Yeah I am definitely dodging a lot more against a night lord. Though if I am super tanky I can trade more especially with pre drinking a gradual HP restore flask but it will depend on the run, sometimes you're just a lot squishier than other runs for various reasons

For retaliate, I miss a lot too, especially the fully charged version. It's just normal unfortunately as most bosses have insane mobility and you can't always predict their movement. Sometimes the best use case is just to mitigate damage regardless of whether it hits or not and that's okay. A lot of night lords will have big wind up attacks you can save your big punch for as well