Parry/ guard counter
This is my first soulslike, played through the first couple of times before learning these skills. Started learning parries with Rakshasa and PCR which in hindsight may not have been the easiest starting point. Learning them has helped tremendously and fundamentally changed gameplay for me, plus its satisfying to repost following a good parry or finish off an enemy with a guard counter.
If you are new and dont know about these skills or you dont know how to execute them, I highly recommend learning them. They’re the highest skill level game mechanic (imo), it requires learning timing and can be very high risk if you miss. However, they can be extremely rewarding and trivialize any melee based encounter in the game if you put in the time and effort. Guard countering + deflection tear makes melee exchanges a breeze. Parry shield (buckler) + dagger (misericorde) can be really punishing as well.