Chalice Dungeons Bloodborne Wiki » Chalice Dungeons

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Table of Contents

Description

How to use Makeshift Altar

Online Sharing

The New Prospector’s Chalice Dungeon FAQ

Flow Chart	Chalices	Ritual Materials	Bosses	Enemies	Labyrinths	Glyphs

Description

Underneath Yharnam there is a vast underground ruins spread wide and deep across multiple floors. Horrifying and ancient, it appears to have been created by something not quite human. It’s at once both a graveyard, and a place of slumber. What’s more, these ruins change their appearance for each visitor. The seal to these underground ruins can be broken by conducting a special ritual using a holy chalice. Every time the ritual is performed, the dungeon’s structure changes. The Chalice Dungeons are a large part of Bloodborne, but they are an entirely optional part.The role they play in the game's overall structure is another mystery for players to solve. Preset Chalices: These labyrinth dungeons must be unlocked through rituals, each of which carries a cost in materials and Blood Echoes - the deeper the dungeon, the more costly the ritual is to complete. Reaching their deepest depths is no small undertaking, and your path there begins when you acquire your first Chalice, by defeating the Blood-starved Beast in Old Yharnam. This Chalice lets you perform the ritual to create the Pthumerian Labyrinth. In order to craft the first labyrinth you'll also need a 'Ritual Blood (1)', which you can find in Old Yharnam at an Altar on your way to the boss. You can also purchase them from the Messenger Bath shop in the Hunter's Dream after acquiring the Pthumeru Chalice defeating the Blood-starved Beast.

Completing the Pthumerian Labyrinth rewards you with the Central Pthumeru Chalice, which you can use to make the next dungeon, which in turn will reward you with another Chalice. From this point onwards you can progress through the dungeons in tandem with the main quest. There are two more Chalices that can only be found in the main game, and many more to be found by clearing the dungeons you build. All three main game Chalices are: Pthumeru Chalice ► Defeat the Blood-starved Beast; Ailing Loran Chalice ► Defeat Amygdala; Great Isz Chalice ► Defeat Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. Root Chalices: Many dungeons will reward you, upon defeating bosses, with either a Preset Chalice or a Root Chalice. Root Chalices always have the word 'Root' in their names and are used to create randomly gen¬erated versions of the dungeon the Chalice is named after. So the Central Pthumeru Root Chalice, for example, will create a randomly generated version of the Central Pthumerian Labyrinth. Ritual Altars: To conduct your rituals, you can use any of the six 'Ritual Altars' lined along the path to the left of where you always enter the Hunter's Dream. These altars are where you'll be able to craft or dismantle Chalice Labyrinths and search for other player-created labyrinths online. Treat this area of the Hunter's Dream essentially as the Chalice Labyrinth hub. There are only six Ritual Altars, so you will eventually have to dismantle some of your crafted labyrinths by selecting the 'Remove Chalice' option when you wish to craft newer labyrinths, or improve root labyrinths by performing additional rites with newer materials when re-crafting them. Preset labyrinths will always remain the same when re-crafted, which is worth bearing in mind in case you wish to hunt for specific items and materials.

How to use Makeshift Altar

Before you can use the Makeshift Altar in Hunter’s Dream, you have to acquire the item – Short Ritual Root Chalice. Patch Notes v1.04: Players can now acquire a Short Ritual Root Chalice by trading Insight. The Chalice will become available after completing the Pthumeru Chalice dungeon. Players can now use the Short Ritual Root Chalice’s quick matching feature in the early part of the game. It is also available if you defeat the last boss in Lower Hintertomb Chalice (the order of the chalices is the following: Pthumeru Chalice » Central Pthumeru Chalice » Hintertomb Chalice » Lower Hintertomb Chalice). Makeshift Altar has three Quick-search options: Dungeon Quick-search: Quick search and join an accessible Chalice Dungeon. Co-op Quick-search: Quick search a Beckoning Bell chime to begin co-op Adversarial Quick-search: Quick search a Sinister Bell chime to become an adversary. Updated: When using a Short Ritual Root Chalice for co-op play, the guest player will always start from the Lamp room of each floor rather than in random locations.

