Orthogonal
Member
Your biggest problem is rolling way too early to dodge the ultra greatsword swing. Took me a while to learn that lesson too, but gotta delay the urge a little longer. I also roll into him during greatsword swings to setup a hit.
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Dark Souls II |OT++| Bearer of...Seek...Seek...Lest
- Thread starter Vazra
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Your biggest problem is rolling way too early to dodge the ultra greatsword swing. Took me a while to learn that lesson too, but gotta delay the urge a little longer. I also roll into him during greatsword swings to setup a hit.
Your positioning is hurting you, you are actually getting a bit too far away from him. Every one of his attacks can be avoided by rolling towards him, I actually find rolling away from him to be very dangerous. Personally, I am most successful rolling towards his smaller sword, then when he goes for a hit with the big sword I am usually already behind him. You are also feeling the wrath of that long drawn out second R1 from the twinblade, to be safe you should really only ever hit him once with an R1. Last thing is that you are rolling super early for a lot of the big sword swings, but I am sure you know that, it is just a really tricky moveset that he has.
All these are small changes, you should be totally fine once you get his slow attacks down. I just think that second hit with the twinblade leaves you too vulnerable.
Orochinagis
Member
Poison and toxic can affect him so you can stack both effects and drain his health to a half using all the spells then use an herb to continue the fight
I have some bad news for you
Regarding Smelter in general, I actually think he's a really good boss with a good moveset. I really don't understand the complaints about the fire DoT he turns on. They want to discourage just sticking close and circle strafing constantly so it ends up putting you in the way of his sword instead of it just swinging over you. I think it's a really cool designed boss.
The fake-out AoE and stuff is neat, too.
But yah they really shouldn't have just re-used him straight. There's using a similar model and then there's just having the same moveset.
Sure Sinh looks like Kalameet but their movesets are COMPLETELY different. Sinh actively forces you to move around and this is way better than the generally more stationary Kalameet.
Blue Smelter was just ... Smelter but magic instead of fire |:
The fake-out AoE and stuff is neat, too.
But yah they really shouldn't have just re-used him straight. There's using a similar model and then there's just having the same moveset.
Sure Sinh looks like Kalameet but their movesets are COMPLETELY different. Sinh actively forces you to move around and this is way better than the generally more stationary Kalameet.
Blue Smelter was just ... Smelter but magic instead of fire |:
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Yeah I agree with every single thing you said, good post. I didn't get the complains about Sinh being a reskin, he was different enough especially for combat. And Smelter by himself is fine but the reskin is just beyond lazy. >_<
Orochinagis
Member
Smelter is nearly impossible to beat if you are a pure sorcerer or caster.
In case of those bosses, their movesets are the same with variations in case of Sihn is Kalameet flying mode with some of his grounds moves with less damage.
Summon both NPCs, run to the boss room, let the NPCs tank Smelter while you plink away.
Small variations and details can and do end up meaning a lot. I never really moved a lot in the Kalameet fight. Yes he has charge moves but they are easy to see and time and you ultimately don't have to move a lot.
Unlike Sinh where literally have to keep running across the field to avoid the flames/airstrikes. This is also a reason why the Guardian Dragon (although fairly weak) has some really cool mechanics.
Sinh's moveset in general encourage much more movement and evasion than Kalameet and even though, yes, they are very similar, the differences do a lot to differentiate the bosses.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
I'm not sticking to him constantly, but when I go in for an attack I'm there long enough to take a significant amount of damage, and with how hard he can hit at times I need all the health I have. Either way he ded, thank the lord he kept spamming his jump attack which i can dodge 9/10 times.
CybernatonEvolution
Member
I think that Smelter is among the worst bosses. His AoE is gimmicky and pace-breaking. The fire armor can be easily countered, and it is a counter-intuitive way to compensate for his blind spots and slow attacks. Speaking of his attacks, they are only hard to dodge when you have low ADP (they are slow and they have a lot of active frames too).
That is from a design perspective; he is badly executed as a boss battle. Smelter has collision detection glitches and the stupid A.I that keeps sticking to walls (Lost Sinner does that all the damn time).
The idea of forcing the player to take forced chip damage at close range in a melee-based game is just silly. I personally didn't find him too difficult (aside from getting stuck to walls). He is stupid in challenge runs and against hyper mode setups/glass cannon builds.
