New player advice

First time Souls player. I finished Bloodborne a year ago and maybe I'm not remembering how much I sucked at that when I started.

I'm 3 hours in, zero souls, and not past the first area. Can't even repair my gear :(

I've been looking through the advice here and thinking of restarting as Royalty or Magician for the ranged attacks and magic. I had picked Barbarian for the strength stats.

How critical is nailing the parry? I can't seem to get it consistently.

Should I lock onto the enemies every time? Sometimes this makes me have my back to another enemy.

I have been taking it slow, not rushing through, but it seems that one mistake with a bigger enemy is just the end of me.

On the plus side, I do have 13 fire bombs. At least you get to keep your gear after dying.