Magic isn't great for the DLC areas. My suggestion is if you don't want to spend a soul vessel, burn a bonfire ascetic at the third bonfire in tseldora which is the area before Freja, and fighting Freja a second time. You get a new soul which you can take to ornifex and have it turned into the moonlight greatsword. It's a really nice sword, but the best part is the scaling is an A in intelligence so a Mage can wield spells and deal decent damage up close if needed. If able, infuse it with magic from mcduff and the scaling goes from A to S. If you get it to +5 and have about 50 intelligence, the thing hits like a truck lol. It's easily my favorite weapon in the game.

[quote]Magic isn't great for the DLC areas. My suggestion is if you don't want to spend a soul vessel, burn a bonfire ascetic at the third bonfire in tseldora which is the area before Freja, and fighting Freja a second time. You get a new soul which you can take to ornifex and have it turned into the moonlight greatsword. It's a really nice sword, but the best part is the scaling is an A in intelligence so a Mage can wield spells and deal decent damage up close if needed. If able, infuse it with magic from mcduff and the scaling goes from A to S. If you get it to +5 and have about 50 intelligence, the thing hits like a truck lol. It's easily my favorite weapon in the game.[/quote] I actually already used a bonfire aesthetic here, and used the soul for the spell you can get from it lol. Isn't that the same sword Benhart gives you though? I believe I have it.

Benhart gives you a fake. His scales with strength I think. The real moonlight greatsword scales with intelligence. Also, it's right trigger attack shoots a beam of magic from the sword.

That sounds pretty badass. You think I should use a second bonfire aesthetic or no? I beat every boss solo except sentinels which I accidentally summoned someone testing out CoOp and the bosses that required NPC summons for quests. During my NG+ play through I plan on soloing every single fight this time. I'm worried if I use another aesthetic then Freja will be too tough during my NG+ fight with him.

It's up to you. Freja isn't terribly difficult, though getting to her is the pain. If you feel confident enough I'd say go for it. Look up some reviews of the moonlight greatsword to help you see if it's worth it or not.

I don't want to risk being stuck on her, but I will be picking this up on during my NG+ run. With that being decided, what do you think the best option is for the DLC? I know I want to respec, I can't decide if I should build around Hexes, Miracles, or plain STR.

I don't know much about hexes or miracles other than like heal or lightning spear lol. One of my favorite strength weapons is the great club. I love two handing it and using the strong attack to smash small enemies into the ground lol. It does decent damage to bosses too, it's just slow. If you go for like strength and dex, my second favorite sword in the game is the sun sword. It has A scaling for both so 40/40 in strength and dex gives it a decent punch. It's got a very nice move set too. It also helps that it upgrades to +10 with normal titanite methods and is a faster swinging sword. The only problem would be getting it lol. You have to rank up the sunlight covenant to 20. So you have to be summoned as a sunbro, or summon a sunbro and defeat a boss to get 20 sunlight medallions to level up the covenant.