So, I've beat these fuckers now. Asked some kid on Reddit how to to do it and he mentioned Black Knife Tiche. Beating the little bastard who dropped that was hard enough, took me hours. Anyhoo, got the goddamn thing and she basically did all the work for me until the latter stages of Elden Beast, after that I just Bloodhound Fanged the bastard to death.
I'm not going to bother with NG or anything, first time stressful enough. It is one of the best games I've played though, alongside New Vegas, Dead Space and Sekiro. Brilliant, brilliant game. Put 120 hours into it and it cost Ł34.99. Thank fuck it's over.