Just a heads up, if you turn your camera and don't look at them, you don't lose HP. Basically once you see one, turn your camera away, close the distance, and look at them only once you are close to strike distance.

This is honestly the absolute worst designed enemy in any game that I've ever played. These cheap ****s belong in a rage game, not dark souls.
It looks at you funny and all your health disappears.
It has a weapon that, if it so much as ****ing grazes you, knocks you down, stops you from drinking estus and makes you fat roll. Also spews a gas that more or less has the same effect.
It on top of that when you are knocked down has a pseudo grab that is garuanteed to kill you by the time you get hit by it. At the very least you can dodge out of it but at that point even your health will be drained so much that their simple **** poke will kill you.
As for anyone saying to just "GiT GuD" I want to ask you something. What about these enemies is there to get good at? What counterplay is there to them that doesn't make you play in either the cheesiest way possible or slow as ****? I want to play dark souls people, not metal gear ****ing solid.

It's not that they are hard, rather annoying and anti-fun, because you have to be careful around these shyteheads

Some information regarding the life drain mechanism is missing in this article. There are multiple cases where this occurs; I just encountered them during my playthrough so I don't know all of them yet, but:

Bot,h them casting a particular spell on you and you being in their smoke, causes this to occur. I'm not really sure how to stop it from happening once they cast the spell directly on you; it seems to stay with you for the length of the curse. The only solution I have found so far is to attack them before they cast the curse and lock them in stagger; this doesn't work with multiple enemies though unless you cleave them, so in large groups, I draw out 1 at a time.

I hate these biatches

i guess we’re calling branding irons soldering irons now.

when i was in prison, the guards were exactly like this.

These ****s really put the fun in dark souls