Malenia's Great Rune is Beyond Worthless 

If you're wondering about the Metal Gear Rising that pops up in corner at times, it's cuz an issue with recording left a useless white square there in some of the footage. Rerecording it would've delayed the video even further, but people suggested that I put something there in front of the square. So I decided on showing a better boss fight 🤭

I like how Elden ring always has upsides like 4% more dmg %5 more resistance but when it comes to downsides its always like -30% healing +50% dmg taken .

I can't count the amount of times I sat there and suddenly thought "oh yeah! Great runes are a thing!" and then proceeded to forget about them again

And lets not forget By the time you get this great rune, you will literally have beaten just about everything worth fighting in the game Meaning you’ll get in just in time for it to NOT carry over into NG+ Seriously the weirdest decision imo

I also wanna point out, at later NG+ cycles, where getting to Malenia early enough you can get some actual use out of the Rune is more plausible, enemies will be chunking you for so much of your health that it's literally impossible to heal back an amount of HP to make the difference between dying in 2 or 3 hits. Plus the fact that at that point you're needing 2 flasks to recover from most hits, and the Rune reduces their effectiveness, it gets more useless as you go on too

I mean the design of great runes are kinda disappointing I hoped that they would give you a small permanent buff and rune arcs would give you access to Thier full power for 5 minutes. Also I killed Malenia before setting the fire to the erd tree.

The only time I saw this rune actually do anything was when I jokingly suggested to a streamer who was doing Torch Only who had beaten Malenia but not Rykard yet, to use Malenia's rune to basically negate the lava on Rykard. It... actually worked.

Honestly with how it is malania in particular...it makes me wonder if it was tested at all or if it was a deal of "ah crap we're running out of time what do we stick on the last rune? Rallying people liked that but we need to make sure it is not too strong so stick a estus debuff on it"

On a first playthrough, discovering the Tower of Return transporter is definitely a really cool moment, especially seeing the Erdtree up close for the first time.

Honestly I think it needs one of two things: To recover HP when you deal damage regardless on whether or not you got hit first, like how Malenia does with you. Albeit not too much HP of course. Or to be heavy reworked to be more in line with the rally system of BB.

you know its fucked when Rykard "the way to kill me is literally on the floor in my boss room" Demigod has a straight upgrade to Malenias rune in practical use

It's honestly hilarious how one of if not the hardest great rune to get in the game is about on par with a talisman found in a random cave. Having goofed off with both, the Godskin Swaddling Cloth feels overall far more useful than her great rune while also not requiring me to use a rune arc. Even when paring her rune with her sword, it is mid at best as either you stagger them too much to swing back at you or you trade poorly thanks to high late game damage output and fairly quick combos.

The saddest part of all of this, which you might have mentioned, but I didn't hear, is that because Malenia is so late in the game, you would barely get any use out of her great rune even if it was good. It would be like if Radagon gave you a great rune that increased your damage by 10%. Sure, it is strong, but what good is it for since you beat the game? And to top all of this off, YOU CANT KEEP GREAT RUNES INTO NG+ CYCLES. I know there is a gameplay and lore reason, that being the fact that the great runes are key items that are directly linked to game progression, but it kills some of the joy of NG+, which to me was where you would take your build back to the beginning, but it would be scaled up so you aren't too strong. A build that utilized godrick, rykard, or malenia's great runes before would be neutered until they got them back, which, guess what? Doesn't happen until late in the game. I love these games, but I always see places where they could do even better. This is one of those places.

just make the great rune a literal copy of the "Godskin Swaddling Cloth" when active. You can combo it with the Godskin Swaddling Cloth to incentivize a recklessly aggressive playstyle revolving around successive attacks to gain hp back.

Lets not forget that you get this in late game and that no boss in late game lets you hit consistently after taking damage

I think the grace being there is so we could restore miquellas great rune when the new dlc drops

Malenia gets to heal off every hit with her Great Rune and decimate everything around her with Waterfowl. Meanwhile, the Tarnished can use the exact same moves and get laughably bad results. This actually feels like FromSoft trolling us, which is not entirely out of character for them.

