Elden Ring Melenia Queen of Frustration

As an older retired gentleman and also a life long gamer. I have to admit I spend a huge amount of my abundant free time playing video games. My favorite so far is Elden Ring. This time I am playing through as a Mage.

I spent several hour’s trying to win what is considered to be the hardest fight in the game against Malenia Blade of Miquella. Though it is an optional fight, I felt that after she beat me like morning wood many many time’s she had to die.

I was at an appropriate level above 125 when I fought her. In the end after buffing myself up as much as I could, I regularly got her down to half health in the second phase of the fight but finally gave up and requested help from another player. First time I did that as a mage. I think I would have won eventually but I started to feel trying to do it alone was not worth it. 

I am glad for the struggle though because I really strengthen my mage build with items which I had missed before.

This is my second play through of Elden Ring. I played first time as a fighter but wanted to try it as a mage. Mage makes most things easier but this fight against Malenia was not one of them. What it did do for me was make me go back and get some items I missed while playing through with minimal guidance. I’ll list a few here that really made a difference but there are plenty of articles about this fight so I won’t go into a lot of detail.

Black Knife Tiche summon helped a lot with keeping Malenia busy while I spammed spells. The fight to get Tiche is not easy. I won that one eventually by continually flattening the black knife assassin with the giant hammer spell. It was kind of funny to watch her get flattened over and over after she cut me up several times.

Blood Hound’s step is vital for dodging her crazy cuisinart sword moves. Before that I rarely made it through the first half of the fight. 

Ranni’s dark moon was recommended and it did seem powerful against her. It is another moon spell but adds cold and seemed to be more powerful agains Malenia

Dragoncrest Shield +2 and Ritual Shield talismans were also something I had missed and were helpful

Comet azur is recommended for this fight. I had trouble using it while Malenia is still for a few seconds after her blossom move, as recommended, in the second half of the fight but I probably could have made it work eventually.