Board 8 > So I am about to start Bloodborne

(+) Yeah! (+)

it's actually better if you wait to kill mergo's wet nurse

there's some dream specific dialogue that triggers after completing events in the DLC, and it will not trigger once the hunter's dream is on fire.

'whoops'
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well I did hear one of them, Gehrman talking about Laurence
but I dont think Ill miss anything crucial

also hospital areas in games like these are never a good idea, this place is fucked up
and a huge troll, haha staircase that leads to nowhere
(and Zant is that you? I'd recognize that scream anywhere)
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Hospital so good

plip plop
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Wet nurse is a super easy boss no matter what, but I still always enjoy fighting her for some reason

Research hall is nuts
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Jeff Zero posted...

MariaTaylor posted...

I can't imagine how anyone could die to Living Failures even once

you've never seen me play an action game

me neither!
because i died to the Living Failures too, three times

and I think its mostly because I was so damn impatient/greedy/cocky with hits and didnt keep the camera focused behind me when it mattered
and also because I could never tell how many hits it took to kill one of them, it seemed to vary all the time
(and also yes the sky does hurt)
one death didnt feel like my fault though, I was glued to the center fountain/flowermountain/whatever for some reason and couldnt escape

didnt feel like continuing to the obvious next boss (Maria I presume)
meanwhile though I spent more time in the chalice dungeons, most of which werent that threatening until I got to Lower Undead Giant
not a lot of HP, but a lot of power in his attacks, geez.
killed it, but still..
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The one with the hook and the chains? I despise that guy.
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aye
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Yeah fuck that guy

Maria is one of my favorite bosses though so you should give her a go
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Maria might be my favorite boss of all-time. If she's not, it's the Dark Souls 3 boss that is based off her.
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There's music for Mergo's Wet Nurse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uKdU19drsw
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MrSmartGuy posted...

Maria might be my favorite boss of all-time. If she's not, it's the Dark Souls 3 boss that is based off her.

Which one?

I'm guessing Friede
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I haven't played the DLC yet. Referring to the Watchers.
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I saw a video of Friede once
that did look like an interesting boss

also there is music?
I heard absolutely nothing except the baby's cries
funny how my ears work
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huh
my relative reached Old yharnam and the hunter down below flaked out hilariously
going up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, repeated infinitely
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yeah that's about where his bounding box is

he'll basically do that
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people were right
Maria was a fun boss
definitely died more to her than anything in the main game, but she was not as hairpulling as Ludwig
she was a hunter, so I figured parrying worked for her, and it did. her first phase was easy once I got the hang of dodging her (though sometimes I dodged into her attacks, her swings are all over the place)
the second phase took me the most deaths to adjust to her patterns, that charge bloodlaser she has homes in on wherever I am dodging too pretty well, so I had to time my sidesteps down to the second

eventually reached her third phase, which killed me twice, but the third time I succeeded in dodging behind her fire circles and attacking her from there. she does teleport a lot to widen the distance, annoyingly. even when I parried her in this form, I was usually hurt at the same time

still, fun

also I went back and used all those keys that I got from the strapped enlarged head lady and another area in the hospital, got new armor from that headbanger guy and accidentilly freed a dick from his jailcell to steal his church pick

I suppose I can go back and fight Laurence now? since I got his skull. But from what I hear, that boss is pretty unfair
first I wanna explore the new area though, and eventually go back to upper cathedral ward
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laurence is fair. not sure where you heard that.
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the impression I got in this topic

oh well he can wait, because screw this new area
.. to be more precise
screw those whaleguys with their ridiculous amounts of HP and erratic attacks
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I don't know if I would say Laurence is unfair, just... sorta cheap I guess

Either way he's a bitch
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should probably also mention that Lady Maria was the first hunter to get a visceral off of me
barely survived that one
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Lady Maria can visceral me whenever she wants to tbh

church pick is a lot of fun. So is a weapon that you skipped over in a cave area near the first shortcut of the dlc
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you mean the cave with the knockoff Bloodstarved beast?
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Yeah. Maybe i missed you saying something about it. But the amygdalan arm has some incredible animations
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yeah i havent been keeping track of all the weapons I got
I found the amygdalan arm, the church cannon, bloodletter, simon bowblade, holy moonlight sword, boom hammer, whiriligig saw (the best one clearly)
beastcutter, beasthunter saif, loch shield, enlarged head (why)
cant remember if I got the chaingun or gratia fist
and I know there is something down that well, but it has two of those whalebastards so... apprehensive about that

I also didnt realize I killed Amelia's human form back in the nightmare church
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Oh ok
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The well ambush may be the toughest non-boss fight in all of Soulsborne.
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Toughest of all fights, honestly. Legit the only time I've been pissed in my Soulsborne career
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Eh i think there are a few boss battles that are more difficult.
That might be because i abuse the shaman bone blades, though.
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That room is basically made for the Shaman Bone Blade.
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I was just about to say shaman bone blade, the well is the only time in the game I would use one. Although with the holy blade, they went down fast enough without much trouble. I'd still say bloody crow is harder.

