Why is he so much harder than every other boss and it's just cheap gimmicky shit with how big he is even my mimic 10...

just for that I'm making more threads

Everyone suffers in Fromsoft games user. Player included.

first phase was cool. Second felt like a clusterfuck because it'd take forever to get to him, even on a horse, and as soon as you get in position to attack him, he rolls away again, rinse and repeat.

As far as "gimmick bosses" I'm kinda disappointed that Rykard was basically written off as gimmick. First time playing through the game I just did the expected thing, picked up the stormruler, and did absolutely nothing but charged L2s standing in place for the entire fight. I don't think I saw a single attack from him in either phase.

The second playthrough I'm doing right now, I actually decided to skip the stormruler and fight him manually, since I'm doing an incantation build and had ranged options. It was actually a lot of fun and it's a surprisingly cool boss. Just a shame most people will never notice because the gimmick renders the entire thing pointless.
IMO they should've removed the stormruler gimmick and tweaked the boss fight to make it more manageable to kill the traditional way. Maybe have the lava pool disappear for periods of time after attacks so that melee-only builds have some openings or something too, or at least make the lava not stagger you.

I can avoid every move of theirs while on horseback, with the exception of the rock shotgun. I've never been able to dodge that if I'm not on foot.