I was using the Drakekeeper Armor and a Drangleic Sword for both PvE and PvP on my first playthrough, mainly for the looks.

Nowadays i'm doing a Heide Knight cosplay, full armor with sword, spear and greatlance.

The Heide Knight Swords onehanded R2 attack is awesome to catch people who try to roll away from or past you.

Before the lightning nerf i used to utilize a few miracles too, but nowadays i only use immolation to finish off badly wounded opponents or parry fishers.
I still giggle when they are panicking and trying to get away from the crazy Heide Knight who set himself on fire to chase em down 

Spells and Hexes didn't really spark my interest. They make PvE boring imo, and are borderline useless in PvP if your opponents know what they are doing.