Found at the end of Crumbling Farum Azula, Maliketh must be defeated before you can progress to Leyndell, Ashen Capital and complete the game. This boss’s second phase is one of the toughest fights in the game — unless you use the strategy below, in which case it’s kind of a breeze.
NOTE: Thanks to a nerf to Flame of the Redmane, the below strategy is no longer effective. Please bear with us while we update this guide.
General Tips
If you have the Blasphemous Claw, it can be used to parry Maliketh’s attacks with the Black Blade — you’ll know the attack can be parried by the Claw if the boss’s sword is emitting yellow sparkling lights.
A shield can be very helpful in phase 1, and while you’ll take a lot of chip damage, can be used in phase 2 as well until you’ve learned the dodge timings.
Rolling forwards/past Maliketh can allow you to avoid subsequent attacks.
Strategy
In order to take on Maliketh, the Black Blade, you will want to be as prepared as possible. The one advantage you have is that, for a boss, Maliketh is fairly easy to stagger. As such, you should think about bringing your heaviest weapon or a spell with high stance damage (like Bestial Sling or Stone of Gurranq, coincidentally the same spells he uses). During the fight, you can use charged and jump attacks to increase your Stance damage and try to stagger Maliketh as much as possible.
You should also consider equipping a 100% physical defense shield for phase 1, since the boss’s attacks are rapid and hard to dodge. Additionally, make sure you’ve got the Mimic Tear or Black Knife Tiche upgraded as much as possible (they’re arguably the strongest choices, but if you have another powerful summon that you like using, that’s OK too). Finally, make sure you have at least 4 Cerulean Flasks, since you’ll be spamming the Flame of the Redmanes weapon art.
Properly prepared, you can head into the boss room and summon your spirit of choice. If you’ve got a shield, it’s best to play defensively until the boss is targeting your summon. Once it does, you can run over and try to land some powerful hits — if you keep the pressure up a few times like this, the boss will be staggered. Get a critical hit on its eye, and then while it’s recovering, you can get a few more hits in to start building up your next stage.
Flame of the Redmanes is no longer quite as powerful here, but it can be a good option for spellcasters.
If you find yourself needing to drink flasks, try to time it so that you do so while Maliketh is staggered, ensuring you are safe against his ruthless patterns for a moment — worst case scenario here is that you don’t get the crit off and have to repeat the attacks to stagger him. That’s totally fine, and preferable to drinking after critting and putting yourself in a dangerous position.
When phase 2 starts, do the exact same thing: wait for the boss to target your summon, then run over and attack with high stance-damage attacks. The boss is much scarier in phase 2, and can do lots of damage even through a shield, but each time you stagger him it will give you the chance you need to recover and plan your next attack. Keep up the pressure, and you’ll be able to quickly deliver Maliketh’s “destined death” right back to him.
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
Since patch 1.08, sadly Flame of the Redmanes have been nerved and staggering the boss is not working anymore. Apparently Poise have been nerved from 40 to 10 following some Redding notes.
220,000
I had luck with rock sling and mimic.
Thanks for sharing Campbell!
Since patch 1.08, sadly Flame of the Redmanes have been nerved and staggering the boss is not working anymore. Apparently Poise have been nerved from 40 to 10 following some Redding notes.
Thank you for the correction Rach, we’ll make a note of that in the guide and get it updated ASAP.