The mass of iron better known as Demon of the Forge haunts the Forte Ferreo atop the Earth's Peak. It is an optional boss who nevertheless holds a certain importance in the lore of Dark Souls II, and is also considered a great training ship to understand how the bosses work in the works of From Software.
The Demon of the Forge is inactive and only awakens once the fog has passed, the first of Fort Ferreo. To get to the boss it will be necessary to get rid of the various Knights of Alonne and bring the bridge to the level avoiding falling into the lava: in the section dedicated to the lore we will talk about how this demon is responsible for the decadent conditions of the realm of the Old Iron King.
Despite its amount of HP, once you have learned the movements it will be possible to wire them in the most classic of trial and error à la Dark Souls. Pyromancers will have a very hard life as it is a being forged by fire, while magicians and archers will be able to exploit the limited space of the (circular) arena to their advantage. This boss is instead an even more exciting test for melee fighters, since one of the peculiarities of this colossus is that of give off heat doing damage, therefore, inviting careful management of resources.
The Demon of the Forge is divided into three phases:
- The first phase is the so-called "normal": the boss is off and only does physical damage until he reaches about 70% of his life;
- in the second phase the boss's abdomen will glow: from now on it will do slow but gradual AoE damage similar to pyromancy Reverse heat if approached too close;
- the third phase, the last, arrives when the Demon of the Forge reaches 30% of life: at this point the boss will stick the sword in the abdomen making it catch fire. The result is a high-damage flaming sword that obviously does fire damage as well.
Although the ideal solution is to dodge, it is possible to arm yourself with ahigh fire protection against this boss. Pyromancy Transpiration Defensive is the only one that is of any use among the "red spells", but there is also a shield in Dark Souls II, the Great Shield of the Gyrms, which offers 100% physical and fire defense, effectively nullifying the Forge Demon's damage entirely at the cost of mobility. Yes, because for Gyrms like Gavlan it will be light as a twig, but this shield is among the heaviest in the game and every parry sucks stamina.
Before moving on to the attacks, it must be said that in Dark Souls II there are two Demons of the Forge: another is encountered in the DLC Crown of the Iron King, the "famous" Demon of the Blue Forge which is identical in all respects to the red one, moveset included, except for the type of damage it causes, which is magical rather than fire.
Against the Blue Forge Demon, also optional and whose fog is at the end of the Iron Pass, it is important to have a good new magical defense, especially in view of the third phase. This guide will be useful for taking down both variants of Dark Souls II, bearing in mind that the Demon of the Forge is weak to thrusting, while the Demon of the Blue Forge to evil eyes. The two share the possibility of being poisoned.
Attacks:
- Jump (and explosion): The Forge Demon has few attacks, but they can be lethal. One of these is the jump, which sees the boss jump and hit the ground with the sword. Be careful, this is not a good time to hit the boss in melee, because often the jump is followed by an explosion that will throw the character.
- Horizontal slash (s): very common combo that can become daunting given the features of the boss. These are two horizontal slashes to dodge, one to the right and the other to the left or back. Sometimes he can only do one. These two hits can be followed by the next one on the list, namely ...
- Vertical shot (and blaze): a very strong blow from the vertical arc to dodge on the sides of the sword. Once the greatsword is ablaze the attack will automatically be followed by a blaze or vertical magic wave.
- Stocked: A thrust of surprising speed for a slow boss like the Demon of the Forge, to be dodged sideways given the considerable range.
- Combo horizontal slash, jump and blast: certainly the most devastating combo in the Arsenal of the Demon of the Forge, red or blue, is a set of attacks seen above. The boss will then start with the horizontal slashes and then immediately follow with the jump and finally the explosion. Given the size of the arena, you have to be very careful.
- Constant AoE damage: passive attack available to the boss; the fire or magic radiated from his abdomen will begin to be felt towards 70% of the life bar and from that moment will do gradual damage depending on the proximity.
Drop:
- 32.000 souls (red) / 75.000 souls (blue).
- Soul of the Forge Demon (both, creation from Straid: Greatsword of the Forge, physical / fire damage; creation from Ornifex: Ancient Greatsword of the Forge, physical / magical damage).
Lore:
The Demon of the Forge is the embodied cause of the downfall of the Old Iron King; to explain why you have to start from the beginning. We can confidently say that the old ruler belonged to the kingdom of Alken and established himself as lord by demonstrating his superiority against the kingdom of Venn. Once the conflict was over and the resources exploited to the bone, his story would have ended there if one had not been found scepter capable of allowing the creation of iron. The Tower of the Mists, a place where it is still possible to use the scepter, thus becomes a forge that for personal use and trade allows our temporary protagonist to be called the Iron King.
It is from this moment that the King becomes boastful, an adjective linked to Gwyn, the symbolic lord of Dark Souls. It is no coincidence that their souls are linked and that the Old Iron King was somehow chosen as his reincarnation. The ambition of wanting to be bigger and bigger led the Old Iron King to organize parties and flaunt his wealth until the creation of a fortress made entirely of iron. The king himself turned the curse of the undead into fun: we talked about him even at the time of the Executioner's Chariot, the torturer of the woods he owns.
Over time, the Old Iron King had amassed so much iron and knowledge - thanks in part to his right arm, the sorcerer Eygil - that infuse souls and thus life into increasingly ambitious golems, including his masterpiece, namely the Demon of the Forge. Endowed with a will of his own, this being born of fire disavows his master and incinerates him: his fall into the lava and a mysterious encounter with a creature deep in the magma have transformed the Old Iron King into a demon similar to a balrog, while the level of the lava has risen until Forte Ferreo collapsed under its own weight.
The first life of the Old Iron King ends here. His killer, born of iron and fire, is still there, inactive on the ashes of the one who has been waiting for the next unwary human being. The echoes of the King, however, do not end there: the old ruler has one of the densest lore of Dark Souls, so much so that an additional content has also been dedicated to him, Crown of the Iron King.
► Dark Souls II is an RPG-Adventure game developed by FromSoftware and published by FromSoftware Bandai Namco for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the video game was released on 11/03/2014 The version for PC came out on 25/04/2014
