LogFAQs > #967304794

My experience when I first played was that I didn't realize there were multiple speeds and thought there was just being regular weight and "burdened", so I stayed at Medium weight for a long time. Most of the times when I tried to roll through attacks I'd get hit, and at the time I just assumed that Dark Souls simply had a really strict timing window for that. When I found out there was a Lightweight roll, I tried it out and it made a world of difference. Possibly because I had a lot of experience playing Monster Hunter, but having those extra i-frames made it much easier to get through the game by dodge rolling through attacks. The downside to this playstyle is that without Poise you can get stunlocked to death by big groups of enemies, but I usually had enough HP to take two or three hits even in Light Armor which was enough to escape from a hit and heal if I could (I think leveling HP can carry you a lot even with low defenses).

One other thing to mention is that a part of "tanking" attacks and having good defenses is having a sturdy shield to block attacks. The Stability stat on shields determines how well you can shrug off blocking attacks and heavy shields will use less Stamina on blocking and have higher damage mitigation. Of course, there are shields in the game that have high stats in those areas while still being lighter than other heavy shields, so pay attention to your equipment stats. The weapons and armor in Dark Souls don't increase in quality linearly as you progress through the game and find them like in most RPGs; they all have distinct properties that are unique from each other that you'll want to pay attention to when deciding what to use. Even equipment found at the very beginning of the game can be used all the way to the endgame since it's about their stat spreads rather than them continually increasing in "strength". So pay attention to their stats and use whatever fits the gameplay style you want to use.