Haha! Yeah, I really struggled with the first few bosses. I mean, I think it took my an entire weekend of pretty hardcore playing to get past them. The game actually became quite a bit easier for me at that point in part because of the tools/skills that the first few maps forced me to get decent at.
First boss with those huge sweeping strikes… well, trying to play it like Dark Souls 2 or Monster Hunter World and using iframes on my dodge rolls was extremely unsuccessful. I learned to love the block (something I couldn’t do in MHW or Dark Souls without a good shield) and how effective it can be in this game. Especially the block + dodge maneuver where you block while you roll so if you mess up you still get the block and the hit to your ki instead of getting eviscerated and staggered. And speaking of staggered, that was also something I had to learn. When getting hit, I need to BLOCK, not DODGE. You can’t dodge if you’re staggered but you can cut in with a block and interrupt a combo, then dodge. Stuff like that. Combined with just learning the boss and when to open up vs. when to remain cautious, I was able to finally beat him.
The next boss, he made me use low stance for my particular weapon (splitstaff) and understand the benefits of it. Mobility and the ability to dodge well with low stance was really important in that fight. Apparently you can’t block fiery landmines and tornados so well, so I had to add to my skillset from the previous lessons I had learned as described above.
Anyway, I hear you on the difficulty. It really spanked my butt over and over and over before I got over the hump. Then it was smooth sailing for a while before the game periodically ramped up the difficulty on me. Right now I’ve unlocked all the missions on Dream of the Wise (NG+++) and am working on refining my build before moving on to Dream of the Nioh.