Whirligig saw is indeed the best, but I fucking love beasthunter saif as well. Gotta go fast
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Oh also

htaeD posted...

I also didnt realize I killed Amelia's human form back in the nightmare church

What's this all about now
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the nightmare church has a similar appearance as the grand cathedral in cathedral ward

when you approach the two hunters in that area, one of them is a lady in a white hood (similar to amelia)

people have speculated this is an indicator that the white-robed hunter is supposed to be vicar amelia in human form

could be, or could not be. hard to say. I think people have also mentioned that she recites the same prayer as amelia but I can't remember if I've heard it or not. aside from that I assume any church cleric would be capable of reciting the prayers of the healing church so I'm not sure how much that counts as evidence for it being her.
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I never cared much for the saw tbh
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Oh okay, I've never heard of that speculation but I just read that Vaati has mentioned it I guess

I don't really think it's her, but I'm no theorist
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bloodborne is more "loose" with its lore than probably any other game in the series. I think it's basically amelia if you believe that it is, but it's not amelia if you don't believe that it is. you can basically tell your own story with this game.
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That's why I love souls games so much. No story or plot is shoved in your face, you learn as much or as little as you want.
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yeah it's not coincidence that bloodborne is also my favorite game in the series (and favorite game overall). although the fact that it has the best mechanics (in my opinion) also helps!
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anyway
covered up some loose ends today
got the milkweed rune from that enlarged head lady... I am not sure if added discovery was worth all that insanity... or having my face look like... that

also went back to take on Ebrietas
feel like I should have challenged her before the Old Hunters bosses
she was challenging sure, especially once that bizarre damage aura of hers kicks in
but she didnt kill me that much.. of course I lucked out and never ran into her grab or laser rainstorm on my succesful run

also continued the lower phtumeru chalices.. leaving me at a question
are uncanny/lost weapons worth it?
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depends on the weapon and your build

that's a difficult question to give a blanket answer to
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I've only ever used one once, they're more just for min maxers or people trying out odd builds.

Bloodborne is definitely the goat

I think you're also way overlevelled for those chalices so you can probably speed through the next couple if you so desire.
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I forgot you hadn't faced Ebrietas yet, you definitely should have fought her earlier. She used to be one of the most challenging bosses in the game, now she ain't shit.

Uncanny/lost weapons just have a different blood gem slot. Like if you have a lot of good triangular gems but a weapon you want to use has a waning slot, you can get the alternate version of that weapon to use your better triangular gems on.

Short answer: no they're not really that worth it
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I see
well then

just 3/4 bosses left

by the way, you can back-up save data on a USB, right?
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Yeah or with PS+ you can use the cloud. That's what I do
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from what I remember you are mostly using physical stats (strength and skill) correct?

in that case you want a weapon with the following blood gem slots:

Radial, Radial, Triangular

this gives the best potential for boosting physical damage from your blood gems

if the regular version of your weapon does not have these slots then you should probably get the Uncanny version, which should have these slots.
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it looks like for the Ludwig Holy Blade and the Saw Cleaver, the Uncanny versions are both the better version for a pure physical build
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you can also get Cursed Tempering Damp Blood Gems by killing winter lanterns. these are useful because they fit into any slots, so you can just stick it in your third slot if your third slot is sub optimal. the damage output on these doesn't really go as high as some of the most optimized gems you can possibly find, but I'm guessing if your goal is to make a sub optimal weapon work then this is probably a workable solution.
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yeah allthough I have also upped endurance lately
and my regular weapons do lack triangular slots

of course that leaves me to grind for bloodchunks

and how bad are the 'curses' of cursed bloodgems?
I feel like my damage output is already decent as is, and I dont really do the PVP crowd anyway
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depends on the curse.

weapon durability down is manageable as long as the penalty you roll is not too severe. it just means you'll be repairing your weapon more often which honestly is pretty annoying and a big reason why I never go for these.

stamina cost is probably the best one in a vacuum in my opinion. in BB you have tons of stamina anyway so increasing the stamina cost of your swing by like 4% barely makes any noticeable difference. there are very rare, niche cases where it will reduce the number of swings you can make from 5 to 4 or something but you'd have to be right on the line for it to matter. and really how often do you actually swing 5 times consecutively without backing off?

atk vs beast and atk vs kin penalty are the best for min maxing. in that situation you'll very likely have two weapons and one of them will be spec'd for either beast hunting or kin hunting. that means you can simply have your corresponding penalty on the opposite weapon. ie; you make a beast hunting weapon with 'damage vs the kin down' as its curse. it doesn't matter since when you're fighting kin you'll switch to your kin hunting weapon.
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as anyone who has used the chikage can tell you, the HP damage to self over time is not as bad as it sounds. although it's not really ideal either. this one is very close to being in 'never use' territory unless you get it on an INSANE damage up modifier.

'damage down' is the only one I'd put in 'never use' territory. since the entire reason to use cursed gems is to get as high damage as possible. having a negative damage modifier runs counter to this purpose.
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last note, the winter lanterns can also drop non-cursed regular old Tempering Damp Blood Gems

so if the curse is a concern to you, just grab one of these.
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