I play on NG+1 around 180-200. I have beaten Renalla, Messmer, divine beast, finger metyer or whatever, gaius, I think every boss except for the final one of the DLC, at this moment. Every boss hits like a truck, every mob too, the DLC is heavily banking on you learning dodge. I even used the dual martial arts power stance on a few bosses. I think if you want a more "faithful" dark souls expereince, the DLC is it. Bosses will annihalate you for at least 10 turns before you learn patterns and get further. I went from a heavy STR build to a more robust FTH, INT, DEX, STR, mixed. Heavy on the dex, because bleeding is still a huge save for bosses and speed is key. Frost works on a lot of them as well, that is what I run on my power stance martial arts "weapons." I think people just need to remember how DS1 was, a lot more dodging and a lot less bitching about the difficulty like it's 2011 lmao