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Everything You Need To Know About Blood Gems by Pure Souls

Blood Gems in Bloodborne come in a variety of different shapes and effects. This guide will help you on your path to getting exactly what you’re looking for! Gems Come in 5 Different Shapes: Radial, Triangular, Waning, Circular, and Droplet. ► Radial Gems can be found in Pthumeru Dungeons and are the most common gem in the game. ► Triangular Gems can be found in Isz Dungeons. ► Waning Gems can be found in Loran Dungeons. ► Circular Gems (typically Pulsing, Warm, or Bloodtinge Gems) only drop from certain enemies in the game, including Bloodlickers and Ritekeepers. ► Droplet Gems are a rare gem type that can fit into any slot, no matter the shape. Besides the ones you find as loot, the only Droplet Gems that drop from enemies are from the Winter Lanterns in the Nightmare Frontier and Nightmare of Mensis. Unless the DLC changes this, Droplet Gems are weaker than the other Gem types, but are a good intermediate gem to use until you can farm higher level Gems. Notes There is about a 2% chance for any gem dropped by an enemy to be an abnormal shape from the one that enemy usually drops (ex. Isz Watchers dropping a Waning gem). Hunter NPC’s, drop the same gem shape regardless of the Dungeon they reside in! Farm the Bone Ash Hunters for Radial, The Cainhurst Hunters for Triangular, and the Logarius Wheel or Beast Claw Hunters for Waning gems. The Loran Silverbeast has almost the exact same drop list as the Hunters, but can drop up to rank 19 gems (waning, barring abnormal shape drops) while the Hunters only drop up to rank 18.

Basic Primary Effects (Some can also be found as Secondary Effects)

► Tempering: Boosts all Physical AR by a %, including Blood ATK. ► Adept Blunt: Boosts Blunt AR by a %. Does not boost visceral attack damage. ► Adept Thrust: Boosts Thrust AR by a %, and visceral damage (unlike Blunt). ► Striking: Boosts total AR on Charged attacks by a %. ► Fool’s(tempering): Boosts Physical AR by a % AT FULL HP. ► Fool’s(nourishing): Boosts total AR by a % AT FULL HP. ► Poorman’s(tempering): Boosts Physical AR by a % AT LOW HP. ► Poorman’s(nourishing): Boosts total AR by a % AT LOW HP. ► Beasthunter: Boosts total AR by a % vs. Beasts. ► Kinhunter: Boosts total AR by a % vs. Kin. ► Nourishing: Boosts total AR by a %, and visceral damage. ► Dirty: Adds Rapid Poison effect. After enough Poison buildup, the effect will activate, dealing 100 + 10% of your enemy’s max HP in damage. This type of Gem is weak compared to damage gems due to the numerous hits required to inflict it. ► Murky: Adds Slow Poison effect. After enough poison buildup, the effect will activate, causing your enemy to slowly lose HP over a short period of time. This type of Gem is most useful in PvP, but requires several hits to inflict it and has very low damage per second. ► Bloodtinge: Boosts Blood AR by a %. This gem type is used for guns and the Chikage’s transformed mode. Does not affect Visceral damage. ► Heavy: Boosts Strength scaling with a Flat % of your base AR, relative to the Strength stat. The effects of this Gem are weak compared to the % Gems. See explanation in the Gem Formula section of this guide. ► Sharp: Boosts Skill scaling by a Flat % of your base AR, relative to the Skill stat. The effects of this Gem are weak compared to the % Gems. See explanation in the Gem Formula section of this guide. ► Warm: Boosts Bloodtinge scaling by a Flat % of your base AR, relative to the Bloodtinge stat (only applies to weapons with inherent Blood AR). The effects of this gem are weak compared to the % Gems. See explanation in the Gem Formula section of this guide. ► Cold: Boosts Arcane scaling by a Flat % of your base AR, relative to the arcane stat. This effect ONLY boosts Elemental scaling, so it is useless on any weapon without a tied element. The effects of this Gem are weak compared to the % Gems. See explanation in the Gem Formula section of this guide. ► Fire: Boosts Fire AR by a % Changes the damage type of a purely Physical weapon to Fire and causes it to scale with your Arcane stat. ► Bolt: Boosts Bolt AR by a %. Changes the damage type of a purely Physical weapon to Bolt, and causes it to scale with your Arcane stat. ► Arcane: Boosts Arcane AR by a %. Changes the damage type of a purely Physical weapon to Arcane, and causes it to scale with your Arcane stat. ► Pulsing: Causes your character to regenerate HP over time. These gems are useful for passive regeneration on builds that don’t have powerful guns. ► Odd Tempering: Adds a flat amount of Physical AR (not affected by Attack Modifiers). ► Odd Fire: Adds a flat amount of Fire AR (not affected by Attack Modifiers). ► Odd Bolt: Adds a flat amount of Bolt AR (not affected by Attack Modifiers). ► Odd Arcane: Adds a flat amount of Arcane AR (not affected by Attack Modifiers). ► Radiant: Reduces your Stamina Cost by a %. One of the least useful Primary Gem effects, but is a useful Secondary effect for high-stamina-usage weapons.

