The Fume Knight on NG+ has the ability to deal 1200-1500 dmg with a single attack so it's probably smart to focus on increasing your damage output and having just enough health to prevent getting one shotted. I killed him while dealing 250 base damage with my Uchigatana (around 50 hits to kill him) and the only safe bet is to go with single hits as the 2nd hit can leave you open for his counter sweep attacks with his short sword. Learn his mix up with his short sword and greatsword and you'll eventually get it.

I guess I'd agree that I wish there were more bosses in these DLCs. Smelter Demon MK.II was pretty lame. I never found the original fight fun at all; not because it was hard, but because it just isn't fun to slug away at a big iron enemy. I like squishy enemies that bleed. This was just the same fight with magic(?) instead of fire and a longer fire/magic sword. Him emitting his shockwave while buffing is probably the cheapest fucking death I've ever experienced in this game. I mean, at least have the attack do reduced damage if you're gonna be so cheap about it. Better than no boss at all, though.

It's not long since I started roaming this DLC, but I don't know what to think.

I really like the level design, more organic, reminded of the brilliant level design from the first Dark Souls... but I hate how they filled it with ennemies. Because of my Soul Memory, the most basic foot soldier can endure 3 strong attacks from my main weapon (Dark Monarch Sword +5, it have a base damage of 639 with a SL 200 character) and those ennemies are always in groups of 3 or more (the only exception is if the third is another ennemy, or for the first one you encounter, which is alone). As a results, the fights are pretty tedious. Having to deal with 5 tanky opponents isn't fun at all. It's even less funny when you know you will be ganged up each ladder you climb down... The other ennemies I encountered so far (apart from exploding rampant flamable guys, which still take 4 strong attacks to go down but tend to explode before that anyway) have ridiculously high health : It takes 2 backstabs and a hit to take the fume sorceresses to fall... and then there's the flaming shoulder giants. Those are an interesting concept, I didn't find any way to kill them "honorably" (that is, not spamming them with hexes from a safe distance) : the lava that leaks from their left shoulder is an interesting concept, it should force you to drop the classic "straff to the right" technique, but it's another thing in practice. When they swing their giant maces, the lava drop all around them as a result and will touch you if you are too close... and with their insane amount of health, fighting them melee is too healing-items consuming.

There are some nice touch though : Playing my first playthrough offline, the Black Phantom (Somthing the Assassin) on top of the stairs was interesting : I rushed him, took down half of his health and he rand down the stairs, which I found clever. The giant and his healing shrine was quite a fight too. But there is another Black Phatom... the one at the bottom of a ladder, which four oily torches... I found out that just lighting and play catch around them was a great way to make her suicide by immolation.

Comparing it to the last DLC, I think I prefer the ennemies from the Sunken Crown (even if it was really difficult with my hexe build) over those of the Iron Crown. But I prefer the level design of the Iron Crown over the Sunken Crown.

On a side note, is there a way to go through the "cursed stairs" or is it just "buff your curse resist to the max then run like hell to the bottom" ?

^ I don't know what the point of such a stamina system is when there are so many enemies all the time.

The level design was fine I guess, though I preferred Sunken's to this. The difficulty however was definitely overdone this time around. Hardest souls area thus far. Too much. Sunken Crown was also better in that regard, with the exception of one boss.

The curse stairs lose their curse power when you destroy the Nadalia Idol with the Smelter Wedge. There are a lot of Nadalia Idols throughout the area that need to be destroyed and you need to find the Smelter Wedge items to get it done.

There's also a hidden item, the hollow skin mask, that has Curse resistant of 1000.

I prefer Crown of Old Iron King more than Sunken Crown. I really hate the dark and damp level design in Sunken Crown, plus some of the enemies are just plain annoying, e.g. the ghost knight, and the poison spitter blastoise.

Fume Knight boss might be tough, but it's manageable, especially when you solo him, since summoning NPC increases the boss' defence, and Sir Alonne is a delight to fight with. But I didn't like that Smelter Demon 2.0 is one of the bosses, and the boss run is just very annoying.

I've reached the end boss (none of the optional bosses), but have yet to beat him - only butted heads and died to get some quick patterns down.

