Group Fights (for those struggling) and other helpful tactics

[DFS]

I've read through most of the discussions here and while there are a few other complaints people had about the game (some reasonable and some less so), by far the most common complaint I saw was about enemy density. I even saw a post where someone refused to believe that anyone had actually fought every enemy in Cinder Valley and didn't just run by them :D

Specifically, people seemed to have trouble with fights involving multiple enemies at once. I will say, as someone new to Soulslike games but with plenty of other game experience, I did not have a problem with them, and I think it comes down to strategy. Yes, if you run into the group fight and aggro everything, and then try to treat it as one on one combat with each individual guy and just ignore the others, that's not generally going to work.

Everything spoiler tagged below has some spoilers for fights you will see so stop reading here and skip to the bottom for some helpful general tactics if you haven't played the game or care about spoilers. Just trust me that if you slow down and think it through, every fight is manageable. I killed every single enemy in the game at least once.

I've seen several people suggest trying to pull individual enemies with the gun, and this is a good first step but, as someone pointed out, this does not always stop multiple enemies from aggroing, including ranged guys. So there are two ways to solve this. First, back up. Usually the ranged guys stay put and you can just fight the ones that follow you around a corner or some other cover. Or, you can just keep an eye on the ranged guys and just dodge roll any time they shoot. They don't shoot very fast and all of them have a very obvious and long wind up animation, so just pretend it's an extra unblockable attack that the guy you are fighting does and dodge roll just like you would if he was going to hit you with something. Once you've dispatched the one you're focused on, then the ranged guys are usually easy kills.

As for fighting two (or more) of the more dangerous melee guys, the key here is positioning. Lock onto the one you want to kill first, then side step around him until he is between you and the other guy(s). Many enemies, especially the larger ones, can't attack you through their fellows and they won't walk through or around them very quickly, so you've effectively made it a series of one on one fights which is much more manageable. Sometimes they do have a like lunge or jumping, usually unblockable, attack, but for those you just do the same thing as with the ranged enemies, if you see the "ding" (or hear it), just dodge roll until they're done then go back to fighting the one guy.

This works for almost every fight. The only fight I ever felt was "unfair" was one with two Carcass Kings, and this was because they can frequently get into a weird cycle where one or both of them is constantly doing their stun yell, making it almost impossible to move in close enough to riposte and kill one of them. But again there was a way to play around this, which was to switch to a high impact weapon and just focus on running in and out and chipping away their poise. Slower for sure but still effective.

The other room I see people talking about is the room which I think is 2 before the final boss encounter. It has like 4 or 5 mosquito guys and a Ant Lady spawner thing (I forget the correct names). But there is also a pretty fool proof strategy for this room.

Basically, the Ant Lady doesn't do anything to you if you ignore her except poop out more of the leeches, but leeches can be beaten pretty easily if you use your blaster on them (attack once, when they wind up their attack, blast em, their poise will be gone and you can crit them and they're dead, rinse repeat on each one).

So my strategy was just ignore Ant lady, run up to each mosquito guy, wait for him to do his regular attack, riposte it. This one-shots them if you have a decent weapon with either high damage or high impact. Rinse repeat on each one. By the time I'm done there's usually only 3 leeches spawned (see above).

Then I focus on the Ant Lady, who yes, is annoying and a damage sponge, but if you learn her attack pattern, she does do a ripostable attack and that does like half her HP. It's a two attack combo, so when you see her raise her left arm (your right), get ready. You can riposte the first one, but it's usually easier to time it on the second one.

Meanwhile, a single shot from your blaster takes care of the cocoons that haven't hatched into leeches yet so you can just blast em as they come out (don't stand near them) and then go back to hitting her.

Just don't get stunned (then grabbed) and the fight is easy if you're patient.

TL;DR of the above, spoiler free, is if you are fighting multiple guys, lock onto one and side step to put him between you and the others. He'll box them out with his body and most enemy's can't attack easily through their buddies. For more spread out enemies, just sprint up to the one you want to kill first (I like to start with the easiest and work my way up). You can usually kill them before the others catch up. For fights with ranged guys in the back, you can often sprint past the melee guys and quickly dispatch the ranged ones, or just keep an eye on them as you fight the melee guys and dodgeroll when they shoot, then go back to fighting the melee guy.

Other helpful tactics to know
-You're basically invincible while dodge rolling. If you hear/see the *ding* icon go off above them, start rolling. It seems to apply to that entire attack combo so don't dodge just the first one, wait for them to pause before moving back in. Also works on ranged enemies, just roll through their shots, don't bother trying to perfect block them.
-Every enemy has pretty consistent attack patterns and they are sometimes/always based on what you are doing. When you encounter a new enemy, aggro them and then just dodge roll everything until you get a feel for the pattern. Try staying farther back from them or closer in as well to see what they do. Once you learn the pattern, it's easy to avoid their unblockable attacks and figure out which ones can be riposted and when you can get in "free" hits.
-Master the riposte. Once you learn enemy attack patterns, most of them have at least one, slow, easy to riposte attack (sometimes it's after a few quick attacks, usually like one or two quick attacks then a slower and much easier to riposte one). It does massive damage and will 1 to 2 shot many of the enemies that are otherwise damage sponges.
-Have a high-impact weapon. For the enemies who are resistant to riposte damage or otherwise hard to riposte, break their poise instead. Spam quick attacks, hit em with a rage breaker if they rage, and dodge roll when they attack you. Once their poise is broken, they will be stunned and you can crit them.
-When you break an enemies poise, don't immediately right-trigger/special attack them. You can almost always get a full 3 or 4 regular hit combo off while their still staggered and then still do the crit/special attack. Works on bosses too.
-Apparently the blaster cancels basically everything the enemy is doing, including grab attacks. I didn't know that you could break free once grabbed and haven't tried it myself, but one of the Devs says it works in another thread so give it a shot. Other than that, the blaster is a great way to interrupt basically anything else that an enemy is doing when you just need that one last attack combo or a second to back away, or if their poise is close to broken. Some enemies are also very vulnerable to the blaster, either dying instantly to it, or at least losing all or almost all poise from a single shot. These enemies can be killed almost instantly with proper application of the blaster.
-Bosses don't spawn a shadow version when they die even if you are fully insane. You also hit harder when fully insane (although you also take more damage). Since you probably are mastering the art of dodging the bosses hardest hitting attacks, I think it's usually worth it to have lower sanity while fighting a boss.

As for which weapons to use or runes or blessings, I think there are multiple answers, but one thing that helped me out was remembering that there was a reason I had two weapons equipped at a time that I can quick-switch between. I saw some people say they used a fairly balanced weapon with decent damage/speed/agility/impact, but I took the opposite strategy and used one weapon with maxed impact (sacrificing damage primarily) and one with maxed damage (sacrificing impact).

This allowed me to do things like start with the high impact weapon and break the enemies poise, then switch to my high damage weapon and do a full attack combo then the special attack/execute/right trigger finisher. The switch is almost instant so it can be done easily mid-fight. For example, with the carcass king it is easy to stagger and break their poise with a high impact weapon, then switch to damage weapon, do a full attack combo then execute and it basically 1 shots them

Some enemies also get 1-shot if you ambush them with a high impact weapon, while a high damage weapon does almost nothing to them. Just depends on the enemy. Learn which is which and the game gets much easier.

I literally never used any of the consumables except for the health ones (especially the one that lowers sanity), but I hear they are good. They aren't replenish-able so I never wanted to rely on them, but having played through the whole game now you do get a decent number of most of them so if there is a fight you're struggling with, don't be afraid to use one.