scholar of the first sin may have pushed dark souls ii up to masterpiece.
*spoiler free*

scholar fixed two of my bigger gripes about dsii

the first being enemy placement.
a lot of horde encounters were replaced from several weaker enemies to one or two larger enemies.
i liked how some unique or previously certian location-only enemies were moved or reused.

the second being item placement.
i don't really have concrete data on this, but i feel like item placement (chests, lootable corpses) was a lot better.
it felt more rewarding as I explored everything this time around.

as for the dlc content, i've completed 2 out of 3 (sunken temple + iron king)
their strength is definitely the bosses added.
temple wasn't as good as iron king in level design.
iron king is a top 5 dsii location.

if you don't already have the dlc as part of dsii, i'd say scholar is a must buy. (<= what i did)
if you already have dlc from dsii... $20 may be a little too steep for scholar IMO.