The Boss That Broke a Million Players
Malenia, Blade of Miquella, has a body count that would make most game developers blush. Since Elden Ring's February 2022 launch, the optional boss in the Haligtree Roots has become gaming shorthand for nearly impossible difficulty—her infamous Waterfowl Dance, a three-phase flurry of blade strikes that can erase a full health bar in seconds, has ended more runs than any other single attack in the game.
But while most players summon help, grind levels, or simply walk away, one player saw something else in those 300 deaths: a puzzle worth solving.
Who Is "Let Me Try Again"?
Marcus Chen, a 34-year-old software developer from Portland, Oregon, doesn't stream. He doesn't post clip compilations. Until now, he's had exactly zero social media presence in the Elden Ring community.
What he does have is a PlayStation 5 save file with 312 logged attempts against Malenia, timestamped across fourteen months from March 2023 to May 2024.
"I got to 200 before I realized I should probably screenshot the attempt counter," Chen admits, pulling up his phone to show the progression: 247, then 268, then 301. "At that point it stopped being about beating her. It became about understanding her."
What 300 Attempts Actually Looks Like
Chen's spreadsheet—yes, he kept a spreadsheet—breaks down every death by cause. Waterfowl Dance accounted for 43% of his failures in the first hundred attempts. By attempt 250, he'd reduced that to 12%, only to watch his numbers spike again when Malenia entered her second phase and introduced Scarlet Aeonia, the devastating rot explosion that redefined the arena's geometry.
"Attempt 184 was the worst," Chen recalls. "I got her to maybe three hits from death. She jumped. I panicked and rolled backward instead of into her. I didn't touch the game for three days after that."
His methods evolved with the data. Early attempts relied on the popular Bloodhound's Fang weapon art for invincibility frames. By attempt 150, he'd switched to a pure dexterity build with no shield, forcing himself to learn dodge timing rather than block. Attempt 200 introduced a self-imposed restriction: no Spirit Ashes, no co-op summons, no crutches.
"The community talks about 'Let Me Solo Her' like he's the only one who ever dedicated serious time to this fight," Chen says, referencing the legendary player who defeated Malenia thousands of times while wearing nothing but a jar on his head. "But there are hundreds of us out there, just not performing for an audience."
The Shadow of the Erdtree Changes Everything
Chen's 313th attempt never happened. When FromSoftware announced Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree in February 2024, he made a deliberate choice to pause his run.
"The DLC was going to change the game," he explains. "New weapons, new ashes of war, maybe new ways to approach her. I didn't want my first victory to come from some overpowered build I'd feel guilty about later."
His patience proved prescient. Shadow of the Erdtree introduced backhand blades, martial arts weapon arts, and the Revered Spirit Ash system—mechanics that fundamentally expand movement options. Chen spent his first week in the DLC not exploring the new story content, but testing whether these tools could create a "cleaner" Malenia strategy.
"The Dryleaf Arts let you chain dodge in ways that weren't possible before," he notes. "I'm not sure if it's actually better for Waterfowl specifically, but it gives me more options for positioning."
The Final Attempt
Chen plans to face Malenia again this weekend—his first attempt in over a month, and what he intends as his last regardless of outcome. He'll stream it privately for a small Discord server of fellow Malenia obsessives, not for viewership but for witness.
"The goal was never to be good at Elden Ring," he says. "It was to be good at this one specific thing, against this one specific opponent. Three hundred attempts sounds insane until you realize that's maybe forty hours total. People spend more time on way stupider things."
Whether attempt 313 ends in victory or another entry in his spreadsheet, Chen's already made peace with the outcome. The number, he insists, was never the point.
"Every death taught me something. That sounds like motivational poster garbage, but it's literally true for this fight. She has tells. She has rhythm. After a while you stop seeing a boss and start seeing a conversation."
The conversation resumes Saturday. Malenia, as always, will be waiting.
*Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is available now on PC, PlayStation 4|5, and Xbox
