Malenia's Great Rune

malenias great rune key item elden ring wiki guide
Type Great Rune
item effects icon elden ring wiki guide 55px 18pxEffect
Attacks dealt after taking damage recover HP.

Malenia's Great Rune is a Great Rune in Elden Ring. Great Runes in Elden Ring are special items dropped by Demigod Bosses that can be equipped to acquire special passive bonuses.

 

A Great Rune of the shardbearer Malenia.
The blessing of this half-rotted rune reduces the healing power of Flask of Crimson Tears.

And yet, due to the infusion of Malenia's spirit of resistance. attacks made immediately after receiving damage will partially recover HP.

Malenia is daughter to Queen Marika and Radagon, and her Great Rune should have been the most sacred of all.

 

Where to find Malenia's Great Rune in Elden Ring

Dropped as a reward for defeating Malenia, Blade of Miquella located at the Haligtree Roots Site of Grace in Miquella's Haligtree. [Map Link] Video Location

 

Elden Ring Malenia's Great Rune Use

If you want to use Malenia's Great Rune, you will need to activate it at the Isolated Divine Tower which can be accessed via waygate from the Divine bridge. [Map Link] After completing Crumbling Farum Azula, the Divine Bridge waypoint can only be reached via a teleportation trap in the Tower Of Return.

 

Elden Ring Malenia's Great Rune Notes & Tips

  • While this rune is active, getting hit will activate a small window of roughly 5 seconds where dealing damage will slightly restore HP up to the amount before you got hit.
    • Self-inflicted damage such as Bloody Slash or Seppuku does not trigger this. Only enemy hits can trigger the rune's effect.
    • The amount restored per hit is dependant on the type of attack (light, heavy, charged, jumping, etc) and your weapon class. Total damage does not affect the restored HP, but rather the damage modifiers of the weapon attack performed. This makes jumping attacks and charged attacks restore more % of HP on hit.
  • Getting hit multiple times in a row will reset the restore point to the amount of HP you had after the previous hit. E.g. If hit 1 reduces you from 500 to 400 HP, then hit 2 reduces you from 400 to 300 HP, you will only be able to restore back up to 400 HP by dealing damage.
  • There is a separate light-red HP bar that indicates how much HP you can restore through dealing damage.
  • The Flask of Crimson Tears is reduced to 70% of its normal HP recovery amount while this Great Rune is active.
    • Having the Great Rune just equipped (but not active) will not have any effect on the flask, only activating it with a Rune Arc will.

 




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    • Anonymous

      It should heal you as a 1 to 1 health to damage ratio and not require taking damage to activate. someone please make a mod that does this until we get it in the base game.

      • Anonymous

        This rune is From spitting on your face after leaving you black and blue on the pavement from the Malenia fight.

        • Anonymous

          What really messes with me is that Malenias self heal effect heals whenever she hits someone while this one has a time limit. If malenia had the time limit, kinda like she’s just a Bloodborne protagonist, it would make the fight so much less irritating, and if the rune just healed you whenever it would be worth the agony and the Rune Arc.

          Hey, at least her remembrance is cool

          • Anonymous

            They added a Bloodborne mechanic without keeping the speed. Pretty fun but needs a buff, something like go all in on the Bloodborne and make quickstep the default roll while using it

            • Anonymous

              They added a Bloodborne mechanic without keeping the speed. Pretty fun but needs a buff, something like go all in on the Bloodborne and make quickstep the default roll while using it

              • Anonymous

                "The Flask of Crimson Tears is reduced to 70% of its normal HP recovery amount while this Great Rune is active"

                Sorry, but if you guys need to nerf it this bad, then it shouldn't have been a health restorative style effect in the first place. This great rune just sucks all around.

                • Anonymous

                  You don't have to complete forum azusa to get to the tower. I'm on my first playthrough and got there without completing it.

                  • Anonymous

                    "If you want to use Malenia's Great Rune, you will need to activate it at the Isolated Divine Tower which can be accessed via waygate from the Divine bridge. [Map Link] After completing Crumbling Farum Azula"

                    Either I'm reading it wrong or this is not entirely correct because I could access the isolated divine tower from Divine bridge waygate after defeating Malenia and activate the great rune before going to Crumbling Farum Azula, except for that one instance at The Four Belfries.

