In wishing the hours away until Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC arrives, players are challenging a modded Malenia - and getting the stuffing beaten out of them.
'Unalloyed Malenia' is, fittingly, a creation by MiquellaTheUnalloyed over on NexusMods. It's a complete overhaul of the base game boss that seeks to "significantly" increase the difficulty via brand new phases, animations, attacks, and more for what was one of Elden Ring's toughest bosses in the first place.
"I've been working on this Malenia... It's hard to say how long, probably more than half a year, though it didn't have a specific beginning and end," the modder writes on NexusMods. They've actually learned modding "almost from scratch" for this creation, and the general goal is to make Malenia a challenge for anyone who thinks they've got her down to a science in the base game.
Enter LetMeSoloHer. The famed Elden Ring player became known the world over for hopping into other players' Elden Ring playthroughs and decimating Malenia, often without taking a single hit. They became really famous roughly a year after Elden Ring first launched, and they're so legendary that publisher Bandai Namco went and sent them a freaking sword.
LetMeSoloHer faced off against Unalloyed Malenia roughly a month ago, and the fight was nothing short of terrific. The player calls them "the strongest boss I've faced," and in the video below, you can see why - in modded Malenia's first phase alone, there are plenty of new attacks to grapple with, including one that shoots deadly spears up in a line from the ground.
The entire thing is basically a game of executing perfect dodges for over 10 seconds before Unalloyed Malenia pauses briefly, and LetMeSoloHer can land an attack. The modded boss' basic attacks are pretty much a variation of the infamous Waterfowl Dance attack, but chained together near-endlessly so it gives the player barely any chance to strike back.
The second phase is nothing short of overkill. It's like Malenia's normal second phase, but with a ton of area-effecting attacks going on, one of which is Scarlet Rot, which LetMeSoloHer occasionally has to take a moment to stave off with some Preserving Boluses. You can definitely see why this is the strongest boss that LetMeSoloHer has ever faced.
If LetMeSoloHer is finding Unalloyed Malenia this hard, you can probably imagine how everyone else is faring. One streamer on Twitter wrote that they "hated" the boss, while the streamer below shows how Unalloyed Malenia parried them and then proceeded to stab their Tarnished to death. It's rough out there.
Offstream Unalloyed Malenia Attempt. Parried and stab by her. 🤣#ELDENRING pic.twitter.com/jXs0YlS7LJMarch 11, 2024
Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC releases later this month on June 21. I really hope there's something in there that can give these sickos something to rival Malenia.