NOTE: I am currently not developing this mod further. However, you are free to make whatever changes you want and upload it without asking for my permission. For players, consider merging the animation files into your own modded c0000.anibnd.dcx file (using Yabber). I've listed the affected TAE files at the bottom of this page. The mod is just a c0000 file, so you may still be able to throw it into Elden Ring 1.09, idk.

I am of the opinion that the player in Elden Ring has too much attack commitment given the fast, aggressive boss design, creating a poor balance between attacking and dodging. Attack Recovery Overhaul's vision is to enable the player to force many new openings by allowing all melee attacks to be cancelled into dodge significantly earlier than before, among other changes. Rather than waiting for a more punishable attack to occur because you lack the frames to go on the offensive, you will have more chances to weave your own attacks in between those of the enemies you face. 

This mod will change the way you view encounters in Elden Ring. You can really see the difference during the Morgott fights showcased at 1:00 of the video for this mod. I am able to fit in tons of extra attacks that would have been blatantly impossible (without getting hit) in vanilla Elden Ring: (if the embed doesn't work, visit the Videos section to view it)

Note About Difficulty

Although this mod makes the game feel smoother and more responsive, it inarguably makes the player more powerful. Playing well would enable you to hit enemies more while not getting hit yourself than vanilla allows. You may want to consider using some other mod that increases difficulty.

WEAPONS AFFECTED:

-Dagger
-Claws
-Fists
-Twinblades
-Straight Swords
-Curved Swords
-Katanas
-Spears
-Axes
-Whips
-Halberds
-Greatswords
-Colossal Greatswords
-Curved Greatswords
-Scythes
-Flails
If there is interest, the remaining melee weapons will be included in a future update.

CHANGES

-Dodge cancel window of all attacks for included weapons begins earlier. This includes all light attacks, heavy attacks, running attacks, dodge/crouch attacks, and jump attacks for 1h, 2h, and powerstance. The new dodge windows were chosen with care and (hopefully) do not sacrifice the natural looking recovery animation of attacks.
-Dodge cancel window of all guard counters has been drastically shifted up to make it more possible to safely using it during enemy combos. 
-Two handing any of the included weapons enables attacks to cancel into block much earlier, 2-4 frames after the new dodge window (2 for light weapons, 3 for medium, 4 for heavy). 
-Daggers 1st and 4th powerstance attacks, which do multiple hits, can now be dodge cancelled before the animation fully ends if dodge is pressed before the animation's final swing occurs.
-Daggers can switch between the one handed and powerstance attacks more quickly.

v2.0 Update

-Whips added, including 1h, 2h, and powerstance.
-Most attacks can be cancelled immediately after your character fully retrieves the whip.
-Halberds added, including 1h, 2h, and powerstance.
-Recovery reduced significantly for light attacks, reduced slightly for heavy attacks.
-Guardian Swordspear added, recovery reduced significantly for all moves.
-For light attacks its based on when the character visually recovers from the swing.
-For heavy attacks, some additional recovery frames are left for the purpose of balance.
-Twinblades slightly tweaked; running light and heavy attacks are cancellable into dodge and attack sooner.
-Godskin Peeler unique attacks added, less recovery on all moves.
-Eleonora's Poleblade unique attacks added, less recovery on all moves.

-Burn, O' Flame! incantation recovery significantly reduced. This incantation's recovery was so terrible that nobody ever used it, much better now.
-Black Flame Ritual incantation recovery significantly reduced. Can dodge cancel after character has visually recovered from the attack instead of being forced to stand there like an idiot for 10 years.
-Black Flame Tornado ash of war recovery slightly reduced.

v2.1 Update

-Flails added, all attacks can be cancelled into dodge slightly earlier than before
-Scythe added, all attacks can be cancelled into dodge earlier, to varying to degrees. Should be much more fluid in general.
-Nebula added (Bastard Stars version), can be dodge cancelled significantly earlier than before.

Planned For Future Releases (maybe)

-Address the rest of the weapons not included so far
-Address more melee weapon arts where necessary, wont be more than a couple
-Maybe allow the player to cancel attacks into block faster when 1hing, not just 2hing (idk about this one, shields are already too good)
-Maybe allow all weapons to swap between powerstancing and 1h attacks faster, enabling players to squeeze more hits in if they master the boss' moveset.

COMPATIBILITY

-Elden Ring Reforged: I merged the animation edits from Attack Recovery Overhaul into Elden Ring Reforged and there are no major compatibility issues so far. However, there are cases where our animation changes are overlapping; for example, ERR reduces the recovery time of colossal swords and so does ARO. In these cases, ARO has priority in my ERR+ARO version of the mod. Overall, the vast majority of ERR's animation changes are not affected by ARO. If you would like to use these mods together, please see the "Elden Ring Reforged + Attack Recovery Overhaul Installation" section.

