Is the no man’s wharf this game’s blight town?

New player here, decided to go down the new path i unlocked after besting dragon rider. (Killed old giant after dragonrjder too).
The area is so so so dark and enemies are abundant. Cant jst run from em cuz they catchup… nor can i yse my zweihander from ds1 to group and kill.
The PVE so far is kinda hard excluding bosses.

I thought i could find the blacksmith’s hammer here but all i got was death. The lava salamander’s area also touched me badly.