The Last Giant went down last night, was quite surprised to see that my swings with the Fire Longsword did the same amount of damage as the Great Soul Arrows, wasn't quite expecting it - the turtle knight shit me up when he came down the lift though.
Definitely feel a lot safer using a shield, at the moment the Large Leather Shield is the best I can use with 90% damage reduction, are there any easily obtained better shields in the early game? Also I keep getting swarmed by 4 or 5 soldiers at a time, I swear it's almost the same as Bloodborne but without the agility/manoeuvrability - I'm managing to handle them by kiting and running away when I need to, but it feels wrong really.
I suppose I've got two options now, go to Heide's Tower of Flame or unlock the door in the Forest of the Fallen Giants with the key from the boss.
Unlock the doors (there's 4, I think?). At the end of one of them is an armor set with a shield and greatsword, all of which are pretty good in the early game, but are hard to upgrade until later.
The shield in particular can carry you a while.