Online Sharing

When conducting the Chalice Ritual each fixed shared dungeon and root dungeon has "messengers" icon indicating how much is the dungeon shared online. The more messengers on the icon, with maximum five, the more players used this dungeon online.

Fond of Chalice Dungeons spelunking? Why not join the Tomb Prospectors then. The Tomb Prospectors seek the nether reaches of Root Chalice Dungeons, in order to find the strange, the weird, the undiscovered. The Tomb Prospectors Discoveries wiki page lets you unearth the profound Root Chalice Dungeon expeditions. If you love running Root Chalice Dungeons, the Tomb Prospectors Covenant will gladly take you in! Join us on Reddit and Discord.

The New Prospector’s Chalice Dungeon FAQ (09/24) [By Esper_Row, with input from the Tomb Prospectors’ Discord]

Getting Started What is a chalice dungeon? Bloodborne’s lore tells us that the chalice dungeons comprise an underground labyrinth stretching far below Yharnam. Carved out long ago by the enigmatic Pthumerian society, they are now seen as the tomb of the gods, where the Healing Church has dredged up its greatest discoveries and hunters partake in communion. The dungeons may go undervalued by the player base, but they are inextricably linked to the foundation of Bloodborne’s narrative. In a gameplay sense, each dungeon is a segmented level consisting of three (or occasionally four) layers. Each layer tasks the hunter to navigate a series of corridors and ruins in search of a lever, so that they may unlock the path to a boss fight and the next floor, repeating this formula until the dungeon’s end. The difficulty of a dungeon is dependent on its depth, which is represented by a number from 1-5. 1 is the easiest and 5 is the hardest. Chalice dungeons are divided into two categories: Fixed dungeons (sometimes called “story” dungeons by the community) Root dungeons Why should I do the chalice dungeons? Once you have progressed beyond Central Yharnam and gained access to the rest of the game, Gehrman will provide this advice: “If the beasts loom large, and threaten to crush your spirits, seek a Holy Chalice. As every hunter before you has.” You may not understand it at the time, but this is the game informing you that the chalice dungeons are there to provide another means to strengthen yourself beyond the main campaign. If you ever find yourself stuck against a difficult section and have no other place to go in the story, the dungeons offer a useful side activity to gain more levels and stronger blood gems for your journey, all while facing new bosses and enemies along the way. If that is not enough, the dungeons provide other unique rewards, including stronger versions of most of the main game’s Caryll Runes, a new trick weapon, more sets of attire, and plenty of additional lore for the theory crafters to dig into. Even those who don’t find themselves wanting for strength have incentive. One of the trophies needed to platinum Bloodborne necessitates defeating the final boss of the chalice dungeons. Reaching them normally will require traversing all of Pthumeru and investigating a couple side chalices along the way for necessary materials. While you can trim the detours into non-Pthumeru chalices by entering New Game Plus and purchasing some of these materials instead, you still have a minimum of five chalices to complete for this trophy to be yours. Finally, the most dedicated hunters seek the dungeons for their potent endgame blood gems, which outclass those found in the main story and DLC. Prior to the DLC’s release, the strongest physical attack gems were dropped by Winter Lanterns in the Nightmare of Mensis and these do not exceed 20%. Even the gems of the Fishing Hamlet’s lanterns don’t reach much higher, capping out at about 22%. Meanwhile, physical attack gems found in the lowest cursed dungeons can reach as high as 27%, providing a noticeable leap in damage for any build. While this is merely one example considering one gem type, fully optimizing any build in Bloodborne will require varying amounts of time farming in the labyrinth. How do I begin dungeon-diving? The earliest obtainable chalice is the Pthumeru Chalice, which is held by the boss in Old Yharnam. The two Ritual Blood (1) needed to create it are found earlier in the same area, on an altar in the large building below Djura’s post. To access it, conduct the chalice ritual at any of the six altars to the left of the messenger