Current Events > About to start Bloodborne (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Never played a Souls game. Anything I should know before going in? (Other than gitting gud)
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dont die

Your first fight with the first enemy is going to take a half hour.
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Be prepared to die...
A ton of deaths
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If you don't beat the first enemy you run into without a weapon and die instead you can't get any of the best weapons in the game
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the first boss is going to be harder than the final boss of just about every AAA game released within the last 10 years
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When you level up your character, you generally allocate points to take advantage of certain weapons' bonuses. So if you like skill based weapons, put more of your points towards skill instead of strength. If you're not sure at the beginning, you can always put more of your points towards the hp/stamina attributes so you don't have to worry about deciding until a little later.
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My only tip is try to rush to first boss asap because you cant level up and increase stats until you've seen/died/killed him.
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By shooting an enemy with your gun at the right time (during a wind up or a combo for example) you can stagger them, run up, and perform a visceral attack.

You can also perform a visceral attack by hitting an enemy from behind with a fully charged R2 attack.
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CaptainCrunch posted...

Never played a Souls game.

Well, that in some ways is a good thing, you won't keep wasting blood vials trying to change how you hold your weapon.
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You guys think it's worth buying dlc for a game obtained through ps plus? Feels weird to me.
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RedWhiteBlue posted...

I actually started and finished it a few days ago. Took me 2 days to do it, 100%,

You did everything in Bloodborne as a new player in 2 days?
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CaptainCrunch posted...

You guys think it's worth buying dlc for a game obtained through ps plus? Feels weird to me.

You can wait until the full game & DLC goes on sale so you own the game and DLC for the same price
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start with the cleaver

get your HP stat up to 40

you can't level up until you've _seen_ a boss (which gives 1 insight)
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FYI the DLC is on sale for $6. totally worth every penny at fully price, so that's a steal

edit:

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP9000-CUSA00900_00-SPEXPANSIONDLC03

$8 normal, $6 w/PS+
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

FYI the DLC is on sale for $6. totally worth every penny at fully price, so that's a steal

Oh shit. That's worth it just for the weapons.
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I am really digging this game, might just go and buy a physical copy.

Anyway, managed to find the first boss. Died, of course. Got him down to a bit less than half health before he finished me off. Burned through all my molotovs and blood vials, so now I need to grind some more of them. Good news is now I can level up. So I did, twice. Got some more health and some more defense/stamina.

Gonna level up a couple more times then go and tackle him again. I find myself having a much easier time with regular enemies, having figured out the simple patterns.
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Dont worry about losing echoes, you can always get more.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

FYI the DLC is on sale for $6. totally worth every penny at fully price, so that's a steal

edit:

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP9000-CUSA00900_00-SPEXPANSIONDLC03

$8 normal, $6 w/PS+

God damn it I bought the Old Hunters like two weeks ago for the full $20
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My advice is: don't give up. There's a wonderful game hiding just behind that first brick wall.
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Zodd3224 posted...

Dont worry about losing echoes, you can always get more.

Yeah I lost almost 4000 when he killed me. :/ Well, I like grinding, so it isn't an issue.
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Remember, you run faster than all the enemies. You csn always run passed if you have to. And make sure you look for shorcuts back to the lamps! After you do you can go back and search the area for items and kill everything.
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Romulox28 posted...

the first boss is going to be harder than the final boss of just about every AAA game released within the last 10 years

Annnnnnnd yet that tall hairy bastard is considered the prototypical "entry level boss" by From Software standards.
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CaptainCrunch posted...

I am really digging this game, might just go and buy a physical copy.

Anyway, managed to find the first boss. Died, of course. Got him down to a bit less than half health before he finished me off. Burned through all my molotovs and blood vials, so now I need to grind some more of them. Good news is now I can level up. So I did, twice. Got some more health and some more defense/stamina.

Gonna level up a couple more times then go and tackle him again. I find myself having a much easier time with regular enemies, having figured out the simple patterns.

Spend some time with the 2 brick trolls near the elevator as you restock. Run into the house to kill the wheelchair guy for some bullets, then practice your parries on the big guys. They normally drop 2-3 blood vials each, and are close to the lamp, so dying to them is no problem. Don't forget you can also make blood bullets by hitting up on the d-pad, then attack to get that lost health back.

Hairy werewolf guys have the benefit of dropping upgrade materials, but getting to them is a longer run back. But one parrying becomes second nature to you, it will make humanoid enemies much less intimidating.
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loafy013 posted...

CaptainCrunch posted...

I am really digging this game, might just go and buy a physical copy.

Anyway, managed to find the first boss. Died, of course. Got him down to a bit less than half health before he finished me off. Burned through all my molotovs and blood vials, so now I need to grind some more of them. Good news is now I can level up. So I did, twice. Got some more health and some more defense/stamina.

