On Yhorm, Past Suleyvahn

 I'd been worried about Suleyvahn, but it turns out that, especially as a caster, you can just summon a friend to tank and he's a pushover (I had actually found him surprisingly easy on my Dex-based melee character, as his attacks can be somewhat easily parried).

Again, I have no shame whatsoever about summoning NPCs to help out with bosses - the game is still very hard, and this is one of the ways they make it easier (though Embers being so finite makes it a bit tougher - I think in Bloodborne you can just keep starting new easy Chalice Dungeons to farm Insight, and I don't know that I ever used a Madman's Knowledge to get more.)

Having gotten Siegward out of his prison cell, I'm ready to take on Yhorm. I've done, I believe, a pretty thorough search of the Profaned Capital (which is, honestly, a pretty small area, though those hand-eye-elephant monsters are a nightmare, both in their visual design and in how tough they are (I think they have resistance to magic damage.) With the Court Sorcerer's Staff (still buffed less than my Sorcerer's Staff, but even at a lower rank, by now my Intelligence is enough to make its better scaling allow it to pull ahead) I'm landing some very heavy Great Heavy Soul Arrows - the only downside to that spell is how slow it casts. When dealing with Silver Knights past Suleyvahn, I've been packing normal Great Soul Arrows to make sure I can get a cast off before they shoot me with one of their enormous honking dragon-slaying arrows. (Ideally, if I can get one cast off before they notice me, I'll go with a Heavy/Normal one-two punch, which takes them down.)

I think the only real downside to playing a character like this is that the range at which you can lock on to enemies is really short, and it's very hard to "free-aim" your sorceries. But, being able to blast a foe down before they get to you has made the game, I think, way, way easier. There's less of that rolling/dodging interplay, but honestly, that's fine.

I know some complained about how Bloodborne's gameplay is more or less the same regardless of your build. I still think I like that one the best of the Souls-like games, but it has been fun getting into the whole spellcasting style (though for the most part, it's just some variant on Soul Arrows to blast foes with.)

Anyway, I'm curious to see how Aldritch is on a spellcaster (and I'm utterly terrified of the Twin Princes.) I suspect I'm going to just get a good Int-scaling melee weapon eventually, though I used the one Crystal Gem I found on my Mail Breaker. (Will have to look up how one gets more of those... if one can.)

Anyway, getting to this point in the game I have to remind myself that there's actually a fair amount left - even just Lothric Castle is a pretty enormous area (especially when you include the Grand Archives,) and I've got the secret areas to look for as well. And then, of course, the DLC.

On my original character, the only bosses I hadn't defeated were the Nameless King, Dark-Eater Midir, Slave-Knight Gael, and the Soul of Cinder. To be fair, I never even attempted Gael or Cinder. I'm hoping that Midir at least is easier on a ranged character, because my experience fighting him on my Dex character has been nothing but pain.

But that was also years ago.