Board 8 > Bloodborne DLC question plz

(+) Yeah! (+)

Having to reload in and out again for the brain fluid makes that the worst quest.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Having to reload in and out again for the brain fluid makes that the worst quest.

I can't disagree with this, but it still wasn't too bad.

Defeated Lady Maria, was pretty easy. I can't believe I ever struggled with this boss. The fact that she is susceptible to hit stun in every single one of her forms makes her one of the easiest hunter type bosses in the entire game. I was also landing a bunch of parries despite shooting fairly blindly, just whenever it felt like maybe I could land one.

Got the Blacksky Eye. It's not too bad, but I still find myself rarely using it. Like I mentioned above, there's almost always a better tool for the job.

After that I finished clearing out Ailing Loran and got started on the Isz Gravestone chalice.

Man, the Loran Darkbeast actually reminds me a lot of what I was saying about Laurence earlier in the topic. He doesn't actually get an upgrade to his moveset but I think he's faster and more aggressive? Hard to say. Either way, Darkbeast Paarl in the main game is such a pushover that you rarely get to experience the actual fight. Having to battle him here in this arena, as a NG+ tier enemy, really allows you to experience the awesomeness and tension of the boss fight.

On the other hand, the Celestial Emissary in the Isz Gravestone is still kinda a pushover. I will admit he's a little bit harder than his companion in the main game cycle, but... he's definitely easier than the easiest of the Undead Giants, and fights in a similar way. His extra HP and damage are still not enough to stop the Hunter from absolutely murdering him.

I've been a little unlucky with blood gems so far but I still get excited whenever I drop a decent one. It feels like all of my work delving into the lowest depths has finally started to pay off. Right now my fire weapon is by far my strongest... so of course I dropped a few more great fire gems while I was clearing Isz floors 1 and 2. What I really want are some Bolt and Nourishing gems, but I haven't been lucky enough to drop any yet.


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Couple of other fun things...

I actually used the Loch Shield against the Loran Darkbeast, mainly because none of my left hand options were very useful, but it was still interesting that I was actually able to use the shield to... some effect. It completely negated some of his attacks. Though I was only able to block 1-2 attacks before running out of stamina. It was absolutely wild to be able to use a shield in Bloodborne.

I also relied on the Holy Moonlight Blade as my ranged attacking option. It fires a bit slower than the Blacksky Eye, but deals more damage per shot and still only uses 1 bullet. Hitting his legs is very effective but the hitboxes are so wonky it becomes pretty unreliable. Especially in the last part of the fight, I actually opted to just face him head on and then shoot him in the face with an arcane bolt whenever he left himself in a recovery frame for too long.

To come back to what I said earlier about the weapon scaling letters because absurd nonsense. The Flamesprayer has a D in Arcane, and the Rosmarinus has an A in Arcane scaling. With 50 points in Arcane, guess how much the difference in damage is? I have them both at +6 and the Rosmarinus deals 2 more points of damage. Lol...


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I've tried using the flame sprayer for the first time this run and it is so underwhelming. It doesn't seem to stunlock much of anything, and it doesn't help against enemies that I thought the aoe would help against (rom's spiders). Really struggling to recognize when it's ever worthwhile to use.

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flamesprayer does not have ANY stun. it's not very useful against normal enemies, but it's actually good against bosses. as long as your positioning is good, you can hold down the trigger and get a lot of damage on the boss without breaking him out of his attack chain. the lack of stun is actually an advantage in this case. the boss will keep swinging wildly, meanwhile you're burning them the entire time.

it works better on some bosses than others, and you need to learn the correct positioning and timing, but that is basically the niche of the weapon. also it can be buffed with bone marrow ash, so keep that in mind. bloodstarved best is an example of a boss that is really weak to the flamesprayer, as most of his attacks can be dodged by simply walking around him and you can continue to walk while spraying. and he's weak to fire.

also, similar to your gun, the flamesprayer needs to be upgraded if you want to use it for damage. I usually get it to +6 as soon as possible, use it for most of the early and mid game, and then leave it at +6 for a while. you can decide to upgrade it to +9 later on for use in lategame activities, but generally you only have enough bloodstone chunks to upgrade a few weapons. at that point you're better off focusing on a good bolt and a good fire weapon in your right hand instead.

bloodstone shards and twin bloodstone shards can be purchased in bulk, however, so there's no harm in getting as many +6 weapons as you can.

