My arcane character had skill as secondary and (SPOILER) the rapier you get towards the middle of the game was pretty phenomenal when buffed with arcane and a good set of gems. I actually stopped playing the base game with her because it was too easy

And you get an awesome dual wielding set(SPOILER) from a character either toward the beginning or end of the game
depending on your choices

Threaded cane was the way I went with my first character as well. I can't pretend I didn't get hammered in the beginning though. But it was the first Souls type game I actually got into so I didn't have the experience series veterans had