I played a ton of Valheim back when it released and I don't remember ever struggling this much with stamina. Back then it was manageable - now I seem to spend more time in combat just standing around than actually fighting.

I get what the devs are going for - make combat challenging, force the player to manage their resources and pick the right moments to attack - but come on! We are supposed to be legendary viking warriors and we have to take a breather every five seconds?! I'm genuinely at a loss what I'm supposed to do. I've cooked the best food I'm able to, I brewed stamina potions, I'm using Eikthyr's power for faster stamina regen - and yet it feels like I'm doing barely any damage despite having decent gear and trying my hardest to fight efficiently.

Taking out small groups of mobs is easy enough since my sword takes them out in 1-2 hits. But prolonged fights, especially against bosses? Forget it! None of my strategies seem sustainable.
Can I just get my shield up and block attacks until my stamina is back? Maybe - but maybe the game will keep swarming me with smaller mobs from all sides forcing me to run away or keep attacking. This gets especially annoying when a random mob with 1 or 2 stars shows up whose attacks put me in a stunlock even through my shield, so I have to keep burning stamina to fight back or gain some distance.
Can I just keep dodging the incoming attacks? Well - not if I want to regenerate any stamina.
Can I kite the enemy around and use my bow? Nope, that also drains a ton of stamina so after 2 or 3 shots I'm again standing around and being useless. In short, the stamina mechanic in it's current form makes me feel like a rheumatic old man rather than a mighty warrior.
Can I rely on stamina potions? Yeah - once every couple of minutes which is next to irrelevant.
Can I wear lighter armor to reduce the stamina drain on jumping? Sure, but then I'll drop dead the moment something flicks my ear - which will eventually happen since the mobs are not hampered by stamina and can chase you down forever.

This, combined with the constant swarm of enemies spawing on top of you while you're trying to fight makes for one of the most frustrating combat experiences I've ever had. Oh you wanna take down a boss? Too bad, let's have a random Deathsquito fly over from the Plains biome next door and stab you in the back while you're busy managing your hp, stamina, positioning and half a dozen other things. And dying once basically means all your best gear is unreachable until you find a way to defeat all the mobs camping your corpse - but this time with worse gear. So now things are even less fun as before. It just seems like such a massive grind.

Of course, there's always the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pseudo-advice to "git gud" but honestly - I'd rather spend my time "gitting gud" in a game with a more rewarding combat system. Valheim to me was never about the fighting. That's just something you do to get the annoying mobs out of your face so you can return to whatever you were actually doing. But the way things are now makes progression painfully slow for me and I feel a sense of dread every time I see an enemy approaching.

Ok, enough venting. I'm not here to ♥♥♥♥ on Valheim - it's still an amazing game which I love despite everything I ranted about. I'd like to ask though: Am I missing something? Any tipps would be helpful.