Secondary Effects That Cannot be found as Primary Effects

► Finestrike: Boosts your AR on attacks vs. Open Foes by a %. By “open”, the game means a target that is in the process of attacking. Perhaps the most useful and powerful secondary effect for PvP Gems. Does not affect Visceral damage. ► Odd Bloodtinge: Adds a Flat amount of Blood AR (not affected by Attack Modifiers). Does not affect weapons without inherent Blood AR. ► Dense: Increases your weapon’s Durability. ► Fatal: Increases your Rally Potential. This is the time period in which you can earn HP back by attacking enemies with Melee.

Cursed Gems are the best you can get, but they come at a cost

► - ATK: Reduces total AR by a percentage. Gems with this Curse are almost useless. ► - ATK vs Beasts: Reduces total AR against Beasts by a percentage. Doesn’t affect damage against other players. ► - ATK vs Kin: Reduces total AR against Kin by a percentage. Doesn’t affect damage against other players. ► + Stamina cost: Increases Stamina Costs of your weapon by a percentage. One of the least detrimental Curses. ► - Weapon Durability: Causes your weapon to lose Durability faster. ► HP gradually depletes: Reduces your HP over time.

How do Gem Effects Stack?

Effects such as Odd Tempering, Slow Poison, Rapid Poison, and scaling from Heavy/Sharp/Cold/Warm Gems add together. Matching % effects multiply together. Here’s a little math to show how: One 10% Tempering gem multiplies your gem-less physical AR by 110%, or 1.1. Two 10% Tempering gems on the same weapon = 1.1 x 1.1 = 1.21 Because of this, stacking the same effects is most beneficial, but these effects don’t always have to be identical. If you were to have a 10% Arcane gem with +10% ATK up vs. open foes, your AR would be 1.1 times your gem-less Arcane AR on normal hits, and 1.21 times your total gem-less AR on attacks vs. open foes (not including the inherent 20% open hit bonus). While gems with pure effects (such as those given by the Scurrying Beasts and the Merciless Watchers) will reliably give you the effect in every applicable situation, they will not always be the most powerful gems. Let’s compare a 32.6% Blunt Gem from the Watchers and a 28.7% Blunt Gem with +5.6% ATK vs. Open Foes from the Undead Giant. The Watchers’ Gem gives you a constant effect of 1.326 times your Blunt AR. On the other hand, the gem from the Undead Giant only gives you a constant effect of 1.287 times your AR. Neverthless, it has the potential to multiply your Blunt AR by 1.359, and any other inherent Elemental AR on your weapon by 1.056, on open hits. This ideally shows us why the Finestrike secondary effect is perfect for mixed-AR weapons. Looking at the way gems stack, we can reason that the AR difference between these gems is amplified with each additional synergetic effect, as shown below: 3 Merciless Watchers 32.6% Blunt gems = 1.326^3 = 2.33 3 Undead Giant 28.7% Blunt + 5.6% ATK up vs open foes = (1.287 x 1.056)^3 = 2.51 on attacks vs. open foes Even though the ATK vs. Open Foes effect was 5.6%, the total Physical AR gained from 3 of this effect is 18%. Simultaneously, you get that 18% for any Elemental AR as well. Do other effects like Rally Potential, Beast/Kinhunter, or Curses stack like this? Yes, so be wary of this and allocate your gems accordingly. Stacking the same curses, such as increased stamina cost, on the same weapon can become problematic if you’re not careful.

