LogFAQs > #941695145

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Oh, I just realized Simon's Bowblade scales off Blood and Skill, too...

Between it and Chikage, what's the breakdown on them for a Skill/Bloodbuild? I'm guessing Simon is 50/25 S/B and Chikage is the opposite?

both weapons are actually in a VERY weird place where the standard form scales PURELY on skill, and the buffed form scales PURELY on bloodtinge. it's not like the mixed attack weapons that use physical + arcane. the bloodtinge weapons are like, two different modes that scale completely independent of each other. don't remember off the top of my head if the bloodletter works the same way. the reiterpallasch and rifle spear are purely skill on all of their attacks except the gunshots, which are purely bloodtinge. etc.

a couple of important things to understand, I guess... people say that 'skill and bloodtinge' is better than 'strength and arcane' and while this is true, it's another one of those things that is really only a helpful hint for players who don't really understand how builds work. the reality is that a TRUE bloodtinge build is kinda its own thing. it can benefit from skill, but the two are not inherently linked.

you have to put some thought into when you want to raise your Bloodtinge, how much you're going to raise it, as well as how much you're going to sink into other stats. I think you get the most value out of bloodtinge if you keep it low, or push it all the way to 50. gun damage is pretty difficult to make it feel impressive or impactful unless you really specialize in it. so if you want to do a true bloodtinge character you should go with 50 bloodtinge and learn to rely on your gun.

with 50 bloodtinge... you'll be able to use every gun in the game and see them have a real impact on fights. some of them are better than others, of course. your bowblade will shoot arrows that do MASSIVE damage, allowing you to fight bosses with a totally new and different playstyle by shooting and dodging at range. you also really want to learn how to use blood bullets effectively to get the most out of these traits. you can straight up rely on your firearm as your main method of attack. I've done 'gun only' challenge runs three times now (I did them once a year for a while), and I can say it's a lot of fun to beat the game with just your gun. a little challenging at some parts, but doable. and if you aren't restricting yourself to the challenge format it's going to be even more effective. you'll have all the utility of the gun and the ranged damage while still being able to rely on your melee weapon as needed. win/win

the question remaining is... strength or skill, and how much of each? skill is a better stat to pair with a bloodtinge build, but it's important to understand that not every skill can support extra bloodtinge. so if you're just thinking of playing a 50 skill build, I think it's important to think about whether or not you can also fit 50 bloodtinge and how much you're willing to invest otherwise. unlike arcane, you don't really see spikes in effectiveness at certain benchmarks. with guns they really only get good as you push the stat higher and higher. BLT is very similar to STR and SKILL. you just want 50 points.

however, SKILL is interesting in the fact that it's the damage stat that offers the most value for lower investments. and, with bloodtinge specifically, there are some other benefits.

weapon requirements: having the weapon required skill to wield the reiterpallasch, rifle spear, and bowblade gives you solid options for a weapon that has gun damage built into it. these guns can all be used as effective damage tools with three blood gem set ups. the reiterpallasch used to be one of the best options in the base game. the bowblade outdamages it now, but I will say that the reiterpallasch has much better combat utility (like the combo I mentioned earlier which baits and staggers humanoid NPC hunters)

visceral attack damage: is boosted by your skill stat and the base damage of your weapon. this means any points you invest into skill will see high returns on increased visceral attack damage. if you are using a gun a lot, you'll parry a lot. more visceral attacks + higher skill = more damage.

mixed weapon access: finally to wrap it all up... the base form of the bowblade, reiterpallasch, and the chikage all scale with the skill stat. so having points in skill up to 25 or even 50 is useful. and YES, you can make a build that has 50 bloodtinge and 50 skill. that's probably the most effective, and recommended way to do this. but I always personally feel weird about it because of how every option you have makes use of your skill OR your bloodtinge... but there's no method of attack you ever have access to that scales damage from your skill and bloodtinge at the same time.

tl;dr

bloodtinge builds benefit greatly from having random amounts of skill added
Skill builds do NOT benefit greatly from having small amounts of bloodtinge added, not in the same way that any build can benefit from having small amounts of arcane added

50 bloodtinge + X Skill is good, and any increase in skill is useful at pretty much every benchmark
50 Skill + X Bloodtinge is less useful, your gun will always eventually lag in damage, and the BLT feels like it barely increases your gun damage at any given step along the way

50 Skill + 50 Bloodtinge is good, although I suspect that if you learn to rely on your gun you will often feel like you're often getting more use out of the Bloodtinge stat

bloodtinge and arcane are also the two stats that actually get some impressive gains if they are leveled up early, because both of them have methods of dealing damage which don't require three blood gems to scale upward. this makes the standard build, and progression through the game, a little more advanced than the 'simple' advice which was given to you earlier.

for a bloodtinge build I'd still be trying to get vitality to 25 or 30 early, but I'd also likely push bloodtinge to 18-25 fairly early as well... you will actually see your gun damage go up at a fairly good rate as long as you push your gun to +6 quickly. and even at the start of the game it can make a difference between how many shots are needed to kill father gascoigne for example.

when your melee weapon gets to +7 you can start investing in skill. once again I usually stop around 18-25.

once skill is at 18-25 and feels good, start investing more into bloodtinge. you want to get it to 50 as quickly as possible, even at the cost of vitality gains.

you'll be aiming for THIS build in the early to midgame:
25 vitality
18 skill
50 bloodtinge

from here your gun will have a tangible impact on battles, you can invest more into vitality for more HP, and more into skill for more damage on your melee attacks and visceral attacks. it's very common for me to leave skill at either 18 or 25 for the main game at least, and then only start pushing it from 25 to 50 once I have cleared the base game and I've got nothing else to spend echoes on. you can also make the argument that pushing bloodtinge even higher is a better use of levels, especially if you're playing in a way that HEAVILY emphasizes your gun.

if you're worried that your melee attacks will be underpowered just remembered how long the whirligig saw was effective while you had only 18 strength on this playthrough. and then imagine that your visceral damage was also higher. a solid option to make bloodtinge and arcane runs easier is to pick a weapon that has high base damage and low scaling, that way your low skill won't impact the efficiency of your weapon too much (although it really won't matter at low to mid levels anyway)


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all the rest weren't so unfortunate
https://imgur.com/yv2eC4n