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Ah see I tried it against Amelia and it didn't go very well. Didn't have it against bsb, but maybe if I continue my dungeon runs I'll give it a go for that one.

I spent 6 levels to be able to use the moonlight sword, and it barely outperforms my arcane beast cutter with mediocre gems, both at +6. I do love removing my ability to parry, but as far as secondary weapons go I'm unsure if I'll use it much.

I began using beast roar a lot against some of the dlc hunters. What a great spell, can't believe I've slept on it for so long.

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Peace___Frog posted...

Ah see I tried it against Amelia and it didn't go very well. Didn't have it against bsb, but maybe if I continue my dungeon runs I'll give it a go for that one.

it's good against Amelia too, but not quite as good. it's basically made for the bloodstarved beast. the most important thing is to get good at your positioning, which is something you really have to learn. if you've got bad positioning you won't be able to make good use of the flamesprayer.

it's also very good against the one reborn, bloodletting beast, and perhaps some others.

basically the "sprayer" weapons are weak against fast enemies that you can just kill in 2-3 hits with your cleaver.
they are strong against big enemies with large health bars who stand in one position for a long time.

Peace___Frog posted...

I spent 6 levels to be able to use the moonlight sword, and it barely outperforms my arcane beast cutter with mediocre gems, both at +6. I do love removing my ability to parry, but as far as secondary weapons go I'm unsure if I'll use it much.

same experience here. it's weaker than my bolt saw spear and my fire saw cleaver that I'm currently using. the one thing it's good for is launching arcane blasts. I've literally been keeping it equipped just as a ranged attack option... which may sound weird, but I have done the same thing with reiterpallasch and the bowblade in the past, so it's a playstyle I'm already familiar with.

Peace___Frog posted...

I began using beast roar a lot against some of the dlc hunters. What a great spell, can't believe I've slept on it for so long.

yes, it's pretty great. wait till you get to micolash. it completely trivializes him. you can keep him trapped in the corner and knock him down instantly every time you start to run out of stamina. he never gets a chance to cast any spells.


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Cleared Isz. Unlike the previously mentioned Chalice bosses, I actually think that Isz Ebrietas is easier than the main campaign version. Yes, she has more health and damage BUT... the only way you're getting to the bottom of Isz Gravestone is if your build is already well defined, you have upgraded gear, and you have a good variety of blood gems and tools at your disposal. It just makes her feel a lot easier, y'know?

On my way to take down Queen Yharnam next. Shouldn't be too much trouble at this point.

I also decided to specialize my Holy Moonlight sword for maximized arcane damage, and it was a very good idea. The weapon is a LOT more useful now. I am only using it for overhand greatsword attacks, trick attacks, and the arcane L2 and R2 attacks. All of these use the Arcane Damage scaling, which heavily rewards my choice of blood gem set up. Don't even bother with Nourishing gems that boost physical and arcane damage, unless they happen to be BIS for the Arcane. I seriously just ignored the physical modifier and pumped the Arcane as high as possible. This is one of those things that requires a good understanding of how the game works -- my listed AR is now lower, but the attacks that I actually USE are dealing more damage.

I've also figured out that the L2 is basically just the knockdown effect of the Augur of Ebrietas, sacrificing speed for range and damage which is super good in certain situations.

And the R2 is the Blacksky Eye, but sacrificing speed and range for damage and knockdown. Which is also really good in specific situations.

Essentially my Arcane kit just feels a lot more versatile, and I've been keeping the Holy Moonlight sword equipped as my secondary weapon -- sometimes even my primary -- ever since I switched to this set up.


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Defeated the Headless Bloodletting Beast and Queen Yharnam

I think Yharnam gets a bit of a bad rep. I've seen her called underwhelming a lot, especially for the amount of effort it takes to get to her. And I guess maybe that's true, but I do think that she's a solid boss in her own right. Especially in her second and third phases. You can really suffer if you don't bring along a good option to control her clones, the fact that you can't repeatedly attack her without getting CC'd, and her combination of blood and poison damage makes her fairly challenging as long as you aren't overprepared. Fighting her with +8 weapons and only being around level 90, I still found it to be quite a challenge.

The one thing I will note is that the overall difficulty of Pthumeru Ihyll is MUCH lower than Isz Gravestone and Lower Loran, and this is a bit strange since I did both of those other dungeons first. So it does feel like you've just gone through hell and then the last of the three final dungeons is a bit of a relief since it's not quite as difficult.

