I've never played a (primary) magic user in a souls game before, so I'm still kind of learning how that part of the game works. I mostly ignored sorceries and hexes. I thought it would be pretty different playing without a shield, but really I would dodge most bosses anyway.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how my dude's built out so far:

I've got Hexer's set, the starting staff and fire longsword, both upgraded a few times, Soul Arrow, Great Soul Arrow, Great Heavy Soul Arrow and Fireball. I've got the Sunset Staff too, and I've been pumping FTH in anticipation of getting into some hexes at some point.

So what should I go for next? I like having something to work towards for my character in this game. I know about the Lion Mage set. What gear/spells should I seek out? Any general tips?

Girlfriend and I are sharing a character and we went sorcerer as well, and it's been very successful. Up until Ruin Sentinels, the game had been easy street, with only a few challenges here and there since.

If you haven't yet, get yourself a magic infused weapon that scales with your INT or FTH. We got a magic mace early on, and have had little to no reason to ever change melee weapons the entire game. Hexes are great. Dark Orb has a fast cast, and works well on a number of minions. Scraps of Life is another great hex that works well against bosses with minions and ambush rooms.

I would also recommend doubling up on soul arrows, since they'll be your main use of combat from bonfire to bonfire. We bought a whole bunch of fun looking bullshit that turned out to be too niche or weak. (Soul Shower, Soul Spear Barrage, Soul Vortex, Soul Bolt ... all relatively useless. Soul Spear and Greatsword have been ok for bosses though)

We're at lvl 40/35 or so on INT/FTH and don't have much of a need for more, especially with all the spices you'll have by then.

Currently, we're casting with a high level Archdrake Staff and Idol Chime, but before that, we were pumping a lot of stats into a basic catalyst and Priest's Chime.

I just kept on minmaxing INT and ATN with some VGR for my sorcerer, I didn't do hexes. I wanted the damage and the cast speed and it worked pretty well. Too well, actually, the game seems to be a bit easier on normal difficulty when your playing sorcerers.

I ended up putting some points into STR to get a shields, I needed to block some basic damage and I didn't use my left hand for anything else.

Yeah a lot of the spells seem super situational. I have Soul Spear Barrage too which absolutely wrecks the first Ruin Sentinel. Drop in, dodge the first swing and cast cast cast cast and he's basically done. But I can't imagine it being useful outside of similar close quarters fights. I'm having trouble with the rest of the fight currently though. I've gotten close a few times, but it's just hard to stay out bad situations when there are still two of them left. Especially since they two-shot me right now, meaning I have to get a heal in every time I take hit, which means I'm open to their ranging closing attacks. Anyway, it's doable but tough for me right now.

I also tried the Skeleton Lords a couple times and got wrecked by the wheel guys. I feel like I need to take a shield for this fight just so I don't get caught in a loop of constantly getting knocked down by them.

In PvE, I found hexes to trump sorceries for the most part. If you really wanna make the game a walk in the park, get Int/faith to 30/30, max out Sunset Staff and Caithas Charm as soon as possible, infuse them with Dark and spam Dark Orb and Great Resonant Soul. 8-10 casts of GRS should kill any boss, and the casts are super quick. The issue I ran into with sorceries in PvE is that they were unreliable damage-wise, I ran into a lot of enemies that had some kind of resistance to Magic, be it a strong or weak resistance. There are scarce few enemies that are resistant to Dark, however, so hexes always end up doing their maximum potential for damage.

Sorcery won't get powerful until fairly late in the game; pyro gets powerful around the midgame and Hexes and Faith builds can be overpowered almost from the beginning. Which is something of a spin on the first Dark Souls where Sorcery was ridiculously powerful throughout, pyro was alright, and miracles kind of sucked except for Wrath of the Gods.

Well, if you wanna break the game for yourself, just pick up Resonant Soul and Great Resonant Soul. Even Dark enemies can't stand up to Great Resonant Soul. The Rotten goes down in like 7 hits.