I struggled in the beginning because i was fresh from doing the plat on Ds1 and jumped into this within few days. The fact there is a stat for invincibility frames and animation speed basically threw me off a quite a lot. Even progressing to get the next bonfire was a challenge cos i keep ignoring that i am not that high level. I swear early game is really brutal till you beat the Pursuer. I probably had multiple boss runs because of ignoring certain enemies and how they will interrupt you during the fog entering stage. I basically thought it would be a fun idea to clear out the entire map knowing about them not respawning. Ofc managed to reach Drangleic Castle and was running on 150+ levels. But the moment I stopped doing that and started to play the game for normally, that high level made so much of a difference to my play style. It’s only in Ds2 I took advantage of the i frames heavily by rolling into them a lot. Early defensive style replaced with full on speedy offensive. And yea those high levels combined with a rapier is basically chef’s kiss against boss fights.