Dark Souls Altoholism

 Sorcery, as a strategy in Dark Souls 3, was something of a revelation. As a playstyle it made some things way easier and a few things a lot harder.

But I'm always in grass-is-greener mode, and while I was excited about all the spells I could learn (though mostly it just became "cast Great Heavy Soul Arrow") I found myself wanting to make a build where I could use some of the absurdly huge weapons.

So, I made a Strength build. As I think will be my standard operating procedure for future runs of the game, I've cleared Irithyl basically all the way up to Aldrich, but before I smash myself up against that fight, I'm heading down into the Irithyl Dungeon.

But today I did a bit of hopping around. I went back to my original main, who has everyone but Midir, Gael, Nameless King, and the Soul of Cinder down. I was actually kind of shocked to discover that he's only got 45 Dexterity - my strength guy just hit 45 strength. My sorcerer has actually overdone Intelligence - I think I have like 67 or something, when the cap (such as it is) seems to be 60. Having done a few attempts on Nameless King on my sorcerer, I wondered if going in to fight him on my much higher-level Dex character would be easy. The answer: no, not really. The second phase of the Nameless King is the deadlier one, but it's also a bit more conventional - you just have to dodge his attacks and get your hits in when you can. The first phase is a nightmare of hostile camera angles, and being able to cast from afar makes it go much smoother.

My Dex character is swimming in titanite - I'm still holding off on fully completing weapons with slabs, but I have 5 of them, on top of a maxed out Hollowslayer Greatsword and Elfriede's Scythe. I looked for a weapon with lightning damage on it, figuring that would help with the King of Storms phase on Nameless King. It did, but Sorcery does a ton of damage to him.

Again, grass-is-greener issues make me really want to try for a Faith build. My understanding is that there's less purely offensive stuff there. On the Sorcerer I've managed to get the Moonlight Greatsword, so I actually have a pretty solid melee option. Right now it looks like more things scale with Faith, but that might just be my warped perspective.

I will say that I think one of the things I like about Bloodborne is that, with fewer stats to level, the route for a "build" is a lot simpler. My favorite build in that game is Arcane (though I was shocked at how effective Bloodtinge can be, even though you have to get pretty far in the game to get the best weapons for it). I only wish that a Bloodborne 2 was in the works, though I am very excited about Elden Ring.

Anyway, with my roommates out of town and my LA family members cancelling plans due to a positive Covid test, it's a pretty lonely holiday, so I've been playing a lot of Dark Souls. Be sure to leave some humanity near the chimney for Santa Lloyd, or something.