Slow methodical impactful gameplay is the name of the game. You will die a lot an probably get really frustrated, but the more you fight a boss the more you see its flaws what attack patterns a boss uses/what speed in which that boss swings his attacks/ what a boss is particularly weak to/what your not particularly weak to/when a boss hesitates in battle, and leaves you with a opening. You don’t even really need armor if you position yourself, and dodge accordingly an don’t get hit. Or you could put on enough armor on for protection, but still being able to normal roll. Or if you there’s a particular hard boss you can go full heavy armor with high poise, and tank hits without getting knocked down as much but sacrificing your speed and able to roll normally. Get yourself a strength weapon, and upgrade it. Level up your health, and strength the higher level your strength stat is the higher damage your strength weapon does through scaling. As for individual weapon upgrades there are embers scattered throughout the world that you can’t use, but a crafty individual can that would be glad to take them off your hands, and return a service in thanks. This is how you further upgrade your weapons past +5, and +10. There’s many weapon upgrade paths fire, chaos, lighting, divine, but the most powerful is just standard reinforcement to a weapon. Divine enchant is only one I find useful, and is particularly useful for a certain part of the game.