What is the best melee combat strategy in Silent Hill: Downpour?

Question

First off, holy crap, the combat system in SHDP is awful compared to SH Homecoming. Having said that, what is the best general strategy when handling melee weapons. Since there are many creatures, I would be satisfied with a strategy for the most common ones.

Some issues I'm having is with the screamers. Blocking seems critical but it's clumsy. If I try to back away while blocking, murphy turns around and allows himself to get hit. Also, it seems that the screamers are random in their attacks. Sometimes they hit twice, others they hit up to five times. Is there a way to tell when they're about to attack and what type of attack it will be.

It also seems that attacking is clumsy. After blocking, the monsters are too far away to hit (even with a long weapon like a rake or sledge hammer). I try to run to them but they just start attacking again. It's frustrating.

Difficulty is normal.

Answer 1

In my opinion the best combat strategy is to not combat - just run.

One thing I'm used to do is make sure the enemy is alone and run for a while searching for some cheap weapon to throw from far, like a stone. Then I get near and wait for it defending and attack it depending of the kind of enemy. With me, the screamers always attack three times or less. But if I don't need to fight, I just run from them.