All welcome

It's time for the final (before DLC release) gift to my sister..... A flower more beautiful than any other.... I've been working on this Malenia... It's hard to say how long, probably more than half a year, though it didn't have a specific beginning and end.
In the process, though, I've been learning modding almost from scratch (Thanks to Herley the Author of Ultimate Malenia for getting me started in modding) and finally got around to finishing my favorite Souls games boss, adding everything (and more) that I wanted her to have.

My main goal is to make the battle with Malenia much more difficult, so that it can be an interesting challenge even for those who know Vanilla Malenia in detail (and this requires more than one successful Malenia kill). 

That said, unlike Vanilla, the boss difficulty is less compromised, so I'm not positioning this mod as "better than Vanilla" for making Malenia better than the developers is an impossible task
Rather, this mod aims to represent a more canonical image of Malenia, a Warrior who has never known defeat, where the Tarnished has practically no chance of winning, even considering her injuries.

So I think I should clarify this important point: I balanced and designed the entire battle with her around the melee zone, just like in vanilla all attacks and ultimates can be played consistently in the melee and mid roll
Of course, light roll and feather talisman still give a gigantic advantage, but I don't want to balance the battle around these tools.
Fighting her from afar with magic won't work (you can try, you will be surprised), Midrange "zoning" gameplay is much more difficult.

In general, to be able to fight back this Malenia, you need to know the Vanilla battle perfectly.
Of course I highly do not recommend this mod if you have only successfully completed vanilla Malenia a few times, if you don't know how to dodge Waterfowl Dance in melee without tools.

I will describe the main changes:

1. Malenia got a lot of new animations, some unused in vanilla her animations, but many I took from other enemies from ER, Sekiro and BB (Lady Maria)
2. Malenia now has full immunity to Scarlet Rot and Poison, and takes 50% less damage from Hemorrhage and Frostbite , Defense against all damage on phase 1 is increased, on phase 2 is the same as in vanilla
3. Health is reduced by 14%, but in general her survivability is much higher than in Vanilla (that's why I had to make this edit).
4 A lot of changes to Malenia's AI, The Severed has a lot of new combinations, cancels opportunities, and can also dodge melee attacks 
5. Waterfowl Dance can now transition into other animations with Water Dance, Malenia will be less likely to let you run away from the Dance and more likely to create situations that will require you to perform the Vanilla Dance dodge in melee
I note that the 1st jump of the Water Dance is not changed in any way, and requires the same mechanical performance as Vanilla, the 3rd jump of the Waterfowl Dance (with which she now completes the cycles of dances) has become much more accurate.
Regarding the Waterfowl Dance, she's added new animations for getting into the Waterfowl Dance stance with them and there's also an element of a non-obvious way to dodge.
6. Malenia now has a mini-phase of the Great Rune, which I called Valkyrie, in the 1st phase, Malenia accumulates the charge of the Great Rune, when it reaches its maximum, Malenia will temporarily receive its blessing
In the Goddess of Rot phase, Malenia will lose the blessing of the Great Rune.
*I'm not sure how "canonical" this is, you can call it self-referential and speculation, but it's just my vision of the effect of her Great Rune, which is described as "the most sacred of all".... Malenia in this phase gains some abilities referring to her loyal knights.
7. Scarlet Rot in the Goddess of Rot phase has become much more dangerous and almost unavoidable, now this phase almost forces you to use armor / immunity boosting talismans 
8. The Goddess of Rot phase is now built around Malenia's three blooms, as she loses health Malenia will use Scarlet Aeonia, with each bloom Malenia becomes stronger, gaining new abilities and mechanics
And after the third, she'll reach her peak of strength.....
*This is a metaphorical embodiment of the Scarlet Aeonia description.
9. Most importantly... If the Tarnished has completed Millicenta's quest.... he will be given a different, more compromising outcome of the battle with Malenia when she is defeated..... I realize that this mod is not for everyone and will not pass it not everyone, but maybe later, I'll post this feature separately from the Challenge mod.
10. A lot of changes to various attacks, there is no point in describing them all, many attacks have become more accurate, some faster, some got Hyperarmor
11. Normal NG+ cycle scaling has been reworked. There's now a single 15% increase in hp/damage for ng+, which stays the same for ng+2 and beyond. This rework only affects Malenia bossfight.

QoL
Patch 1.01 | You now restore 3 flasks at the beginning of the Goddess of Rot phase.
Patch 1.02.1 | Crafting Preserving Boluses now requires no reagents
Patch 1.03 | Added option to train only the Goddess of Rot Phase, If you have beat the Blade of Miquella phase at least once, you will be able to interact with the twin statue (which is right next to the Haligtree roots grace).
If you do this, the fight with Malenia will immediately start with the Goddess of Rot phase, but you will not be able to complete the fight completely
To exit training mode, interact with the statue again.
Patch 1.03 | This statue can also restore the fight with Malenia (it also rolls back Millicenta's quest by 1 step and returns the needle to you, if you completed the fight, to a new ending).

Installation

I have attached two versions of the mod, one uses modified ME2 and adds the soundtrack for the Valkyrie phase, run the mod directly from the folder via launchmod_eldenring without moving files (there is also a README file)
And the second version without the new OST , that is just the mod folder, without ME2, which you can install yourself like any other mod via ME2 or UXM.

This mod uses English and Russian localization files, so with other languages some new descriptions will be blank

F.A.Q. 

1. Can it be used with other mods?
I'm not sure, probably not, I wanted to adapt it to a co-op mod, but since I don't play with it myself, it's not my first priority, I've made a lot of changes to Event and with a high probability it will behave incorrectly online
2. Malenia's damage sometimes doesn't go through?
She has invulnerability frames on her dodges, the most notable one is Issin's dodge (sideways step) Issin has it working the same way...
3. Is it possible to kill her without damage or hits?
Technically there is such a possibility, because any situation that creates Malenia can be played/read, but it is VERY difficult, because the battle itself requires from the player an incredible tempo and aggression, and not to make small mistakes during a long aggressive battle is almost impossible
At the current mod version, it is 100% possible to beat this Malenia without taking damage


06.03.2024 UPD
Most likely before the release of the DLC I will no longer release any major updates, only fixing bugs when discovered 
But overall I want to rest and I think with the release of the DLC I will have new ideas for Malenia in mind, new assets, characters, Miquella, etc.