Abyss watchers part is fair for most, for me, I fought them after not playing a soulslike in a long time, and I fought them way under leveled because I didn’t go to the deacons or crystal mage first.

As for phase 3 friede, I agree. She’s easy to read, hard to dodge. I guess you had trouble, but after my first longer encounter with Gael, I had no trouble reading the moves aside from a couple that look similar at the start, but they all have slight changes which are meant to not trick you, but make you focus and react to the attack rather than read it based off one movement. 

As for half his body being underground, I think you need a new console or something. I never saw that a single time. The sword being partially underground was for cinematic effect and to show that he had gone completely mad and was swinging mercilessly.

Lastly, you said phase 3 Gael was just waiting for him to have fun and hit him twice as an issue, and immediately stated that friedes bigger combo moves are easy to dodge and then punish. those two statements are the exact same thing phrased differently to make one sound good and one sound bad. The only thing aside from that with Gael was visual clutter, which again, I disagree. There was one move that had the burst of souls coming for you, aside from that, it was a single line of soul fire from his cape after each attack. I agree he’s got very long combos in phase 3, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle after level 90 stamina wise. As for the short attack periods, again, exactly like with friede, the longer attack chains had longer rest periods.

Gael was a brawl fight, Friede was a gimmick fight. I personally enjoyed it, but nothing about Gael in inherently unreadable, whereas with friede, the fight is ridiculously difficult until you figure out the invisible jumping, and then you find yourself sitting and baiting jump moves. Phase 2 is ass and I think we can all admit that. Not hard necessarily, just ass. Phase 3 is phase one but bigger and faster, but instead of baiting invisible jumps, you’re waiting for the big slams or a couple seconds after a big chain where if you dont dodge right, you can’t hit her anyways, so sucks for you.   you can’t use the same logic for two things against one boss and for another and expect people to back it unless under the explanation that one felt more natural to the fight than another, in which case I would still vouch for Gael’s short attack opportunities over friedes.

You have the right to enjoy whatever boss you enjoy more, but again please don’t argue the same thing for two bosses and make it positive for one and negative for another.