Brume tower just felt like artificial difficulty to me. Multiple fast hitting enemies with short recovery times. Multiple move sets on the big guys. It felt more like luck getting through there than patience and skill. It felt more like Bloodborne, but without being a dex/adp build, it's rough. I actually ended up sprinting past a lot of the areas, which unlike the base game, works as well as it did in DaS1. I had ventured in there with my second character to get the Fume Ultra Greatsword. That dude was worse than Artorius. I ended up meeting a helpful player for some jolly cooperation, but without them, that fight would have been a breaking point for me. Ironically, after getting the Fume UGS, I've been using the red iron twin blade with a <40% set of armor. It's more fun in some cases. As for the rest of the DLC, I had been playing a pure sorcerer and the DLC stomped on my hopes and dreams for that character. Hence why I went back with a strength build character. The game seems to favor variety, depending on the boss or enemies... But the game is not exactly variety friendly. I could make a sorcerer barbarian, but I'd have to be well over SL 200 to make it work (the way I play anyway).