Elden Ring hotfix update patches Malenia's broken heal ability

Elden Ring has a plethora of great and optional bosses and enemies that can either bring players great joy when defeated or misery when you've been bested. One of the game's popular yet equally infuriating bosses, Malenia, Blade of Miquella, unintentionally saw its lifesteal ability break due to the massive 1.04 update.

This allowed her to recover HP even when her attacks didn't strike players, making it much harder to bring her health bar. Luckily, FromSoftware rolled out a hotfix update which resolved this annoying bug, among other balance changes.

Malenia's broken HP ability removed in Elden Ring hotfix

FromSoftware released a minor hotfix update on 27th April 2022, more than a week following its massive 1.04 update, which addressed significant balance changes to various weapons, spells and incantations. According to the developer, this hotfix is intended "to improve the stability of gameplay" following the 1.04 update.

While the details are relatively minor in scope, one of the biggest takeaways from the hotfix update is the significant balance change to the Malenia, Blade of Miquella boss fight. As stated in the hotfix patch notes, the developer wrote that the update "Fixed a bug with Malenia in which her HP was not healed correctly in the online multiplayer environment".

Within the Elden Ring community, this is one of the most challenging bosses many have encountered in their quest to become Elden Lord. Before the hotfix update, Malenia was constantly healing herself when players had evaded or dodged her highly offensive attacks as they hadn't landed on the player.

This bug in her lifestealing attacks occurs during online multiplayer, which means that when summoning players during co-op, her attacks will need to hit players for her to regain some HP. While this boss battle is excruciatingly difficult with her lifesteal ability, having her recover HP without landing attacks is infuriating.

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While players can relax just a little bit knowing that Malenia won't gain HP from every attack she launches, it's still a problematic boss to face nonetheless. Popular Elden Ring player, Let Me Solo Her, who had been lending his assistance in helping others defeat her, described the boss battle as "a nightmare to fight" while the bug was still live.

Elden Ring 1.04.1 hotfix update – Patch notes

Other notable changes include a bug that saw bosses dying unintentionally and a fix that prevented the final boss, the Elden Beast, from using its attacks under the right conditions. Below we have provided the complete 1.04.1 hotfix update patch notes for Elden Ring:

• Fixed a bug in which the effect duration of the Cerulean Hidden Tear was revised downward
• Fixed a bug with Malenia, Blade of Miquella, in which her HP was not healed correctly in the online multiplayer environment
• Fixed a bug that caused some bosses to die at unintended times
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the boss "Elden Beast" from working properly under certain circumstances
• Fixed some texts

This update is available across PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5 consoles, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam. Following the hotfix update, the new game versions should be app version 1.04.1 and regulation version 1.04.2.

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Featured image courtesy of FromSoftware.