                    • Anonymous

                      How to access the Divine tower needs to be changed, I accessed the Divine Bridge before I ever unlocked Altus Plateau. I've also beat Malenia and collected her rune without even setting foot in Crumbling Farum Azula

                      • Anonymous

                        Maybe the point of this Rune is to use it with Guard Counters. The blind swordsman who trained Malenia is also depicted on the Curved Sword Talisman which increases damage of guard counters. And Malenia herself usually plays back and lets you make the first move, channeling the Blind Swordsmans technique. So imagine you guard, you take chip damage, you Guard Counter, and now youve hit the enemy and healed back the damage you took while guarding. Sort of exactly as how the Blind Swordsman did it. Dont get me wrong - This is the worst Great Rune in the whole game and the fact you get it at complete end of the game and it doesnt go to NG+ makes it completely Pointless, Youre better off using Morgotts great rune to just increase your HP if you worry about health so much. But yeah, This might be intended for the Guard-Counter playstyle.

                        • Anonymous

                          Stuff like this makes me wish the great runes transitioned between NG+, because at least then you could have more bosses to try and use this on. But having it locked behind a boss that many people complete last means you'll rarely have time to even try this great rune. Not to mention that it debuffs your flask, which feels a bit harsh.

                          • Anonymous

                            What's the point of this? You can't use on pvp, it suck ass on PvE, it's end game rune so by the time you got it there's gonna be very few bosses left to even use it on. Mediocre Regen with a lot of restrictions. Think they wanted to balance it so bad worrying that it could get broken, that they made it a completely trash

                            • Anonymous

                              This Great Rune should be rebalanced imo. It should function pretty much identically to Malenia's with none of the caveats or healing nerfs, and instead just decrease the % healed per hit

                              • Anonymous

                                You severly limit your Crimson flasks, and if you don't have a Weapon that hits fast reliably, you won't get your lost HP back.
                                This is what you get for ordering what Malenia is using from Wish

                                • Anonymous

                                  This great rune feels like a spit in the face to everyone who's beaten malenia. The most difficult boss in the game with a margin of error so slim, it would make a piece of paper jealous. Malenia is already a slog to go through. But the rewards she gives are straight ass. The only good item she has is her katana, because you get to grief other players with waterfowl. The incantation is only good on weak enemies and dumb ass players, boss don't give a **** about the risk of scarlet rot, so they're more than fine fisting you while you wait for the animation to be over. And then there's this. Her heal effect, but if it wasn't her heal effect and sucked straight ass. Yes, you can make a build to make it usable, but if you have to make a build around making a great rune useful, it's not that good (unless it's to boost the capability, like rykards.). It's the only great rune in the game that imposes a penalty for having it active, which is already a con. But the heal effect is so bad compared to just using a flask, that it feels like an all risk, no reward. I like the idea of having bloodbornes rally in elden ring, but this game isn't built around that. Most bosses in this game have high damage attacks that make aggression way too risky, with the entire endgame being near impossible to do aggressive style (coincidentally, the endgame is when you'll actually get this great rune). And because this game has a roll, not a sidestep (bloodhound step doesn't count because it limits build variety), doing a follow up attack becomes somewhat of a rarity. A shame that malenia gets to have the best version of lifesteal she doesn't deserve, and players get a great rune not deserving of their time. If only malenia's frustrating difficulty could be backed up with the rewards.

                                  • Anonymous

                                    Honestly your better off with rykard great rune with cameo ring and what ever else u want to add health, much higher amounts of health and u don't get a flask nerf

                                    • Anonymous

                                      Easily the worst great rune in the game, makes crimson flasks heal for roughly 200 less health in exchange for a less efficient rally. Not to mention theres already weapons that heal upon each hit without damage having to be taken first.

                                      • Anonymous

                                        The roll damage from the briar armor set triggers the healing, which makes this rune almost useful if you spam rolls after a hit.

                                        • Anonymous

                                          The roll damage from the briar armor set triggers the healing, which makes this rune almost useful if you spam rolls after a hit.