shops in the Hunter's Dream. This is where you will create all of the dungeons. You will obtain more chalices by exploring Pthumeru and defeating certain optional bosses in the main story. What is the difference between a fixed dungeon and a root dungeon? A fixed dungeon can be considered the normal version of a chalice. Its map has permanent enemy/item placements, layouts, and bosses, all of which remain the same each time that dungeon is generated. Fixed dungeons are generally made once per character to unlock other chalices they contain and make them open for cooperative connections. You cannot be invaded while inside one. Conversely, a root dungeon will be a different experience every time you create one. When a root dungeon is generated, the game pulls from a list of 100-200 pre-generated dungeon maps for that chalice and spawns one of them. Each map will have a unique arrangement of rooms and differing placements of items, enemies, and bosses. Root chalices are never required for story dungeon progression, but they are important to have for accessing glyphs later on. Will deleting a chalice from the altar revert my progress? No. The only way to lose progress is if you delete a dungeon before finishing it, in which case you will have to respawn that chalice and start again from the Chamber of the Seal. You may want to keep certain dungeons around if you find they have a useful farming spot, a place of interest you want to preserve, or you left some side areas behind to explore, but otherwise, there is no harm in clearing space for new chalices. When should I be doing the dungeons in my playthrough? Depth 1 is scaled to be manageable as soon as you defeat the Blood-starved Beast, so you can begin the journey immediately. Gehrman even encourages the hunter to do so. A +3 weapon is ideal to have at this point, which should be achievable with the abundance of Blood Stone Shards scattered throughout the early game. Depth 2 is a minor step up in enemy scaling from the previous depth. Most will be comfortable coming here directly after depth 1 after investing in a few extra levels. Depth 3 sees a very noticeable spike in difficulty and should be saved until you reach Yahar’gul, the Unseen Village after the blood moon descends. A +6 weapon at bare minimum is recommended, but you may find it necessary to invest some Blood Stone Chunks in your weapon to keep up with the rapidly increasing enemy scaling. Depth 4 is where the dungeons start to earn their infamy, as this is where the ever popular Defiled Chalice resides. Enemy scaling here exceeds much of the late game and DLC, so it’s best to hold off on these dungeons until you reach the endgame in Mensis and max out your main weapon at +10. For the Defiled Chalice, which comes with the twist of a cursed rite, you should come prepared with a high Vitality stat (ideally 45+), plenty of spare Blood Vials, and all of your best health and defense-boosting runes memorized. You’ll still be very squishy and quick to die, but any scrap of defense you can muster helps. Depth 5 amps the enemy scaling even further than depth 4, but because none of the depth 5 fixed dungeons bear the cursed rite, you’re likely to find them easier to contend with than the Defiled Chalice. Nonetheless, you should still expect a decent challenge here, especially from Pthumeru Ihyll, as this is where the strongest dungeon enemies reside. If you choose to ignore the dungeons until after completing the main game and/or DLC, depths 1-2 and most of depth 3 will become a cakewalk. The dungeons are made to be tackled in conjunction with the main game, and while it can be difficult to discern when you should be doing each of them, waiting until the end of a playthrough means you’ll have a lot of very undertuned, repetitive content to sift through. If possible, save yourself some trouble and knock out a few of them as you’re playing the main game. Are the dungeons affected by New Game Plus cycles? Chalice difficulty is never affected by New Game cycles and your progress will not be impacted by going to the next cycle either. If you enter a new cycle, all of your chalices will be on the same altars they were when you completed the game. What are ritual materials? Ritual materials are ingredients used to create chalice dungeons. The most basic ones are Ritual Blood and Tomb Mold, which will be required for the majority of dungeons you make. These materials are each separated into five