The Gem Multiplier Formula

[(Gem Effect A%/100)+1] • [(Gem Effect B%/100)+1] . . . = Gem Effect Multiplier If you have multiple Gems with the same effect(s), you can use exponents to simplify the Formula accordingly: [(Gem Effect A%/100)+1]^n[(Gem Effect B%/100)+1] ^m . . . = Gem Effect Multiplier Where n represents the number of identical effects for Effect A, and m represents the number of identical effects for effect B. These formulas will only tell you statistical AR, and will not account for any Attack Multipliers such as those given by your weapon’s moveset or by counterhits (aka. attacks vs. open foes). To ensure accuracy in your calculations, be sure to apply the Formula for each applicable Damage type on your weapon. If a Gem has any +ATK effects, those effects will apply to all attributes on your weapon. This simply means that +ATK on the Burial Blade would be applied to both the Physical and the Arcane AR. On the Stake Driver, +ATK would only affect the primary damage attribute of its respective Element or all Physical attributes (as applicable). Blunt and Thrust AR boosts only affect their respective attribute and have no impact on any other AR type. Flat AR increases from Odd gem effects must be made after all % effects are taken into consideration. Scaling Gems are similar to % effects, but have some major flaws: they don’t reach their full potential until you hit 99 in the scaling stat that they depend on; they are additive rather than multiplicative; and they only multiply part of your AR. One +27.2 scaling Gem = 1.272 times your base AR + your Gemless scaling AR at 99 in the scaling stat of your gem Two +27.2 scaling Gems = 1.544 times your base AR + your Gemless scaling AR at 99 in the scaling stat of your gems Here’s an example: The Logarius Wheel with 99 Strength has 200 base Physical AR and 220 scaling Physical AR… With 1 scaling Gem = (1.272 x 200) +220 = 474.4 AR With 2 scaling Gems = (1.544 x 200) +220 = 528.8 AR By comparison, % Gems multiply all AR in their respective category, regardless of your stats. With 1 percent Gem = 1.272 x 420 = 534.2 AR With 2 percent Gems = 1.272^2 x 420 = 679.6 AR As you can see, one % Gem outranks 2 scaling gems. The difference between them only increases when you have less than 99 in your scaling stat. Furthermore, scaling gems only affect 1 stat’s scaling, whereas % gems multiply AR regardless of scaling. For this reason, scaling gems are almost completely useless.

Useful Gem Multipliers:

► Three 5.6% effects = 1.178 times AR for your respective Damage type ► Three 12.6% effects = 1.428 times AR for your respective Damage type ► Three 21% effects = 1.772 times AR for your respective Damage type ► Three 23.1% effects =1.865 times AR for your respective Damage type ► Three 27.2% effects = 2.058 times AR for your respective Damage type ► Three 32.6% effects = 2.33 times AR for your respective Damage type (or all AR’s if Beast/Kinhunter) ► Three 36.3% effects = 2.53 times AR for your respective Damage type

So, now that we have all of the Shapes, Effects, and the Gem Multiplier Formula laid out, what Gems do I want to use? It entirely depends on your stats and the weapons you want to use. Pure Physical Builds (Strength, Skill, or Strength and Skill): These builds are the easiest to farm for and use the most basic Gems. Tempering is your best bet here. Adept gems can be used to strategically boost the damage of specific attacks that you use most often, such as Thrust for Reiterpallasch and Blunt for the Logarius Wheel. Other gem types can be used, but they will often result in severe limitation of your effectiveness. Bloodtinge Builds: These builds can use the both Tempering and Bloodtinge Gems to great effect. Tempering covers Blood Attack – as well as Slash, Thrust, and Blunt – because it is considered a Physical attribute. Bloodtinge gems are a little more powerful than Tempering for increasing Blood AR, such as on the Chikage’s transformed state, but greatly limit your style of play. Arcane Builds: These builds use different Gems from the other 2 build types listed. Elemental Gems allow you to use your Arcane stat scaling on otherwise purely Physical weapons. Nourishing Gems can be used to supplement purely Elemental weapons since Elemental Gems are difficult to farm for compared to the other Gem types. They also help boost the weak Viscerals that Arcane builds often suffer from, and work well for boosting the AR on split-damage weapons such as the Logarius Wheel and Tonitrus. This build type can also use Beasthunter and Kinhunter gems better than any other build because they function in the exact same manner as Nourishing Gems against their respective targets, making their use on split-AR weapons quite effective. The key here is exploiting weaknesses, so bear that in mind when you choose your gems. For more information on this build type, please refer to the Pure Souls Arcane Guide.