Morgott's is severely underrated

In short, use Rykards that restores 80 +7% Hp after anything dies in your vicinity. It also stack with his weapons and the Serpent God's Sword

The point about Graces being INSIDE the towers most of the time really resonated with me. I never understood the point of putting a grace in a place that you'll most likely only visit once and never again, since the whole point is to restore a great rune (that you'll probably not even use).

Imo great runes should be replenished after every boss. This would create a cool gameplay loop of getting stuck on a hard boss, going to do some side content, and then coming back with a bit of a buff, making all of the small bosses much more worthwhile to engage with Edit: I think a lot of the Tower of Return nonsense can be explained by oversight: Leyndell, Ashen Capital is an entirely different area from Leyndell, Royal Capital, so transferring any element of progress would require specific scripting to work. That's why the bonfire gets unlit and the golem respawns; they aren't the same bonfire and golem, but duplicates.

It kinda sucks that Malenia's rune is the literal "Unlock a new mechanic" rune, but hers is the one that sucks the most. I wish you at least had the ability to carry over great runes to NG+ (I get why, since the Leyndell wall locks you out until you have two, but still), since then you could have a build with it in mind and experience the entire game with that mechanic. But you need to kill at least Morgott and another shardbearer, Draconic 1, Godfrey shade, Nile, Loretta, and Malenia. And that's the bare minimum before you can even try to build around the rune's effect.

If it at the VERY LEAST allowed you to regen 10-20% more health than the damage dealt per hit, I think it would be fine even with the abysmal returns, because then if you DO manage to get it all back, or are atleast taking trades, you can potentially keep the regen going. Or, just make it literally bloodborne rally.... which does everything I said above. If it WAS bloodborne rally, the nerf to flasks would be a fine balancing aspect because poise monsters with medium/combo weapons would be nigh-invincible

This is definitely cheese but on my first playthrough I did access the rest of Leyndell from the Divine Tower warp. You can use the Taunter Tongue to attract invaders. They can trigger the elevator from below to reach you, and that lets you take the elevator back down. Not sure if they patched this or not in the current version.

I gotta admit that I never noticed the issues with getting to the Divine Tower myself, on my first run I ended up hitting the Consecrated Snowfield and beyond before fighting the Fire Giant. My logic was that it looked like a point of no return so I should finish everything else in the Lands Between I had access to before taking on the Flame of Ruin. So I did, I ground my way through Ordona Town quickly because I remembered about the torch that reveals invisible enemies and Great bows hard counter the Albinauric archers. Then I got to the Halligtree and fought and leveled my way through that and was a bit surprised by how quickly the Fire Giant went down.

Those two teleporter traps in the early game got me excited thinking there would be more and that I could be transported to any part of the game at any time and get to face more difficult areas before I was ready. That was one of my favorite things about the souls series was trying to fight my way through an end game area to try and get some loot, but eldenring didn't really implement it like I through they were.

Fromsoft: let's make Malenia's rune the worst and the tower entrance a headache to get back to. After all, it's the friends we made along the way...

I feel the worst sin of this is the fact it WILL disappear after starting new game plus. Which tbh i do enjoy collecting the runes again but Malenia’s is so far out there I have no idea why youd want it unless for DLC

This should've been a Crystal Tear for the Wondrous Physick at most! Truly, what were they thinking making this the Great Rune's Ability from one of the game's hardest bosses that is also fought in the endgame?

So I've been thinking about on how the weakest Demigod gives you the best Great Rune. When looking from the perspective of the Demigods themselves, on what they need, I guess it makes sense. Godrick is the weakest of the bunch so he would need the biggest crutch. Along with his crafting, it was probably the only thing that made him somewhat strong.

