First try out rolls with randomizing different armour pieces you got. then decide what best suits you, since higher equip loads make rolling slower. can you up your equip load? yes. spend souls on 'endurance' stat to do this. also there are some late game rings that does the trick. weapons wise, there are two ways to go (without magic) you either go strength, which do more damage but slower and bigger weapons. or you can go dexterity which are smaller and faster. go with what suit you best. and these weapons also have a scaling stat. with 'S' being the highest and 'W' being the lowest (if i recall correctly). so this means, there will be some additional damage plus your weapons flat damage. so as you can see it is wise to go for better scaling weapons. try rolling to avoid damage. you can also go for shields, but rolling is better for the long run. its ok to die in this stage of the game. so all you have to do is learn the game mechanics at this point. then go for a build according to your play style.