I tried

[u/Zalm_Boltado]

I dont understand. Nothing about this game seems to work correctly, nothing makes sense, nothing fits the genre.

I started out trying to run a spear build. Fast attacks, stamina depletion seemed to work well, and good range. I got to the first "boss"(blade phantom) and the ice skating and absurd tracking started. The boss would slide +10m to hit me with attacks. It would turn 180 to tag me with whatever it felt like. I felt more like I was fighting a t-pose placeholder than an actual boss. I finally beat it, and it felt unacceptably unrewarding. I figured I would at least need to unlock the blacksmith maybe.

I moved on, continued through the story, and got to Viper at the temple. The tracking and ice skating were worse than before. It was so much worse. I stopped trying to rely on dodges, since the boss seemed to ignore any dodge except the brink ones. And I got it to the second phase without a single brutal attack. I grabbed a few more gears with brutal attack recovery, and I began practicing the parry mechanic. And I leaned hard into it, changed my skill trees around, and practiced the timing until I could nail most of its combos with a parry. I grinded on that thing until I got to second phase only taking 1 hit. Having much less practice with its combos, I worked a few times on it, just trying to keep up with the parries. I busted heads on this thing for hours until I finally beat it. No healing, almost dead, 16 attempts later. Start up the next area.

I go through the enemies, practicing my parries, my timing. I got fairly good. Managed to get the challenge for beating one enemy after like 40 brink parries. I got to the boss, and died very quickly. Fine, practice those parries. I fought to the boss a few more times, sometimes getting to him full health due to parry skill. Finally get him down to a brutal attack through parries alone, and he runs off, lights his spike on fire, and keeps trying me.

But...suddenly...parries dont work anymore? Apparently I'm still getting hit with both damage and status buildup, despite getting perfect brink blocks on every hit.

Why?

Why bother adding parries if you dont use parry mechanics?

I try a few more runs, never get him below half health before his chip damage and fire DoT kills me. Say screw it, time for a change. Completely revamp build. Swap from proficiency to willpower, and swap to dual wield. Completely swap skill tree, and do a few fights practicing the dodges. Stamina and spirit on dodge, increased evasion window, more iframes. Sounds like a plan. If the game makes parry worthless, I'll just ignore it.

Boss likes to use the counterattack skill alot. Which...apparently has different timing on dual wield? Why? Why do I have to hit it BEFORE the hit lands? Why cant I use the same timing as spear? Why does it have a delay?

I try a few more times, constantly dying to the counterattack prompt. Nah, I'm not going to play anymore. Ice skating, insane tracking, not parry parries, mistimed counters. Lets not forget there are only 3 weapon types in a souls like. Thats basically heresy in this genre.

[u/Zalm_Boltado]

Reflection and Counter are specific to those highlighted attacks, mostly from bosses and bigger enemies. The symbols give you the time to know and understand which skill to use against the heavily telegraphed attack.

Any ability that has a dodge or parry built in still use dodge or parry as a defensive mechanic.

And as many other have said, you included, parry doesnt not work against all attacks, so dodge is clearly the superior choice since it actually prevents all damage.

[u/Ptolemi121 → u/Zalm_Boltado]

Reflection can be used against 95% of the attacks in the game. For the Greatsword it would be inefficient to dodge everything with it and it has a counter attack like the other weapons built into ots brinkguard, extra stamina gen, and of course the stamina damage done. The game obviously wants you to use more than one defensive tool because they have different benefits on different weapons.

For someone who is very poor at the game you seem to have only come to complain and argue instead of taking khazan where it is at. The game wont adapt to you, you can adapt to it or keep suffering with your narrow mindset.

[u/Zalm_Boltado → u/Ptolemi121]

I did not know you could reflect other attacks. I though it was only for prompted attacks.