Smelter Demon
HP: 5970
Skills: Sword Swing Combo*, Quick Sword Thrust*, Sword Slam*, Flame Body, Flame Sword*, Sword Plunge
Souls: 32000
Difficulty: 4/5
Deaths: 20+
So now that you're in the Old Iron Keep, its time to make some progress and actually try to take out that final soul lord. Of course, the keep is a mighty challenging place to navigate, with Alonne Knights everywhere trying to chase you down and kill you like the riot police. The captains even shoot arrows at you, and the entire area is surrounded with lava, meaning instant death the moment you fall in it. Keep following the obvious path to meet a boss in a small, locked away arena behind a fog gate....one of my personal WORST enemies in the game. Enter, the Smelter Demon.
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| No! F**k off! F**k you! |
The Smelter Demon awaits you, standing motionless as you enter the arena, when you approach him, a fire lights up within him, and the suit of armor springs to life, walking towards you with a massive sword. The Smelter Demon is a ruthless, hard hitting monster that shows no mercy, he will attack you with varying speeds, making him quite a hard opponent to read. He has a good variety of attacks and buff abilities that make things SO much harder for you. I hope you brought some fire resistance, (the Gyrm Greatshield helps as a last resort), because this guy is SCORCHING-LY difficult.
Sword Swing Combo* - A combination of horizontal and/or vertical slashes. Each and every swing he takes comes at a different speed, making this attack quite tough to avoid at times. The longer the battle drags, the more swings he takes, and he can swing up to 3 times. Can be blocked to a certain extent when he hasn't used Flame Sword.
Quick Sword Thrust* - When you are far away from him, he lunges towards you with great speed and thrusts his sword at you for some good damage. Can be dodged by rolling to the side, but this will almost always catch you off guard if you heal at the wrong time.
Sword Slam* - He slowly slams his sword down with an overhead stance. Easily dealt with normally, but when he has used Flame Sword, this causes a massive, flaming shock wave to emit from his sword.
Flame Body - He lights his body on fire for the rest of the fight, dealing minor damage over time to you if you stand near him.
Flame Sword* - He buffs his sword, engulfing it in flames, empowering all his attacks, making them do fire damage...as well as giving some of his attacks new properties. This fire effect chips through most shields for considerable damage.
Sword Plunge - He jumps into the air and plunges his sword down, hard. Easily dodged. After using Flame Sword, he can do an AOE flame burst after landing, so make sure you keep your distance.
As you can see, this hulking suit of flaming armor is certainly no joke. If you're a valiant, melee fighter, you'll need to get used to his attacks and find openings. If you intend to take this behemoth head on with ranged attacks, prepare to move around A LOT, because the arena is small, and you'll have little room to work with when pelting the fella from afar. Whatever style you play with, make sure to get accustomed to dodging his attacks, because when Smelter Demon uses Flame Sword, you can no longer resort to blocking, the chip will eventually overwhelm you.
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| Oh boy...here we go... |
The fight is split into 3 phases. During the first phase, which is about the first 20-30% of his HP, he attacks you in his base form. During phase 2, he lights himself on fire with Flame Body, immolating you if you're nearby for minor damage over time. The damage is minor, but it CAN kill you and if you prolong the fight, you're bound to have to heal yourself even if you didn't get hit, because you would have suffered too much fire damage. In his last phase, which usually happens when he hits about 50% HP or so, he uses Flame Sword, which sets his sword on fire and changes the properties of some attacks, PLUS his attacks do fire chip damage. All of his buffs last him the entire fight after he's used them, so prepare for a tough battle.
Let's start off with the area, the arena is small, meaning that the Smelter Demon can very easily get to you if he so wishes...you will have little opportunity to heal without getting punished. However, his attacks have windows of delay, albeit they can be hard to get used to because he has varying swing speeds when he swings his sword. When you're up close, he constantly spams his Sword Swing Combo, which can hit up to 3 times at most. Learn the timing and dodge his attacks, its ideal keep to his RIGHT side (his sword arm), so that you can maneuver around his attacks, eventually getting behind him so that you can have the better position. His recovery times are decently quick, so you only have to much time to land attacks of your own.
Make sure to always keep an eye out for your HP as you burn away to Flame Body. If you need to heal, do it after he uses Sword Plunge, an attack in which he flies into the air and plunges downward. It has a long recovery time, allowing you to either heal or get a few strikes in. He also has Sword Slam, in which he slams his sword down on you, that one has a long startup and decent recovery, if you want to hit him or heal, you can do it after that. However, beware, with Flame Sword on, he can choose to do an AOE flame burst after Sword Plunge, which does massive damage and covers a WIDE area, limiting you to only healing after Sword Plunge in phase 3. Also, his Sword Slam will emit a shock wave AFTER he slams down, meaning you'll need to adapt and change your dodge timing.
