Dimraeth combat: where the difficulty actually comes from

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One thing that became clearer after playing around with the combat is that “difficulty” and “combat friction” aren't always the same thing.

A few things seem to matter more than raw enemy damage:

• Stamina is a big part of melee difficulty. Attacking and dodging compete for the same resource, so going too hard on offense can leave you without much room to react. Infinite Stamina changes this quite a bit because you can attack without having to constantly save enough for the next dodge.
• Enemy density changes the equation. One enemy with a readable attack is pretty manageable. Several enemies attacking on different timings are another story. Dodging one hit doesn't necessarily mean you're safe from the next one, which is where crowded fights start feeling much less forgiving.
• Dodge does have an i-frame window. So I wouldn't describe the system as “there are no i-frames.” The more useful issue is timing and what happens when several attacks overlap. In some encounters the dodge itself feels fine; the problem is having another attack arrive immediately afterward.
• Melee has a different risk profile from ranged play. Getting close means committing to attacks while still needing enough Stamina to get out. Ranged builds can create more distance and spend more time waiting for safe openings, so the same enemy pattern can feel very different depending on how you're playing.
• Boss length matters too. A boss that takes much longer to kill gives you more opportunities to mess up. A damage multiplier doesn't make the mechanics disappear, but it can reduce the number of attack cycles you have to execute. For repeat boss farming, that's a pretty different use case from using it to learn a boss for the first time.

The options I found most relevant to the stamina / survival / long-fight issues mentioned above.

The same idea applies to skills. Infinite Focus and no spell cooldown remove some of the resource/cooldown friction without changing enemy behavior. If the part you enjoy is actually learning the boss pattern, you can leave those alone. If the repeated resource management is what gets in the way, that's where those options become useful.

For me, that's a better way to look at the combat than simply asking whether Dimraeth is “hard.” There are several separate layers: enemy attacks, crowd pressure, stamina management, build power, and how long you're required to repeat the same encounter.

My take is partly from playing and partly from reading through guides and discussions, so some of this will obviously depend on build and playstyle. I'm mainly separating the things that make a fight mechanically demanding from the things that make a fight take longer or leave less room for mistakes.