Combat tips? Dog keeps handing me my *****

[acatalept]

Playing on medium (default) difficulty, but stuck on the dog right after getting the knife.

I'm probably overthinking this, coming from souls-like games... Is there a trick to timing attacks to get them to land reliably? I've died... a lot of times to this dog ;)

I've tried:

- timing attacks when the dog lunges (dog hits me at the same time, and he can take more hits than I can)
- attack before the dog lunges (I miss half the time -- too far away? hitbox too small?)
- block then attack (block input doesn't register half the time, even with plenty of stamina, so I just stand there and eat an attack that I intended to block)
- kiting the dog to regain stamina between attacks (stam regen is too slow)

Youtube playthroughs seem to indicate the dog is challenging, but all those I've watched defeat it on the first try.

Have I not suffered enough at the maw of the eldritch gods most fearsome guardian? And they say the dogs in Souls games are tough ;)

[thekillerlance]

I just threw a box at it to stun it, and hit it with the knife a few times. Also default difficulty.

[Andy]

aim for the head

[Chaos]

I threw the bucket behind the dog, that distracted it and went looking for it, then I stabbed it in the back 3 times.

[OhShi-]

I couldn't defeat this dog no matter how hard I tried. I threw things at it, stabbed it many times, retreating in time from its attack, but it just doesn't die ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Mr Funny Shoes]

Yeah it's an extremely harsh introduction to the game. Parry/perfect block does nothing except eat my stamina and knock the dog back for 0.5 seconds then it comes charging back in. Seems like a pretty useless skill.

If the rest of the combat encounters are like this then....yikes, I might pass on this one. It's got a great atmosphere though.