Nameless King Down

 After years, I've taken down the Nameless King... on my Sorcerer.

As it turns out, blasting away at a distance with Crystal Soul Spear with a +10 Court Sorcerer's Staff is pretty effective. Not only do you avoid the camera issues with the first phase (I only closed in in order to take advantage of a riposte with my Moonlight Greatsword) but, it turns out, while the Nameless King is quick, if you keep running away from him, he'll give you some big opportunities to pelt him from afar.

Thus, I have now beaten a boss I hadn't on my original character, meaning that I've got one of these mixed games - some of it complete on one character and some on another.

I used the ember to attempt Twin Princes with the aid of Sirris of the Sunless Realm, but while she did a good job tanking for me, I wasn't quick enough to keep her alive very far into phase 2.

The only real problem with Crystal Soul Spear is the absurd amount of FP it burns - I have 20 Attunement and I get three casts off before I need to sip some Ashen Estus. But it hits like a freight train.

I'd actually been experimenting on my original character with bows, seeing if I could get some decent damage at range with a reasonably high dexterity build, but sadly, it doesn't really seem viable.

One thing I was shocked to find out is that, apparently, you don't need to be embered to summon Gael in the Fride/Ariandel fight. He only shows up when you get past the first phase, but he's a huge help, drawing the boss's attention and just generally making that fight less absurd. The length of that fight is epic, but the catch of any of these multi-stage fights is that when you've mastered one phase, it can be annoying to fight through it again (dear lord did I get sick of Micolash in Bloodborne when I kept dying to A Call Beyond in the final phase).

I've been exploring the Dreg Heap on the sorcerer, and grabbed the +3 Covetous Silver Serpent Ring, which is nice. I have (beyond) capped out on Intelligence at this point, so while I'm currently working on buffing my Endurance a little bit, I think I might start pouring levels into Faith now, to unlock pyromancies and miracles, and I think some dark sorceries require a bit of Faith as well. At this level, it'll take a long time to get my Faith to decent levels. I believe there is a way in which you can re-spec your character a finite number of times per game - I might consider doing that to drop from 67 Int down to 60 and then invest those levels in something more useful, as I'm given to understand that past 60 there's not much use to getting more Intelligence thanks to sharp diminishing returns. I am a little concerned that I'd already have maxed out the damage I can actually do, given how much left of the game I have (admittedly very little of the base game, but I still have all the Ringed City bosses as well as Champion's Gravetender, as well as the Princes and Soul of Cinder - though if my experience with Bloodborne is anything to go by, the Soul of Cinder should be a cakewalk after I've beaten Gael and Midir).