i can't tell if the old hunter summon is helping. can't reliably find human summons to help

i can see in my mind how it's supposed to go but i'm having a lot of trouble simultaneously keeping an eye on rom, the spider i'm trying to kill, and the spiders approaching me. i'm wearing the highest arcane defense outfit i can slap together and the falling ice still hits me for 40% damage per hit. the tonitrus seems to be doing good damage to the spiders but its swing is so terrible that i don't want to use it. maybe i should just try running at rom solo and ignoring the spiders?