Some thoughts - good level design. Since it doesn't fit into the world so perfectly as a Dark Souls (1) "level" it's still missing something in that regard, but it looks gorgeous, is diverse, and offers some unique encounters because of it. Although it feels a bit ridiculous at times, the enemies popping up out of the ash at least keeps you guessing as to how many enemies you'll need to be prepared for if you go sprinting around the area. The "half-bodies" that are deceptively quick with their attack (singluar - speaking to the leaping attack) and herding them to explosive pots so they'd kill themselves and everyone around them was fun.

One thing I don't like that a lot of other people seem to really be into is the NPC invasions. Here's the thing - nifty in the way the AI is programmed (especially in this one, with the one phantom trying to lead you into a whole mess of enemies), and they would probably be fun to fight - if any of it was fair. The actual challenge is in the part where they have at least three times your HP, so one combo that would kill an invader - or me, for that matter - then ends with leaving myself empty on stamina and vulnerable to being plowed. Dark Souls doesn't have to be fair, sure, but that's one of those situations where the unfairness feels like it comes from the game breaking its own rules to make up for the fact that their "human-like" AI is still butt.

Yeah, I even thought about the seed of giants thing, but I've been so stingy on using single-use items as it is, and they're the more rare item I would actually want to use on human invaders. I suppose that would be my one-item solution to the problem, but that still doesn't make the npc invader thing feel any less cheap.

And yeah, I do generally love the way the DLC is designed to make you use items you might not necessarily need to use otherwise (at least not on NG difficulty). It's one of the ways the DLC level design harkens back to some of the better (yet more frustrating) parts of the first Dark Souls. Beyond a lot of the distance switch presses from the first DLC, I find myself using a bow/crossbow way more often than I ever would in the base game just to thin out the ranks or draw aggro.

The hallways before Smelter Demon 2.0 has to be the worst thing in this entire game. It turns the "Lets throw a shitload of enemies at the player" strategy up to fucking eleven. I thought the pathway to the optional boss in the first DLC was dreadful, but Jesus Christ, this takes the cake and eats it too. I honestly think GETTING to the boss is harder than the actual encounter. You NEED other players to help you to get through this, since the ally AI is absolutely horrible. It's also an issue with Sir Alonne's fight, but at least the hallways to his fight are a bit more manageable. I've been able to run through it, except for one time when I got invaded. I want to do these fights, but the hallways before them are such a huge pain in the ass. I think I might just stop doing the dlc on my NG++ character and do it on my NG character instead.

The Fume Knight is fun to fight though, and thankfully the level design placed the bonfire just a little bit away from the fight, so I could just get right to it instead of slogging through dozens of enemies. Like the first DLC, the final boss is definitely the highlight of it all.

I am a little disappointed by the lack of creativity when it comes to the bosses though. I thought they said that the DLC bosses wouldn't just be another set of 'Big guys with huge swords', but every fight in this DLC is just that.

After doing most of the DLC with my main character (SL 200 NG+++, I switched to my ninja character, SL 125, still in NG... and boy, that is waaaaay easier. I can even walk up straight to the giants and defeat them in melee without any difficulty, I'm still having difficulties with a certain Samurai, but appart from that...

After extensive playing, I feel like if the design of the game proper was closer to the first two pieces of DLC, then far fewer people might have felt that Dark Souls 2 was lacking. Say what you will about the one mostly recycled optional boss (who I still died against many, many times because just enough is changed up and he's actually more manageable when soloing due to the health balance - or maybe just more rewarding?), but the rest of the approach, the multi-tiered and explorable area, and the other two boss fights, are all a lot of fun.

I'm typing this after just coming off of duo-ing the other optional boss, and my exuberance is probably colored by just how much I enjoy the bosses which hit hard but swing long (ones you can dodge expertly with good timing and pattern recognition - for example, the Pursuer). Still, I think the design and bosses from the two currently released Dark Souls 2 DLC packs make them a no-brainer buy. And if this is what is seen as a the "B" team then they should keep at it, because if they take what they learned from this and modl it just a bit more with the original Dark Souls then I could see them doing just fine with a Dark Souls 3 if the Bloodborne team doesn't take up the reigns on that.