Overview
My way of fighting (against humanoids) atlest at the beginning of the game.
“Prepare to fight”
If you know you will have to fight, i usually use my best friends f5(fast save) and f9(fast load) in this game. At some harder fights you will get used the the 43% loading bar more than fighitng itself -.- .
The dodging key isnt set by default. I use it because its much faster and easy to use that double tap into a direction. If u dont press into any direction ur just going to step backwards.
Dodge
Now if u see a humanoid enemy swinging at you just press the dodge key. This way you can avoid damage even if it seems like you got hit. Dont block! Its slowing down your movement and your stamina regeneration. Sometimes the enemy may do a parry and counteratack you, but you can simply dodge it. Take it slow. If an enemy starts atacking dodge and check if it doesnt do a combo. Better take it slowly than spamming the atackbutton since they hit like a truck and you like a baby -.- . After successfully doding a atack(single or whole combo) wait a bit till you got full stamina again, since the enemy normally wont atack you a second time that fast. When your stamina is full smash their butts. Sometimes they might use a heavy swing. In this case you need to learn the movesetting because dodging too early will result in getting damage.
Stamina management
Humanoids got stamina like you. Try to keep your opponents stamina as low as possible to avoid blocking and atacking. I like to do just 4 light atacks and than finish with the comboatack. Because you dont have much energy at the early state of the game, you wont be able to completely fill up the combobar and finish it in one row. If you do 5 light atacks you cant do the comboatack anymore because you dont have enough stamina. While waiting to get new stamina your progress in the combo bar will shrink. Its tricky to get the exact timing when u have enough stamina to fill up the bar and still do the combofinisher. While waiting for the stamina to rise again, your enemy might atack you and you will need to comsume stamina to dodge.
Ending
This is my very first guide and i just wanted to share with you my thoughts about the fighting system as quick as possible since the game punishes you sooooo damn hard at the beginning. I didnt plan a super complex guide but if you got any tips and tricks I would be very interested. Im still not very into fighting monsters so some advice would be cool. Thx and gl & hf