[2020] Dodging feels inconsistent and not good enough

At this point I've clocked 254 hours in Dark Souls 3 and like to think I have a very solid grasp on how to use the iframes to dodge attacks, but it often feels like this game in particular has none, or that they're at the end of the animation, instead of the start, or whatever else that's making it feel the way it does to me. The result is me trying the Dark Souls timing to dodge a charge attack from, say, the Embermane you fight at the start of the game, except that I see my character playing the start of the animation and still getting hit. Then I was fighting a Gnasher and its tail slaps just a minute ago, did the same dodge timing and actually dodged the attack. How does this thing actually work? Did the person designing this never consider that dodging a giant animal with a human's very limited rolling distance needed consistent iframes? The game itself is very nice to play, but when a basic mechanic feels like it's turning itself against you for no reason, it's very discouraging. Oh yeah, and when you dodge what I believe the game considers "too early", the charge attack just auto-aims on you and hits you anyway, so what's the point?