I never said it was about spamming arts. i said it was designed around building around arts. There are plenty of arts that are buffs, debuffs, heals, immunities, etc. Parrying is even technically a weapon art in the game. The point I made was that players are expected to build morr around their choices than just running in butt ass naked with a big stick and expect that Dark Souls tactic to work.Because you repeatedly say souls combat is gone, melee only isnt viable, and the game is purely about spamming ashes of war.
You present those things as absolutes and deviations from the souls formula. But its not. You just werent good enough at the basics, and need to stop spouting about how the basics were impossible and only xyz is doable.
Even players doing the solo level 1 things are using a collection of items and equipments to make it possible. Which is fine that's what makes Elden Ring not a Souls game imo. In souls games you can beat the game without anything specific, no special set ups, no required gear sets, nothing but raw skill. That is not possible in Eldren ring, you are required to build yourself a set of tools to get through it. However there are a LOT of tools, so it's a matter of gathering up what works for you and putting it all together, assuming you can find it.
There is a reason why speedruns of the game are 15 minutes of gathering, and 10 minutes of fighting.
Fundamentally I think a tiny bit of guidance, maybe some direction of "starter" items would have gone a long way.
So I don't think it's simply "get Gud" at the basics of combat because the basics of Elden Ring have dramatically changed from what Souls games are, much in the same way that you couldn't take Souls experience into Sekiro really. It's a new set of combat skill required with a bigger focus on itemization help over raw player talent.
For example, take Mohg, the Omen boss fight. This fight is absolutely impossible to complete without a build and item's to set yourself up for success. Because at 40% health he swaps to phase 2 i which he deals an unavoidable aoe which heals him and deals roughly 750-850 points of damage to the player every time. The solution is to either be good enough at the fight to have 3 remaining flask chugs available which is certainly possible and fine for a character who's leveled up enough, or there are weapon arts, mixed flask combos, or spells that can render you invulnerable to the damage which is the only way a level 1 character would survive (because not enough health to survive the ability) but also is actually the best way to fight the boss for ANYONE because by preventing the damage to you, you also prevent the boss from healing. So rather than dealing with a nearly fully health phase two boss, you can instead punish him while he spams a useless ability and only have to deal another 20ish% of his health to finish the fight making phase two much shorter and less stressful.
All this is fine, it's the way the game is built. But I don't believe it fits as strictly a Souls game anymore. The combat has evolved, the way they want you to play the game has changed, and it's no longer got that slow methodical feel to it the same way Souls games did. Even if you sped up souls combat a little like DS3 and BB did, it was still the same methocial combat approach.
In my reply to @hanselthecaretaker I merely argued that ER is not a Souls game, From isn't making Souls games anymore. Some of the core elements of Souls still remains sure like runes, estus, bonfires, respawning enemies, etc. But the rest of the game is fundamentally different in both the way the world is designed and presented as well as the combat.