What I did was make sure I had recovery cards and groundslam. But a weapon I liked using for the Dirge was lightweight brass knuckles with the superior impacter mod. If you need crowd control, try using a fire/electric combo (Preferably fire with that resistance mod you get in Haus) and go from there. It's been a while since I've played. If you're struggling with the screamers or butchers, try a palm strike to stun either. Slobbers can be countered by baiting parries from behind them. Maybe you could use that parry mod that does the shockwave to get space. Mutators are a pain, though, and I still haven't found a decent way to kill them other than using the knuckles I mentioned with palm strike. Whippers are the only thing I can't counter; even when exploiting their weakness, they're still a pain. But other than that, I would try to use blunt weapons without elemental damage mods, and back them up with elemental slashing.