So what changed for me? I'd been stuck on using a particular weapon and armour setup. For the weapon, I was using a Halberd because it had served me well in the earlier parts of the game but as I got further in I was feeling it less and less. But this was my weapon, I was invested in it, I had spec my character around it. Eventually I thought to hell with it and just googled 'best dex weapons' and a suggestion that came up a lot was the Balder Side Sword, which I had picked up but not even given a second look to. So I tried it out and just felt much better about it straight away. And then I got a different weapon drop, tried that out and found I liked it even more.

As for armour I was focusing on keeping myself light, below 25% equip weight. After feeling the positive change from changing my weapon I thought I'll try some heavier armour and see if maybe I'm okay with that. I'd try rolling at different weights but only outside of combat and by direct comparison without proper context the medium roll had felt too slow. But when I actually used it in combat it felt fine, it didn't feel like I was too slow to actually use when fighting.

The moral of all this I guess is experiment, you can ask other people, look online for advice and get told a bunch of different things, but ultimately you've just got to give it a go and see how you feel actually playing with a particular build. And if you are anxious about losing souls then wait until you've spent all your souls on a stat point or equipment upgrades or whatever so you can try things without feeling like you are risking a lot of souls on build you are not sure of yet.