All I have left now is some DLC stuff, and some more chalice exploring. I think the biggest issue with the Chalice dungeons is this: Exploring the randomized high level ones is pretty freaking awesome... but it takes like so long to actually get to the point where you can do those dungeons. I wish they had done something like make chalice progress global across all of your characters or something, because having to replay all of the fixed dungeons to get to the Chalice endgame on every fresh file is... less than optimal.


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I have still never done more than the first one.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I have still never done more than the first one.

it's the reason I'm getting 30 hours out of this playthrough instead of 8. Bloodborne pretty much nailed the content distribution because if you just want to beat the game you can do it quickly, but if you want to keep playing there is SO much stuff for you to do.

I will say, your comment reminds me of something I was thinking of earlier. a huge problem with the chalice dungeons is that the first two or three chalice dungeons are pretty much the worst ones.

the first boss of pthumeru floor 1 is a little too difficult if you go in there right away, but the entire pthumeru chalice becomes obsolete and ends up being boring because it's too easy very quickly. the pthumeru chalices also have the most 'standard' aesthetic with nothing particularly interesting going on.

hintertomb is by far the worst, and the only positive thing I can say about it is that it only has a few chalices, and none of the deepest floors. on top of having the worst design, the mandatory hintertomb chalice also has a poison swamp filled with undead giants... and none of the floors in either of the hintertomb chalices are particularly fun to explore.

central pthumeru is where things just start to get interesting, and while the two listed above are clearly the worst, this one certainly can cause issues for unprepared players. since you have to get past Chalice Rom to beat this dungeon, and a lot of players have NO idea how to fight Rom correctly, it can be a source of frustration that causes people to give up pretty quickly.

all of the stuff after that I consider to just get better and better.

the defiled chalice is difficult but really fun, and a fairly interesting gimmick. I like all of the boss fights, they're all challenging but feel rewarding to beat. the dungeon itself is pretty standard but not annoying to navigate.

ailing loran and lower loran are both fun and challenging, have a solid set of bosses, and it has a cool visual aesthetic. you'll also start fighting some good blood gems here, so it feels like you're finding actual rewards aside from just materials to make new chalices.

isz gravestone is basically the same good points as what I just said about the loran chalices, except even better. it contains more rare blood gems of the triangle variety -- you won't have very many of these yet, so every one that drops is pretty exciting. and it has some great boss fights.

finally pthumeru ihyll is a return to the 'standard' dungeon, easier than loran or isz, but still pretty fun. the headless bloodletting beast is pretty challenging even with a strong build, and I think queen yharnam is a good and unique battle.

after this you have basically your pick of pthumeru ihyll, isz, and lower loran randomized dungeons which can provide additional content as you search for new and more powerful blood gems. curse your dungeon with modifiers that will really ramp up the difficulty level, but you'll be rewarded with some of the most powerful loot that can drop in all of bloodborne. and the fact that it's procedurally generated means that , at the very least, you're not doing the exact same thing you've been doing before.

yeah, the dungeon layouts can easily be broken down to a few cliches, and you'll start to see the same rooms over and over, but the distrubution of enemies and traps, the way things are all put together, can keep you on your toes. always wondering what is around the next corner and figuring out the best way to engage the next group of mobs is the part that makes it fun, when you're playing at the highest difficulty, and making things semi-random forces you to think on your toes instead of already knowing exactly how to deal with the next room.


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Been watching a bunch of Bloodborne vids, was curious if you have every used the chalice glyph code to fight the unreleased Great One Beast boss, Maria.

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MariaTaylor posted...

a huge problem with the chalice dungeons is that the first two or three chalice dungeons are pretty much the worst ones.

I always wait til I'm a higher level so it's easy to just blitz through the early chalices

since yeah they are kinda boring

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I'm aware of the cut content chalice glyphs and the false depth glyphs, but I've never used any of them before.

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I forgot about headless bloodletting beast... he's very frustrating without being terribly memorable.

