It is. Make range damage do dogshit. Make it have no tracking so you have to aim, etc. But I digress. That's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in at least not feeling like heavy 2h melee is the worlds' largest liability.
Past souls games felt like you could beat any boss by just having reflexes and a proper main stat/scaling weapon combo because every boss had issues tracking and had ample room for punishing attacks of all varieties (not just jump/roll r1 spam). It didn't matter what you used. About the only thing that really sucked were sword and shield builds because shields did nothing to counter boss attacks. You'd get staggered immediately no matter what.