I remember my 1st playthrough of Elden Ring, I took the "open-world" tag seriously, so instead of going straight to the Stormveil Castle and onto Godrick (like most did) I took the hard right to Caelid, only to find myself into a shithole of shitty weaponry that didnt match my build and farming enemies in the Caelid Tower (also got stuck in the mineshaft), later in the game, I managed to defeat Radahn BEFORE Godrick, then went straight to Raya Lucaria, and so on to Morgott Until that moment, I was using Radahns rune to compensate levels and, of course, its the best rune I got as of now, so the majority of my playthrough I was using Radahns I go on in the game and find myself just before Maliketh, then I made the decision of turning back to Stormveil (sounded good to me) Cake walk, I go to face Godrick, defeat him, and get the best rune of the fucking game, the best one, when Im about to finish the game itself I said the same thing "WHY THE FUCK THE DEVS PUT THE BEST GODDAMN RUNE IN THE GAME RIGHT HERE AND THE OTHERS ARE JUST PURE SHIT" In anyway, kept playing and eventually finished the game, but I still cant get out of my head the fact that I sucked so much dick exploring the "open-world" to just realize this dick sucking would´ve been way to easier if I didnt skip the 1st zone in the game

I would also like to point out how the runes don't even get carried over to NG+. So that means on every run, you kinda have to do both 1) Kill Malenia 2) Access the elevator/Get Death Rune in order to even start using it ... ON EVERY RUN. Both of these tasks are very hard to do even on NG+ upwards because of all the blockages that are already there in even getting to Malenia and will always will be an absolute endgame item. At which point, where am I even gonna use this mechanic? on fucking spirit caller cave godskins? Simply letting us have the unactivated great runes carry over to NG+ will atleast somewhat make it worth it but I guess they just said, oh shit we need to have some great rune for her, "but what if players love it and want it every time?" , "I know, Let's just make it so bad that no one will want it in the first place"

Mohgs great rune will buff the mimic tear. You're welcome

I was disappointed how bad Malenias great rune was but still kinda excited to use it in a build from the start in NG+! Then i saw that great runes dont carry over into NG+ and was completely astounded by that stupid decision

use endure then hold R2 and trade with the boss, not only will you have up to 50-70% damage mitigation but also gain back a bunch of HP with malenias great rune. The R2s mean you do a lot of stagger damage, and malenias great rune restores 100% of HP lost from the previous hit when you do a critical, so you can restore a lot of HP if you play it right. Its definitly not worthless but its not obscenely OP either, i would say its inline with the other great runes, its good situationally. Use with a swaddling cloth and a twinblade to restore even more HP and you can have a vampire like build where you are tanky and restoring HP pretty well. 2 hand Tank + HP restore build can get pretty crazy tbh.

This video is the definition of screenwriting. The slow build up of anger and rage. *Chef's kiss*

I've never played Elden Ring, but you explain everything in a really easy to follow way. Cheers.

This was a really great breakdown, and I appreciate your deserved befuddlement at the circumstances surrounding even achieving Malenia’s Great Rune. Malenia is just a vortex around which several poor design choices circulate in Elden Ring.

Fromshills will unironically think "skill issue" is a legitimate argument for this aswell. They hate and refuse to take any criticism of their favorite games seriously.

Players: "Fromsoft, we want bloodborne!" FS: "we have bloodborne at home" BLoodborne at home: *Malenia's great rune*

I always thought the great runes in general were all mehhh

If the rune was a simple small flat healing for every attack that connects, it would have been so much better!

Great Runes effect should be a passive ability that once you activate it, it doesn't matter if you die, the effect continues, and Malenia rune should allow you to return Health independent of taking damage, this way it would encourage lots of other combat forms, and the heal should be attached to damage and movement, it would be soo much better, imagine the Pizza Wheel or Bloodhound Step with it

You’re right about everything regarding the retrieval and effect of the Great Rune, however you omitted the possibility that some people may play the game in a different order. I always go to the Haligtree before burning the Erdtree because I explore (the intention behind the open world) and so I found the Albinauric Village earlier and also finished Castle Sol before fighting the fire giant. I just said the same thing twice but what I mean is that this is a game that specifically encourages people playing it differently. You didn’t fully acknowledge that here. Also please don’t yell at me I watch these to relax.

I personally used Godrick's rune throughout the entire game. Getting +5 to all stats is massive, especially in the early game.

