What do you use for movement?

[Canadane]

I'm going to unbind S cause backing up serves little purpose.

Backpedalling will get you killed, yes.
The Legacy control scheme changes it so you move backwards instead of step backwards. This helps with many things. Getting out of AOEs, looking away from mechanics that require you to not look at them (these are more often than you think), and just generally feels better to do imo.
I would suggest keeping S as backwards movement and changing your control scheme from Standard to Legacy.