That’s my biggest problem with FromSoft games. They are not challenging, they’re just slow HP sponges that can one-shot you. That is not challenging, it’s just unfair, and frankly boring.
I think the game would be funner even with the simple tweak of making the animations faster. No fighter EVER wins IRL by telegraphing their attacks for three seconds.
Dark Souls also has slow enemies. Supposedly Sekiro is better in that regard, but meh.
Sekiro is much faster paced; it pays to be aggressive after all. The only time I felt like having to delay my reaction time was with the snake eyes with her weird grab iirc.
I didn’t like elden ring much, combat felt more plodding and frustrating to me (and I plat “difficult” games: HK, sekiro, STS).
Coming from someone who shares your frustration with morgott or morgit or the 3 other copy-paste boss’s stick that hovers in the air for 5 business days…
Play sekiro