How to Beat Maliketh, the Black Blade in Elden Ring

Kill Maliketh and you lose a city. The moment the Black Blade goes down, Leyndell, Royal Capital is swapped for its ash-buried twin, and Fextralife's Ashen Capital page itemises the bill: no Royal Capital until New Game Plus, no Bolt of Gransax if it is still sitting on its spear, no Duelist Set, no Guardian Garb (Full Bloom). Patch 1.17 added one more line to that list, the Tarnished Pack's Noble Broken Mask invasion.

So this guide starts with what to finish before the fog gate, then gets to the fight: 10,620 HP across two phases, a debuff that eats your maximum HP, a boss your hits cannot flinch, and a parry tool you only get if Rykard is already dead. Where Maliketh sits in the run is in the boss order guide. This is how to beat him.

Before the fog gate: what his death deletes

Two late-game moments change the world, and they are easy to blur together.

The first is the Forge of the Giants. Accept Melina's offer to burn the Erdtree and you wake up in Crumbling Farum Azula. Fextralife's Forge page says the Roundtable Hold burns, cosmetically, from then on, and that arriving in Farum Azula can lock you out of the Brother Corhyn and Goldmask questline and Nepheli Loux's questline if they have not progressed far enough. The endings guide covers why Goldmask matters.

The second is Maliketh's death, and it is the expensive one. The same Fextralife page separates the two: the ash over Leyndell and the embers across the map arrive only after Maliketh is defeated. Its Farum Azula walkthrough tells you to collect anything you want from Leyndell before the fight, so the capital is still a fast travel away while he lives.

Check the Bolt of Gransax first. Fextralife puts it on the giant spear lodged in a building, reached on foot down from the Erdtree Sanctuary grace once the golden shade of Godfrey in the Royal Capital is dead; it also lists jump routes that reach the spear earlier. The Noble Broken Mask trigger, casting Law of Regression at the Radagon statue, is walked through in our Tarnished Pack locations guide.

Getting to him

The nearest grace is Beside the Great Bridge. Fextralife's route heads west, then south up the stairs and up the ramp, where a Draconic Tree Sentinel intercepts you before the gates, and on through the door into the arena. Both wikis list the Godskin Duo, earlier in Farum Azula, as a fight you cannot skip on the way.

Spirit Ashes and multiplayer are both allowed, per Fextralife. If stance breaking is part of your plan, bring an Ash: the stance-break guide explains why a co-op phantom cuts your stance damage and a Spirit Ash does not.

The arena is a wide circle with an open drop around the rim, per Fandom, and a ring of pillars in the middle that Maliketh climbs. Fextralife says those pillars also block his Black Blade projectiles, which makes them your healing cover. Its fight overview opens by telling you to walk forward the moment you enter rather than fight on the short bridge.

Combat profile

HP and runes match on Fandom and Fextralife. Defense, stance, parry and damage types come from Fextralife's combat data, and the stance of 80 is the figure in the stance-break guide. The hitstun row is from Fextralife's Poise page, which uses Maliketh as its example of a special effect that sets every damage level to no stagger.

Two things follow from that table.

One bar means phase one counts. Fandom puts the transformation at half health, so the Beast Clergyman is 5,310 HP of the fight, not a warm-up. Fextralife adds that stance buildup carries over into phase two as well.

No hitstun means no trading. A light attack will not knock him out of a swing. Your staggers come from a stance break or a Blasphemous Claw parry, and nothing else on this page.

What actually hurts him

Fextralife's negation numbers, with the raw damage of each type it takes to empty the 10,620 HP bar:

That table models negation only, not defense or motion values, so read it as a ranking rather than a damage forecast.

The chart is flat until the last row. Physical beats the three elements by five points of negation, which works out to about 8% less raw damage needed, so bring whatever your build already does well. Holy is the exception. At 80%, a holy build is fighting a boss with five times its HP bar, and Fextralife lists holy among the things he is strong against. If your Faith character's damage is golden, swap to a fire or physical option for this one fight.