levels, represented by the number in their names, which always corresponds to the dungeon’s depth. Thus, the depth 1 Pthumeru Chalice requires Ritual Blood (1), depth 2 needs Ritual Blood (2), and the pattern continues. As you descend to lower depths, you will notice the chalice rituals beginning to require rarer, more specialized materials. Some of these materials can be found in main game areas, but if you are following the chalices’ intended progression, exploring each fixed dungeon thoroughly to find others is critical. You may even need to farm certain enemies for materials on occasion. All materials will eventually become purchasable in the Hunter’s Dream from the two messenger’s shops by completing certain fixed dungeons and entering New Game Plus. The only material found exclusively outside of the dungeons is the Living String, which is needed for the final Pthumeru chalice and dropped by the Brain of Mensis on death. As such, it is recommended that you do not enter New Game Plus until you obtain this material, as you will otherwise need to make your way back to Mensis in New Game Plus to obtain it. There is a common glitch that prevents the Brain from dropping the Living String while cooperating, however it should respawn after reloading the area. What is the Short Root Ritual Chalice? The Short Root Ritual Chalice can be bought from the Insight messenger bath for 10 Insight after completing the first Pthumeru fixed dungeon. It enables use of the Makeshift Altar, which has a handful of functions. With it, you can perform a quick search to open a random root dungeon you meet the entry requirements for, resonate your bell to be summoned to a host seeking assistance, or invade a dungeon with an active Bell Ringer as an adversary, all directly from the Hunter’s Dream. While this altar is a boon for hunters looking to engage in more dungeoneering and jolly cooperation, its glacially slow matchmaking often makes for long waiting times between sessions. Bloodborne’s old age and diminished player base don’t help matters either. What are rites? Rites are additional modifiers that can be added to a root dungeon. Each rite makes a dungeon more difficult, but some also improve your rewards for exploring. The lower the depth, the more rites become available. There are four in total that are available by the time you reach depth 5: The fetid rite will empower certain enemies with a vibrant red aura, increasing their damage output by 35%. On the positive side, these enemies will drop larger amounts of Blood Echoes and more rare items. The rotted rite will replace some basic enemies in the dungeon with one or a combination of the following new enemy types in every layer: Eye Collectors, who will summon Mad Ones in groups of three until killed. These Mad Ones, though flimsy with low HP, are far more deadly than those found in Hemwick and will aggressively pursue you once spotted. NPC hunters of varying builds, including: Saw Spear hunter wearing the Bone Ash set, Chikage hunter wearing the Cainhurst set, Logarius Wheel hunter wearing the Gold Ardeo Roaming Labyrinth Ritekeepers, each flanked by a small patrol of Pthumerian watchers. This Ritekeeper variant, in addition to its newfound mobility, can temporarily empower its cohorts, making them lethal in cursed dungeons. The cursed rite will halve the hunter’s HP while they remain within the dungeon. It also causes all enemies to drop cursed gems by default, which have much stronger primary effects at the cost of a random negative effect. Like the fetid rite, echo amounts and item drop rates from enemies are improved, but the cursed rite also has the unspoken bonus of increasing the item discovery of any hunter with an equipped Eye or Milkweed rune by a staggering 1000. While cursed dungeons are some of the most challenging content Bloodborne has to offer, they are also the most lucrative places to farm for blood gems and echoes. The Sinister Rite will add a guaranteed Bell Ringer to every layer of the dungeon. This rite is only available for separate sinister root chalices and cannot normally be stacked with the prior rites. Ringing either of the Beckoning or Sinister Bells while it is active will still spawn a second Bell Ringer, allowing up to two invaders to join at once. This rite provides no tangible improvements to rewards, but it is handy for hunters looking to set up PvP fight clubs or run dungeons with the twist of multiple invaders.

