On Malachite Elite Enemies

A lot of my problems with Risk of Rain 2 are more about me needing to get good and be more greedy. I need to grab more items for myself and stop trying to constantly help my team mates. Especially if I’m playing Engineer and the team’s only source of reliable heals. I can admit I fucked up by not correctly dodging all 7 of those charging, elite bison. Sometimes I make stupid decisions and go the wrong way. Or, as is most often the case, I just get focused and can’t get to cover quickly enough, because I forgot to buy some movement items.

But some deaths don’t feel like they’re my fault. And, after a successful loop, most runs end because of a specific enemy.

Malachite Elites

While Blazing, Glacial and Overloading elites will spawn wherever they want, Malachite Elites are generally left until you successfully beat 5 levels and loop round, the same way invisible-aura Celestine Elites do. But while Celestine Elites are simply tanky bastards that make other enemies invisible (but still shootable), Malachites do… everything. They are terrifying enemies that will end a run if you’re not a pro.

Malachite Stacked Stats

Okay, firstly, they have (according to the wiki) 23.5 times the health of a normal enemy. That’s compared to the 4.7 times that Blazing/Glacial/Overloading elites have. A huge amount of health! They also do 6 times the damage of normal enemies.

Malachites have tons of other effects though. They constantly shoot black and green spiky things in a large area of effect that do lots of damage. And they will explode into more spiky things when they die, which will shoot at you. And the mine things explode and can’t be destroyed. These would be fine if being hit by ANY Malachite attack didn’t instantly remove your ability to heal.

Basically, if you get hit by a Malachite enemy, you can’t heal at all for 8 seconds. Everything can still damage you no problem. This can be particularly bad because everything does more and more damage as you go along. Various healing items will keep you afloat, but these essentially get stolen from you because of Malachite enemies. Not to mention that 8 seconds is a VERY long time in a very fast game with swarms of enemies everywhere.

Oh and these guys can be hard to see. Malachite foes are obvious on Titanic Plains, but on the darker, greener and blacker maps, they blend in with ease. Particularly on the predominantly green and dark Wetland Aspect.

Okay, Celestines have the massive extra damage and health too, and if they hit you, you are slowed by 80%. But being slowed can be negated by a movement item or ability, and Celestine enemies tend not to have extra attacks as well that spawn after the elite itself is dead.

Then we have Horde of Many…

Malachite Horde of Many boss fights aren’t that common, but they happen enough. They happen enough at least for me to have had two runs instantly ended by Malachite bosses. To put it another way, there’s only so much you can do to dodge all the lasers of 4 Malachite Stone Golems in a small area.

But because teleporter bosses are random, as are teleporters themselves, you can’t do much to prepare. Even if you never touch a Shrine of the Mountain, you can still get Horde of Many as a boss.

Thing is, if a Malachite enemy only had a couple of these effects, they would be fine. But compared to other elites and bosses, Malachites have so much run-ending power. If anything, a Malachite Lesser Wisp is scarier than an Overloading Worm or two. And that doesn’t feel right at all.

How do you defeat a Malachite Enemy?

Well, aside from the simple “don’t get hit” and “just shoot it lol” stuff… you will probably want to get a ton of Old Guillotines, so you can execute the Elite Enemy when it hits a certain health threshold. But if you haven’t had the chance to pick up loads of Old Guillotines, then you’ll just have to keep on shooting them and hope you can kill them quickly. While also keeping your distance.

Keeping your distance though can be tricky, because not everyone has lots of range. And some characters are melee-only. So you have to very carefully time your attacks so you don’t get caught by the mines.

The other option is to not fight it. Which is fair, but if you are not at the level where you are nuking everything yet, that Malachite will wander over to where you are and eventually ruin your day. You can try and run forever, but because you have to stop and kill teleporter bosses to proceed, you will eventually die.

Then again, every run ends in death.

Dying is what you do. Most runs end with you dying, and only a handful end with you dying willingly. That’s literally part of the game, unless you get the Beads of Fealty and fight in A Moment, Whole. Although, even then, you’re still going to starve to death in a place that seems to be outside of all existence.

While I accept that death is guaranteed to happen and I need to git gud, I just… kinda wish it wasn’t because of a pointy, hard-to-see thing and lost the effects of all my healing items. Difficulty is fine, but sometimes that difficulty doesn’t fit in with everything else.