It’s not about the money it’s about sending a message

Ah Melania, has a moveset made for Sekiro and a Great rune made for Bloodborne. Truly the boss built around dumb choices.

Honestly having all great runes just active all at once would make it exponentially better, more impactful and actually fun to go around the lands between to collect them all. I would also like if Godrick's, Radahn's and Morgott's rune would have a different effect than what is bassically stat boosting. Give Godrick the ability to jump higher or infuse your weapons or make it so you can pick up fallen enemies as a shield. Make Radahn's great rune nullify one requirement on one piece of equipment, be it a spell or a weapon. (Similar to what he did for Leonard (his horse).) Make Morgott's great rune be an HP regen like the Erdtree did in the lore. Maybe also make it boost other Regens or give the player tha ability to climb or do double jumps. Having great runes be such a unique effect and all active would feel like a massive powerboost while also still keeping things relatively balanced through game progression.

That rant about her tower was the most upsetting thing I've heard all week.

Since Farum Azula is basically the final area before the final boss, I actually always fight Malenia first and haven’t run into this problem… But it’s completely understandable.

To those that say Malenia's great rune is worthless were you ever consider combine the rune with blood build and see what happens next?

Something that occurred to me... difficulties in activating the rune aside, could it be *deliberately* bad? The rune is, after all, rotten - just as Malenia herself. I believe the lore hints, in several places, that despite the terrible power that the Crimson Rot imparted her with, Malenia would ultimately have been even stronger if it hadn't been sapping her strength. In other words, she's fighting you with a *handicap* - and your prize for defeating her is to inherit that handicap. By that line of thinking, using Malenia's Greatrune would be something like a self-imposed challenge...

7:22 We might return there since Miquella's great rune probably sit right besides Malenia's,like how Morgott and Mohg's great rune is right beside each other since they were twins.

So, when talking about the tower of return, you can actually get into roundtable hold this way, PROVIDED you've progressed far enough in the game that you are allowed access to leyndell...ie, on my first playthrough, I got into leyndell using the tower of return and the lift there because I didn't do the weeping peninsula until after getting to altus and killing radahn. It actually made progression in leyndell confusing as hell because all the guides were written as if you came the normal way

i like how it took him 7 minutes to talk about the point of the video

It would be a really cool system if it removed half of your flasks and had increased healing, meaning, you can recover lost flasks, and well it would be useful somewhat, idk

I really don’t understand why they didn’t make it essentially a Rykard upgrade. Let it heal you when you hit the enemies. There’s no reason to limit it to only after you’re hit. It makes more sense canonically, it makes sense as upgrading a much easier boss’s reward, and it’s endgame, it would be extremely useful.

"4min in" point to make in this regard. i was once invaded in this spot the invader spawned in the lower area and brought the elevator up therefore allowing me permenant access to it for that play through, was my first encounter with the iron maidens

Her Scarlet rot is all over it. What did you expect?💀🙏

This rune would be effective early game but by the time you get it most bosses will kill you in 2 or 3 hits and the health you could get back wouldn't save you while Morgott's extra health boost could. Also I'm sure there are some people who beat Malenia even before the fire giant.

-Start a new journey -Speedrun to Godrick -Equip his greatrune -Fictionally gain 40 levels -Doesn't even bother to restore any other greatrune -Finish the journey -Repeat

Abd by the time you unlock Malenia's Rune, the game is basically 100% complete. So you go into NG, where you lose the Great Runes

Even in death, Maleania makes your life a joke

bro is really mad at walking for like a min

What bothers me most about Great Runes is that they inadvertently make Rune Arcs the real treasured item!

You forgot the worst part: great ruins don't carry over into new game plus you only get to use it for like 5 minutes.

Imagine if miquellas great rune just de aggros all enemies because everyone loves him lol

Yeah, at first I thought Melania's was going to be cool when I read it but then I realized there's a time limit for how long you can heal the damage, which wouldn't be a problem but it's stupid short so I don't have ANY time to do so.