Gonna level up a couple more times then go and tackle him again. I find myself having a much easier time with regular enemies, having figured out the simple patterns.

Spend some time with the 2 brick trolls near the elevator as you restock. Run into the house to kill the wheelchair guy for some bullets, then practice your parries on the big guys. They normally drop 2-3 blood vials each, and are close to the lamp, so dying to them is no problem. Don't forget you can also make blood bullets by hitting up on the d-pad, then attack to get that lost health back.

Hairy werewolf guys have the benefit of dropping upgrade materials, but getting to them is a longer run back. But one parrying becomes second nature to you, it will make humanoid enemies much less intimidating.

This is good advice. Learning to parry will really help you going forward with certain bosses and regular enemies once you start getting runes that give bonuses for visceral attacks.
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Zodd3224 posted...

Learning to parry will really help you going forward with certain bosses and regular enemies once you start getting runes that give bonuses for visceral attacks.

It will make things easier, but keep in mind it's absolutely not a requirement. I platted Bloodborne only having used parries a handful of times (and never with any consistency). Very possible to play without them.
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Bloodborne starts off more rough than most Souls games, so if you can make it over the initial hill, things will go smoother.

Few things to consider not yet covered:

- Your blood vials heal 40% of your max health, exactly 40%. Since it's not a fixed heal and instead based on your max health, technically leveling up your max HP will also increase the strength of your vials

- In the first area that you're in, a lot of people have to farm up bullets or vials or both. By learning the timing to "parry" the big guys with bricks using your gun, it can be somewhat reliable to farm them for vials as they almost always drop blood vials and after "parrying" you can go up and press R1 to perform a high damage "visceral attack" which is basically a critical attack. However, that costs bullets. Every gunman drops bullets every death, and there's also an old guy in a wheelchair you may have found in a small house who also always drops bullets. You can also create "blood bullets" which are bullets that cost 30% of your max HP to have 5, but you can get some of this HP back if you attack an enemy right after doing it. So, if you sneak up to an enemy, and want more bullets, you could blood bullet, then wail on them to get some of the HP back

- Regaining HP you just lost by attacking is called "rally" and not all weapons are equally good at it (and they all get better at it as you upgrade them). Additionally, not all attacks are equally good at it, so experimentation can be beneficial. If you happened to pick the Hunter's Axe or get it later, it has very high rally. A single R1 then L1 can rally an extreme amount of lost HP back. Speaking of which, weapons have transformation attacks. This is done by pressing L1 to transform it, after performing a dodge or attack. It's a transitional attack basically and they tend to be significant in some way so it's worth getting to know these attacks.

- You can buy blood vials too with echoes, and the price will increase as you progress through the game. If you ever find yourself with spare echoes after leveling, it might be worth putting it into buying more vials. Well, just something to consider. The blood vial problem does eventually go away where you can eventually somewhat easily get tons of them, but...it's rough early on.

- Since this is your first time I think it's best you focus mostly on raising HP first. Stamina to a lesser extent. Once you meet the stat requirements for your weapon of choice, while you can invest more in strength or skill to get a bit more damage out of it, since you're inexperienced, this game gives the least amount of defensive options AND you take quite a lot of damage in general, compared to other Souls games (you actually take roughly +40% damage if hit in the recovery of your dodge), beefing up HP is a good investment. It helps you learn by making you not die as abruptly from one or two mistakes so you can stay in a fight longer and experience more between deaths. But it's also down to preference. Invest in damage if you think fights ending quicker, whether with your death or the enemy's, is what you want, or lean more to HP if you are okay with it taking longer to kill a boss so long as you have more staying power as well. But if you don't take HP seriously eventually, a lot of things will one hit kill you at least on dodge recovery eventually, if not two-shot at least.

Also regarding stats, they do hit diminishing returns points eventually as well. The level up screen shows you what you'll get so there doesn't have to be any doubt. 30 Vitality can be thought of as sort of the first breakpoint, and for strength and skill, the first is 25. Then at 50, returns for all 3 drop off significantly. And 40 endurance is the hard cap for gaining stamina. In Souls games, this is how stats work, and so even if you want to focus on one stat, eventually the returns drop off so much you're strongly encouraged to spread things out.
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Schwarz posted...

Zodd3224 posted...

Learning to parry will really help you going forward with certain bosses and regular enemies once you start getting runes that give bonuses for visceral attacks.

It will make things easier, but keep in mind it's absolutely not a requirement. I platted Bloodborne only having used parries a handful of times (and never with any consistency). Very possible to play without them.

