Malenia, Blade of Miquella, is notorious for her devastating Waterfowl Dance in Elden Ring. This flurry of rapid strikes can quickly overwhelm even seasoned players. However, with the right strategy and timing, you can effectively evade this deadly attack. This guide will break down the Waterfowl Dance into its three key strokes and provide detailed instructions on how to dodge each one, ensuring you survive Malenia’s onslaught.
Understanding Waterfowl Dance
Waterfowl Dance is a multi-stage attack, characterized by three distinct strokes, followed by a phantom fourth stroke. Each stroke requires a slightly different dodging technique to avoid taking damage. Recognizing the cues for each stroke is crucial for successful evasion.
Dodging Stroke 1
The first stroke is initiated when Malenia leaps into the air. You have two primary options to avoid the initial burst of attacks:
Option 1: Sprint Away
The simplest and often safest method is to create distance. As soon as you see Malenia ascend, sprint directly away from her. The range of the first stroke is limited, and by sprinting, you can outrun the attack entirely. Remember that while light rolling can offer a burst of speed initially, sprinting is more effective for sustained distance. Jumping can also aid in covering ground quickly.
Option 2: Strafe and Dodge
If you are caught closer to Malenia and sprinting away isn’t immediately feasible, you can opt for a more precise maneuver. Strafe behind her as she begins the first stroke, then dodge directly away. Executed correctly, Malenia will land behind you, missing her target. Imperfect timing might result in taking minor damage from a couple of hits, but it’s still far preferable to being caught in the full force of the attack.
, so that might help you cover more distance; same applies with jumping.
However, if you don't have enough time or enough distance to sprint away (maybe you were caught off-guard), you need **Option 2**: strafe behind her, and dodge directly away as she starts the stroke. If done perfectly, she'll end up behind you, unable to approach further; however, you might get grazed by two hits or so if you don't do it perfectly — nothing of too much matter, though.
This stroke has both visual cues and an audio cue. For the visual cues, she'll shift posture maybe ~0.5s before the stroke, and start moving downwards a bit shortly after. As for the audio cue, there's a subtle wooshing noise ~1/4 of a second before she starts. As such, sightreading gives you a lot more time to react, but the audio cue can be immediately trigger-fingered if your reaction time is fast enough.
Stroke 2
Align yourself outside of the Waterfowl range, and roll diagonally forwards and either right or left as she starts this stroke. Don't roll straight ahead — because she's on the ground for this stroke, that risks you booping into Malenia and getting stopped dead inside the hitbox.Alternatively, for extra fanciness, walk to the left, and *then* roll straight forwards. Walking left will perturb the lock-on just enough that you won't boop Malenia, and with this trick, you'll be left closer to her at the end of your roll. This is a good thing, because you can now avoid her next stroke for free by **sprinting straight towards her** — no rolling required.
There's a visual cue: she twists her sword arm the other way ~1/3s before the stroke. Her left arm also starts moving down, and she starts moving forward. Unfortunately, her sword arm is obscured by her wings during Phase 2, so you'll have to look at the arm or etc.
Of note is that the hitbox only starts very late into her initial full-speed swing, as evidenced by the trail of the sword only appearing when it's about horizontal relative to you. This "grace period" can, at the very least, be used as a reference to calibrate your timing.
Stroke 3
Get as close in front of her as you can, and roll straight towards her as she starts the third stroke. Since she's coming down to the ground, she might go straight over your head if you're close enough — possibly even allowing you to avoid rolling in the first place, if you want to be *extra* fancy, and especially if you did Stroke 2 the extra-fancy way.Do NOT roll diagonally, though — she curves her path on the fourth stroke, which will catch you if you roll left.Punishing
After stroke 3, Malenia does a "phantom" fourth stroke a moment after, which can catch you if you go in for the punish too early. Instead, wait out the phantom stroke, and then punish with a running jump attack (alternatively, you could roll through the phantom stroke and do a roll attack). You might not be able to land a follow-up, though — check if she got staggered before you commit to a second attack.If you have any questions or feedback, please ask/tell me in the comments!Also, here's a full Malenia guide, if ye'd like:[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3291922273](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3291922273)
