I've tried multiple sorcerors, never stuck with one all the way. I think they're overrated for PVE. Ranged damage isn't as useful as you'd think. Things tend to get in your face a lot so unless you like doing a lot of running you're going to mostly melee anyway. Melee is just a better strat too TBH. Ashes do a lot more damage than spells and cost less FP. Lower time to kill means you deal with groups better and have shorter fights against bosses, which means you're less likely to fuck everything up and die. Less FP usage means less mind (so more points to spend on more useful things like vigor, equip load or AR) and fewer blue flasks (so more red flasks). Sorcery is perfectly viable if that's the archetype you enjoy playing. Its fine. But the "sorcery is easy mode" meme is utter horseshit perpetuated by casuals. Its both untrue and kind of disrespectful to people who play sorcs. Its not easier at all.
The build that I've found most effective in the most situations is a high vigor strength build with 12 faith and the minimum endurance needed to mid roll with your heaviest weapon and chosen armor. 12 faith gives all the fortification body buffs, heal which is useful against a certain enemy (but shit for healing), bestial vitality which spins out your red flasks in long dungeons and flame cleanse me which cures poison and scarlet rot. You can also put on two fingers heirloom and gain access to the flame of frenzy (good aoe fire damage, excellent in PVP against cautious opponents and for resetting frostbite procs while causing madness procs) and lightning spear which comes out quick, deals extra damage when in water or when its raining and certain cunty enemies are weak to it. Ranged damage isn't that important but in many situations its nice to have and casting this with clawmark seal gives you a solid ranged option.
For melee this build gets access to some great damage types and playstyles. Want to be light with a thrusting sword or dual curved swords? You have strength preferring weapons that do that . Want to bonk? Great mace or great stars. Straight swords and great swords? You've got the Iron Greatsword and the Broadsword. Heavy thrusting sword? Yep, those do great with heavy. You don't need to respec to change your "build". Just swap weapon and talismans. And of course there's my personal favorite, the Guts Greatsword. Basically, you've got the highest AR examples of any smithing stone weapon type available to you (except katanas and maybe spears I don't know). Anything with "Iron" in the name eats strength and shits out damage.
You also get fire scaling which is kryptonite to certain enemies and stronger than heavy in the early game. You get cold cold scaling which causes frostbite, a solid, easy to apply status when used on a big weapon or 2 little weapons that doesn't hurt your base damage much at all. Late game when resistances get higher, you can switch to heavy so you don't have split damage (lower total AR, more actual damage). There's also physical striking damage from greathammers. Very, very handy to have. You're just so versatile and powerful at whatever you choose to do. You can hyper armor trade with a colossal or play nimble with dual straight swords. You're a master of all trades. You can dominate every situation in PVE and PVP with one build. Just change gear as needed, focus your main weapon for upgrades and keep all your alternates at bell bearing level.
Playing a sorc is like this:
"Oh fuck a gargoyle. I wish I had a greathammer right now."
"Oh fuck an abductor virgin. I wish I had lightning damage right now."
"Oh great more giant hands. I wish my weapon dealt fire damage. Time to put on a talisman and change my physick tear again so I can use fire scaling. I swear I'm spending more time imitating a STR build than actually playing my build."
" Oh fuck the boss deals massive fire/lightning/holy or magic damgage. I wish I had a fortification buff to negate 40% of that damage"
"Oh fuck the enemy is resistant to magic. Well that negates all my best abilities and most of my weapon damage."
"Oh shit I'm poisoned/rotted again. Time to eat a bolus. I'd better do some farming later or I'll run out or preserving boluses. Man the crafting is tedious, why can't I just buy these?"
"Oh fuck a Royal Revenant. I guess I'll just d... yep I'm dead."
"Man I'm so bored going bing bong all day long. I want to actually fight something. I paid good money for this game."
I've never wanted for anything as a STR/FTH build. Int doesn't give you the best tool for any situation. Its viable and the weapons are cool but easy mode it is not.