Where do I get these Gems? The Chalice Dungeons, of course!

Before getting into glyphs and enemies for gem farming, a word of caution: Eye Runes have been statistically proven to NOT improve the quality of gem drops. Their only use in farming is making an enemy with less than 100% total drop rate drop their items and gems more often. Bosses and some enemies, such as the Labyrinth Madmen and Scourge Beasts have a 100% drop rate of SOMETHING from their drop list, so Eye Runes won’t help. NPC Hunters and Lost Child of Antiquity (Gargoyles), on the other hand, have a low overall drop rate that greatly improves with high discovery.

Tempering	Adept	Nourishing
Common drop from The Merciless Watchers (up to +27.2% Physical with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll ag77rinb or pwmf22gu; and RFC Isz 5pwujscd. Common Drop from The Labyrinth Madmen (up to +21% with a strong secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu; uncommon in RFC Loran Glyph 25dzpyg3. Guaranteed drop from the Bloodletting Beast (up to +24.8% Physical ATK with a random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll 42t2cns6 Layer 3.	Guaranteed drop from the Undead Giant (up to +28.7% Thrust/Blunt with a random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll 28nt7p5z; RFC Isz u37b5h48; RFC Lower Loran fmkivi7n Layer 2. Uncommon drop from The Merciless Watchers (up to +32.6% Thrust/Blunt with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll ag77rinb or pwmf22gu; and RFC Isz 5pwujscd. Rare drop from the Labyrinth Madmen (up to +24.3% Thrust/Blunt with a strong secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu; and RFC Lower Loran 25dzpyg3	Guaranteed drop from Amygdala (up to +21.5% ATK with a random secondary effect) in RFC Isz ghgvhb2d; and RFC Lower Loran ske4igwv. Guaranteed drop from Rom the Vacuous Spider (up to +19.5% ATK with a random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll v5v5fpsd. Rare drop from the Cainhurst Gargoyles (up to +19.3% ATK with a random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu; (Please note that these gems become common with high discovery and are very fast and easy to farm, making the farming of Rom almost obsolete).

Beasthunter/Kinhunter	Bloodtinge	Fire
Rare drop from the Cramped Caskets (up to +27.7% ATK vs Beasts/Kin with a random secondary effect) in Layer 3 (pre-area) of RFC Ihyll exdy2m2t (Please note these become common drops with high discovery; use Eye Runes). Rare drop from the Hunter NPC’s (up to +27.7% ATK vs Beasts/Kin with a random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran 25dzpyg3.	Common drop from the Shotgun Merciless Watcher (Circle Gem up to +31.5% Blood ATK with no secondary effect) in the first pre-area of FC Ihyll e99tdh9f. Common drop from the Bloodstarved Beast (+28.7% Blood ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran jvz8469j. Uncommon drop from the Ritekeepers (aka Fire Witches; sometimes they drop Radial gems) in RFC Ihyll v5v5fpsd. Please see this video for farming the Witches. Circular Bloodtinge Gems can also be farmed from Bloodlickers found in the dungeons. There is a small chance of them dropping Bloodtinge Gems in the corresponding shapes: Triangular (Isz), Radial (Pthumeru), and Waning (Loran). To get a Bloodlicker to spawn, simply use a visceral attack or backstab in a Chalice Dungeon. Only certain enemies will yield you a Bloodlicker, and only the first Visceral/Backstab on an enemy will be the spawning location of a Bloodlicker. Here is a list of them… Merciless Watchers (all types, excluding the Fat-Rolling & Cleaver Watchers) Labyrinth Madman (all types) Labyrinth Warrior (all types) Watcher’s Gravedigger (all types) Once you Visceral or Backstab the enemy, leave the area (not the dungeon itself). The Bloodlickers will only appear after you have traveled far enough away or enter another area or layer. After traveling the required distance, come back to farm the bloodlickers that have spawned. Use Eye Runes to boost your Gem drop rate. Please see the following link for an example.	Rare drop from the Merciless Watchers (up to +27.2% Fire ATK with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu or ag77rinb; Uncommon drop in RFC Isz 5pwujscd. Guaranteed drop from the Watchdog of the Old Lords (up to +24.8% Fire ATK with a random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll 7vvid666; RFC Lower Loran 758v8txa. Common drop from the Hunter NPC’s (up to +23.1% Fire ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran 56428adr or 25dzypyg3. Common drop from the Labyrinth Madman (up to +21% Fire ATK with a strong secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran 25dzpyg3; rare drop in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu.