Minus the broken hit boxes and getting stuck in the wall of course. Without them it's a pretty decent side boss but with them it's not.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I've literally never seen the wall thing everyone talks about. Weird.
CybernatonEvolution
Member
It happens if you get near his left leg, and when you dodge his forward stab attack.
Want me to help you? As long as your soul level is low enough.
The NPCs are pretty good meatshields for the boss, at least on NG. Slapping a Warmth/Great Heal or two before the boss to heal them up will make them survive a long, long time against him. If you have Magic Barrier, even better. Just don't expect them to do any damage, that's all on you.
I am in the exact same boat brother. It's been three full sessions in Iron Passage, either helping others or trying myself.
I'm worried that Destiny is going to kill the amount of people playing this game.
Coriolanus
Banned
Why would it? No pc release and completely different genres.
Kind of late, and you may have already beat the boss, but I recorded my own kill of NG+ Fume Knight (took a while because I hadn't even started Earthen Peak yet yesterday on this character!). I did it on my 40 dex/50 faith build with light armor and 10 vit, 105 agi at SL 217. I would normally use more spells (clear bluestone ring was a pretty big waste here!) but I wanted to mostly have my character set as yours would be so you could see what I would do, so I kept my weapon 2H the whole fight and just used that.
My video shows what I was talking about in regards to the rolls, how you want to roll towards and behind him. Also shows how if you are close enough, his big sword attacks will sail over your head. Also shows what I think are some good Estus spots where you have time to heal, as well as some terrible Estus and dodge fails, especially in phase 2. I tried to extend phase 2 so I could show how to dodge all his attacks, I think he did all of them. This fight is definitely not perfect, but I am pretty sure I successfully dodged all his attacks at least once, and I don't think I was ever in super imminent danger of dying.
Two interesting things. One, I am using light armor and have 10 vit, 30 end, 40 vig, so my defense is very low. But like we talked about before, it really doesn't seem like I took a ton more damage than you did in your video in full Havel's armor. Hard to compare though, I do still feel safer in heavy armor. Another thing, it seems that Fume cannot go into phase 2 while his sword is glowing red (after he does the overhead strike). That is why I got him so low during phase 1. I guess you could exploit this by baiting his overhead to prolong phase 1.
Hope this video helps in some way! Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKXQA_xIY4Y&feature=youtu.be
If you're on NG+ we can use the engraved ring to meet up.
A new 10 things video;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCkHzh04RuI
I always learn something new, here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCkHzh04RuI
I always learn something new, here.
SoldnerKei
Member
checked out the Crypt Blacksword infused with Dark+3 yesterday, I put 34/34 Int Fth, but it seems that I put extra points without needed them, also seems like resonant weapon makes it even stronger, was able to deal heavy damage to another players, but the slow moveset makes me miss most of my swings, thou it feels awesome to drop people on the ground hoho
DarkHeartedKill
Member
Soul level is irrelevant. Soul Memory is where it's at, name engraved ring is also a really good idea because it also increases the SM summon range.
I keep confusing the twos name :s
Dex for the crypt black sword? STR would be better. For the dark bonus its the lowest of INT/FTH that determines scaling.
CountAntonius
Member
I use a bonfire ascetic here.
In Lost Bastille inside a wooden chest behind a Pharros' Door. From the Heide Knight, go down the ladder, break the wooden planks on your right, defeat the 4 dogs, then the 3 hollows. Use a pharos lockstone. (Can respawn the soul vessel)
Along with bastille previously mentioned the memory of orro and undead crypt can be farmed for soul vessels.
Don't you just love it when you play an Arena Fight and land the first hits while dodging the other guys attacks effortlessly, then suddenly none of your hits land and your opponent starts hitting you from like 4 meters away? Love it when that happens.
Thanks guys
Edit: No one wants to summon me in Shulva ;-;
Thanks guys
Edit: No one wants to summon me in Shulva ;-;
SoldnerKei
Member
whoops right, my mistake I meant Int/Fth, dunno why I typed dex... thou I have 35 points in dex, I like to use bows for misc stuff, also with 40/35 Str/Dex I have decent damage with other melee str/dex weapons, thou I want crypt black sword be my main weapon, I guess I should invest those dex points on spell slots, so far I have only played melee builds, having pseudo hybrid characters kind of complicate things for me whenever it comes to how much points invest in certain stat lol
Well for the dark BNS soft cap 60/60 INT/FTH would be good investment.
