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Does everyone else seriously have an easy time with Duke's Dear Freja? That's where I'm currently stuck - although I haven't given it that many attempts, I think the long walk back to the boss filled with annoying enemies and plenty of places to fall and die demoralized me more than ususal.
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Sep 8, 2020 18:04
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| # ? May 24, 2024 06:38 |
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Bring a torch
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Sep 8, 2020 18:05
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untzthatshit posted:Does everyone else seriously have an easy time with Duke's Dear Freja? That's where I'm currently stuck - although I haven't given it that many attempts, I think the long walk back to the boss filled with annoying enemies and plenty of places to fall and die demoralized me more than ususal. She gave me more trouble than any other base game boss. And the run back is definitely one of the worst from what I recall. The rest of the game taught me to be aggressive as hell, and that didn't work on Freja because her hit spot is pretty small. If you're bringing AI summons in with you, I'd stop. Only bring another player summon if you want to summon. Otherwise do it solo.
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Sep 8, 2020 18:07
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goblin week posted:Bring a torch Yeah I can imagine Freja being terrible to fight (and also to get to) if you don't do the One Weird Trick. The only other advice I would give is that you might think to focus on one head until that head dies but weird things happen when you do that, so I think you're supposed to balance out the damage you do. Also use fire.
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Sep 8, 2020 18:38
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It's pretty unlikely for a person playing the game normally to have both her heads fall off before she loses all her HP, right? I feel like I've only ever seen that in gimmick runs on YouTube.
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Sep 8, 2020 19:12
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It only really happens with low damage weapons or with a lot of summons. I believe the beheading threshold may be based on raw hits, not damage.
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Sep 8, 2020 19:54
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Freya was pretty tricky for me, but I did eventually get it. She's big and kind of hard to hit, but doesn't really have that many attacks. I usually brought one of the NPC phantoms along just so that they could pull her away when i needed time to heal or run away from spiders.
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Sep 8, 2020 20:22
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OzFactor posted:Yeah I can imagine Freja being terrible to fight (and also to get to) if you don't do the One Weird Trick. The only other advice I would give is that you might think to focus on one head until that head dies but weird things happen when you do that, so I think you're supposed to balance out the damage you do. Also use fire. I also had no idea the heads could come off.
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Sep 8, 2020 21:36
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All I did was hug her face and she kept trying to bite me. She stomped around some too but mostly kept trying to eat me.
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Sep 8, 2020 23:09
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I had no idea what you guys were talking about with the torch, and turns out it's because that was added in SoTFS which I never played. That's a cool thing to add tho.
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Sep 9, 2020 01:53
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I tried looking for ideal spots to burn off my lockstones but apparently the vast majority of DS2 guides haven't been updated for SotFS. I've only used the one in the Forest for the Slab & Chloranthy Ring.
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Sep 9, 2020 03:47
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And Tyler Too! posted:I tried looking for ideal spots to burn off my lockstones but apparently the vast majority of DS2 guides haven't been updated for SotFS. I've only used the one in the Forest for the Slab & Chloranthy Ring. You could go get the Sentiers Spear in the Doors of Pharos. Never care about durability again. Used it on my first run. Spear move set one handed. Twinblade when two handed.
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Sep 9, 2020 04:00
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My Freja strat was running far enough away to trigger her laser attack, sprint attacking her other head, and repeating for the entire battle. I dont know most of her moves as a result lol
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Sep 9, 2020 06:11
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Pharro's Lockstones are more or less useful anywhere outside of the Doors of Pharros or the Grave of Saints, where they're mainly used to activate environmental hazards for the PvP play in those areas. (There's like one bridge in Gravve of Saints that gets you to an area you can't get to without unlocking it, and the tripartite door in Doors of Pharros that has some loot behind it.) The only time outside of that that a lockstone is not particularly useful is when they're in front of an empty pool, because the pool will fill with water which mostly just slightly increases fire resistance and lets you wash off poison. In other places they'll usually open a secret room or switch on the lights or similar. (The secret room ones make a Pharros face appear that you attack to open them, similar to the way illusory walls worked in Dark Souls 1.) Djeser fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 09:26
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The one Pharros pool closest to the Phoenix Parma is useful for helping you suicide run for the shield, but you can just roll in those big water vases nearby too.
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Sep 9, 2020 11:58
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Iron Keep down, I was expecting Sen's Fortress with lava but got Bowser's Castle. Old Iron King was a joke, Smelter was sort of tough though.
