The player has two instantly accessible attacks: basic and dash attack. Your basic attack chain for each weapon seems to be randomized from a pool of attacks for that weapon type which is a neat idea in theory. Problems start when you roll a basic attack starter that just doesn’t synergize with your dash attack.
Good example:
Claymore has it’s first attack in the basic chain be a long ranged stab. It’s slow and doesn’t always hit multiple targets but does a lot of damage and lets you whiff punish from a safe distance. The first attack in the dash chain is a quicker, horizontally cleaving move great at crowd control and preemptively hitting fast enemies.
Bad example:
Spalled Axe has the first attack of the basic chain be a single target ground slam with massive recovery, fairly short range that can’t be charged. It does do a good amount of damage and good stagger though. The dash chain starter is a leap with good range and damage but you can get tagged out of startup. This combination feels absolutely awful at dealing with groups of fast enemies.
Similar issue with staves, I ended up sticking with the Gnarled Staff for way longer than I wanted to purely because the basic attack on it was way more useful than what I found later.
Now I get that weapons can have weaknesses and all combinations don’t have to be perfect but I think extra attention to make sure the basic and dash starters always feel strong in some way would be nice.