Stay strong, timing is everything with those two bosses. Try facing sir alonne after the fume knight. It's hell. Also the paths before sir alonne, and the blue smelter demon end up being much harder than the actual bosses.

Alonne is a weak ass bitch. Beat him first try with only 2 estus flasks in my inventory.

Brume tower just felt like artificial difficulty to me. Multiple fast hitting enemies with short recovery times. Multiple move sets on the big guys. It felt more like luck getting through there than patience and skill. It felt more like Bloodborne, but without being a dex/adp build, it's rough. I actually ended up sprinting past a lot of the areas, which unlike the base game, works as well as it did in DaS1. I had ventured in there with my second character to get the Fume Ultra Greatsword. That dude was worse than Artorius. I ended up meeting a helpful player for some jolly cooperation, but without them, that fight would have been a breaking point for me. Ironically, after getting the Fume UGS, I've been using the red iron twin blade with a <40% set of armor. It's more fun in some cases. As for the rest of the DLC, I had been playing a pure sorcerer and the DLC stomped on my hopes and dreams for that character. Hence why I went back with a strength build character. The game seems to favor variety, depending on the boss or enemies... But the game is not exactly variety friendly. I could make a sorcerer barbarian, but I'd have to be well over SL 200 to make it work (the way I play anyway).

Psh, took Fume Knight on my third try.

I is Casul!

Nah. I'm actually pretty bad but I tend to do weird things like that. I killed Ornstein and Smough on my first try but died repeatedly to Seathe. Hell, the first time I played 2 I died to The Last Giant.

Seath was funny. I kept dying trying to cut off his tail, when he did his tentacle flail. I got it when I managed to get him to break his own crystal. Otherwise it seemed like he was super easy. When I went back with my other character, he kicked my ass a few times (and so did the clams). I was fairly baffled until I realized I was too close to the middle and he was doing the straight breath instead of the arc. Once I was smacking him in the end of his left uh, tentacle, he went down. Seriously though. I wish there was a way to have a hybrid build without having to be overly high level to make it work. I have found a few ways to make a sort of melee-caster with infusions, but they always seem so frail. I'm relatively new to the series though, Bloodborne turned me into a Souls addict after avoiding the first two (now 3) for years. I still love DaS1 the most I think, but the gameplay in 2 is much smoother. That DLC in 2 is a real [i]screw you[/i] to casters though. Magic was already pretty balanced (except for a few spells) compared to the first game. I would have been ok with some hardier enemies, but going in at 170-something and the first regular enemy taking 4-5 great soul arrows to kill seemed totally unfair, especially because his three friends pummeled the crap out of me moments later. I have to wonder though, I've always heard that casters were easy-mode. But my UGS/Greataxe/Greathammer builds have been pretty easy too. More so in DaS1.

Ah, good ol' Fume Knight. Good boss, just brutal.

I take back what I said. Lud and Zallen are the hardest bosses in the game. I haven't been that frustrated at this game possibly ever.

Just get some summons. No point in fighting a gank squad like that alone.

The one thing I learned from Fume Knight is that safety does not always lie in numbers. Summoning gives the boss more health, and Fume Knight, along with most humanoid bosses, usually like to switch aggro to the farthest person at random times; at least that's what I experienced. As for Cool Ranch Demon... -blam!- him. He seems to be another Smelter Demon, but there's something about him that makes him infinitely harder than SD; I'm pretty sure Cool Ranch's self sword buff has a longer range than normal. Wow, this post is much longer than I intended

The Fume Knight is easy once you take the time to learn ALL of his moves (especially anticipating his surprise recovery attacks). However I had soooo much trouble with the blue Smelter Demon because his sword gets really long and he sometimes pauses between attacks, making you roll right into one.