                                          • Anonymous

                                            Kind of bad. The healing per hit is very low, so unless you have a way to do continuous hits that deal extremely low damage, you're not going to be able to heal enough to offset the flask nerf. I frequently find myself just killing the enemy before I have the chance to get even half the health I lost back.
                                            At this point, just use Blood Tax if you want regen per hit. It's fast, doesn't have a limited window of opportunity, and doesn't require you getting hit to activate its healing property.

                                            • Anonymous

                                              This works really well with Night Maiden's Mist, especially if there are multiple enemies inside it. For whatever reason, it also triggers when you're taking damage from it (though it has no effect).

                                              They really didn't playtest this one, huh?

                                              • Anonymous

                                                A failed way to include Bloodbornes rally system here. You get the rune way to late to be usefull, and the fact that it nerfes your flasks is absurd. Its the BLESSING of a GREAT RUNE. Every other rune gives you a strong buff with no downside, Malenia's rune is just trash.
                                                Its like malenias's lifesteal at home.
                                                Never used this rune again after my 1st try -_-

                                                • Anonymous

                                                  If you manage to do critical when the rune is being active(after you get hit and your HP turn pink) you will get entire of your lost hp back in single action.

                                                  • Anonymous

                                                    At the point of getting this, you've already had much easier access to:

                                                    - Crimson Dagger talisman (critical hits restore HP)
                                                    - Taker's Cameo (killing enemies restores HP)
                                                    - Blasphemous Blade / Takers Flames (killing / hitting enemies restores HP)
                                                    - Rykard's Great rune (killing enemies restores HP)
                                                    - Serpent God's Curved Sword (killing enemies restores HP)
                                                    - Prayerful Strike AoW (hitting enemies with L2 restores HP)
                                                    - Great Stars (hitting enemies with any attack restores HP)
                                                    - Butchering Knife (hitting enemies with any attack restores HP)
                                                    - Deathbed Dress (summoning Mimic Tear and chillin' for a while restores HP)
                                                    - Icon Shield (taking a nap in the corner restores HP)
                                                    - Blessed Dew talisman (Taking a nap in the corner restores HP)

                                                    None of the above mess with your flasks, nor do any of them have limits on how much HP they can restore (besides your maximum HP obviously).

                                                    It's like they didn't actually want people to beat Malenia - arguably the hardest boss in the game, for all the wrong reasons, and none of the rewards you get from it are nearly as good as what you've already come across, with the great rune being the most egregious example IMO.

                                                    • Anonymous

                                                      Only if there is a way to fight malenia early... Even if you intentionally avoid all the not required boss fights to fight malenia early, it still takes a lot of time and requires killing several important bosses. You may want to try using this great rune on them to have some fun but nope.

                                                      • Anonymous

                                                        Could be handy for a mage if it activates when using Phalanx spells to get in a bunch of hits quickly. Get hit, cast spell, run in, restore HP without engaging.
                                                        If it doesn't work with spells... shid.

                                                        • Anonymous

                                                          The rune effect fits very well with the boss who gives it to you, because both are total trash

                                                          Just use godskin talisman and the crimson dagger talisman for your bloodborne run

                                                          • Anonymous

                                                            Astounding how a boss meant for Sekiro has a Great Rune meant for Bloodborne and somehow it's the worst of both worlds in this game

                                                            • Anonymous

                                                              You don't need to clear Farum Azula for the waygate to activate. I did Malenia asap (aka before fire giant) and I can go through the waygate.

                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                How is she the hardest boss I dear the crap out of her I personally had more trouble from the elden beast of course I did use mimic

                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                  I'm not sure why this isn't just the most OP **** in the game. By the time you get it, you're practically done with your current playthrough/cycle, and Malenia is easily the most difficult boss fight, so who cares if it makes the final 1% of the game a cakewalk? You can always choose to not use it if you prefer to retain the challenge.

                                                                  Scarlet Aeonia also generally blows, but at least that carries over to NG+!

                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                    pair this great rune with elden star incantation and will never run out of health since the projectile of the star will be counted as hits and it will instantly recover your missing health

                                                                    • In my opinion, This rune kinda sucks. In bloodborne its great because your constantly keeping pressure on your enemy attacking. elden ring however. Unless your a 99 vigor bullgoat tank or malenia herself you need to wait like 10 seconds to attack a boss in a opening, its not really worth it.