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he's a frustrating boss for sure, but I've started to get more consistent at fighting him once I realized that he has a similar body type and fighting style to Amelia -- a boss I generally do VERY well again. granted he's bigger, has more range, and a trickier move set... and he fights smarter. thing about Amelia is that she is constantly leaving herself open to attack and making bad moves, while the Bloodletting Beast is the opposite. he's constantly guarding his openings and will punish you for trying to punish him too greedily.

anyway, got started on my post-chalice exploration delving and I'm enjoying myself quite a bit already. made a sinister pthumeru ihll root chalice with all four modifiers activated. this gives my character permission to summon any other tier 5 chalice or below -- with any modifiers -- by using chalice gylphs. meaning I can infinitely explore fellow player created dungeons now without the use of anymore materials. fun stuff!

my current armory:
+9 Lost Saw Cleaver
+8 Lost Saw Spear
+8 Holy Moonlight Sword
+6 Lost Kirkhammer
+6 Ludwig's Lost Holy Blade
+6 Tonitrus

At this point I think I have pretty much everything that i need, but it's still fun collecting weapons. and I definitely want to find a Lost Tonitrus at some point. I'm making way, way more use of the Kirkhammer than I expected. It's actually got a pretty solid move set for fighting the medium enemies in the chalices, which gives it a pretty unique niche. It has just the right amount of stagger and its unique transformation attacks can be used to set up very damaging combos. Even at +6 it's hanging with my +8/+9 weapons.


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My file is already approaching 35 hours, and I just wrote down glpyhs for 11 chalice dungeons that I want to explore. I can't say 100% for sure that I will get around to all of them, but still. I'm really glad this topic was made! It's been a while since my last run through bloodborne, especially my last slow/complete run, and I was definitely inspired to do something that I have found to be very enjoyable.


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I'm really upset with myself, i thought that the augur was on the second floor of the lecture hall so i didn't bother ever going to floor 1 until after clearing out the second floor and not finding it... I could've had this incredible spell HOURS ago. Dammit.

I never would've thought I'd have more than two weapons actively in use, but having one for fire, pure arcane, and then the tonitrus and moonlight sword is a very flexible setup. The enemies that are strong to bolt/ arcane are VERY strong to them both - looking at you, tiny worms and Ebrietas babies.

I just remembered the kos parasite, so maybe I'll push through some more of the dlc later this week to give that a go.

One of the most surprising things to happen to me this run is that I'm actually really enjoying the beast cutter, its dodge attack and transform attacks are very fluid and handy. My first impressions were very biased by my love of the cane whip.

The other surprising thing is the damage from the tiny Tony. The second battle in the dungeons against the merciless watchers was a joke because of this spell.

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Peace___Frog posted...

I'm really upset with myself, i thought that the augur was on the second floor of the lecture hall so i didn't bother ever going to floor 1 until after clearing out the second floor and not finding it... I could've had this incredible spell HOURS ago. Dammit.

Oh no... Yeah, you missed out, but at least you have it available now. It never stops being good.

Peace___Frog posted...

I never would've thought I'd have more than two weapons actively in use, but having one for fire, pure arcane, and then the tonitrus and moonlight sword is a very flexible setup. The enemies that are strong to bolt/ arcane are VERY strong to them both - looking at you, tiny worms and Ebrietas babies.

I think this is where arcane builds excel. For a physical build you may have niche cases where you want more than two weapons, mainly just for a niche moveset. But for arcane builds it's actually viable to carry around more than two weapons based on type coverage and other properties, and switch between them as needed.

Peace___Frog posted...

The other surprising thing is the damage from the tiny Tony. The second battle in the dungeons against the merciless watchers was a joke because of this spell.

I love it. I actually never used it until my first arcane item only challenge, but that run really gave me a lot of appreciation for all of the different hunter tools and the niches where they are best used. tiny tonitrus isn't useful in every situation, but it's one of my favorite hunter tools now and I always enjoy using it in the situations where it can be used.


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Started another new character, so that's three I'm running now. Decided to go pure skill (with just a bit of arcane) and immediately went after the Blades of Mercy. Which involved getting Henryk to kill Eileen for me

The learning curve for these blades was steep, I died several times (I'm talkin' several times) against regular mobs while trying to get used to the shorter range. I'm used to having a bit more space between me and enemies

But once I got the hang of it holy shit did I start having a blast. Possibly my favorite weapon in the game now, makes it so much fun killing anything that stumbles into my path

Plus got the Saif and converted it to fire which has also been useful

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Blades of Mercy can carry you through the game. They are super, super good. I agree about the learning curve being steep though, which is why I don't quite rate them as a top tier weapon. Some people won't have as easy of a time mastering them, or even using them. And they do fall off in certain situations. They have low hit-stun which makes them less useful against certain medium and large enemies.

This reminds me of something, when I was asked earlier in the topic about a Skill/Arcane build. I forgot to mention the Burial Blade as another Skill+Arcane weapon. Although you technically can't get it until the end of the game, this isn't exactly true either. You can technically get any weapon you want from the chalice dungeons as long as you know where to look.

edit: also I swear me responding within 5 minutes to any post about Bloodborne is just a coincidence. I literally -just- woke up.

