This patch probably makes that fight slightly easier since some of the changes are buffs to that fight’s summons as well as standard ashes and revered ash bonuses.
If you are 1v1ing him then you may not get any relief, haha.
I’m trying to not use summons of the bosses of the dlc. At least for the first playtrought
I did the same, had +20 blessing but otherwise no summons or ashes. Still took four hours of grinding before I got the run. I did use a black steel shield +4 which negates holy damage, though you can still run out of stamina. Tough fight.
I think I’m still at +17 blessing and I thought e explored a lot. As far as I know I missed no area or boss