Elden Ring - gamertags on first page

I have lords of the fallen installed but I know it’s not going to be as good so I’ll just play elden ring and sekiro again.

Lies of p is decent. It’s like a poor version of blood borne but still a good 7 out of 10.

Did an hour of ng+ and followed the main path. It’s nice to wreck everything and also the story is easy to follow when you just follow the guide grace path. Two years ago I just explored south first and reach stormviel many many hours later and had to clue what was going on.

Margit the fell did indeed fell to my lightening storms really quickly.

I’m just working through Mount Gelmir. After a fairly dry area in Altus it’s good to have the FROM sense of humour back in play. Reaching the peak of the mountain only to immediately get twatted off it was genuinely funny.

Aunty Treats Waterfowl is rough, but it has an obvious tell, her jumping into the air and holding a pose for a couple seconds. Iirc if you're quick on the draw and happen to have a frost pot ready, throwing it at her quickly enough will inflict frostbite and actually knock her out of it (although it probably won't work a second time, since frostbite takes a while to expire unless you hit the sufferer with fire, and every infliction will increase her resistance to it as usual)

That aside, from what I remember dodging it goes like this: it has three main "phases"/flurries, so you roll the first one, run away from the second one and react to the third as appropriate (typically another dodge, especially if you're getting caught out by the last delayed hit). Alternatively, Bloodhound's Step (not the Finesse on Bloodhound's Fang, note, different thing) is a more forgiving dodge that could work. You can toss it on a dagger or something if you don't mind a bit of weapon swapping and want to keep your main weapon as it is.

For general weaknesses, bleeding her out is probably your best bet. Of elements, fire and lightning work equally well (she's actually less resistant to fire, but the arena being mostly in water counters that while helping lightning, especially AoE spells and abilities). And her poise is actually on the lower side, believe it or not; heavier weapons and attacks with high poise damage can make her stumble and/or fully stagger easier than you might think. And if you have ranged attacks, her big flower attack is a massive opening, since she's rooted to the spot for a good few seconds after she lands. Get to a safe distance and pelt her! Generally, hanging back and letting her control the pace won't do you any favours, you have to keep the pressure up (easier said than done, I know, but...)

Incidentally, she doesn't heal all the way when entering phase 2, "only" to about 80-85%. She might've hit you a few times and recovered her health and that's what got you confused. And, small comfort as it may be, in phase 2 her Rot-based attacks (the big flower, the butterflies she summons from the ground sometimes etc) don't actually heal her, only her physicals. Still most of her moveset, and you're still probably dead if you eat a faceful of flower, but hey.

And yeah, she staggers really easy, even with the scythe. I can rip her to shreds in no time but when she pops up into the air, it can be over just like that

Aunty Treats I don't know your build off the top of my head, but it could also just be a stats/weapon upgrade issue. After all, the less quickly you can deal damage, the more time she has to pull out her bad moves, the more chances for you to maybe make a mistake, some stats also contribute to damage negation etc.

At this stage in the game I'd say around 50 Vigor is a good amount (even if you can dodge most everything it's an error buffer, and you still have the DLC), then around 35-40 Endurance (for both the stamina and potential to wear heavier armour) and then pumping your main damage stat(s).

Also, if you still happen to be using Scarseals or Soreseals, it's probably best to ditch them now and grind up the levels instead. As boring as it is, your damage negation and future DLC experience will thank you.

And if all else fails, it may be time to look into Great Rune effects! I'd say Morgott's or Radahn's would help the most, with Godrick's trailing further behind (Rykard's and Mohg's can't really do much in boss fights).

Hmmm... Well, considering I beat the game at 225, I probably was around 180-200 on her... But that's also counting a lot of points in stats I wasn't actually using for damage (Faith/Strength mostly) because I wanted to be able to try most things... And a good amount into Mind since I was using magic.

A more modest level range for Malenia/endgame is probably around 130-150, but that also fluctuates depending on how many stats you need for your weapon/magic scaling, whether you want heavy armour or not and whether you use a lot of FP or not, so...

Yeah, that's her. As for even harder bosses, well there's still the DLC... that boss can be easily cheesed though and he's so BS that I determined it's morally OK to do so. Personally I believe there'll be a nerf in the not too distant future, as has happened with some of the base game bosses before, but of course I could be wrong.

As for suggested player level for Malenia, as JuniorFE said it's normally about 130-150. A lot of endurance is always nice to have but not necessary, vigor is more important imo. I mean, you're going to notice anyway if you need/want more.

Haligtree/Malenia is higher level (enemy scaling) than Farum Azula, in fact it's the highest level portion of the main game. If you don't mind spoilers about how many areas are remaining, here are the exact numbers. In short, the final boss of Farum Azula is tier 16, Malenia is tier 21. If you beat her, you're good for the rest of the game.

As for Waterfowl, she'll soon do it (almost guaranteed) not long after going below 70% health. After reaching that point, one possible move is to get away from her and flick a throwing knife, which she will dodge and then almost certainly follow up with Waterfowl. That way you can avoid the first volley entirely. Can be repeated later to bait her again when it seems to get more likely she'll do it again.

To get a better idea of what to do about it, there are plenty of guides online with different strats, esp. on Youtube (some show it in slow motion which is great to understand what she's even doing). I tried for hours to figure it out myself, but eventually on this one I swallowed my stubborn pride and looked it up. And I'm glad I did.

Yeah I looked up that second phase attack too, because fuck that with the horrible camera angle and being killed back to the beginning every single time and shit. Thankfully it's a little easier than Waterfowl once you know what to do.

I would love to see the metrics on the % of people who have beaten the last dlc boss with no help, sprit ash or summons AND without a shield.

Going from 18 to 20 will give you very little benefit in terms of damage output or defense, 18 is already equivalent to what 20 was before the fragments got buffed, and 20 is barely any higher than it was before. It's just how the fight is.

What staff are you using? Ideally you want an Arcane-scaling staff like the Maternal Staff or Albinauric Staff to cast with (possibly paired with Azur's Glintstone Staff in the off-hand to get the buff for faster casting, but you're probably using a shield there).

The base damage of the spell is middling, it's the Bleed that shreds (with both available summons boosting the boss' HP, I was regularly hitting Bleed procs in the 10ks even without Maternal/Albinauric Staff)

If you're okay with summoning, letting your Mimic also blast away with the Maternal/Thorns combo should help. If the bleed seems to be happening too rarely you might need more Arcane (or to upgrade the Staff, but you probably already have).

For the giant nuke (I'm assuming that is the pillar of light) you need to run. As soon as you see the startup, just leg it, lock off if you have to, and maybe add a roll right at the end.

The grab actually only becomes an instant kill the second time. The first time you just get a mark put on you. You can remove that mark

That was gonna be my second guess about the nuke

Assuming you don't just get lucky to have him aggroed on a summon when he does it, it's probably best to run for that one too, and look to the sky for when he's about to approach (there's also a sound cue IIRC) and you can start rolling... Or you could pop some form of temporary damage negation, like a Physick tear (if you haven't drunk it already) or Boiled Prawn/Crab (I think it's mostly physical damage) to try and tank it