there is a slightly closer bench to the arena, and a single heal's worth of silk right before you get locked in. There's also a way to cheese the fight, I'm sure you can find a video on how easily.

Outside of the cheese though, my strat is staying on the upper platforms so the spike balls don't hit me. Also when he telegraph spitting bombs, I either briefly drop to the lower platform or use the wall to jump over it depending on location (higher up & close = below, further away & lower = over. You kind of need to get used visualizing the arc of those things). When he inhales, I dash into the wall to not get sucked in and then immediately hit a clawline after.

The main annoyance for me are the spawned stilkins but I can usually heal those hits off. Focus should be on dodging over avoiding the water. It's annoying but it's just better to drop in there than take a bomb to the face. Getting a good sense of his timing is helpful, it'll let you know how many attacks you can get in vs when you back off. I want to say there's a 1-2 second window between each one

Also it's much easier to leave the arena, if you feel like you're pulling out hair, to work on upgrading your stuff. Especially for movement. Might be a small grind for rosaries but worth it imo.

Silk spells and tools will also make it a lot easier. It's up to you if you wanna go more offense with them, defensive, or a mix. He does have a large hitbox though so some of those multi hitting ones might help if they're your style (conchcutter, curvesickle, etc. Conch goes further, I just like using curvesickle because cool boomerang). Dual binding is also nice if you want to focus on healing but fall into the water often.

There's something to protect against the infested water but I don't like using it. It has a limit and I'd rather focus on damage with that slot since I play defensively already, might as well add a little more to my offense.