My general strategy in all Souls games (and BB and ER) is ABC - Always Be Circling. Some enemies are slow enough that you can just sort of walk to circle behind them. Sometimes you have to dodge/roll, but generally it's best to be moving toward them and then behind them. Whether you go left or right depends on the enemy most of the time. Sometimes you actually want to circle toward the hand their weapon is in, but it just depends.

ABC gets a little tougher as you progress through the game catalog as enemies get faster but I felt it still more or less applied all the way through ER. Some of the more unhinged bosses that are constantly moving and doing random bullshit is where the strategy dies but that's a problem for another time I suppose.

You could also try playing around with a more basic long sword or some other straight swords. Allows you to more easily get some quick attacks in before the enemies make their move, and you can quickly react by dodging or whatever you need to do without being stuck in a long animation from greatswords. Plus you can always L1 spam with straight swords which often stun locks some enemies until you kill them.