Note: My mistake, he can flame burst EVEN without Flame Sword on, though the timing is a lot easier to keep track of.
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| The big flaming sword can be intimidating...do not waver. |
Remember! All attacks must be dodged, relying on blocking gets you nowhere, especially in phase 3. This boss is so ridiculously tough because of how it straight out removes one of your methods of survivability. Without blocking, all you can do is dodge, and you'll need to be QUICK on your feet, especially since he does seem to have some sort of increased reach after he uses Flame Sword. Do remember that when he buffs himself for both Flame Body and Flame Sword, you can still hit him, even though he takes massively reduced damage during the duration of the buff animation.
If you somehow manage to play ring around the rosie and defeat him...congratulations, that's one of the toughest bosses in the game out of the way. You get 32000 souls, as well as a shortcut bonfire to proceed deeper into the Keep. However, its not quite over yet, the Smelter Demon ISN'T the master of the keep....in fact, the true Soul Lord residing here isn't that far ahead.
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Old Iron King
HP: 6070
Skills: Fist Smash, Double Fist Smash, Flaming Fist Smash*, Fire Breath, Fire Shock Wave
Souls: 48000
Difficulty: 2/5
Deaths: 1
Let's get straight to it, as you progress into the final reaches of the Old Iron Keep, you meet this son of a bitch, the past owner of this place, a leader of his kingdom, and also, one of the 4 soul lords that you need to defeat. Coincidentally, he's the last one, and fortunately, he's not too tough, despite how badass he looks. Meet the Old Iron King, or Icarus Earth, or whatever you want to call him, he's here, he looks like Diablo, and he wants to kill you. Bring ranged attacks to this fight if you want to easily cheese him on your first try.
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| Well well...what do we have here? |
The Old Iron King is big and menacing. He also fights differently from most other bosses in the franchise. He is very similar to the likes of Dragon God from "Demons' Souls", and to some extent, the Moonlight Butterfly from the first "Dark Souls". He'll exist on a platform that you cannot walk on, but you can reach him with attacks. He tries to throw all sorts of shit to hit you, most of which you can punish. Here is what he can do.
Fist Smash - He plummets his fist down on the platform after a massive delay. He then leaves his fist there for whatever reason, letting you get free hits in.
Double Fist Smash - He smashes downwards with both fists, covering a larger area. He also leaves them after smashing down for a long time, letting you get MORE free hits in.
Flaming Fist Smash* - Similar to the original Fist Smash, but after plummeting his fist down, it causes a firestorm around the fist. Just move away, wait for the firestorm to subside, then go in for your free hits once again.
Fire Breath - He breaths slow jets of fire that creep forward. After dodging the initial first flames, you can go in to strike his belly for some easy hits.
Fire Shock Wave - He calls forth a very predictable shock wave after a long start up. Easily dodged to the side, and you can get PLENTY of free hits in.
Notice something about the Old Iron King here? ALL of his attacks have massive recovery time and you can very, very easily land hits on him, chipping him down, bit by bit. This will make his high HP pool seem like a joke as you can simply just hack away and he'll die sooner or later. His attacks are big, loomy, and downright easy to dodge, however, there is one very real threat in this boss battle that you'll immediately notice right off the bat. The arena...its quite small. Your only real threat of dieing is getting cheesed off the stage for an instant kill. Also note that none of his attacks are blockable, but they are so slow and easy to dodge...you should have no problem.
There's a cheeky little hole at the back of the small platform you are given, if you drop in there its instant death. He has plenty of attacks that knock you back, meaning that he's aiming for that f**king hole. His regular Fist and Double Fist Smash attacks have long startup times, meaning you can easily move away, then hack away as he leaves his fists there for you. The Flaming version is probably the only attack you'll need to watch out for, the firestorm is unpredictable and can knock you off the stage. Simply stay away and wait for the fire to subside.
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| ...He looks like a flamewaker from Hearthstone, no? |
Next up are his ranged attacks, which are quite easy to deal with. Flame Breath has him spitting flames at you in a wide arc. The flames have gaps, so you can easily side step them or sneak into the gaps, then go in for a few easy swipes. His Fire Shock Wave has a very long startup, you can just side step the damn thing, then go in for hits as well. All of these moves can knock you off the stage, so take heed and you should be more than fine.
Either way, with how many hits you can land on him with each attack he throws out, you'll probably be done with him after he does about 4-5 attacks. That takes care of the last soul lord, and you get a whooping 48000 souls. Now we can finally proceed into the King's Territory, with 4 great souls in hand.