Not a requirement, no, but with the runes I used it became much easier to parry most enemies when it regen my health and bullets.
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Including the tips everyone else gave you, enjoy Bloodborne. It's a fantastic game
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I never beat it but since it was free I loaded my old save, and my guy is level 147, and has +7 Ludwig.

I can't remember what the fuck I was at progression wise in the game. Kind of lost again lol.
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There's almost always a shortcut back to the lamppost as you progress, if you search thoroughly.
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Dodge towards the enemy

This puts you behind him and allows for a rear attack.

Try not to dodge backwards alot since most enemies will punish you.

always study a new enemies moveset

Some have moves that can grab you and take a large portion of health.

don't scrap. Stick and move

Sometimes you can hack and slash, but generally enemies will combo you to death if you try and scrap with them

FEAR YHARNAM
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Went back and got my revenge against the cleric beast. Good advice on making sure to find shortcuts, was able to locate the one near the house before the bridge. Would've been an annoying run back had I died again.

I went and bought that first set of armor, and fortified my weapon. Now I'm gonna go and level up again, then do some more running around.
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IWBYD posted...

Dodge towards the enemy

This puts you behind him and allows for a rear attack.

Try not to dodge backwards alot since most enemies will punish you.

always study a new enemies moveset

Some have moves that can grab you and take a large portion of health.

don't scrap. Stick and move

Sometimes you can hack and slash, but generally enemies will combo you to death if you try and scrap with them

FEAR YHARNAM

I'm gonna second this. DO NOT dodge backwards, you'll postpone the inevitable. Going back is okay when you wanna heal (although dodging into an enemy THEN back is even better). But yeah, dodging towards an enemy is almost game breaking. Feels great.

CaptainCrunch posted...

Went back and got my revenge against the cleric beast. Good advice on making sure to find shortcuts, was able to locate the one near the house before the bridge. Would've been an annoying run back had I died again.

I went and bought that first set of armor, and fortified my weapon. Now I'm gonna go and level up again, then do some more running around.

BB was my first From Soft game. I remember on my first playthrough at one point I saw the 2 werewolves on the bridge and said "fuck that Im not going that way." Missed the shorcut and skipped right by Cleric Beast (he is optional, but the item he gives you want) and like 45 mins later I made it to the 2nd boss who mopped the floor with me in like 10 seconds and I was back at the first lamp again. I decided I was going to return the game, but Wife talked me out of it. Went back and found that shortcut, beat the beast, then the 2nd boss (he is one of the hardest fights in the game until you learn how to parry reliably ) I've been a Soulsborne addict since :-)
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Zodd3224 posted...

I decided I was going to return the game, but Wife talked me out of it.

I would tell you to wife her, but luckily you already did
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Annnnd Father G is the next wall. Got him into beast mode but that speed of his is too much.
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CaptainCrunch posted...

Annnnd Father G is the next wall. Got him into beast mode but that speed of his is too much.

You can parry him in beast mode as well

Also, if you got the music box from the little girl at the window, save it for his beast mode and play it, it will stun him.
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you picked the most unforgiving to start with game in the series. have fun

for a tip against were-gascigone, dodge side to side instead of backwards or he'll just combo you to death
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Fear the old blood

ultimate reaver posted...

you picked the most unforgiving to start with game in the series. have fun

for a tip against were-gascigone, dodge side to side instead of backwards or he'll just combo you to death

I dunno, I played SotFS after BB and found that beginning even more brutal. I found the game much harder in general, although the boss fights were actually easier for the most part.
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Zodd3224 posted...

ultimate reaver posted...

you picked the most unforgiving to start with game in the series. have fun

for a tip against were-gascigone, dodge side to side instead of backwards or he'll just combo you to death

I dunno, I played SotFS after BB and found that beginning even more brutal. I found the game much harder in general, although the boss fights were actually easier for the most part.

I played DS1 and 2 prior to bloodborne and I'd say the initial run through the city is tougher than any other first area and Gascigone is probably the hardest first boss in the game. Compared to Asylum/Taurus or the Last Giant or really whatever else, Gascigone will fuck you to death if you do not immediately realize how he works. The others at least give you some room to bumble
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ultimate reaver posted...

Zodd3224 posted...

ultimate reaver posted...

you picked the most unforgiving to start with game in the series. have fun

for a tip against were-gascigone, dodge side to side instead of backwards or he'll just combo you to death

I dunno, I played SotFS after BB and found that beginning even more brutal. I found the game much harder in general, although the boss fights were actually easier for the most part.