                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                        "the Divine Bridge waypoint can only be reached via a teleportation trap in the Tower Of Return."
                                                                        thats not true, you can just walk there from the true Roundtable Hold in Leyndell

                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                          Best way to utilize this is to either get a crit or roll using the briar set. Still worse than regular healing though

                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                            It was fun putting together a full on bloodborne lifeleech build with this but by the time I got it, I only had a few bosses left before NG+. I wish plot progression was tied to flags associated with the number of shardbearers killed in that cycle, instead of how many great runes you have (I assume that's how it works, and why it doesn't carry over). It feels crummy to find a great rune you really dig but you can only use it in the last couple acts of the game before it disappears, and the game is hardly balanced around great rune acquisition order anyway.

                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                              FromSoft: Having this heal Melania for 400HP with each successful hit is challenging boss design, let’s add Waterfowl Dance to it.

                                                                              Also FromSoft: Having this heal the player on every successful hit is OP, let’s nerf it into uselessness.

                                                                              Seems to be pretty definitive proof to me that Melania is a poorly-conceived fight.

                                                                              • Kinda wish that this feature was just built into Hand of Melania. Great runes have no utility in PVP and by the time you get this one, you’re probably close to entering the next ng+ and losing it anyway.

                                                                                Honestly, something like a significant increase in resistance to scarlet rot would be more useful than this.

                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                  People are saying this is bad, and while it’s not exactly good, try using waterfowl dance or a fast attacking weapon with it. It takes some action to make it work, but otherwise I would still say to use godrick’s rune for passive benefits

                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                    You do not need to complete Crumbling Farum Azula to access the Divine Isolated Tower, it is accessible the moment you defeat Malenia.

                                                                                    T. I haven't even been to CFA nor do I even know how to get there yet.

                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                      This rune, I think, may be bugged. As others report, it does reduce all healing from all sources… but I think this also effects the “rally” healing from the rune itself as well, considering how pitiful the rally is on everything I’ve used with it.

                                                                                      On a side note, “Fire’s Deadly Sin” incantation’s self damage actually activates the rally, so no need to use regen to negate it with this rune.

                                                                                      I really wanted to bloodborne in Elden ring, hopefully the rune gets fixed or buffed.

                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                        This is the WORST Rune in the Game.... It negates/minimizes all your other Healing incantations and Blaspheming Blade healing.... What was FS thinking when they made this Rune....SMH!!!!

                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                          You can actually access the isolated divine tower before Crumbling Farum Azusa if you defeat Melania first

                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                            When I realized she healed with each attack I was excited to know if this rune provided this ability, what a let down. This should keep the flask debuff but heal a tiny bit of HP with each melee hit, regardless of any damage you received, then it would make sense wasting a Rune Arc to activate it. But no, they really had to ruin it in every possible way...

                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                              I tried Malenia's great rune at level 17. I was excited for it, but it's absolutely not worth it at low level, PvE or PvP.
                                                                                              (I used the Black Knife dagger +1 and Tyché +10 to defeat her at lvl 17.)

                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                Fun fact : you will never be able to use this against malenia.

                                                                                                Great job Fromsoft. Making it so that activated runes are a key item that disappears from your inventory on ng+ was such a great idea !

                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                  "Getting hit multiple times in a row will reset the restore point to the amount of HP you had after the previous hit"
                                                                                                  In a game where most enemies have pretty quick combos this destroys the usability of the rune, it should depend on a time window instead than on hits.

                                                                                                  • "The blessing of this half-rotted rune reduces the healing power of Flask of Crimson Tears"
                                                                                                    Okay, I get that. Meaning that having the rune effect active reduces the healing of the Flask of Crimson Tears, as it states in the description. Pretty straightforward. And that part works as intended. You heal less from the HP flasks.
                                                                                                    What I don't get is... Why does it affects the rest of the HP healing sources? Incantations, talismans, weapons (like Blasphemous Blade), get reduced healing too even though their classification is different.
                                                                                                    The description in-game doesn't say anything else. Is it a coding error? Is it intended and they just specified Flasks? Did they change the effect and forgot to change the description?
                                                                                                    There's a lot of "what if" here. Only ones with definite answers are the developers I guess, and I haven't seen this adressed in any sort of way since the previous patches (but then again, a lot of other stuff hasn't been adressed either). So no choice but to wait and see.