I should have added for the PS3. Man everyone is jumping on that game.
There are far worse examples of bad bosses in Dark Souls 2. Smelter is far from one of them.
There is nothing bad about this AoE being "gimmicky/pace-breaking". That is a *good* thing to have in boss fights. Forcing the player to do something other than circle-strafe is something that should be lauded not decried. That is what makes great bosses great. They force you to step your game up, react differently.
That's why Demon's Souls boss gallery is still completely unrivaled. They are all unique and different and force you to switch it up.
I agree with your points, though honestly never in my 50 times fighting Smelter from NG to NG++ (lots of co-op for sunlight medals) or my 3-4 times fighting blue smelter did I even notice the chip damage from being close. I dunno, I guess just other things in the fight had me healing anyway, I didn't even know that damage existed for a long time, and certainly didn't affect my strategy. But I think it is a good example of a punishing fight that is still totally doable, with his plunge and explode attacks giving good reason to back off and ample opportunity to heal.
Though at the same time, you have to be careful not to be *too* gimmicky or pace breaking, because then you end up with the absolute garbage that is the gank trio boss in the first DLC.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
He starts doing it in his second phase, and depending on your resistances you may or may not notice it. The first one dealt fire damage and due my high fire resist the ticks were very small. However, I didn't have any armour with high magic resist so smelter 2.0 on NG+ I took considerable AoE damage. I just find it annoying because I don't circle strafe him, I attack then back away to try and bait his jump attack since it's the easiest to dodge for me, and gives ample time to attack and heal.
I didn't find the gank trio to be too bad,
their poise is easily broken and you have lots of pillars to block the shots from the greatbow.
Orochinagis
Member
And you have to face of his chest to get damage from his fire too.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I'm getting framerate issues with some of the snow effects in Crown of the Iron King. I'm only using a laptop so it's not unexpected, but still annoying. I have no idea what video setting would affect it.
Oh I don't think the gank trio is necessarily hard, just stupid. I mean, you can literally keep jumping down into the water and healing forever, and when you run back up one will always come faster than the others. But it is so stupid running around like an idiot kiting them all over the world. Plus all three cheat the game systems, in that they have instant hit frames, infinite poise, no greatbow penalties etc. Just a dumb fight overall. Thank god for extra lightning damage in water, made it a little faster for me.
Ahh that makes sense, I am probably facing Smelter for maybe 1% of the fight, my entire strategies is to roll behind him as soon as humanly possible.
BitterSidekick
Member
just started, are miracles good to invest in? or just stick to melee and do str/dex builds
Coriolanus
Banned
Offensive miracles are quite limited, but highly damaging. You'll get Lightning Spear and that's about it for a while, so you can just go Str+Fai and not run into much problem. Will need 22 faith, tho.
Not a whole lot of reasons to keep pumping points into dex past whatever bare minimum you might need to yield a Str weapon.
DarkHeartedKill
Member
Nah I still haven't beaten him. I basically gave up on him. I don't wanna summon help because I feel it devalues the achievement. And while I appreciate the video and the work you had too go through to record it, I feel like that would be a walkthrough type of thing, which I haven't used at all during DS2. Thanks though.
Laurentius
Member
Has there ever been a path to a boss worse than Smelter 2.0? Not even fun...
Ended up summoning two NPCs for the fight. Historically I've been very opposed to any summoning on a first playthrough of a Souls game. But I *really* did not want to do that run a dozen or more times. I feel less guilty about summoning for a boss if it's a bullshit one.
Fume Knight, on the other hand, I will not summon for, because I think it's an awesome fight.
Ended up summoning two NPCs for the fight. Historically I've been very opposed to any summoning on a first playthrough of a Souls game. But I *really* did not want to do that run a dozen or more times. I feel less guilty about summoning for a boss if it's a bullshit one.
Fume Knight, on the other hand, I will not summon for, because I think it's an awesome fight.
Cannon Goose
Member
Don't worry too much about it, that area is more taxing than most other locations in the main game for some reason.