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Sep 9, 2020 22:53
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And Tyler Too! posted:Iron Keep down, I was expecting Sen's Fortress with lava but got Bowser's Castle. Old Iron King was a joke, Smelter was sort of tough though. Old Iron King is one of those bosses that really feels like the budget ran out to make him anything more substantial. You can kinda see what they were going for, but his slow-as-molasses attacks and the side cubby that renders you immune to everything except the laser beam makes him trivial. Something with a larger arena that he can move around and attack you at different angles from would've been a lot more enjoyable.
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Sep 9, 2020 22:57
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goblin week posted:Bring a torch Welp, I tried this and yeah made the fight with Freja pretty trivial. Of course now I'm left with Iron Keep to tackle. I've taken a few swings at Smelter Demon and think I could get him but getting past a dozen Allonne nights every time I die is sooooo loving annoying.
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Sep 10, 2020 14:42
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untzthatshit posted:Welp, I tried this and yeah made the fight with Freja pretty trivial. Of course now I'm left with Iron Keep to tackle. I've taken a few swings at Smelter Demon and think I could get him but getting past a dozen Allonne nights every time I die is sooooo loving annoying. This boss run-back is one of the three worst bits of gameplay in any souls game, along with bed of chaos and shrine of amana.
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Sep 10, 2020 14:49
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100%. I finished Dark Souls 1 for the 5th or 6th time last week and Bed of Chaos was left for last. I wasn't counting but I'd swear I died more times trying to make those jumps than I did the rest of my play through combined.
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Sep 10, 2020 14:53
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iron keep owns. i dealt with the alonne knights by just running out into the lava zone until a bunch of them aggroed, then running back into the little indoor area near the fire statue and magerold, and killing them with some mega sword swings as they all bunched up in the doorway.
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Sep 10, 2020 14:55
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You don’t actually need to kill Smelter, if you vent the giant furnace and go through it instead. You will miss out on a bonfire though. He’s probably the toughest fucker in the base game.
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Sep 10, 2020 15:03
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goblin week posted:You don’t actually need to kill Smelter, if you vent the giant furnace and go through it instead. You will miss out on a bonfire though. You'll also miss out on RoB +1 when you re-visit his empty boss room. It's worth it for one of the few challenging boss fights in the base game. And there's a Lucatille summon right there for you if you need help. Use the Alonne Knight farming to buy Magerold's wares. GutBomb posted:This boss run-back is one of the three worst bits of gameplay in any souls game, along with bed of chaos and shrine of amana. It is THE worst part of Dark Souls gameplay.
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Sep 10, 2020 15:15
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goblin week posted:You don’t actually need to kill Smelter, if you vent the giant furnace and go through it instead. You will miss out on a bonfire though.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:07
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Raygereio posted:So real talk for a moment: Is Smelter being the base game's toughest boss some kind of kayfabe that's going over my head? apparently not because i've heard it before. can't say i agree though. i don't recall any of the ds2 bosses i've fought being particularly difficult except the old iron king and maybe the ruin sentinels. at least in scholar i've found the levels themselves far more difficult and arduous than the bosses i haven't finished the game though (still at rhoy's resting place, trying to muster up the will to launch the game again and take another crack at these goddamn wizards) so probably the very next boss i fight is going to be an absolute motherfucker
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Sep 10, 2020 19:11
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I mean, Smelter is one of the tougher bosses in the base game, but that doesn't mean he's hard, it just means there are a lot of stupidly easy bosses in DS2. Smelter has a few combos with slightly delayed attacks so I think that is why some people struggle with him.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:18
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The DLC bosses can be pretty tough. Fume Knight, Allone, Elana, Ivory King. Plus some of the endgame/optional bosses (e.g. Ancient Dragon) are pretty tricky. Smelter's also complicated by the fact that you get chipping damage if you stick to lose to him, so if you aren't used to fighting at medium distance it's trickier. Honestly, there's enough bosses that are weird and hard in certain ways for certain builds that there's no point doing the "what do you mean he was tough" thing. Any boss can be tough. I died to Prowling Magus my first time. 
