This game tests me! But honestly, better than Dark Souls 3 imho. My only gripe is lack of weapons. Perhaps I've missed a bunch, but running a str build and have found about 4 suitable weapons. The skill tree has talents for different levels of axes, hammers, swords, each with heavy variants, and I'm not finding any. The merchant doesn't have them either.
Are you transmuting weapons?
Place an alchemist in your sanctuary and you get the option to upgrade weapons using boss souls...err, I mean ashes.