What does FRC mean? FRC is a community-made acronym standing for Fetid, Rotted, Cursed. This refers to a dungeon that has all three of these rites enabled together. Depth 5 FRCs are arguably the most difficult content found throughout Bloodborne. These dungeons are purely for providing a challenge to experienced hunters and will never be required for standard dungeon progression. What dungeons do I need to do to reach the final boss? All five of the Pthumeru Chalices are mandatory. Beyond getting the first one from Old Yharnam, you will receive them one after another by completing the previous one in the sequence (i.e. Pthumeru drops Central Pthumeru, Central Pthumeru drops Lower Pthumeru, and so on). There are two points along this path where you may need to make detours for materials: The Defiled Chalice requires 2x Bastard of Loran. These can be obtained from Ailing Loran or purchased from the Insight messenger shop in New Game Plus. Pthumeru Ihyll requires 4x Red Jelly. Two can be obtained in the Lecture Hall, but the remaining two will need to be acquired from: Lower Loran or Great Isz, both of which have two apiece New Game Plus, either via Insight purchase or by revisiting the Lecture Hall The Hintertomb chalices are entirely skippable. The only worthwhile reward received from them is the Madman Set from Lower Hintertomb. Dungeon Navigation How are chalice dungeons structured? As mentioned earlier, a chalice dungeon consists of three or four layers. Each of these will have three distinct sections, commonly referred to in order as the pre-lamp, the main area, and the pre-boss. Finally, a layer will be capped off in an arena with a boss encounter. The pre-lamp is the corridor leading from the beginning of the layer to the layer’s starting lamp. There may be a bronze door or open doorway on one side of the hallway that leads to a side area. These will always contain a well-guarded treasure coffin with rare loot, such as ritual materials in fixed dungeons or Caryll Runes and weapon variants in root dungeons. Although these paths are optional for completing the dungeon itself, the rewards often make them worth exploring, especially if you are combing through the fixed dungeons. The main area is the middle section of a layer, immediately following the lamp. There will always be a locked gate near said lamp. Your task will be to find a lever within this section to unlock the gate and continue forward. This lever will be found somewhere in the main area. Explore diligently and check every corner and closed door to find it. Once you have done so, return to the start of the main area and open the gate to enter the pre-boss. The pre-boss is the corridor leading to the boss arena. Just like the pre-lamp, there may be a side area with a treasure coffin, which will work identically to a pre-lamp side area. The end of the layer will always have a boss fight. Defeat the boss, proceed to the next layer, and repeat the process until you have no further layers to explore. Are there any deviations to this dungeon structure? The chalice dungeons occasionally throw small wrenches in the mix, but the core progression of pre-lamp, main area, pre-boss, and boss will remain constant. The main area can contain its own bonus area and treasure coffin, either behind a bronze door or through a seamless corridor transition. The pre-lamp and pre-boss areas may also sometimes connect to the main area via alternate routes, and in the case of a pre-boss, this can even allow the hunter to bypass the locked gate and open it from the other side without touching the lever. Additionally, unlike the main game, illusory walls are present in two of the fixed dungeons and many root dungeons. There is a chest in a doorway blocking my way forward, what do I do? Dungeon chests are destructible objects you can break with your weapon or firearm. This will take several hits, which is most efficiently accomplished with shotguns like the Blunderbuss. Thankfully, doing this will not damage the item inside. Why am I suddenly being ambushed by Bloodlickers? There is a unique event in the chalice dungeons where, after you perform a visceral attack on a strong enemy, kill them, and leave the room, the game will spawn a Bloodlicker on top of its corpse to lick it clean and attack you should you return. For more information on which enemies this event applies to and how it works, see the Bloodlicker section of the Traps & Hazards page on the Bloodborne Wiki. Sharing and Accessing Glyphs What is a glyph? When a hunter creates a root dungeon, a unique eight character code will be generated for it and made visible in the bottom right corner of the dungeon menu. Think of this as a password that can be entered to access that dungeon again at any time. To enter a glyph, interact with any of the six ritual altars and select “Search by Chalice Glyph”. I just made an interesting glyph, how do I make it open to others? Interact with the ritual altar holding said dungeon and select the option to share it. This will enable access to other players once you have shared it with either an open or closed privacy setting. What