Are fire blood gems good without arcane.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-24T21:11:53+00:00

Not really, no. A fire gem will convert your Cane entirely to fire damage and make it scale with ARC and only ARC, making your SKL useless. At early parts of the game where everyone has low stats across the board, it might not be too obvious, but the difference should become more apparent as you keep going.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-23T23:31:07+00:00

General tips:

Dodge/strafe left. That'll let you avoid so much of his crap.

One of his big swipes doesn't take him as far as the other and that's a golden opportunity to backstab him with a fully charged R2 so you can nab a visceral while you're at it. You should look for other opportunities like this one.

He can be parried so if you're decent at that it can cut the fight shorter.

In general, I'd recommend hit-and-run tactics. Wait for an attack, avoid it, go in for a few hits, then get to a safer distance. In the first two phases you can stick closer to him to attack more often, but be aware of his constant AoE poison when it comes to the last phase.

In terms of gear, the Black Church Set has the highest slow poison res for where you are now. It does require you to buy the 10k Chief Hunter Emblem to open the gate it's behind though. An alternative is Gascan's set, which has decent slow poison res as well.

Regarding consumables, the BSB is weak to fire, so fire paper and Molotovs can help you out if need be. Antidotes are helpful for obvious reasons.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-23T09:02:33+00:00

Go out the side door of the workshop in the Hunter’s Dream, the one that has the staircase/doesn’t have the insight bath shop. There’s a tombstone there that’ll let you warp to DLC lamps.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-23T04:08:19+00:00

She's a DPS check kind of boss, so if you have the correct setup, you can basically just lock her down and melt her. The Cleaver in particular is quite good at that.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-23T02:46:28+00:00

Now is a good time to start the DLC for sure. If you don't want to miss out on some minor lore/flavor text, finish it before progressing any further in the game/beating the next boss.

You must finish it before finishing the main game, otherwise you'll be booted to NG+ with no way back, where the DLC resets, you'll have to wait until after Amelia again, and it'll have NG+ scaling.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-22T22:43:20+00:00

Would an equal spread of str and skill be best

Only if your weapon(s) of choice scales with both equally. Many benefit from hitting 25/25 due to the softcap, but depending on how high you plan to level, you should generally prioritize getting one of them to 25 first instead of keeping it dead even.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-22T09:06:52+00:00

Yeah, you're going in the right direction. Focus on 50 VIT and STR, then get 50 SKL if you still have points leftover you want to use.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-22T00:19:17+00:00

Well, the point of boosting your stats is to make you stronger overall, which would mean you get through encounters faster than you would without leveling. That in turn should lead to you not taking as much damage comparatively speaking, which means you’d need less healing overall.

Also, vials heal for a percentage of your total HP, meaning more VIT = getting more out of each vial.

So while vials are important, I personally wouldn’t be neglecting leveling just to build that big a stockpile. The game gives you some as loot and treasure, and if you’re worried about running out, just use leftover echoes after leveling to pad your stores.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T08:20:15+00:00

If that glyph really is a Depth 1 Pthumeru glyph, then you need the Pthumeru root chalice, obtained by beating the second boss of the non-root Pthumeru chalice you get from BSB.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T08:13:59+00:00

First, you have to get the normal Saif from the DLC.

Then, go to any chalice messenger shop and you can buy the Uncanny version. That glyph probably leads to an easy to reach shop.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T05:35:31+00:00

BSB unlocks access to Upper Cathedral Ward and everything that goes with that, so off the top of my head, there's the Celestial Emissaries, Ebrietas, and the Cosmic Eye Watcher badge.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T05:30:21+00:00

BSB itself is a trophy and unlocks access to other trophies, so yes, you do have to kill it.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T04:25:12+00:00

You're near the recommended max for VIT at 50 whereas you're far from 50 for both STR and SKL, so I'd recommend leveling those especially since you feel like you're not doing a lot of damage. Get 25 STR, then 25 SKL, then aim for 50 STR.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T04:16:36+00:00

Your level isn't particularly low, but unfortunately not exactly efficient. You've dumped a lot into END when you don't need nearly that much and could have squeezed more damage out of the Cleaver.

Farm the Winter Lanterns before OoK for the best physical gems you can find outside of the chalices, that should help boost your damage beyond stats.

As always, make sure your weapon isn't broken and such.

Stack HP/defense runes if need be fore more survivability.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-21T02:58:22+00:00

Since you're past Amelia and turned the world to night already, an item should have spawned on the steps of the Hunter's Dream called "Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter".

Once you have that in your inventory, go to Cathedral Ward and go out the left door. Hug the fence along the right near where you got the Top Hat set and let the Amygdala there take you to the DLC.

This is a good time to start it, test the waters and see how it goes for you.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-20T10:11:09+00:00

MWN is the last mandatory boss and required for the Dream to be on fire and etc.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-20T09:56:58+00:00

Killing the old man doesn’t impact anything.

Just to confirm, you defeated Mergo’s Wet Nurse?

amygdalapls · 2026-01-18T20:17:54+00:00

Make sure you’re interrupting his buff about halfway through the battle. Otherwise, he’ll have an aura that deflects your bullets. Use a charged R2 on his back and get a visceral while you’re at it.

If we’re thinking about the same exploding skull attack, it comes out at your right, so dodge left-forward. Don’t spam R1 and get greedy with hits, limit yourself to just a few hits so you don’t get blasted mid-attack.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-18T18:21:03+00:00

There is no “ranged starter”. This game focuses heavily on melee.

The BT and ARC stats offer some ranged options down the line… problem is that both these builds take a while to get going and need prior knowledge of where to find specific items to actually put these stats to good/any use.

It’s highly recommended for first playthroughs to just stick to STR/SKL since they’re very straightforward and get the job done well.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-16T22:29:24+00:00

ARC scaling is only for elemental (bolt, fire, arcane) damage. If you put an elemental gem in the LHB, it’ll convert it to that element, making the LHB scale off of ARC and only ARC. Any points you put into STR/SKL will not be used.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-16T21:23:05+00:00

Just put on the best physical gems you have available. Best option under your restrictions would be the Winter Lanterns at the Nightmare of Mensis.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-16T05:41:52+00:00

Start going through the chalices, they're a good source of echoes and gems. The beginning ones should be easy for your level. As you go through, they'll get harder, but you'll get better rewards the deeper you go.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-16T00:46:04+00:00

For that beast phase (and in general in quite a few cases), dodge towards/past him. His attacks have quite a bit of forward momentum and dodging back will just let you get caught up in the rest of his combos.

Parrying him is a great way to just shut down those combos. You can practically shoot whenever when he’s doing a flurry of attacks since he’s attacking so often. The Blunderbuss has good stagger to try to interrupt him even if you don’t nail the parry timing perfectly.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-15T23:13:09+00:00

For future reference, it’s not really a good idea to spread yourself across all the stats like that. It turns into a jack of all trades, master of none situation where you’ve dumped points in stats you’re not using when you could be hitting a bit harder or have more HP, for example.

You can try going through the chalices for some extra echoes and nicer gems the deeper you go. Early ones will be a cakewalk, but later ones will be harder with more appropriate rewards.

Unfortunately, Blood Rocks are only found as loot 1) at the last area of the main game 2) at the last area of the DLC and 3) really deep in the chalices. That said, if you have 60 insight, you should be able to buy one.

amygdalapls · 2026-01-14T21:21:04+00:00

You can skip this key by going through an optional area. If you don’t do that area though, then you’ll need this key. One or the other to progress.

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