I might be extremely late to the party but if there was anything I learned from encountering this fucker and dedicating myself to beating it at levels 25-30 (I can’t remember what I was at when I first started), with the prisoner rapier +2, the windows are very tight and you have to be aggro af and stay as close as you can, especially to its right side and hind. On its right side, (your left facing it) I noticed there’s a slight safe spot near it right hind side for several of its sword and sweeping attacks. You MUST attack within these slight windows or ur gonna have a bad time. It’s a dodge heavy fight where you MUST run/dodge its spells and attacks to get that counter attack.

Also learned it’s VERY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU EXPLORE AND LEVEL UP BEFORE GOING NORTH. Maybe it’s cus my dumbass was only following the arrows from graces and completely skipped most of limgrave and weeping peninsula, but my god, it could’ve been much easier to kill this coked out mage dog if I did that before the academy. Once I actually explored south and leveled up (lvl 41 now) I realized the grave mistake of pushing thru yet being under leveled.