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Hmm.... Can't remember if I've ever seen this before, but I encountered a Blood Crow of Cainhurst type hunter in one of the Fetid/Rotted/Cursed chalice dungeons. He actually wasn't too bad, but I also exploited the Tiny Tonitrus against him to great effect. Want to go try fighting the actual Blood Crow and see if the Tiny Tonitrus works to the same effect. If so, this has a lot of potential.


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I haven't bothered with the cursed dungeons much outside of a few select explorations so I'm not sure. The Tomb Protectors might know!

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Oh yeah, I got this chalice gylph from a known database. I know I'm not the first person to discover this. I just couldn't remember if I'd encountered this type of hunter before personally. Usually I see the ones with the tomb prospector gear, augur of ebrietas, and either the kirkhammer or LHB. sometimes you see the bone ash hunter who uses the saw cleaver with fire paper, or the ones that use the beast claws.

The one who dresses and fights like the Bloody Crow was just a cool find for me. Even if I've fought one before, it's rare enough that it still stood out to me.

my gem set up is good now but I've hit the point where there are specific gem slots that I want and they are just not dropping because they are the more rare ones. the worst is when I look up a chalice that says it drops triangles of all types, but I'll farm it several times and I only get physical and fire ones because the arcane and bolt variants are so much more rare.


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MariaTaylor posted...

I forgot to mention the Burial Blade as another Skill+Arcane weapon. Although you technically can't get it until the end of the game, this isn't exactly true either. You can technically get any weapon you want from the chalice dungeons as long as you know where to look.

oooh didn't know about this, that's one of the weapons I've always wanted more experience with

I only just got to the Ailing Loran chalice and wow yeah the aesthetics are way better than the first two chalices. I know I've gone through these once before bc I remember fighting queen Yharnam, but it's been a long time

enemies are taking a lot more hits in this dungeon though so I might need to come back later... how many chalices until I can get one that allows me access to the burial blade?

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Ailing Loran and Isz are both basically filled with enemies at NG+ difficulty level, despite the fact that you can access them in a regular new game cycle. That being said, I just did most of it myself with only +6 weapons, so it's definitely possible if you've got an optimized build and you're skilled enough at the game.

Either way, putting it off till you've got some max upgraded weapons won't hurt, but a lot of enemies are still gonna take 3, 4, or even 5+ hits regardless of how strong you get. This is just the nature of fighting the much stronger enemies.

So the tough part about getting the Burial Blade is that it's found in dungeons like Pthumeru Ihyll and the Lower Loran, which are both depth 5. This means in order to get it you need to do the following:

1. Get a Depth 5 Root Chalice
2. Make any Depth 5 Root Chalice dungeon (Lower Loran, Pthumeru Ihyll, or Isz Gravestone)

The good thing is that after you've done this, you can make ANY depth 5 dungeon without requiring any additional ritual materials. So all you need to do is get one of those three root chalices and make at least one randomized dungeon, and this will allow you to access chalice dungeon glyphs with KNOWN good loot.

This is done by touching one of your empty gravestones and hitting 'search by chalice glyph.'

One more note, I learned from experience that the Sinister dungeons do NOT give you access to the regular tier 5 dungeons. So make sure that you create a regular Lower Loran, Phthumeru Ihyll, or Isz Gravestone without the Sinister modifier. I can't remember if you need to do the FRC modifiers, so I always make sure to do all three of them just to be 100% sure.

To get the Burial Blade:

Pthumeru Ihyll, Floor 1 Treasure: cps9thzn

This will get you a Lost Burial Blade with a Radial, Triangle, and Waning slot. This is the best combination for Arcane builds.

Alternately, you can do this glyph:

Lower Loran, Floor 1 Treasure: kkqmduet

Here you can find an Uncanny Burial Blade. This one should have Radial, Triangle, Radial which is optimal for physical damage builds, but it can also work pretty well as a fire converted weapon.


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Oh also I came in this topic to post that I got my Lost Tonitrus, upgraded it to +9 and slotted in the optimal gems that I've picked up for it... was able to get the AR over 700 while buffed. This thing is crazy.


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That's insane. My normal one is +9 and with 50 arcane made very short work of Micolash... I almost felt bad, it was maybe two attack rotations in each room, no parries or anything fancy.

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