided.

Multi-Attack Flurry¶

The multi-attack flurry is one of her more powerful attacks but luckily it has a few tells. When she jumps into the air, be prepared to back away as she’ll land and instantly perform her flurry attacks. During this, she’ll swipe a lot of times in the space of a couple of seconds. If you’ve backed out whilst she performs this little flurry, be prepared to dodge again as she will sometimes move closer to you (or your summons) to perform another flurry succession. The best way to counter the flurry attacks is to avoid them all together!

Healing Herself¶

In addition to being incredibly agile, each time Malenia lands an attack she heals herself a little bit. This can be one of the more infuriating aspects of her build, since she can regain a fair bit of health if she lands a few hits during her multi-attack flurries. She doesn’t heal a whole ton, so don’t feel too disheartened.

Heavy Side Attack¶

Her heavier attacks are pretty easy to spot too as they have a longer charge up time and she puts a lot of force behind it. If you’re a melee weapon wielder you can pretty easily dodge or parry this attack since it’s a tad slower than her normal or flurry attacks.

Thrusting Attack¶

Similar to her side attack and other heavier attacks, this one can be anticipated by being observant. When she backs up slightly and charges up a weapon by pulling it backwards, you know she’s going for a thrust attack that will do thrusting damage.

Second Phase Attack Moves¶

The second phase is triggered once you’ve “killed” Malenia (depleted her whole health bar). During the second phase, Malenia sprouts some wings and will change up her attacks a little. She will still perform the above attacks, but she’ll also be a little more bouncy given she has wings. So when she performs her heavy sword attacks she’ll also lift of the ground a little bit too. She’ll be more agile and it’ll feel harder to predict her movements.

Scarlet Rot¶

All of her attacks, in addition to healing her, will also now apply Scarlet Rot - yay! Scarlet Rot accumulation means you’ll take damage over time even outside of combat. You can clear Scarlet Rot using the incantation Flame Cleanse Me or using the consumables, Speckled Hardtear or Preserving Boluses.

Magic Lotus Flower Plunge Attack¶

As soon as second phase hits, she’ll become surrounded by a magical orange lotus flower and plunge down into you. The plunge itself should definitely be avoided but when she’s on the ground don’t think she’s safe to hit! Even though she’s incapacitated on the ground, the flower will bloom and if you’re caught in the bloom you’ll be damaged quite a lot. If caught by the plunge attack you’ll probably be one-shot, and if you get caught in the lotus bloom you’ll also get chunked for over 75% of your health (and get a big Scarlet Rot accumulation).

The flower will linger for a second and you won’t be able to approach her until it begins to fade. Even when the flower has faded you’ll have a split second where she’s still getting up. During this time you’ll be able to get a few melee hits in - you could even try to break her posture by heavy hitting her if you have a big melee weapon.

She can do this attack move at other times in the fight as well.

Butterfly Malenias¶

During this attack, Malenia will fly up into the sky and send out several butterfly silhouettes in quick succession that fly then swipe at you. Each one will come at you one at a time but they’ll be very fast. If you get hit by one of them it is very difficult to recover and not get hit by all of them so this can be a deadly attack. The best advice is to time your dodges well and not roll in the same direction every time.

Strategy on How to Defeat Malenia¶

This fight can be taken on in a number of different ways. Below you’ll be offered a melee strategy and a spellcaster/ranged strategy to offer some basic guidance for the boss fight.

Malenia is resistant against Scarlet Rot (naturally) and poison, as well as Holy damage. She doesn’t do so well against bleed damage and frost damage. Malenia herself does slashing and thrusting damage depending on the swing of her blade. And in the second phase, she’ll also apply the Scarlet Rot status effect.

Melee Strategy¶

Close combat fighting with Malenia is not easy, especially since she can out maneuver and attack faster than you. Using a summon will be your best friend since it’ll distract her and you can then hit her from the side or behind. A heavily upgraded Mimic Tear or Black Knife Tiche would be the obvious spirit ash recommendations.

Even though Mimic Tear was nerfed in the 1.03 patch, it can still provide a tanky distraction. It also still worked very well for our melee build. During our melee build playthrough, dual wielding a hammer was a great way to break Malenia’s posture and stun her using heavy or jump attacks. It’s a very slow weapon meaning if you miss a heavy attack you might find it difficult to recover. But, with your Mimic Tear alongside you, you could stun-lock Malenia and keep her pinned down. The Mimic Tear A.I. is smart and will also heavy or jump attack whenever it can so you can be pretty confident that it’ll help you keep her pinned. Keeping her pinned will also stop her from healing herself so this is also a pretty quick method of blasting through the first phase of the battle. Remember: the first phase of the battle lasts the entirety of her health bar. Her second phase comes once you’ve “killed” her.

You can use this method during the second phase as well, but you’ll need to wait for her to perform her lotus flower attack first. This method isn’t fool proof because one missed heavy attack will leave you very vulnerable to Malenia’s powerful quick attacks. She can also recover reasonably quickly and jump out of harm’s way - meaning you’ll have to try to pin her down again. Even though her posture can be broken quite easily with a heavy attack, getting in heavy attacks (especially without Mimic Tear or another summon) will be difficult, given her agility and speed. And, if you mess this up during the second phase, you’ll probably get one-shot given that her flurry attacks apply Scarlet Rot. But if you break her posture then you have a good chance of keeping her down if you and the Mimic Tear coordinate and land every posture-breaking attack.

Spellcaster/Ranged Strategy¶

Coming soon!

Malenia Rewards¶

When you defeat Malenia, you’ll be rewarded 480,000 Runes, Malenia’s Great Rune and Remembrance of the Rot Goddess. Remembrance of the Rot Goddess can be exchanged for Hand of Melania or Scarlet Aeonia when you hand it to Enia at Roundtable Hold.