Finally got the handle on Nito. Playing too far away and trying to 'deal with the skeletons'  gives me grief in that I get the long range sword up the ying, plus, only under very favourable circumstances can I 'deal with the skeletons' all at a time. Getting in close to allow Nito to kill  his own skeletons is also problematic since I didn't really have the stats to deal with the toxic spew attack, plus that attack doesn't kill the skeletons. Hidden body gives me the ability to close, close enough to deal major crystal soul spear damage without alarming the little guys, but also still in the golden distance where there is no spew attack, no ground attack, and Nito's blade damage does wipe out his own. Yay! I'm marking this a Huge Success! Six years later. 

I'm back at the Lord Gwyn ultimate boss battle. In general the game was much easier overall than with my dex based melee character. Some of that might be due to rehearsal, and just knowing where to go and what to do, but the need for perfect timing and good attack reading wasn't nearly so pronounced. Load up a homing crystal soulmass, and another ranged soul spear/arrow of a proper strength, and a lot of those nasty dark knights would get overwhelmed and fall in one shot, two at the most. With the dex character and katana, I had to be much more patient as they often had more endurance than I did and that gave me many opportunities to mess up. I'm 15 levels lower than I was the last time and got here about ten hours quicker. The hardest parts were the undead burg basement and the Capra Demon, as I didn't have enough ability to get quick spells off in the face of those dogs, nor did I have enough spell inventory to get through all of them, plus the thieves, then finish the fight with the demon. The whatever-they-weres on the bridges in Blighttown were similarly obnoxious in their enthusiasm but at least they were easy to read and make space with. I finished with +15 Pyromancy mitts and that was a tremendous help in some melee situations. 

Did anyone try a purely strength/dex tank? 

It's very unusual to have an RPG where you don't need to increase any of the stats other than your main focus. I think my vitality, strength, dexterity, and resistance are all very near their starting levels. The only thing I increased was attunement (25 or so) and int (53 or so). At that level the magic damage output was really good, much more so than my sword. I know I plunked a bunch of points into stuff I didn't need last time which is why it seemed to be so much easier to attain a level of good damage earlier on. 

Just for comparison, my sorcerer upon completion of the game was:  

Level 77 vit: 16, att: 24, end: 16, str: 10, dex: 20, res: 10, int: 52, fai: 8. 

So strength was where it started, endurance up a couple, and dex a little bit to wield one thing or another that I made divine to kill skeletons.

If I had anything to offer for your sorcerer it would be 'more ints!' I think you need some more ints to deliver the big damage. 

I liked this build because at no time did I feel like I ought to be pursuing more hardware or trinkets. I always felt more than capable at taking down critters once I got going. I actually defeated Gwyn on my own sorta by accident. I had summoned someone and half way through they mysteriously dropped off, so I carried on. I used the homing crystal soulmass on entry to the liar, and he seemed staggered, so I used the Crystal soul spear which is very quick to cast, and he was quickly done. That's something I never came close to doing melee.

Yup, second playthrough. You need to trust the message for sorcerers, and commit to the weapon free trail. You can skip the weapon ascension because it is unnecessary unless you're really interested in what they have to offer and want to play around with them. With the possible exception of a divine weapon for some skeletons in the catacombs, (You can either kill the skeletons with a divine weapon, or do a run to get the undead mages and then kill the skeletons with something normal), you do not need to pick up a serious weapon in the game to finish. My weapon was a +8 divine broadsword that I picked up somewhere in the burg I think.

Once you get to level 25 int, and get the five spheres of homing soulmass, and have a few heavier soul arrows, almost no one will even get near you.  Logan's student in Firelink sells that blue ring of magical enhancement and that's a nice one to have, if a bit dear. There are some areas where maybe you wont have time to use a heavy soul arrow, as they take a little bit of time to deliver, particularly if you're parched for dex, as I was. (It's odd to me that dex has such an influence on the game, including spell casting speed) and for those instances a nice bit o' the pyro helps sort things out. Pyro also helps in the Duke's Castle, as the little crystal dudes are pretty resistant to soul damage, but not fire.

I also bought multiple copies of some spells. Even the 30 use soul arrow gets pretty strong towards the end and there are some sites where I was packing 60, just to keep the heavier stuff until needed. I guess knowing where these things are needed is a pretty big advantage. Keep in mind that in all the paths to the four soul shards as well as the final path to Gwyn, you can run to the boss fight, and not engage anyone, if you know the way.

Don't mean to sound like a know-it-all. I spent 80 hours not knowing how to run, or lock on to opponents. But by Grilmar's Hammer, you Lordran fiends, I can lock on now.