Status buildup to the first proc, and after each later proc:

Rot and poison have the lowest bar, 351 against 574 for bleed and frost. Fextralife's tip for incantation users is to open with Ekzykes's Decay while the Clergyman is still closing the distance, as long as he does not start with a full sprint. What a frost proc does is in the status effects guide. Sleep is not worth building for: at 2,277, it is the other entry on Fextralife's "strong against" list.

Phase 1: the Beast Clergyman

You may have already watched phase one from the other side. Fandom's moveset for the Beast Clergyman includes Bestial Sling, Beast Claw, Stone of Gurranq and Gurranq's Beast Claw, and those are four of the incantations Gurranq hands out in the Bestial Sanctum, for your second, fifth, sixth and eighth Deathroots. The blade in his hand is a Cinquedea.

Fextralife's attack list, trimmed to the moves worth learning, with its counters:

Bestial Sling is the one to learn. Fextralife says the tell is his claw held across his chest, and the rocks come out fast enough to interrupt a cast. His low horizontal swings can be jumped for a counterattack. A shield stops the dagger, but Fextralife notes his incantations still chip through 100% physical guard.

Use phase one to set up phase two. Fextralife's plan is to build stance on the Clergyman with heavy attacks and push him past half health with his stance bar close to breaking, so Maliketh breaks after one or two heavies once the cutscene ends. Its notes also say it does not take much to force the transition. Casters get a version of the same trick: if he does not open with a full sprint, Fextralife says there is time to set up a big spell such as Comet Azur and push him straight into phase two.

Phase 2: Maliketh and Destined Death

At half health a cutscene plays, he draws the Black Blade, and the fight becomes about one debuff. Fandom's boss page says all of his phase-two attacks cause health loss over time and a temporary cut to your maximum HP; Fextralife's page pins it on his sword attacks. That is Destined Death:

• Maximum HP drops by 10%, per Fandom's status page, so your flasks cannot heal into that slice while it lasts.
• HP drains on top of the hit. Fextralife warns the damage over time can finish you if a sword combo has already left you low.
• It wears off. Fextralife says the max-HP debuff lasts 10 to 15 seconds.

Fextralife offers two answers. The first is the Crimsonburst Crystal Tear, which it says offsets the drain: 7 HP a second for three minutes, 1,260 HP in all, dropped by the Erdtree Avatar under the Weeping Peninsula's Minor Erdtree. The Wondrous Physick guide covers what goes in the other slot. The second is the pillars. Put one between you and him with the camera unlocked and, per Fextralife, his AI paces around it looking for a line of sight, which buys time for the debuff to expire. It works best solo.

Phase two also adds holy to his damage, so holy negation pays here. The Radagon guide has the talisman-and-buff stack and how it multiplies.

The rule underneath the table is position. Fextralife calls him most dangerous at a distance, says his frontal cones miss if you are at his feet or behind him, and says to wait out his airborne attacks before you swing.

The Blasphemous Claw

The Claw is a reusable tool that costs no FP, and its description says what it is for: deflecting the power of the Black Blade. Fandom files it with Margit's Shackle, Mohg's Shackle and the Purifying Crystal Tear as items that exist to make one very hard boss more manageable.

Getting it. Recusant Bernahl drops it when he invades you in Crumbling Farum Azula. Both wikis tie the invasion to Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy being dead and Bernahl having left the Volcano Manor, which Fandom says he does once you exhaust his dialogue there after Rykard's death. Fextralife adds that if you never talk to him, he never leaves and never invades. The invasion comes north of the Great Bridge, by the tower holding the Old Lord's Talisman chest, and he also drops the Devourer's Scepter and his Beast Champion armor. What that talisman does is in the talismans guide.

Using it. The parry windows are in phase two, and the cue is his sword glowing gold:

• The end of Black Blade, both the slash and the dive. Fextralife says the stun lasts longer after the dive.
• The double spin after he lands on his sword. Fandom lists it, and Fextralife calls the window much smaller.

