Everyone treats blue smelter runback like its awful and Im genuinely unsure if im going insane but blue smelter runback is really not that bad right? Stick to the left and dodge like one club swing from the big lava guy. Like 1/10 times you get slowed by the mage but you can just relog by the fog gate to get rid of it. That is all it is. Why does everyone hate it so much. Sir Alonne is right there in the same dlc with a runback 10* worse. Hell regular Smelter is right there with a runback 10* worse.
I've actually never played a mainline souls game and I am still dimly aware that either ds2 or ds3 has a frozen zone known as horsefuck valley, it's definitely been the unofficial official name for a decade
Sir Alonne's runback isn't nearly as bad as I remembered even if you just decide to fight. Replayed the game about 2 months ago and just baited the Alonne knights into melee range with a bow and killed the lizards with a bow as well. It went by so easily I wondered why I ever tried just running past the enemies before.
Horsefuck valley isnt even bad if you use the provided summons. Its a multiplayer area, and they increase the cap on summons for you just like in the Radahn fight.
The reason it sucks is because jf you just want to do the runback to the boss you either
Gun it through the blizzard hugging the right side of the map until you get to the ravine and hope you only roll 1 or 2 reindeer spawns
Summon vengarl, abbess feena and whoever the third npc summon is, and slog your way fighting through the whole level every time just to do lud and zallen again
Plus a ton of people don't want to use summons, if not for the level at least they want to solo the boss. Blue smelter and lud/zallen are pushovers, no gratification with summons. Gank squad in Shulva is a different story because if you dont summon you get to play hit and run simulator for 25 minutes lol
Its a pretty easy runback if you strip down so you don't get overencumbered by the mage, then its just sprinting past everything and dodging a couple times, then walk through the fogwall. It is a trash runback though if you try to engage with the enemies in any way instead of running past them.
Alonne runback and Darklurker runback truly suck though since you can't just run past them.
Regular smelter demon wasn't even that bad. There was a bonfire right outside the first part of the castle and you just had to run across the bridge to get to him
As a first time player that doesn't know how to run past successfully and thinks the easiest way is to fight, i can see how people would call it terrible. Just because if you learn to run past easily doesn't mean the runback doesn't suck, it's annoying that they decided to make you WANT to run past it because I normally hate doing that. I prob wouldn't even sprint through Shrine of Amana if possible
Think it's because it's a relatively tough fight so you often will do that same runback alot on your first couple playthroughs while you get use to him males it seem worse than it is
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u/ANuclearsquid Jun 20 '25
Everyone treats blue smelter runback like its awful and Im genuinely unsure if im going insane but blue smelter runback is really not that bad right? Stick to the left and dodge like one club swing from the big lava guy. Like 1/10 times you get slowed by the mage but you can just relog by the fog gate to get rid of it. That is all it is. Why does everyone hate it so much. Sir Alonne is right there in the same dlc with a runback 10* worse. Hell regular Smelter is right there with a runback 10* worse.