Still having a ton of trouble with the blood starved beast.
Any tips?
Equip armour with high poison resistence (you can find some in the house that's at the bottom of that ledge you jump onto to next to the crows in old yarnham). Stay close to the beast and dodge forward under his main attacking arm whenever he attacks. This gets you behind him for a few hits with short form of weapon. I used the short form of the kirkhammer+3 with 17 endurance. Rinse and repeat. It's possible to avoid getting hit at all this way but if you do get hit in the beast phase and poisoned the armour helps buy you more time to back off and use antidotes and heal. Make sure you back off very far before using them.