Dark Souls- I wanna play a sorcerer

[CreganTur]

I'm about to finish up my current playthrough where I've been using a DEX built melee guy sporting the Balder Side Sword as a primary weapon. Instead of jumping straight into NG+ I want to try something different: Sorcerer.

Anyone have any good advice for spec'ing out this build?

[Actana]

Depends on what you want to do. Are you looking for a pure sorcerer, or a melee sorcerer, and are you going for PvE or PvP?

Either way, you will want the Dusk Crown and the Dragon rings that boost your sorceries. An Int of 50 should be sufficient for a fairly long time, and the more attunement slots the better. Don't neglect vitality and endurance though, unless you know what you're doing.

You'll want to grab an enchanted weapon to be at least somewhat viable without magic too. It's also recommendable to grab a variation of Magic Weapon for some melee support too without an enchanted weapon.

If you have the DLC, the spells found there are really powerful too.

[NoldorForce]

Grab the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst when you can, it'll give MagAdj roughly equivalent to the Sorcerer's Catalyst if you'd had Intelligence in the high 20s. The Crystal Golems out there can also be ground for chunks to make some spiffy Enchanted weapon of your choice (I love the Claymore), and nearby you can even find the Enchanted Ember.

Boosting Dexterity as a secondary stat will be of use; not only does it improve your damage with weapons suited for buffing (like Ricard's Rapier or the Falchion) but it also helps with your casting speed between 30 and 45.

[CreganTur]

Will I mostly end up saving my spells for tougher mobs, or do the number of times you can cast a spell change based on a stat?

[Actana]

You'll be saving them for tougher mobs at first, and the amount doesn't scale based on stats, but you can equip multiple instances of the same spell many times if you have multiple copies. I know my sorcerer character has at least 30 castings of Crystal Homing Soulmass available after resting. And if you're out of castings, enchanted weapons scale well on Intelligence, so you'll have a backup weapon. And I will agree with the loveliness of the claymore. An enchanted claymore +5 is pretty good at getting through most enemies.

[NoldorForce]

Will I mostly end up saving my spells for tougher mobs, or do the number of times you can cast a spell change based on a stat?Spell casts don't change based on anything except the Dusk Crown Ring (which gives you +50% casts, but half health) and how many copies of it you decide to slot in. Then again, with sufficient attunement (16 is a good breakpoint for four slots, going to 19 gets you five) and copies of spells (go to Rickert ASAP) this won't matter too much. I've not gotten the upper-level stuff on my Sorcerer yet but with four slots I've got at least fifty casts of various useful and damaging sorceries to throw around.

[Drascin]

Don't super-focus on Int at first. Raise it consistently, but you don't need to get to 50 ASAP.

Also, yes, get yourself some weapon, for those mobs that are too smalltime or too annoying to hit with a spell. I suggest grabbing the Claymore from the dragon bridge and making it Magic. It has low strength requirements (16), a good moveset, and deals decent damage with good Int. Keeping it upgraded, plus four or so attunement slots, should tide you over well until you get one of the more specialist mage weapons, like the Moonlight Greatsword.