Generally speaking, at the beginning of these sorts of games the two main melee builds, Strength based and Dexterity based, have relatively the same effectiveness early on, and whatever feels best for the player is what they end up committing to, providing they aren’t doing a balanced build.
This is to say Strength feels ineffective in the first area and is outshone by Dex completely to me. The damage output is nowhere near enough to offset the huge stamina cost and slow speed. There is not even knockback to be rewarded for actually landing a hit on these lightning quick enemies. It’s to the point that Dex feels like the “intended” way to play the game, when I doubt that was the intention at all.
While I imagine as I progress and improve my stats and arsenal (only just beat 1st boss) I’d soon find a strength weapon that feels effective, having one play style feel so weak compared to another at the very start of the game could limit player experimentation and lead to frustration. Other than buffing early Strength weapon damage, I’d recommend there being a starter weapon for both builds on the beach (I only found the daggers, was there one for Strength anywhere?) that have similar damage per second, so players could make the decision between Power vs Speed (or both) in a way that’s focused on their preferred style of play as opposed to general effectiveness.