Recently we are creating new variants of enemies, and bosses called Elden variants. The idea is to overhaul boss battles. For example, we’re completely overhauling Starscourge Radahn’s combat by adding an entirely new stage. We created a new variant of Malenia that is an enormous challenge for players.

Today’s guide is about the boss of this variant, Maliketh, the Black Blade! You can now access these bosses in Garden of Eyes Mod by heading to the new Roundtable Hold and heading to Hall of Elden Champions.

Maliketh is a boss fight that you have to try carefully to avoid making it harder. Because it already designed very well the core combat with a fairly specific play style.

To get to grips with this boss, we looked at both player gear and Elden Ring Runes budget concerns, as well as higher-level play for guidance, and here’s what we concluded.

Cancel The First Phase Of The Battle

The biggest decision we had to make was to cancel the first phase of this version of the battle. The first stage isn’t completely gone, but it will get the separate attention it deserves and be tweaked as its own boss fight rather than a glorious return to Maliketh.

While giving him a full health bar, we also wanted to increase his health and poise to prevent the boss from being vulnerable to staggered locking strategies like Ash of War: Cragblad. From 80 poise to 120 poise, players can defeat him with two Charged Heavy Attacks and regular attacks from many weapons.

Reduce Flight Time

The core design we want to achieve is to reduce his flight time. Maliketh has 2 different triple aerial combos with no penalty at all. To avoid this, we created combo points if the player is close enough early in the animation. This effectively creates new, completely unexpected follow-ups to aerial projectile attacks.

We also tried to repurpose some of his unused animations, such as his diagonal ground stab from the pillar or his triple ground slam. We have thoroughly segmented these animations to allow for as much modularity as possible.

Likewise, his regular vertical ground stab from the post will now be combined into his sword standing stance. This will further allow him to move into new combinations we have designed for him. It focused all of this on our additional aerial spin attack to create the scariest situations possible.

Changes In Attack Methods

Other than that, we used the retreating low swipe attack that Maliketh often does. We’ve also taken a cue from some very experienced Maliketh players and added a follow-up that creates a larger penalty window and allows for more display of skills than ever before.

This attack can dynamically switch between long-range and close-range attacks based on the player’s position. While the long-range version is harder to punish, the short-range attack allows for multiple dodges of increasing difficulty.

From rolling out to prevent getting hit completely but missing the penalty, to rolling in twice to avoid an AOE, to rolling in once in the perfect area for the subsequent explosion in your blind spot, to skipping the initial AOE to get into the blind spot. These are all available for players to try at their leisure.

For us, a very important principle has always been clarity. And based on other players’ suggestions, we’ve once again added an effect to mark the center of Destined Death before it erupts.

Another new but rare attack is the claw ground swipe gap closer. Maliketh can now be used at mid-range to surprise players with fast movements.

In our biggest and most innovative change yet, we’re re-allowing Maliketh to use all 8 pillars in the arena. Of course, we have to explain this somehow to prevent him from ever falling. So we tried specific attacks and their activation conditions.

Not only that, but on rare occasions you’ll now see Maliketh leaping from pillar to post in a truly mesmerizing acrobatic display. Sometimes it’s just fun watching him jump around.

Overall, Maliketh is a very fun boss fight and a very enjoyable challenge. We believe we’ve created a really fun experience for both new and returning players of the game to try and be their best.