is the difference between a dungeon being open or closed? An open glyph can be entered by any player ringing at the Makeshift Altar, allowing hunters to summon cooperators or be invaded by adversaries directly from the Hunter's Dream. This is a convenient option for hunters looking to help a friend on a lower layer of a difficult dungeon. Bear in mind that it takes much longer on average to be summoned from the Makeshift Altar than from inside the dungeon itself, so you may need to be patient when waiting to connect. A closed dungeon can only be accessed by inputting its corresponding glyph at a ritual altar. Hunters will not be able to enter these dungeons with the Makeshift Altar and must instead ring their bells near the host’s proximity on the same layer of that dungeon. Most save-edited farming glyphs are closed. Why was my glyph deleted from the server? Glyphs that are not routinely accessed by other hunters will eventually expire and be removed from the server, presumably to maintain space for others. While we do not fully understand the specifics of how this happens, it typically takes around two weeks of inactivity for a glyph to be purged. Sadly, there is no way to recover a glyph once it is gone. If you want to keep your glyph alive as long as possible, consider sharing it with friends and/or the community on social media to increase the chances of other hunters using it. What happens if my glyph is deleted from the server while I still have it on an altar? Others will no longer be able to access it, but as long as you keep the chalice there, you can still use it. However, if you delete it, you won’t be able to find that glyph again. Why don’t I meet the requirements for entering [insert dungeon]? Two conditions must be met to enter any standard root dungeon: First, you must have already obtained the corresponding root chalice for the glyph you are trying to enter. Example: pwmf22gu, a classic farming glyph, is a Pthumeru Ihyll. Entering it requires the Pthumeru Ihyll Root Chalice or its sinister variant in hand. Second, you must have previously generated at least one dungeon with all of the same rites as the glyph you want to access. Creating a single root dungeon with the fetid, rotted, and cursed rites all applied is sufficient. There is no need to complete this dungeon, enter it, or keep it on an altar; the act of making it will guarantee that you can enter glyphs with any combination of the FRC rites, so long as you also meet the first condition. Note: The same rule applies for the sinister rite, thus you must make your own sinister root dungeon with its rite enabled before having access to any sinister glyphs. This is less important than the other rites, as sinister chalices are never used for farming glyphs. Multiplayer Interactions Is there any difference in how I connect to people for co-op/pvp in dungeons? The general idea of Bloodborne’s summoning system remains the same. The host rings the Beckoning Bell, the cooperator rings their Small Resonant Bell, and both wait to connect. If a Bell Ringer is present, a hud message will notify you of her presence and she will actively search for an adversary to invade your session until she dies. Passwords carry over as well. The only difference is that potential cooperators and adversaries have the option to search for sessions from the Makeshift Altar for added convenience. Why can’t my friends connect to me in [insert dungeon]? Bloodborne’s bell summoning system is quite obtuse and finicky, so there are a number of factors that could be tripping you up. Below is a list of details you can check for troubleshooting: Ensure you all have a matching password. This sounds obvious, but everybody forgets to switch their password from time to time. Set your matchmaking to “Worldwide” if you have not already. If the bell symbol under your HP and stamina bars is grayed out, you may be standing on unstable ground like certain bridges or ladders. Move your character until you see the symbol update. If your cooperator is ringing into an open dungeon via the Makeshift Altar, be mindful that the Makeshift Altar is notoriously slow at matchmaking, so it may just take a longer wait than usual to connect. If you are in a closed dungeon, make certain you are meeting the following criteria on top of the first two bullet points: All participants must ring on the same layer of the dungeon to connect. Ring in the same general area as your cooperator(s) (Example: If your friend is ringing on a staircase leading to the layer’s boss, make sure you ring there too). Check what oath runes you and your cooperators are wearing. Executioners and Vilebloods connecting to each other takes demonstrably longer than ringing with any other combination of runes. Hunters of Hunters also appear to take longer to be summoned on average. Do covenants interactions carry over from the main game? Vilebloods and Executioners will still be enemies when summoned to the same team and Hunters of Hunters can enter as adversaries too. The Milkweed, Beast's Embrace, and Impurity runes are good choices to avoid unwanted interactions like these.

