Yesterday, I have finally finished the Crown of the Iron King DLC. And it is a mixed bag for me. The majority of Brume Tower, is good and interesting design from my PoV. They made some areas filled with to much mobs, but, after few try and error attempts, they have become manageable. Only few Ashen Idols gave me some troubles. So after approx 5 and half hours after entering the DLC, I was able to defeat Fume Knight. All attempts have been made with two summons. This fight was pure DPS race. I had to make more damage to him before he wiped out my summons, and few of the attempts ended up with him with less than 5%. All in all I had 10 attempts IIRC, before being victorious. And even in that last attempt, he defeated both my summons, before I was able to land a finishing blow on him. So far so good only 15 wipes during this whole time.
But this was the last part of the DLC which I have enjoyed. I have used the Tower Key and unlocked the way to Iron Passage... I should not have done this... **** it... The worst ever area in all of From Soft games, I have ever played. Multilevel areas, which were not completely accessible, filled with enemies, which sniped your ass into the otherworld in few seconds, if you were to slow to get into hiding spot or stayed to long out of it, fighting the melee waves jumping at you... **** it once again... And in the last room, just before the fog gate as a bonus oversized like-a-truck hitting mob, which destroyed half of HP of your summons... If by any miracle, I have survived up until the boss room, I became so pissed of at the whole gauntlet, that I was losing my concentration and made mistake after a mistake, so the boss has kicked my ass... Rinse and Repeat... For 3 and half ****ing hour... Until I was able to have enough concentration, to not mess up the boss fight... I hate you Myiazaki... 40 wipes in that session alone with hundred thousand plus souls lost, due getting gangbanged all the time...
This area has completely discouraged me from playing the game further. I had so bad mood after that session, that I wanted to uninstall the game... Well, on the next day, I have tried to log into the game again, to check the latest area, which I still needed to finish, but the mood was still very very low... To my "surprise" another gauntlet... Thankfully, this time not as ridiculous as the Iron Passage, but it definitely did not make my mood for DS2 better... Anyway, I have done few tries on Sir Alonne and tried to learn his moves, when to heal, and when to avoid his moves at all costs. Due to me being down in the mood, my reflexes have been lousy as well, so I was not able to outroll or block all of his attacks, whenever he aggroed on me, so all the time, the fight ended up few seconds, after he got buffed after piercing me with his Katana... So I have quit the Brume Tower, and went to completely clear my head to grind 100 Mad Warrior kills, new Human Effigies, which I have lost in high numbers during my Iron Passage ball torture, and enough souls to fully upgrade Grand Lance to +10 (as I have noticed, that my Lightning Heide Lance is doing not as much damage, as I would expected on the boss - later I have found out, that he has a pretty high resistance against all of magic)... Stopped at 91 Mad Warriors, and went to sleep, pissed as much as the day before 🤷♂️ The only good part of the day was the interesting encounter with the 5 Prowler black phantoms, which have spawned on my way to the Bonfire before the Memory of the Old Iron King.
After this, I went on a scheduled business trip, so I had no time to be pissed on the game anymore, so when I got back 3 days later, I had like two hours window, in my schedule, so I decided to boot the game again, with much clearer head. First I have finished the Mad Warrior grind, to acquire the Bell Keepers set, and from the new souls, I have put 1 more point into ADP 😛 Then I went back for the memory, and cleared the area up until the fog gate. There I've noticed, that I have enough souls to fully upgrade the Engraved Bracers, which increase the chance of critical hits, so I feathered back to a blacksmith. Cleared it one more time, fully healed my two summons, and readied my newly upgraded physical Grand Lance +10. Even though I was hit few times by the boss, which almost wiped me out, this time, I was able to avoid his buffing attacks, so the fight was a little bit easier, and my summons have taken much less damage. This helped tremendously with the DPS race, and made the fight much more manageable. To my surprise, I was able to defeat Sir Alonne on my first try. Which was absolutely unexpected, because I still had 50 minutes of my free time window, and I did not have any plans to move in the game at that moment 😄 Then I have remembered, that I still have to extinguish 1 Ashen Idol, and to pick up 1 Item, which was not accessible, when I have entered the Brume Tower. And one Crystal Lizard, but I was to lazy to try and run to it again 😄
The story, which almost turned into tragedy, has been finished. All three bosses down. This probably cost me few new gray hairs, but in the end, I was satisfied, that I have not given up on the game, although, I will probably never forget about that idiotic Iron Passge... Next stop, the last DLC, which I heard has some stupid design decisions as well. Hopefully not in the vein of Iron Passage. We'll see...
Deathcounter: 250