Pissed off, but rational gamer explains tsunami of stupid choices

I feel like it's meant to be done with a max phy def build. There is a spell called Black Flame's Protection which also reduces estus recovery. When used with golden vow, good armor and the opaline hardtear crystal tear, you can get up to 76% phy def. At this point enemies barely even damage you and you have the poise to tank through most hits outside of really big hits. Allowing you to just keep hitting them though their attacks and healing off the damage with the great rune never having to even use flasks. When you combo it with blessed dew talisman, the icon shield and the crimson burst crystal tear you pretty much become a walking tank. However, due to the rune being pretty much mostly a post game option and losing the rune in NG+. It does all seem a bit... waste of timeish?

"Because she is the hardest boss in the game, you're meant to save her for last." ...Wait, you were?

I always feel the need to point this out, but Malenia is a great example of "there are two types of hard bosses in FromSoft games" because yes, she is the undisputed hardest FromSoft boss, but it's not by being a good boss, it's by being a strong boss in the wrong game. Her aggression has a bad case of Demon Of Hatred syndrome, where she would be a perfect boss...but not in Elden Ring. In Elden Ring, she's just cruelly unfair.

The design of the teleporter traps is a real pet peeve of mine. It is so jarring to be forced to use fast travel in regular gameplay. The world should have been much more contiguous and accessible without fast travel.

You get it far too late in the game to matter but I would argue it could still have some niche use. I think it's best used for trading, particularly when you're actively using strong abilities with hyper armour. Stamp Sweep will recover most if not all health if both hits land. Pop Endure and do a full charge heavy with Iron Cleaver. Use it with Dragon Maw.

Local gamer doesn't understand the concept of 'look how far you've come'.

I’m glad to see people aren’t just meat riding Fromsoft on these things. Is elden ring a great game? Absolutely. But it does have its problems and things about it that just suck/that are bad game design. Yet people will still defend it.

I hope they see this video

Haven't played the game yet so I must ask: do you keep the great runes on new game cycles? Perhaps the intent was restoring it on the NG+

Melania's rune feels like a half-hearted and hastily implemented bit of easter egg fan service for folks who liked that system in Bloodborne.

"And if you fight her before the final boss, you'll almost certainly fight her after you've beaten Maliketh and destroyed Leyndell Capital." Me, who beat her before I even burned the Erdtree on both of my playthroughs: **whistles nonchalantly** Granted, I did still save activating her Great Rune for after Maliketh the first time, because I was incorrectly told that the tower is inaccessible until after completing Farum Azula (Thanks, wiki...)

I want to add: yes, Radahn and, to a lesser extent, Morgott's Great Runes outmatch Godrick's. There's too many diminishing returns in having +5 on every stat and it's not as important as allocating them yourself. They become pointless. So Godrick's is the 3rd best and Rykard is not far behind, and can be even better if you mix it up with Great Star and Blessed Dew. As for Malenia's Rune, it's also my least favorite; seems like something you get the full advantage on subsequent playthroughs and the expansion. You can beat her before even Fire Giant, so you have many chances to use it. The thing is, like you said, it doesn't make sense to not have the bonfire when the capital burns. As for the rune arcs, it's very easy to get them, specially in co-op. They're consistently rewarded to you and are better implemented than Embers, which only gave bland boosts. It goes without saying that, if you somehow don't like the endgame, like if you find it too difficult or don't want to use your tools, doing that trek would feel meaningless. Personally I don't bother with the Great rune because there's much more than just that item: Malenia's incantation, weapon and armor, finishing Millicent's questline, fighting the true Loretta and getting her items and many more things.

Saying every enemy in Bloodborne was specifically designed to give you openings for the rally system is a bit of a stretch, they just designed them to be faster to fit the movement system of Bloodborne and still give openings like every other game. You’re already making good points, no need to go overboard here.

