So both of you are playing the game with a controller? Do you feel the game plays better with a controller than a keyboard and mouse?
My first playthrough was with KBM. That worked pretty well, and the only real problems I'd faced were due to me not knowing.... how to like, play the game after putting it down for a while. Blocking, dodging, rolling, countering are all very important.
Thing is, the action is quite a bit slower and the opponents quite a bit putzier, so using a controller with some input lag and even playing with lower framerates (20FPS to 30FPS) isn't going to stop you if you know what you're doing.
To wit, I've down multiple bosses in quests that had a level rating of
. First time I did one, I had to repair the sword three times during the fight; the higher difficulty level mostly just lowers the rate of damage that can be done and makes the consequences of mistakes more severe.
Best advice I can give is to get
good at dodging. Unless it's an AoE attack (larger opponents), you can typically dodge through their thrusts and do a quick swing to knock them off balance, and then alternate heavy and light attacks to keep them off balance. And if an opponent shelters in some way, step back and wait for the next opening.
But yeah, totally doable on a controller. I'll say that it's an even better experience than KBM, if only because it's 'smoother' and the snappiness of a mouse just isn't needed.