Curse-Rotted Greatwood and the Path of Sacrifices - Sorcerer Build

 Playing through on a Sorcerer, I'm finding that, as usual, DSIII progress is not particularly easy. I'm at a point where I need about 4000 souls to level up and each foe is dropping about 90, so pretty quickly I've hit a plateau.

While my Mail Breaker with a fire infusion is meant to be a sidearm - for when the foe has just a sliver of health after a Soul Arrow - I do think I'll want to get some Int-scaling weapon at some point. One thing I'm very aware of is that to lock on (which is more important when shooting these spells off) sometimes requires that you get pretty close to a foe - sometimes close enough to aggro them.

The Curse-Rotted Greatwood is technically an optional boss - its primary benefit is getting the Transposing Kiln for all those fun boss items. But it's also usually not that hard a boss to go after in those early levels. However, I am finding that it's a bit hard to deal with on a caster. I have yet to make it to the second phase, unable to burst the big spore-bundle at its front while dodging the attacks of all the respawning hollows. And the lock-on doesn't make your spells home in on that targeted area, so I'm considering just moving forward and leveling up a bit more before going back to it.

I haven't yet raised my attunement at all, so I only have two spells prepared at any given time. I picked up Farron Dart, which is a very fast but also very weak spell, and with basically no poise damage, I find it to be basically useless compared to the normal Soul Arrow.

Also, once again, I find it infuriatingly hard to figure out how to drop into the valley you need to visit to rescue the blind priestess - she teaches miracles, which is admittedly not as important for an Intelligence build. I know you can do it, but I believe fall damage is percentage-based, and most spots do over 100% when you fall. Might just look this up. It actually now occurs to me that I think I forgot to pick up the pyromancy teacher - Pyromancy in DSIII scales with both Intelligence and Faith, so it should be useful to me.

Anyway, given that most bosses do charge you, staying at range isn't totally easy, but I will say that this is a very different playstyle. My main character is actually a Dex-based character (using the Hollowslayer Greatsword, which scales decently with both Dex and Strength) so I should probably consider trying out a bow with that one.

I still think that, of these games, Bloodborne remains my clear favorite. There is, admittedly, less variation in fighting styles, but I also think I just vibe with its gameplay a little better.