Gem Farming Is farming top tier blood gems from the dungeons worth the effort? While the uptick in damage between story gems and depth 5 cursed gems is substantial, optimal gems are generally seen as overkill for an average hunter’s playthrough. This generally holds true for early New Game Plus cycles and the DLC as well. If you’re only interested in a few casual playthroughs and you don’t care for PvP, then you needn’t feel pressured to optimize. If you plan to engage in PvP with veterans, run low depth cursed dungeons, or go all the way to the highest New Game Plus difficulty, then stronger gems will become more important for keeping up with skilled hunters and heavily scaled enemies. How and when do I get to farm top tier blood gems in the dungeons? All relevant farming glyphs are cursed depth 5 dungeons. To reach them, your priority is to obtain all three of the depth 5 root chalices and create your own root dungeon with all optional rites applied. Meeting these requirements will ensure your access to all farming glyphs for whatever blood gems you seek. Refer back to the final question of the Sharing and Accessing Glyphs section for a more in-depth explanation. I’m farming for [insert gem] and it hasn’t dropped yet, what gives? Patience is a virtue, and when it comes to gem farming, it is also a necessity. Even with the improved drop rates in save-edited farming glyphs, many gem types are still very rare and can take many hours or days of dedicated farming to obtain. What do all of the blood gem effects do? Below is a summary of each primary gem type and what they’re best used for: Tempering: Boosts physical damage at an average rate. These are useful all-rounder gems that work for any non-arcane build, even if they aren’t always optimal. Adept: Boosts exclusively blunt or thrust damage at a higher rate than tempering. These will be more situational than tempering gems, but if your weapon’s best attacks focus on either of these damage types, they will provide a generous boost. Remember that visceral attacks inflict thrust damage, meaning that thrust adepts will help them while blunt adepts provide no such benefit. Nourishing: Boosts all damage at a lower rate than tempering. The lower numbers might look less appealing on the surface, but if your weapon has a mixture of physical and elemental damage, these gems will boost both damage types simultaneously, sometimes allowing them to outperform tempering gems. Importantly, blood damage is considered a type of physical damage in the context of gem effects, so tempering gems will still boost blood damage higher than a nourishing can provide. Striking: Greatly boosts damage dealt by fully charged strong attacks. These gems are very situational, but for weapons with potent charged attacks like the Stake Driver, using these can make for a cheeky gimmick build. Arcane builds using element-converted weapons will see no benefit from striking gems, as their effects only impact physical charged attack damage. Radiant: Reduces all stamina consumption of a weapon’s moveset. Because most of the game’s weapons have low stamina costs to begin with, these gems should always be skipped over. Sacrificing so much potential damage for one or two extra swings is never a good choice. Fool’s: Boosts damage while the hunter is at full HP at a higher rate than tempering. Fool’s can either boost physical damage alone, like tempering gems, or all damage as nourishing gems do. If you are confident in your ability to fight unscathed, or you don’t mind topping off your HP each time an enemy taps you, fool’s gems can provide a decent chunk of extra damage. However, they are ill-advised for PvP, due to factors like latency and gunfire making it challenging to consistently stay at full HP. Poorman’s: Boosts damage while the hunter is below 30% HP at a higher rate than almost all other blood gems. Like fool’s, poorman’s can drop as either tempering or nourishing effects. These gems are inherently risky by forcing a glass cannon playstyle, but in the hands of a skilled hunter, they can achieve some of the highest damage numbers Bloodborne allows you to reach. Beasthunter/Kinhunter: Boosts damage against enemies that are classified as beasts or kin respectively. While these effects will appear stronger than tempering gems of equal rank, they are calculated after enemy