Yeah also, the haligtree is like, the last area before NG+, and since great runes are lost in NG+, THERE IS LITERALLY NO PLACE TO USE IT!

just tell us how you feel man :) gg loved the rage

This video needs all the views in the world and I hope to the outer gods that enough people complain that a patch occurs

i completely understand what you're saying, but perhaps this is intentional? "all right big shot, you beat the hardest content in the game. here's a rune to make anything you have left more challenging, then"

I agree that the divine bridge site of grace being removed is pointless and stupid but it literally only takes like 2 minutes to get to the tower of return from the nearest site of grace. I wouldn’t really call it a slog

As i know Malenia takes 300 hp back with every hit. So what about the player as well get back hp but around 30 the same way? Oreo doesnt count more then one hit

"You have to use a valuable/rare item" Sunbros; those things are rare!?

I honestly don’t even remember it being that difficult to get tbh like I remember that the isolated tower would make sense for Melina to be consider she in lore can be argued to be a loner but I went there and got the great ruin and bam no problems. I didn’t use it cause knowing mizakya it was going to be bad cause Melina in the lore was plagued by rot so makes sense it was going to be bad but I don’t remember if I burned the erdtree before or after Melina but when you lay it all out it honestly seems like such a drag I can’t believe I didn’t notice it. Makes me wonder what did I do to make it seem not an issues?

The thing about the divine bridge grace was never an issue for me, since I never fight the fire giant and burn the Erdtree until I’ve beaten all the demigods. To me, burning the Erdtree is committing to the endgame. I do all of farum azula in one shot, and blaze through the final boss rush.

You are like, the AVGN of Elden Ring great runes.

The reason there is a grace on top of the tower is Miquella. We will get his rune in the DLC and twins share the same divine tower as we know from Mohg+Morgott.

🤔 okay, let me start by saying I am not an expert. I do have a hunch though, I would assume the great rune is built around using her boss's weapon. The waterfaul dance is multiple successive hits. Which should/could translate into making the system work for recovering hp. You could also use the two Talismans to counter the hp drop, those being the one that heals you for successive hits and the other than buffs your hp flasks making them heal more. Now I understand what I have just typed above is a string of things that makes this system that is in place technically "work", but I will also agree, yeah her great rune should work differently with less player penalty. But I would assume they did that to stop it from being main stream meta and making the game easier. Just a side note :). But your rant was fair

Her great rune is trash for lore reasons,its description even says something along the lines of "her great rune should have been the greatest rune of all" basically implying that the scarlet rot destroyed her planned fate

I'm glad you also talked extensively about the questionable design choice. Malenia's tower is far from the only one, but it's out there. As much as I love the game, those questionable choices are what doesn't make this game a 10/10 masterpiece, and I'm sick of hearing people calling it that. It's a great game no doubt, but it has plenty of flaws still, some of which could've very easily been avoided.

I've never had to take this weird way of restoring her rune the 3 times I have

Great runes in general are a big letdown especially how hyped up they were, like they'd completely change the game with their powerful effects. Instead it's basic numerical buffs at best and gimmicky nerfs at worst. I'd love if an update fixed them.

Honeslty, Malenia herself is an enigma in elden ring cause to be compelty honest. She's not fair at ALL to fight. Videos have broken down how she straight up cheats and breaks the rules the game has taught you, to give her increased difficulty. It honeslty feels like she's striaght up not meant to be a challange. But more a straight up brick wall for people to die on till they get lucky with RNG. I mean the fact that let me solo her got SO big that the creators themselves littearly sent him special collectables, JUST for being a living meme with her, is proibbly really telling that they straight up didn't exepct her to be so beatable. And that's not even getting into how other vids found that maybe she was suppoused to be in sekiro and fights more like she is built around its systems. Her rune is just the icing on the cake in my opinon. It's...Just...So badly implemented that it's practically useless. I always said that honeslty, great runes should given you diffrent playstyles to mimic the boss who in turn emlulates a style of gameplay from a diffrent souls game. So in theory. Malenia's rune should of given you the abiltiy to fight like you were from bloodborne or Sekrio and move faster and be more reactive like those games are built around. Honeslty at some points the game straight up seems like it is NOT balanced around you being able to move and fight like you do. I could go on but i feel like this is already too long. If anyone is cuirous let me know. I can speak more.

Godrick's is only good early to mid game.