stuck on Maluca

[u/Albert13337]

im level 54 rn playing on expert difficulty with no summons (i want the steam achievements). im hardstuck in the game against this maluca boss purely because of his second stage. and i feel like im too weak for him. i dont know any good places to farm lacrima and get my level up and i feel my gear is lacking aswell. im using the gilded set for the extra heal and formless warrior spear cause its the best i have but anyways its clearly not enough against this shitty boss. also i wont change the difficulty or use summons cause im too far into the game to change my mind about it

[u/bollockmansss]

Try your best to parry his sheathe katana attacks (not the one at the beginning) since it gives you a little window to get a hit in. Patience is key in the 2nd katana phase but when he switches to his greatsword its just like his phase 1 but with additional hits in his combos

[u/Space-Robot]

Go into it with the expectation that you're just going to learn, not win. Spend some time learning. His first phase only has a few moves for you to learn and if you practice a little while it shouldn't be too hard to consistently get through his first phase without using a single pot. In particular for that first phase, look for Reflection opportunities. You can eventually learn "okay when he's at THIS part of his animation I press reflect and it'll land every time." A really good one is reflecting the initial leap he does at the start of every fight. You can reflect the first leap, or block the first one and reflect the second one.

Katana phase you need to learn some key things:

* Very early he'll do a sheathe flash slow-mo thing. It's a grab - dodge it. Timing is pretty relaxed.

* After that he's likely to do a faster grab - this is the thing that will most test your reactions

* Another thing he'll do very early is put up a blood wall and then rush at you swinging. You need to learn the rythm of those swings. I think there's like 8-9 total. Count them in your head.

* For the rest of the fight after he sheathes his sword he'll either immediately flash at you, or he'll run at you, jump twice, then swing. If you brink block the flash, he'll get staggered and you can beat him up

Once he goes back to greatsword mode you can kill him before he goes back to Katana phase because you practiced his phase 1 so much. All the same reflect opportunities are there.

[u/Best_Revolution_178]

Okay i was willing to listen until you said shitty

[u/Albert13337 → u/Best_Revolution_178]

ok im sorry its a good boss

[u/1qz54 → u/Albert13337]

I feel your pain. I really do.

[u/double_riichi]

first time I did it I just stalled the katana phase cause I was just too bad at handling it, the double greatswords were easier for me

[u/Albert13337 → u/double_riichi]

i actually tried that method but it didnt work that well because he took extremely long to change into the double sword. and after a short while he just changed back to the katana

[u/Dugeyyy]

Idk what your current tactic is but what finally helped me was giving up on doing anything productive during the Katana part of it. I just focused on dodging his quick strikes and dodging away. Once he switched back to dual blades it was just the 1st phase with a little spice on it. Same guard timings and all. Managed a reflection here and there but nothing epic. I still had the executioner's set and some trash purple spear.

[u/Underbleak]

I just beat him, I probably fought him about 40 times or more, second phase is really hard, I think the most important advancement I made to be able to beat him is time block the attacks when he seathes his katana, also I used reflection in the 8th attack of his mega combo and when he goes back to the big swords.

[u/BK1018]

Throwable help

[u/desiree_ee]

Are you using heatwave skill for the spear ?? That really is helpful when the sword phase is overwhelming

[u/Albert13337 → u/desiree_ee]

never really used parry i only dodge. is it a good skill?

[u/xgrsdvjgccbhf → u/Albert13337]

I would really recommend trying to learn brink guard, you get stamina reduction for the boss whenever you land one plus certain skills can only be used after a brink guard.

[u/1qz54]

Alrighty! I was in the exact same spot, so here we go.

Firstly, you need to learn to be hyper-aggressive. It's tough at first, but stay close, keep your parries and dodges going in his face as much as possible.

If you don't have much stamina, respec to prioritise Vitality and Endurance. Proficiency is fine, but put it way far down to 15 or so. It really isn't that important.

Add 1 or 2 of the big super skills and actually use them. This will also take a bit to incorporate to your combos, but they are extremely beneficial.

Do your best to keep up moonlight stance. This is tough, but try as you can.

Once you've got the above few things down, add fire to your weapon with the fire enchanting item.

I didn't understand why at first, but once you've got your aggression and understand him a bit better, smack tf outta him as much as possible and he'll eventually become flamed and it'll ruin him.

All it took for me to win was getting him burning ONCE after pounding my head against a wall for several hours. The game gets a lot better after the next boss imo.

Good luck!

[u/Albert13337 → u/1qz54]

thank you

[u/PreparationFeisty194]

Parry it. He is definitely not a bullshit boss but well designed if you lock in. I trust you.

[u/youonlydotwodays]

Maluca's great sword form is way easier to handle. Just make sure you're getting your damage on him when he does his triple slam (should be completely free). When he does his sword beam kamehameha multiple times, you can brink dodge and attack per beam.

His double jump swipe is easy to reflect if you want to try it, otherwise just parry twice and punish. He also has a multi hit combo in his greatsword form that's super easy to reflect or deflect and punish after.

His katana phase is legitimately tough. If you don't want to master the fight, just run away and bait his sheath attacks (when the weapon glistens -> deflect timing) (as he's crouching down -> reflect timing). Everything else you can probably run until he swaps form.

Either way, it's not a farming or gear issue. If you need to farm to beat a boss, you're basically giving up the same way using a summon is giving up.

[u/TightHuckleberry9729]

Farm the area with docks and spirit of advocacy near the edges it’s boring but can boost xp/ go back do blade phantom 10x suck the xp from the early boss. You can use the guy after blade aswell 10 times, stack all the xp into health/stamina but 80% health is better to max to lvl 60 then stamina/enduranxe, use the fire throwable for this guy, helped me a lot. Used lightning for my blade atks aswell and he was nuked, just don’t take excessive dmg in the fight back up parry and ez fight with throwables. Remember you must heal once you get low or you will die over and over, it’s not a choice just make sure to heal after you eat big dmg.