The Elden Ring community's campaign to make normal players feel bad at the game is still very much ongoing, with local Tarnished RS_Lionheart out here killing Malenia on New Game +7 in a record-setting 15 seconds before straight-up one-hitting her on a follow-up run.
Lionheart posted their NG+7 speedrun a few days ago, and it's still the world record at the time of writing. In the YouTube description of the video, they offer "good luck" to anyone who wants to try to beat their record.
Malenia in 15 Seconds | NG+7 World Record from r/Eldenring
The setup for this blisteringly fast kill involves two Bandit's Curved Swords scaled for bleed damage via the Cragblade Ash of War. Lionheart is rocking 99 Strength, Dexterity, and Arcane for maximum physical and bleed output, and dozens of buffs are then carefully layered in to take their damage to absurd extremes. The start of the video is an absolute clown fiesta of icons, particle effects, and consumables – so much so that Lionheart has to repeatedly swap equipment just to stack even more buffs. I reached out to talk more about their process here, and it sounds as finicky as you'd expect.
"When I look into each buff, I am always weighing damage vs. duration," Lionheart explains. "I always try to do them in descending order of duration, so that, for example, my Blood Loss and Poison Buffs, which only last 20 seconds, come towards the end of the sequence. To work out and test all of this, I have several different characters on multiple accounts who have levels ranging from 1 - 350, allowing me to test a variety of different builds. I have every single spell, incantation, and Ash of War basically memorized at this point, so it's just a matter of setting a goal and trying to see if it's possible."
The Mad Scientist does it again.. Malenia in True Oneshot (Per Phase) with Zweihander from r/Eldenring
The one-hit run required some different math. Lionheart was able to use a fire-attuned zweihander, coupled with a similar cavalcade of buffs, to deal 16,692 damage on their initial attempt, which was just shy of a one-hit kill. They were already using every buff conceivable, so the one-shot didn't seem possible – until a breakthrough came in the form of the Winged Greathorn greataxe and its Soul Stifler debuff. This debuff makes enemies take 15% extra damage, which was enough to give Lionheart's mega-buffed greatsword enough damage to down both of Malenia's forms in one stab.
"Neither one of them took me that many attempts, but if I had to make an estimate it was probably around 20 - 30 for each, also taking into account that a few of these were successful runs that I redid because I wasn't satisfied," Lionheart says. "For example, when I was using the Curved Swords, I had one early run that was 18 seconds, but I knew I could get it faster." I'm trying to imagine being unsatisfied with an 18-second Malenia kill, and folks, I'm coming up empty.
"I have fought Malenia several, several times in many different ways, sometimes with buffs and sometimes without buffs, so I am very familiar with every move she has in her arsenal," they add. "After really learning her, I could go on for days about how impressive her AI is. It never ceases to amaze me how she can read and react to you based on what you're doing and where you are. In a long fight with her, you can really get a sense of her doing it. That being said, once you have these buffs memorized and you can do them with muscle memory, the most difficult part of a speed kill is always the RNG. If she does a move where she dodges away from you during your attack, for example, it can cause it to miss, making the fight go on for longer than you want.
Lionheart has killed Malenia in plenty of other ways, too, like this no-hit run in full Kratos cosplay or with a different bleed setup. Meanwhile, most of us are happy to have beaten her at all.
Elden Ring streamers have now moved onto beating the game, including Malenia, with their freakin' mind.
