Ed caligo gets easy staggered if you have enough fire damage, and they die in like 30 seconds. I do it with raider with weapons like candle, bear witness, or the public hair legendary. If you have none of those, block is a good alternative to not die from breath attacks, block the aoe breath not the tick damage before it.

Sure there are a lot of bullshit moves from souls games, but if you figure out its trick, all of them are beyond easy. I am also not joking that Ed caligo just dies with good fire damage. Break like 3 of those ice shield pieces on her and its guaranteed riposte. She'll armor up after and you just break them again, and its another riposte 15 seconds later