Bolt	Arcane	Odd Arcane
Rare drop from the Merciless Watchers (up to +27.2% Bolt ATK with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu or ag77rinb; Uncommon drop in RFC Isz 5pwujscd. Guaranteed drop from Abhorrent Beast (up to +22.5% Bolt ATK with doubled secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran r6t2n466. Guaranteed drop from Loran Darkbeast (up to +24.8% Bolt ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran azsysju9. Common drop from Hunter NPC’s (up to +23.1% Bolt ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran 56428adr or 25dzypyg3. Common drop from the Labyrinth Madman (up to +21% Bolt ATK with a strong secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran; Rare drop in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu	Rare drop from the Merciless Watchers (up to +27.2% Arcane ATK with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu or ag77rinb; uncommon drop in RFC Isz 5pwujscd or ghgvhb2d. Guaranteed drop from Ebrietas (up to +24.8% Arcane ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Isz e2ts7vub. Rare drop from the Hunter NPC (up to +23.1% Arcane ATK with random secondary effect) in RFC Isz cb7jig9p.	Common drop from the mob version of the Brainsucker (up to +67.5 Arcane ATK with random primary effect) in RFC Ihyll ba362b97. Guaranteed drop from the Boss version of the Brainsucker (up to +72.5 Arcane ATK with a random primary effect) in RFC Isz huy83p9r.

Pulsing	Murky	Dirty
Uncommon drop from the Walking Ritekeeper (Circle Gem; up to +5 HP regeneration with no secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu. Use Eye Runes to improve drop rate. Rare drop from various enemies throughout the Chalice Dungeons, including the Scurrying Beasts, Patient Beasts, Hunter NPC’s, Loran Silverbeast, Labyrinth Madmen, and Beast-Possessed Soul (up to +5 HP regeneration).	Common drop from specific enemies in Poison Dungeons, such the Poison Dog (up to +14 slow poison) in Layer 1 of RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu. Rare drop from the Hunter NPC’s (up to +15.4 slow poison) in RFC Lower Loran 25dzpyg3 Layer 1. Rare drop from the Loran Silverbeast Boss (up to +15.9 Poison effect) in RFC Loran enjids45 or 25dzpyg3.	Common drop from the Scorpions (up to +11.7 Rapid Poison with random secondary effect) in RFC Ihyll pwmf22gu Layer 3. Rare drop from the Hunter NPC’s (up to +18.4 Rapid Poison with random secondary effect) in RFC Lower Loran 25dzpyg3 Layer 1. Rare drop from the Loran Silverbeast Boss (up to +19.1 Rapid Poison effect) in RFC Loran enjids45 or 25dzpyg3.

For additional information on finding the BEST GEMS in the game, please refer to the Merciless Watchers Drop List and Labyrinth Madmen Drop List.	Circular Bolt Blood Gem
Credit for the Glyphs goes to ALL of the kind souls who shared them publicly and compiled them. Without their work, this guide would have been severely limited. Thanks also to EMonaghan (TurquoiseWaters) for her assistance in creating this Guide. On a final note, once in a Blood Moon you get a unique novelty that should not even exist. When this happens, fret not, and consider yourself fortunate that you saw something so rare.	Circular Bolt Blood Gem from the Bone Ash Hunter NPC in RFC Lower Ailing Loran 25dzpyg3.