A white glow is not a cue. Fextralife's Claw page says it comes before his projectiles, and that those do not appear to be parryable. One tip on Fextralife's boss page calls the parry cue a white aura, but the same page's melee notes and Fandom both say gold, and Fextralife's Claw page says yellow, so watch for gold.

What a parry buys. Per Fextralife, he is stunned for a few seconds, covering his eyes and swinging slowly, takes about 200 damage from the Claw, and has his damage resistance lowered by around 20% while the stun lasts. Stay under him and hit him. Fextralife also warns that a late parry can still let the hit through, and that this happens more often in co-op.

Patch 1.17's "improved parry performance" line sits under the Parry skill. No patch note mentions the Claw.

Gurranq, and what you do not lose

If you have been feeding Deathroot to Gurranq, you are about to meet him again. Fandom's Gurranq page settles the worry: fighting Maliketh before you finish the questline does not affect it, Gurranq stays in the Bestial Sanctum after Maliketh is dead, and killing Gurranq does not change the Maliketh fight. The ninth Deathroot still gets you the Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. Finish the questline before the fight and Maliketh's lines change; both wikis record the alternate dialogue.

What patches have changed

Nothing that names him. Fextralife's compiled patch notes from 1.02 to 1.17, Fandom's game-version pages from 1.01 on and Bandai Namco's own 1.17 notes have no entry for Maliketh, the Beast Clergyman or the Blasphemous Claw. The one version note that does name him is Fandom's page for 1.00, the launch build, which records that his Destined Death attacks used unique purple particles; none of the later patch notes mentions that change.

The patches did touch his rewards. 1.04 cut the stamina cost and recovery time of the Black Blade incantation. 1.07 adjusted it in both directions, trimming stamina cost and recovery again but lowering its attack power, stamina damage and poise damage, and the same patch sped up the Destined Death skill on Maliketh's Black Blade and extended its max-HP debuff.

After the kill

Maliketh pays 220,000 runes and the Remembrance of the Black Blade, which Finger Reader Enia trades for Maliketh's Black Blade or the Black Blade incantation. The Remembrance rewards guide has both stat lines. Fextralife says you are teleported to the Leyndell, Capital of Ash grace, and you can fast travel back to Beside the Great Bridge to touch the Maliketh, the Black Blade grace in the arena.

The Ashen Capital has loot of its own, including Erdtree's Favor +2 (see the talismans guide) and Goldmask's Mending Rune of Perfect Order (see the endings guide). Its bosses are Sir Gideon Ofnir and Godfrey, First Elden Lord, and past them wait Radagon and the Elden Beast.

On New Game Plus he barely moves at first: Fextralife's table puts him at 10,631 HP and 440,000 runes on Journey 2. The New Game Plus guide explains how the rest of the world scales.

Quick Action Checklist

• Clear Leyndell first. Pick up the Bolt of Gransax and anything else you want from the Royal Capital; it is gone until New Game Plus once he dies.
• Trigger Noble Broken Mask before the fight if you own the Tarnished Pack.
• Kill Rykard and exhaust Bernahl's dialogue at the Volcano Manor, then let Bernahl invade north of the Great Bridge for the Blasphemous Claw.
• Leave holy at home. He negates 80% of it; physical sits at 35% and the three elements at 40%.
• Build stance in phase one. His HP bar and his stance buildup both carry across the transformation.
• Do not trade hits. Your attacks cannot stagger him. Stance breaks and Claw parries can.
• Claw on gold, not white: the finish of Black Blade, and the double spin after he lands on his sword.
• Mix a Crimsonburst Crystal Tear to offset Destined Death's drain, and use the pillars to let the max-HP cut wear off.
• Stay close. He is most dangerous at range, and his frontal attacks miss at his feet.
• Keep feeding Gurranq. Killing Maliketh does not end that questline.