-Swordsmanship: This mod edits the same attack animation files so that part of it is not compatible. However, if you want Swordsmanship's Timed Block feature, I included a separate file that enables ARO to work with it. ARO complements Swordsmanship's Timed Block well since ARO allows 2H attacks to be cancelled into block earlier. See the "Swordsmanship Timed Block + Attack Recovery Overhaul Installation" section.

-Please endorse the above mods, they are excellent work.

HOW TO INSTALL

1. Download Mod Engine 2, extract it somewhere
2. Download Attack Recovery Overhaul
3. Place Attack Recovery Overhaul's chr folder into Mod Engine 2's mod folder. Overwrite when asked.
4. In the Mod Engine 2 folder, use "launchmod_eldenring" to play the game.

You could also install by unpacking Elden Ring with UXM, placing my c0000.anibnd.dcx file into Game > chr, and patching your game. I recommend using Mod Engine 2 instead, however.

Elden Ring Reforged + Attack Recovery Overhaul Installation

1. Download and install Elden Ring Reforged using the instructions from that mod page
2. Download "Attack Recovery Overhaul + Elden Ring Reforged" from the downloads section of this mod.
3. Place the chr folder into Mod Engine 2's mod folder. Overwrite when asked.
4. In the Mod Engine 2 folder, use "launchmod_eldenring" to play the game.

Swordsmanship Timed Block + Attack Recovery Overhaul Installation

1. Download Mod Engine 2, extract it somewhere
2. Download and extract Swordsmanship's timed block feature into Mod Engine 2's mod folder
3. Download "Attack Recovery Overhaul with Swordsmanship Timed Block" from the downloads section of this mod
4. Place the chr folder into Mod Engine 2's mod folder. Overwrite when asked.
5. In the Mod Engine 2 folder, use "launchmod_eldenring" to play the game.

Please keep in mind, this will only give you ARO's changes with Swordsmanship's Timed Block feature, as the animation changes from Swordsmanship cannot be made compatible with this mod.

Optional: Simple Difficulty Increase Installation & Merging

Place regulation.bin in your Mod Engine 2 mod folder.

If you are using another mod that edits regulation.bin and still want to use this optional file, merging it into your regulation.bin quite simple:
1. Download Yapped-Rune-Bear: https://github.com/vawser/Yapped-Rune-Bear
2. Once its extracted, navigate to the filepath: Yapped-Rune-Bear-main\Yapped-Rune-Bear-main\Projects\ExampleMod
3. Download my optional Simple Difficulty Increase file and drop the CSV file in that path.
4. Open your modded regulation.bin file in Yapped-Rune-Bear
5. Click "ClearCountCorrectParam" in the leftmost column called Param.
6. At the top, click Field Data > Import Data. Click yes to overwrite.
7. Click File > Save

Do not use this file with the ERR/Swordsmanship version of this mod without merging the csv into the regulation.bin file, as described above. Otherwise you would be overwriting their regulation.bin file, which would break some functionality of those mods. ERR itself offers additional difficulty options, so users of that mod should opt to use those instead.

TAE Files Edited

TAE FILES EDITED (For people who want to merge this mod into another):
20 (Daggers)
22 (Claws)
23 (Straight Swords)
24 (Twinblades)
25 (Greatsword)
26 (Colossal Greatsword)
27 (Thrusting Sword)
28 (Curved Sword)
29 (Katana)
30 (Axe)
34 (Flails)
36 (Spears)
38 (Halberd)
40 (Curved Greatsword)
42 (Fist)
43 (Whips)
50 (Scythes)
103 (Erdsteel/Black Knife Heavy)
120 (Eleonora's Poleblade Unique Attacks)
121 (Godskin Peeler Unique Attacks)
128 (Unique Greatsword)
156 (Shamshir/Scimitar)
165 (Serpentbone)
171 (Warped Axe)
220 (Fist)
211 (Golden Halberd Unique Attacks)
212 (Guardian Swordspear Unique Attacks)
226 (Urumi Heavy)
227 (Raptor Talons Heavy)
852 (Ornamental Straight Sword)
SPELLS/AOW
424 (Burn, O Flame)
499 (Black Flame Ritual)
669 (Black Flame Tornado)
847 (Nebula, Bastard's Stars)

CREDITS
-Lots of credit to Meowmaritus for making DS Anim Studio. This whole mod would have been impossible for me to create without it.
-Kifnifr for Elden Ring Reforged, which was used to resurrect Morgott in the demonstration video. I highly recommend their mod.
-Katalash for Mod Engine 2
-Vawser for Yapped-rune-bear, used to create the optinal difficutly increase files