Smelter Demon

He'll smelt your heart

    Now THIS is what I'm talking about. Man, what a great, fun, challenging fight this is. Everything a Souls boss battle epitomizes. After four-or-five pushover battles, we have one of the tougher ones of the whole game. In fact, some consider it THE hardest battle of the game, but I'll have to disagree with that. He's a slight step down (at least for me) from the Gargoyles and Lost Sinner, but he's much more enjoyable to fight. And he means business, that's for sure. This sucker is no joke.
    He's a big demon (duh) with a big sword (lots of bosses in this game love using swords. Moreso I think than any other Souls game). I thought he was wearing armor, but apparently he's a huge suit of armor that has come to life. It's tough to tell exactly, but the armor is iron, but it looks like it's burned or charred or something like that. Which would make sense. He also has large horns, and basically a hole for a face (I read something on a forum yesterday along the lines of, "why does he have a flaming butthole for a face". I laughed heartily). He has a small fire in his core. As the battle goes on (and I believe this is based on his health), he stops twice to "upgrade" himself: the first time, he makes the fire in his core much larger (and it will slightly damage you if you're too close to him). The second time, he plunges the sword right into this beefed up fire core, and wouldn't you know it, the dang thing comes out engulfed in flames! Oh yippee!

Bad picture of Smelter Demon

    The battle gets progressively more difficult as he upgrades himself. Once his sword is on fire, you really don't wanna get hit by it. As I've said, this is another sword battle, and you really have to stay on your toes for this one. It must be noted I'm becoming much more confident in my overall ability to dodge/roll from attacks, and as such I've been two-handing my longsword +9 and using my shield less and less (at least in boss battles). I didn't bother with my shield in this battle. This was all rolling and dodging his attacks, then retaliating when I had the chance. It all comes down to precise timing, and reading his tells (which is true of most boss battles). I used aromatic ooze (which imbues your right-hand weapon with magic) which helped IMMENSELY. It close-to-doubled my damage.
    Besides his normal sword swipes, which can be easily rolled from, he'll also jump in the air and slam his sword into the ground. He's immobile for a few seconds, and it looks like a great opportunity to attack. But by the gods don't go near him! Well, you can go near him, but he'll do a AoE explosion-sort-of-attack that hurts tremendously. At first, I thought he did this attack randomly, and it was quite aggravating. I was afraid to go in and get hits normally. I did realize he only did this attack when his sword is plunged into the ground. So you shouldn't attack him while he does this, but it's certainly a great time to heal. Speaking of getting free hits on him (we did sorta talk about that, right?), as soon as you walk through the fog gate, ol' Smelty (does this construction still work?) is just standing there in the middle of his room. You can get a few attacks in, free of charge. You can also whale on him the two times he stops to charge his core/sword. Lots of free hits in this battle, and its' STILL hard as hell. Of note, I also used the green grass that boosts stamina recovery (forgot the name of it) before each attempt. I'm not sure how much it helped, but maintaining stamina is a key to this battle. I had 13 or 14 of those grasses from those purple mushroom-looking guys in Earthen Peak anyway, so I figured it wouldn't hurt.

There's some horns here.

    That's all I have for strategy for this battle. Meleeing and killing this guy, being right up in his face, and dodging his attacks, felt great. It was very satisfying to take him down. This might be my new favorite battle so far. It's tough (but fair), it tests your reflexes, and Smelter just looks awesome. Haven't had a knight boss in a while, huh? Unfortunately he's an optional boss, but it seems most people fight him anyway. Finally, for a little bit of extra fun, once he kill him and light the bonfire that's beyond him (not sure if you have to also rest at it), go back into his room. You might just meet an old friend...


Times I died: 13
Difficulty: 8/10
Rating: 9/10

After some unsuccessful wandering around the Gutter, I went to the Shaded Woods instead. We'll see some of those battles next (including THE most irritating boss so far)
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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "...that haunts the castle that sunk into a pool of iron; The Old Iron King's life was taken by a mass of iron that had been given a soul. Was this metal goliath there from the beginning, or was it a product of the king's conceit."

 

Smelter Sword

Smelter Sword: "The earth spouted fire, and a beast arose from the flames. The short-sighted king was incinerated by the creature in one swing, and his castle devoured in a sea of flames."