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Sep 10, 2020 19:26
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The Berzerker posted:I mean, Smelter is one of the tougher bosses in the base game, but that doesn't mean he's hard, it just means there are a lot of stupidly easy bosses in DS2. Smelter has a few combos with slightly delayed attacks so I think that is why some people struggle with him. It's like how some folks were trying to convince me that the DLC's Blue Smelter has a different moveset to Vanilla Smelter. Six years later and I still don't see any difference between the two other then the colour pallette. Djeser posted:Any boss can be tough. I died to Prowling Magus my first time. I mean, I've died to Dark Souls 1's Pinwheel. And in all three Souls games the enemy type that have killed me the most are your basic hollows. Raygereio fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Sep 10, 2020 |
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Sep 10, 2020 19:34
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i have also died to pinwheel. i got cocky and ignored his clones and they did the magic bolt convergence thing when i was about to deliver the killing blow. oops! it's kind of a shame that the pinwheel fight is so short because his music is great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ErQ2nDojeo
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Sep 10, 2020 19:44
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High Lord Wolnir is DS3's Pinwheel and sometimes he just decides to crawl towards the wall and pull the Aybss into you, killing you instantly, I learned this the hard way.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:52
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Smelter’s jump attack can be followed by a delayed AOE, or not. There is a tell but you have to be in front of him to see it. This is what passes for a difficult boss in DS2. I’ve never noticed the timings being different between the two versions but it wouldn’t surprise me either.
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Sep 10, 2020 19:59
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Blue Smelter has a timing mixup on the standard sweep-backsweep combo where he sometimes has a longer delay before the second hit. It doesn't happen frequently but can get you if you're double rolling by rote.
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Sep 10, 2020 20:08
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Smelter was hard for me specifically because the run-up is so long and arduous: I press and stress because I have to win because I don't want to kill any more Alonne knights. I never felt like I could relax and practice and just tell myself "okay, I don't have to win this time, I'm just seeing if this works, just practicing the tells." I have had the same problem with all Dark Souls bosses that are a long or slow way from bonfires--Abyss Watchers, for example, where you pretty much have to clear out the Darkwraiths and Ghrus or they won't let you in the fog gate (if there is a faster way to the gate that I don't know about please tell me because I'm just about there in my current playthrough). Also I remember him just being a bucket of HP with high resistances, but that was probably just whatever build I was using.
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Sep 10, 2020 20:23
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For Abyss Watchers, from the bonfire just hug the right wall and swing around to the fog door. You'll agro probably two Gru's at most along the way but there's no reason to fight any of the Darkwraiths or the majority of the Gru's along the road.
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Sep 10, 2020 20:26
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You also want to be coming from the fire that's near the shortcut back to the upper swamp. It's both a shorter run to the bonfire and it puts you on the correct side of the path to just avoid the Darkwraiths entirely.
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Sep 10, 2020 21:02
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Yeah if you're at Farron Keep Perimeter bonfire, that's where you want to start for Abyss Watchers. If you stick to the right you will be able to attack one sitting Ghru from behind and fight one more enroute to the fog door. This route will also not aggro the Darkwraiths which frees them up to advance and start fighting the main cluster of Ghru which is cool.
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Sep 10, 2020 22:07
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Smelter is one of the hardest bosses in base DS2 just by the lack of competition, but he was also much harder in 2014 before we all got good and learnt to dodge properly. That fight single handedly broke me out of using a shield and taught me to use i-frames.
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Sep 10, 2020 22:12
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I think my most hated was Alonne. I probably did that boring run 30 times between 3 nights of attempts until I finally got the fucker. Don't remember any hard boss in the original base game at release but think I died to The Rotten a few times.
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Sep 10, 2020 23:02
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Smelter demon is harder than a vast majority of base game ds1 bosses too, the only ones that stand out as harder once you know what to do are o&s, gwyn when you dont cheese him, and bed of chaos. It wasnt until ds3 that base game bosses got ballbusting. The bigger problem with the bosses is that most werent that interesting, visually or mechanically.
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Sep 10, 2020 23:13
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| # ? May 24, 2024 06:38 |
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Iron Keep Smelter and Iron Passage Smelter have slightly different sets of timing their attacks. If you're really used to dodging the first and barely succeeding with iframes, then yes I can see how the second would mess you up. That said, with more general Soulsborne (and Soulslike) experience you probably won't notice. If you get more Agility (and thus more iframes per dodge) you definitely won't notice. In either case you can cheese the second half of the fight by stacking enough elemental resistance. It's funny to be able to dunk yourself in water and laugh at how this Giant Sword Made of Ultrafire just...singes you. multijoe posted:Smelter is one of the hardest bosses in base DS2 just by the lack of competition, but he was also much harder in 2014 before we all got good and learnt to dodge properly. That fight single handedly broke me out of using a shield and taught me to use i-frames.
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Sep 10, 2020 23:13
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