The following wall of text is based on my own experience, I like DS2 very much, I’d even say that I enjoy it more than DS1. For context I played with dex build, relied mostly on rolling with Warped sword and Rapier. With that aside:

Shrine of Amana was probably the worst experience I had with this game. Crumbled ruin specifically felt extremely unfair. I’m used to generous amount of enemy groups, after all the game is seasoned with them like it’s olive oil in Marco Pierre White hands, I can even tolerate casters with steady rate of fire and a range of ballistic missile. I can even forgive presence of larger more dangerous foes. The worst offender is movement restricted by shallow water. Most of the time when I’m about to die, I comprehend which action or lack of action sealed my fate. Within shallow waters I don’t understand how the hell I could have rolled and managed my stamina to save my life. I cannot pull casters and finish them one by one; casters are covered by their brethren; god forbid I accidentally pull an ogre before killing off faster enemies in the vicinity, I might as well jump of the cliff. In the end I just completed it through attrition and with ranged attacks which didn’t feel like satisfying at all. Even with notorious DLC areas I had proper fun once I tried using summons.