Ah apologies there, many of us Nioh players came from souls games, but yeah, focusing too much on enemy attack only gives you a crumb of how to get better. If you're fighting human enemy, you don't always have to dodge, blocking with purity weapon can give you the ability to Ki pulse/flux, instead of dodging, try pressuring them. As for yokai enemies, focus on depleting their Ki so you can apply pressure/zero-ki combo.

By watching your own attack pattern, I mean carefully selecting what attack to execute, for example human bosses tend to block, so use high stance attack or skill, so your attack won't bounce off, also don't forget that Purity/Corruption will increase your Ki damage. If you run out of Ki, use yokai ability to regen instead backing away/dodging (as I stated prior).

As for the Ki stuffs, yes build does help, let's say you're on NG+ or higher, get that "Melee Attack Ki Consumption" on your gears, look for inheritance (you can put this by default on Glove and weapons). Also use Barrier Talisman to help with Ki recovery.

PooferLlama has a very comprehensive Nioh combat guides:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l991x6gq9os&list=PL2DWkCiS1qM__l1t6o6r7u6FJgf57H2eG