I played DS1 and 2 prior to bloodborne and I'd say the initial run through the city is tougher than any other first area and Gascigone is probably the hardest first boss in the game. Compared to Asylum/Taurus or the Last Giant or really whatever else, Gascigone will fuck you to death if you do not immediately realize how he works. The others at least give you some room to bumble

Yharnam and Old Yharnam were brutal, for sure, but I died far more in Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower (and Lost Bastille, good lord, if we want to go that far). The lack of mobility in DS2 (and I frames tied to agility) were difficult to adjust to for me in DS2 (and having you health bar decrease with each death...) whereas in BB you basically have action game movement.
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I took the baby route and used the beckoning bell for some assistance against Father G. Thinking about switching weapons. I have 7 insight and few options available. Using the saw right now, any other recommendations?
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CaptainCrunch posted...

I took the baby route and used the beckoning bell for some assistance against Father G. Thinking about switching weapons. I have 7 insight and few options available. Using the saw right now, any other recommendations?

My fave weapons in the game are the Logarius Wheel, Boom Hammer, Threaded Cane, and Hunter Axe.

The Hunter Axe is probably the easiest option of them. Does great damage, is blunt so you regen a ton of health with each hit, and the 2 handed mode has a spin to win attack that is great. The only two you can probably get anytime soon are the axe and the cane. The cane is good too. The whip mode has great range and the cane mode has good speed and has a good thrust attack.
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There are no bad options tho for PvE, really. They are all fun. Even the stake driver :-)

Some work better with certain builds tho.
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All weapons are pretty good except two, neither of which you have access to yet. So the best recommendation is probably to just experiment with weapons when you find/can buy them. Weapon movesets are complex and it's not at all uncommon for someone to use one weapon the whole game. The Saw Cleaver can absolutely take you through the whole game. Souls games aren't the sort to add in weapons later that are just wholly better than what you can find early on, so even starter weapons are effectively endgame weapons.

However, if you want a brief rundown of the early weapons (the starter weapons you can buy after finding a badge):

- Saw Cleaver is favored in part because it has very quick R1s when it's untransformed, and its attacks when untransformed have a serrated bonus, which makes the attacks do +20% damage to beasts. It's the kind of weapon you just go in and fill enemy openings with as many quick attacks as you can before backing off. Transformed and extended, it's a bit more awkward though the vertical swings can come in handy, but it loses serration bonus oddly enough in this form. Transformation attacks are very valuable for building up a buff from an item you can't have yet.

- Threaded Cane is very light on stamina use and also quick, but, it cannot match the damage per second output of Saw Cleaver. Threaded Cane's claim to fame is more in that transformed, it has excellent crowd control. Any time you're dealing with a lot of light enemies, you can often stunlock the lot of them with its chain attacks. Additionally, transformed it has huge range, making it a way to safely attack somewhat from afar, especially using something like the jumping attack, which is also a long range vertical melee attack and vertical attacks can be very useful. Transformed it also has the serrated bonus, untransformed it has a different bonus church weapons have that does 20% damage to a small number of enemies later in the game. It also has access to thrust damage for some attacks and thrust damage is very useful, as some enemies in the game are very weak to it, but strong to normal damage. Skill stat focused weapon.

- Hunter's Axe is more of a tanky weapon. It has attacks that may resist you being staggered while performing them if you're hit, and recovers a lot more HP than other weapons from rally. So it's somewhat viable to tank an attack and hit the enemy and rally the HP back, to an extent. It's the harder hitting of the 3, though it lacks Saw Cleaver's DPS because it's slower. It has a lot of sweeping attacks and good range. Transformation attacks of the axe have the highest rally pretty much, period and can make sneaking up on an enemy let you blood bullet and get ALL HP back. The hunter's axe, transformed, also has an extremely powerful charged R2 that is a spinning double hit with very extremely high resistance to staggering and high rally, as well as heavy stagger, knocking many enemies away. Strength focused.

- Saw Spear, you may have found, shares Cleaver's untransformed moveset, and has a sweepy/stabby spear moveset transformed, which is also serrated, unlike Cleaver's transformed. It also is weighted more to skill scaling for damage, whereas Cleaver is strength.

- Kirkhammer you can buy now in the dream, after killing Cleric Beast. Untransformed it is a versatile straight sword with many sorts of slashes and thrust attacks, somewhat quick as well. It's not serrated, but is a church weapon in both forms. Transformed, it's a big hammer. It has the stagger resistance and stagger power similar to the axe, but lacks good rally. The charged R2 transformed is a mighty smash that flattens enemies, with an optional follow-up that is similarly powerful and sends them flying away. It's mostly vertical attacks and some sweeps, transformed, and does blunt damage, which isn't as useful as thrust but, this does give you a wide selection of damage types with normal slashes and thrusts with the sword, then all blunt damage with the hammer. Strength focused weapon.
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