Waterfowl Dance is the toughest boss in the Souls Series.

[jman1954goat]

Era please help I've been here for hours and I have not even seen phase 2 of Melania cause Waterfowl is impossible to dodge.

She does not even feel particularly difficult otherwise it's just getting danced on over and over.

 

[Heliex]

Dodge? Yes. But not impossible.

There's many ways to deal with it outside of dodging though, great shields being one example.

 

[Killyoh]

If you can't dodge it (because you're a normal human being) just run as far as you can until it's done

 

[PlanetSmasher]

It's a very stupid move.

If you can't dodge it (because you're a normal human being) just run as far as you can until it's done

Click to shrink...

Even that doesn't work since she'll always catch up to you for the second and third parts of the combo.

 

[SunBroDave]

Block the first flurry, dodge (preferably with Bloodhound Step) through the second and third ones

 

[dralla]

It single handily makes takes the fight from difficult to frustrating. If they tweaked the move, it would be a fun fight.

 

[trashbandit]

I am convinced someone at From was pulling double duty on Sekrio and Elden Ring and slipped a Sekiro boss in as a joke.

 

[Ramsay]

It's utter BS.

It isn't that hard to dodge on paper, but the way it works means that it is not safe to attack Malenia up close if the cooldown for Waterfowl Dance has expired (even if she is seemingly open) as you have to be pretty far away from her to reasonably dodge the attack. It completely dictates how you approach the fight with Malenia in a manner that isn't fun at all.

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

It's a Sekiro move in a Dark Souls combat system. It's ridiculous. You can survive it but it requires extremely specific dodging.

 

[benbeau]

The Malenia fight would actually be a lot of fun if she didn't have that attack. Absolute garbage.

 

[horkrux]

If you voted "no", which move do you think is harder to dodge?

 

[cursed beef]

it's def a fucker but once you learn the tell it's manageable. just gotta book it the f outta there immediately and roll into the third flurry when she catches up

 

[PeskyToaster]

I just watched a video of someone dodging it and then did that. seemed to work. I don't think it's that BS or anything. She's just a pretty hard optional boss.

 

[Iolo]

Summon Mimic Tear or other tank, let them take the brunt of it, while you hit her with high-powered ranged attacks.

 

[Red]

My experience with elden ring is so different. I have finished it four times, I beat Malenia each time, and it never took me more than 3 tries. Only one of those was spirit-less. But still. For whatever reason this particular attack never caused me a lot of pain. But then I remember the dozens and dozens of attempts rykard takes each game 😬

And everyone thinks he's an easy nothing boss.

 

[White Glint]

Just tag team her with Tiche and she can't even get up in the first phase.

 

[HiLife]

I use bloodhound step. Can't relate. Sorry, OP.

 

[MrCibb]

Yeah it's the toughest single move by far, I died to it so many fucking times to it, more than anything else in a Souls game. It took me ages to get the hang of it but eventually I could dodge it pretty consistently. What I worked out was to sprint from the first two flurries and then dodge into the third one, and then last bit would always miss on its own. Once I was able to dodge it pretty consistently it wasn't long till I beat her. Tough boss but man did it feel good when she finally went down.

 

[Kaswa101]

I just spammed Blasphemous Blade and she went down pretty quickly lol :D

 

[Shemhazai]

If you voted "no", which move do you think is harder to dodge?

Click to shrink...

Waterfowl Dance is unintuitive to dodge, but it's not actually difficult. You sprint away from her then after the second slash you dodge underneath.

 

[ElephantShell]

If she targeted me with that I simply put the controller down.

 

[Lobster Roll]

You'll get the hang of it - just stick with it. It clicks quicker for some people than others, though.

 

[eXistor]

Run away from it for the first 2 slashes and dodge towards her for the final slash.

Not that it makes the fight much more manageable, but it's a start.

 

[jman1954goat]

If you can't dodge it (because you're a normal human being) just run as far as you can until it's done

Click to shrink...

You cant run from it because she moves at mach 5 during it and catches you

 

[doof_warrior]

the problem is if you're too close when she floats up into the air, you're 100% fucked
cuz that first burst is impossible to dodge and is basically a guaranteed kill
its so fucking annoying

 

[vermadas]

It got to the point where, if I saw it coming fast enough and had adequate distance, I could dodge it 80% of the time. But if I was too close or otherwise poorly positioned I would just kiss my ass goodbye.

 

[toastyToast]

Waterfowl Dance is unintuitive to dodge, but it's not actually difficult. You sprint away from her then after the second slash you dodge underneath.

Click to shrink...

There's a way to completely dodge it which requires you break lock on and run around her. It's very weird and unintuitive but the agreed upon dodging method (sprint and dodge last 2 flurries) is also weird and unintuitive.

From was on some other shit with that attack

 

[Vertpin]

This boss is one of the worst in the soulsborne games. Actually punishes you hard for using certain builds and has that awful move. Fortunately you can learn how to dodge the move but it still sucks.

