Smelter Demon (Iron King DLC variant)

What is this, Mortal Kombat?

     So, you've beaten Fume Knight, huh? Great job! And Sir Alonne? Ha, piece of cake, amiright? Well, what else is there to do with this fine DLC? What else is there to kill? What's that? You want a re-skin of a boss from the main game? Oh, you...DON'T want a re-skin of a boss from the main game? Oh, well, too fucking bad! Enter the (blue) Smelter Demon!

He just blue himself

    Okay, this post doesn't have to be very long, because this is almost 100% the exact same battle as the optional one from the Iron Keep. There are a few differences, however. First, his appearance. Obviously, he's blue instead of red. This reflects the fact that instead of being infused with fire, he's infused with magic. So in that case, he's not weak to magic like the original one is. His blue-ness extends to his horns, his sword, and the core of his body. He still stops twice to buff his sword, and by the final one, it's a giant Blue Flaming Weapon of Horrible Death. Admittedly, he looks very cool. Maybe even more so than the original. Secondly, his horns are a little bit different as compared to his red brother. The original version in the Iron Keep has horns that stick more out to the side. This blue guy has them that stick straight up. A minor difference, and nothing that changes any aspect of the battle. Finally, when he does stop to buff himself (by either charging his sword, or plunging it into his core), he will let off an AoE blast, similar to the one he uses with the sword-jump-plunge attack. This is pretty evil on From's part, because at least the first time you fight him and he goes to buff, your natural instinct will most likely be to get some free hits in. The AoE prevents this.
    Before we get into any other part of the battle, I would just love to talk about the path to the boss. I already did in my Iron King DLC overview, but I might as well complain about it here too. Apparently, this area was designed as a sort of "co-op" area. While I appreciate the thought of making an area specifically for jolly cooperative play, this area is not fun, even with other summons. It's just jam-packed with dozens of enemies. It's tough to get through it with everyone intact. It's difficult, but doable, to run through the area, but it is very tedious. The whole ordeal (Iron Passage, it's called) makes you not want to even bother fighting this boss. Just knowing you have to either run (and die) or fight (with still a good chance at dying) through this garbage is a soul-killer (no pun intended. LOL!). It's similar to Cave of the Dead, but that, somehow, wasn't as irritating. Iron Passage is a big reason that, as of this writing (currently September 15, on quite a chilly morning, I might add), I don't have him beaten yet. Every time I pick up the controller to play, visions of Iron Passage dance through my brain, and then I'm all like, "ugh". But, rest assured, by the time this goes live, he'll have been beaten!

He still has a puckered butt-hole face, at least

    As far as the fight itself, it's the same as the original one. Once you walk through the fog gate, Smelter is standing in the middle of a round room. After a second, he goes on the attack. Thankfully his attacks are much slower and more deliberate than both Fume Knight and Sir Alonne, so he's seems like he's fighting in molasses, by comparison. He has sword swings and slashes, along with an overhand smash. He'll jump in the air and slam his sword into the ground. Of course, when he does this, he'll let off his AoE attack if you are too close. This is an excellent time to heal, by the by. As stated, he still does two buffs, and by the final one, his sword becomes much harder to dodge, at least for me. It must be a mental thing with buffed-up, intimidating looking swords. If Smelter Demon didn't engulf his sword in (magic) fire, he would be simple to beat. His pre-buff attacks are all easy to roll from, and he leaves you ample time to retaliate or heal. I suppose that's why he has the buff. Otherwise, he's a pushover.
    There are two NPC summons you can use for this battle. Of course, they are at the very beginning of Iron Passage, so they would have to go through the gauntlet with you. It's the same two from the Sir Alonne fight: Drifter Swordsman Aidel and Steel-Willed Lorrie. Again, they both suck horribly anyway, so your best bet is to either summon human phantoms (all summon signs seem to be in the first room of the Iron Passage, with the NPC summons) or just go it alone. Even with summons, you all still have to fight through the Iron Passage. You could take the time to de-spawn all the enemies, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
    Admittedly, the five paragraphs above were written before I beat Smelter Demon. I finally did beat him yesterday, and I should talk a little about how that was accomplished. Take a guess. Go ahead!

    With NPC summons, of course! I'm basically incapable of beating bosses without help anymore. Six new bosses between the first two DLC chapters, and I had to summon help to defeat five of them (the exception being those idiots in Cave of the Dead). This is pretty disheartening for me. I mean, I've never been one of those, "look-down-my-nose-at-people-who-summon-help" kind of people, but generally I can solo most of these bosses. I don't want to make excuses, because the answer is just I'm not patient enough to learn the patterns and tells of these bosses. But really, after 30 solo attempts, isn't that e-fucking-nough solo attempts? Jeesh. But, as constant readers of this blog (I'm borrowing that phrase from Stephen King) will know, I'm trying the herculean task of going through my backlog. A side-effect of that is not getting a chance to fully explore, or 100% complete, some games. What that means for Dark Souls II DLC is, well, I need to have it finished a week or two after it comes out. I can't just stay stuck on a boss for weeks on end. The good news is that the final chapter of DLC, "Crown of the Ivory King", is supposed to be the hardest of them all. Including bosses, or so I've read. Yay.
    Anyway, I summoned both Lorrie and Aidel for this battle. It's tough to lead them through Iron Passage without them taking too much damage, but they generally follow you, if you just run straight through. And by my final half-dozen attempts, most of the pesky enemies had de-spawned. They both do pitifully small amounts of damage, but they provide help in two critical areas: they can tank like hell, and they usually take the focus off of you. Smelter usually focuses on the two of them instead of you, and this leaves you ample time to attack, heal, or buff. Also, they can absorb crazy amounts of damage. On my final attempt where I beat him, they both arrived in the boss area with full health, and they were both alive at the end. They do just enough damage to be worthwhile. I was doing about 305 with my Flame Weapon-ed Curved Dragon Greatsword (that damage output was doubled if I fought him solo). They were both doing between 80-95 damage.
    So, there you have it. I'm disappointed in From for giving us a boss re-skin, but I'm also disappointed in myself for not having the hutzpah to see this battle through. I know I can beat him on my own. I mean, I did solo the normal Smelter Demon on my first playthrough. Maybe I'm having such difficulty because I'm trying all these bosses, for the first time, on NG++. That certainly doesn't help. Oh well, at least I finally beat this DLC. Unfortunately, the final DLC got pushed back a week. Look for some boss posts for that in the first week of October, roughly. Otherwise, I'll have two Arkham Origins posts up tomorrow, most likely.