                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                      only when you take damage and only able to top off the last damage you took, within 5 seconds. does it work like that for her, i wonder? i'll bet not. the rune system was a huge waste of time for them. godrick's is the only one worth having until newgame+. they're always so stingy when it comes to the "fun" part of making games.

                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                        It isn't a bug. I read the description of the rune, it says exactly what it does, it reduces healing flasks.

                                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                                          I was able to access the divine tower through the teleported before doing Crumbling Farum Azula. I think the trigger is just beating Malenia.

                                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                                            Honestly the rune would be pretty fun to use if the pink bar didnt reset every time you got hit. Im using this with some fist weapons and like 100 poise and its cool when you get hit and regen your whole health bar. The only problem is when you get hit multiple times (which is basically every time).

                                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                                              Reduced healing can't be a bug by now. Still untampered with by the devs, it just makes sense too. Bloodborne esk healing can be OP with standard healing effects. Even incantations one

                                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                                Just a note: the teleporter to the Isolated Divine Tower was available to me before completing Crumbling Farum Azula. I’m not sure, however, if you need to have teleported there before the teleporter appears. Just wanted to let you guys know and save you some hassle.

                                                                                                                • Anonymous

                                                                                                                  Best boss fight in any Fromsoft game. Worst item in any Fromsoft game. [well maybe second or third worst].

                                                                                                                  • Anonymous

                                                                                                                    I don't think reduced healing is a bug. As soon as you activate the great rune you'll see a symbol looks like a flask with a downward arrow. I also used the great heal incantation and difference is very noticeable. Decided to never use the rune again unless I have really high poise and defense and ready to trade blows.

                                                                                                                    • Anonymous

                                                                                                                      "activate it at the Isolated Divine Tower........ After completing Crumbling Farum Azula" this is untrue. I have just activated the rune, and havent even been to CFA

                                                                                                                      • Anonymous

                                                                                                                        Such a long walk for a short glass of water. THIS is the reward for beating the most broken boss in FromSoft history?

                                                                                                                        • Anonymous

                                                                                                                          Literally only useful if you have fast weapons and either have massive poise OR you're an ironjar addict but you don't want to bother investing in a Madness build.

                                                                                                                          • Anonymous

                                                                                                                            Unlike the Godskin swaddling cloth, Malenia's great rune *does* continuously restore HP when using the skill on Ghiza whirligig wheel.

                                                                                                                            • Anonymous

                                                                                                                              I've done a lot of testing, using mods and what not and i can guarantee you this is THE worst Great Rune in the entire game.


                                                                                                                              1. This rune reduced your Flask healing, not 25% but 30%.

                                                                                                                              2. This is a "Ninja debuff" since it doesn't tell you in the description nor in game buff/debuff icon. This rune reduced Healing Effectiveness by 30%, just like Flask healing. What does this mean ? Well, basically all healing outside of Flask healing will be reduced (e.g Incant healing, Blessed Dew Talisman, etc.) In my opinion, this one is not a bug at all but rather intentional. Maybe FromSoft forgot to disclose it in the description of this Great Rune. The reason i think it's not a bug but rather intentional because if it's a bug, it must have something to do with game codes but in this case, you can literally tweak how much you want your Healing Effectiveness to increase or decrease.

                                                                                                                              3. The healing you get from immediately attack after taking damage determined by what type of weapon you use instead of damage you're doing. I've a modded dagger with 10k damage for testing vs unmodded, no upgrade Maliketh's Black Blade and Maliketh's Black Blade healed me more than dagger with 10k damage. I don't understand FromSoft, i really don't.

                                                                                                                              4. You get this rune in the hardest area in the entire game. And to add insult to injury, all Great Runes will be removed in each NG+. So you don't really get to experiment this rune. And why should you ? It's bad, don't bother.

                                                                                                                              Long story short, this Great Rune sucks, don't bother. Save your Rune Arc on other Great Rune instead.

                                                                                                                              • Anonymous

                                                                                                                                I really don't understand why the decrease in flask effectiveness needs to be this extreme. I mean none of the other great runes have debuffs, much less one that harsh. Would this really be OP with a more mild debuff? Or no debuff at all?

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