Been working through the late-game with my Arcane caster build, i'm enjoying the raptor talons a lot now that i've had more practice with them! So fun for one-on-one with knights, an enemy type i've previously had a lot of trouble with.
I'm getting more used to juggling two-handed weapons, which i feel like i might very much appreciate in the DLC.
Just beat commander Niall, which took some doing because of his dang immune-to-bleed boy squadron, but after taking them down i've got his main phase pretty locked in. I kind of wish there was a Commander fight like this without the minions, it's a cool moveset that can get a bit stymied by having to juggle so many additional enemies.
For my two currently lined up DLC builds (this one and another i'll be posting about in a bit tonight) i'm leaving the Fire Giant alive before heading in, even though it probably won't change anything story-wise. If i do end up getting bogged down by the lack of smithing stones i'll likely rush through Farum Azula midway to get the rest of the smithing gear and then just leave Maliketh for after the DLC is done.
The Arcane build is also leaving Mohg alive until release, because i've already beat him on the other one and that's another possible deviation point in terms of what might change in the base game. Though again, with things how they are i'm not anticipating that much in the way of new cutscenes beforehand, just a guiding NPC or some such. They likely don't want to put in things that people coming back with already finished characters could miss out on.