Do I ever 'catch up' in damage?

[u/fanficologist-neo]

Been rocking a +5 claymore in the blighttown, and the club troll-looking thing took like 2 backstabs or 7-8 normal hits to kill. I killed the spider lady, got back to Andre to upgrade to a +10 claymore, and peeked into the the fun house fortress.

The snake guys still take a lot of hits to kill, and with their wide swings, how fast they chew through stamina when blocking, plus the narrow pathways, it feels like I'm back to square one. I either learn to parry them, or die.

[u/SpindriftPrime]

What's your strength and dex looking like? Are you putting much into them?

[u/fanficologist-neo → u/SpindriftPrime]

I followed recommendation on a previous post I made and got 27/24/17/10 in my stats.

[u/as_it_was_written → u/fanficologist-neo]

Which stats are those? Str/dex/int/fth? Vit/end/str/dex?

If it's the former, the common recommendation to level str to 27 is based on two-handing the weapon. Since you're one-handing it, you'll probably want to aim for 40 str and dex by the end of the game. Dipping into magic as well along the way will make your damage fall behind unless you use that magic to buff your weapon.

If it's the latter, you're neglecting weapon scaling almost entirely, which will also make your damage fall behind unless you're compensating for it somehow.

[u/fanficologist-neo → u/as_it_was_written]

It's the latter. I've been told to put just enough offensive stats to use my weapon and dump everything into VIT and then END until I have 30 each.

[u/as_it_was_written → u/fanficologist-neo]

That's certainly a way to play the game, but it requires a lot of patience during the slump where your damage falls behind if you're using a weapon that relies on scaling to do good damage.

(The C/C scaling on the Claymore may look underwhelming, but it really adds up since it gets a significant damage boost from two separate stats. If it were to do reasonable damage with the bare minimum stats this far into the game, it would end up too overpowered when you actually built for it.)

If you want more damage, you can safely pause putting points into vit in favor of str/dex imo. I finished my first playthrough with less vit than you have already.

[u/Mattyb2851 → u/fanficologist-neo]

There’s your problem. Try leveling strength to 27 and two hand it. You’ll see a big pump. Even now, you should go back to firelink and practice learning the whole moveset on the hollows there 

[u/V2xel → u/fanficologist-neo]

the claymore scales equally with strength and dexterity. it has alright base damage but needs some extra scaling from damage stats to work well without an infusion. don’t neglect any stats, get strength up to 27 and dex to 40. the advice you heard would moreso apply to lower level characters rather than ones you plan on completing the game with

[u/Shadovan → u/fanficologist-neo]

Better advice is to level Vit and End until you’re comfortable with your health and stamina, then level damage stats, bumping up your Vit and End further when you fee you need to.

[u/as_it_was_written → u/Shadovan]

Or just level them in parallel once you've reached the minimum requirements for your equipment. As long as you meet those requirements, there's really no need to focus exclusively on a couple of stats at the expense of others that you know you want to level as well.