 

[spicynun]

I honestly struggled more in the Defiled chalice in Bloodborne. At least all of Malenia's moves don't one shot like those bosses in there

 

[Iolo]

I just spammed Blasphemous Blade and she went down pretty quickly lol :D

Click to shrink...

Ah, I see you are a person of culture as well.

 

[Nimby]

Just Bloodhound Step it. You get it from the Night's Cavalry in front of Lenne's Rise.

 

[Sonix]

Use a shield with 100% physical damage negation and hope that you deal more damage to her than she heals by you blocking her bullshit.

 

[Nestunt]

don't dodge

run back

she telegraphs it a lot

 

[MrCibb]

There's a few votes for no but so far I don't see any post about what move is harder to dodge in a Souls game? I can't think of one that took me longer to get used to. Or are people just voting no because of the title and not actually reading the poll.

 

[Duxxy3]

Most of the time it's not the health loss, because the mimic or other summon takes it most of the time, it's the massive health regen from that move. So it's a bullshit move with a bullshit health potion on top of it. It's a very cool looking fight, with an awesome character and a great back story, but the fight itself is one of the worst balanced in Fromsoft history.

edit: Just reminded me how much I hate the end game in Elden Ring.

 

[horkrux]

Waterfowl Dance is unintuitive to dodge, but it's not actually difficult. You sprint away from her then after the second slash you dodge underneath.

Click to shrink...

lol

"which move do you think is harder to dodge?"

 

[Sande]

I've been saying since day 1, a jump attack should cancel it. So you'd actually be rewarded for being close and not the opposite.

Btw. I almost like waterfowl dance for how much emphasis it places on positioning, and reading the small tells between it and other jump attacks in phase 2. It just barely inches on the side of BS and doesn't go well with the flow of that fight due to how much it punishes being close to her.

 

[Vee]

Idk how I woulda done it without bloodhound step

 

[BennyWhatever]

Malenia's fight is so damn cool but that move is pretty BS. My strategy to is wildly dodge roll and hope iframes are on my side and it only hits me 1 or 2 times so that I survive.

Another strategy I've read (but only managed to pull off once) is to throw a sleep pot at her when she jumps. That'll stop the attack from even happening.

 

[Kiro]

Waterfowl probably is the hardest move to dodge in FROM games, but I didn't find it particularly hard to dodge after a few attempts. I don't think it is BS though, but the boss is one of, if not the, toughest boss by FROM.

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

Honestly I just used Barricade Shield to go through it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Nimby]

but the fight itself is one of the worst balanced in Fromsoft history.

Click to shrink...

Defiled Amygdala and Watchdog are worse, but I give Malenia a solid third place. Didn't like the Demon bats from DS3 either.

 

[Jyrii]

I used a shield. Sure she gets some of her life back, but the shield kept me alive, which was way more important.

 

[Moon Parade]

I got very good at dodging it reliably, but that's not to say it's not a ridiculously designed fight. That's Elden Ring in general, really - I enjoyed it whilst playing, but jumping back into some Bloodborne afterwards really highlighted some of the flaws.

The enemy design relies so much on stalling/input reading, that it all drags the encounters down massively towards the end. I'm not saying these aren't present in earlier games, but it's such a prominent feature here, that it becomes tiring.

 

[Icarian]

It's bullshit in the sense that most of the difficulty from that fight comes from this single move, take Waterfowl dance away and the fight becomes infinitely easier, to me that's a badly tuned encounter.

I don't like fights that revolve around a singular move.

 

[Shemhazai]

lol

"which move do you think is harder to dodge?"

Click to shrink...

The list would be too long for me to type out before getting bored, as implied by me saying it's not mechanically hard. 90% of the bosses in the game have weird timings and 50/50 looking choreographs and variable attack strings. Waterfowl Dance is easy to spot and easy to dodge. Her up close attack strings were much more of an issue for me.

 

[Reckheim]

Era please help I've been here for hours and I have not even seen phase 2 of Melania cause Waterfowl is impossible to dodge.

She does not even feel particularly difficult otherwise it's just getting danced on over and over.

Click to shrink...

watch people dodging it online, and concentrate on trying to dodge it before you even think about beating her.

I've helped tons of people beat her and even tho I didn't 100% avoid all the damage, I ended up learning how to avoid most of it over time.

it is doable.

 

[werezompire]

If you just want to beat the boss, I recommend using the

Spoiler

Black Knife Tiche

summon. It does tons of damage to her and is also good at dodging so it doesn't heal her as much as most summons do.

 

[dancingphlower]

It's BS. Pretty sure the fight I won was one where she didn't use it.

 

[Baloota]

It's bullshit, you can dodge it for sure, but it's still badly designed. Elden Ring overall was a massive step down from Sekiro (and other souls really) in terms of bosses.