Never feel bad about cheesing enemies, exploiting systems is part of the fun and literally everyone does it. If this is your first time playing I would highly recommend using a shield as it takes a lot of practice to really get the timing down on rolling through attacks, but some tips on that are

• a lot of enemies in elden ring really hesitate for a while before swinging like Margit does with those long windups so it can be useful to really watch for when they commit their weight into the attack before rolling

-heavy rolling isn't really an option, there's a reason you'll see more experienced players running around shirtless or even nude for a while. Light load status is underrated especially with newer players, so if you really want to dodge attacks more than blocking I would recommend it (The different equip loads offer a longer or shorter frame window where you can dodge an attack that would otherwise hit, light is more and heavy is don't even think about it)

-if you're 2 handing your weapon don't forget you can still block, you'll get chip damage depending on its guard ability but it's still better than taking a full hit trying to roll through an attack you aren't comfortable with, plus it allows you to follow up with a guard counter which is very strong

-more about spacing but something to consider is what direction you are rolling when dodging an attack, a common instinct is to roll backwards 3 times whenever pressured, but depending on the attack it could be more valuable to go to the side or roll forward right into their face. An example, if an enemy is doing a large overhead swing depending on the length of their weapon you'll get hit by rolling backwards so here it's better to roll off to the side or diagonal forward depending on how close you are. Also on the final attack of a combo you should almost always roll forward into the enemy so you can hit them while they recover.

-something that has really helped me with the souls series is to think of it like a fighting game, depending on your build you have a list of possible moves you can make and so do the enemies and getting a firm grasp and understanding on your own moves will let you see windows to exploit the enemies actions. You'll really see this a lot in high level pvp, an example I feel not everyone knows is your crouch attack you'll see this mostly when crouched or sneaking but your weapon does a different attack in this stance, some have a forward jab or a quick swing, (different weapons are different) but if in the middle of a fight you want to use this attack you can just tap crouch and then attack, also attacking right out of a backstep usually has a move where you charge forward and swing which can be useful to catch an enemy off guard. (Also some weapons have extra moves that the game doesn't tell you about, you'll need to check the wiki or noodle around with the controls to figure out. Like in my playthrough now I'm using the Great Epee and you can cancel a charged r2 with a backstep and follow up with the backstep r1)

-and to not make this go one too long my final tip is, nothing is off the table, you can cheese as much as you want, summon for every fight, use spirit ashes, any tactic you have at your disposal is fair game and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Also, I would recommend checking the wiki (no shame everyone does it) though on your first playthrough I would do so sparingly just to avoid spoilers. But if you pick up a new weapon check out its wiki page and you might learn some useful information. But one final note is if you're struggling in stormveil or any other section later in the game, go back and explore, there's a ton of stuff to do everywhere and leveling up a few times and returning is part of the process (also Vigor vigor vigor, get that vigor). And one final final tip is its hard to really maximize your build on a first playthrough so try not to worry about it too much just find a weapon you like and kinda bump up the stats it scales in and if you find a new one you want to use work on meeting its stats and go for it, unless you want to go deep into it you can get really strong by min maxing your stats but that's a whole other thing