I finished my second playthrough of the Elden Ring DLC and the entire playthrough overall. I tried and tried to beat the final DLC boss without using summons or ashes, but the closest I got over many attempts was about ~30% health. I eventually broke and used mimic tear for the 2nd phase and beat it the 2nd time I reached that point. I've also been playing some XCOM2 on commander difficulty
I also felt like that on my first failed attempt to play the game years ago, but playing it now and getting further into the story and game than before, there's a lot of depth that I missed on my first attempt to play the game. The socio-cultural and political aspect of the game world is very interesting.