defense is applied to your hits, making them weaker in practice. This, on top of their situational applications and poor drop rates, makes them undesirable outside of niche secondary effects. Heavy: Improves the weapon’s strength scaling. While this effect is too weak to be useful on most gems, heavy abyssals provide such a drastic increase that one is almost always needed to optimize a weapon when using a high level Strength or Quality build. Sharp: Improves the weapon’s skill scaling. Due to there being no way to farm sharp abyssals on par with heavy abyssals, any available sharp gems are always worse than temperings and should never be farmed. Warm: Improves the weapon’s bloodtinge scaling. For the same reason as sharp gems, these are entirely useless. Cold: Improves the weapon’s arcane scaling. For the same reason as heavy abyssals, cold abyssals are critical to optimizing any element-converted weapon on a high level Arcane build. Pulsing: Steadily regenerates HP by a small amount every 2 seconds. The regeneration rate is very slow and not worth sacrificing your main weapon’s damage for, but if you are using a build that doesn’t focus on gun damage, slotting one into your firearm does provide some decent recovery between fights. Murky: Enables the weapon to inflict the slow poison status and improves the build-up rate. The abundance of bosses with high poison resistance renders these situational to begin with and slow poison drains HP too slowly to compete with the raw damage provided by other gems. Dirty: Enables the weapon to inflict the rapid poison status and improves the build-up rate. The same issue with murky gems applies here, though rapid poison is a stronger immediate effect and can be decent on weapons with fast multi-hit attacks against the handful of enemies that are weak to poison. Fire/Bolt/Arcane: Converts a pure physical damage weapon to the corresponding element and changes its scaling to exclusively Arcane. Combining these gems with cold abyssals is common practice for any endgame Arcane build. Bloodtinge: Boosts blood damage at a higher rate than tempering. While exceptionally tedious to farm in non-circle shapes, these gems are staple choices for firearms, the Bloodletter, and the Chikage. What blood gems will be best for my weapon/build? Given the large variety of blood gems, weapons, and possible builds, this is a hard question to give a general answer for. The Best Blood Gems Setups page on the Bloodborne Wiki is a good starting resource for checking what you should be aiming for on each weapon. If you want a more direct answer, you can ask in the Tomb Prospectors’ subreddit or Discord server for input from other prospectors. What are abyssal blood gems? Abyssal gems have the highest rank of any gem in Bloodborne. Each boss on layers 3 or 4 at depth 5 will have a 1/3 chance to drop an abyssal gem of their corresponding type. Abyssals are not always the best of their kind and not every gem type can be normally obtained as one, but many builds do require some for optimal damage, especially those incorporating strength and/or arcane. Save scumming is recommended for farming abyssal gems, as a hunter would otherwise need to reset the dungeon and redo the first few layers between each attempt. There are a few exceptions to the normal abyssal rule. Pthumerian Descendant at layers 3 or 4 in cursed dungeons cannot drop abyssal gems. Additionally, Descendant and the Pthumerian Elder drop tempering abyssals rather than their usual cold gems on layers 1 and 2. These instances are attributed to mistakes or bugs rather than intentional decisions by the developers. What is save scumming? Save scumming involves making a backup save, which speeds up the process of farming bosses on lower layers and enemies that do not respawn. To start save scumming, proceed through a dungeon to whatever you’re looking to farm, save and quit in front of them, and upload your save within your console’s cloud settings or on a separate USB drive. Reenter the game and kill your target. If you get the gem you’re looking for, then you are good to move on. If not, download that save you just made. This will place you back where you were originally, letting you repeat the kill without needing to redo a lengthy dungeon. Does item discovery help for farming gems? The answer depends on what you are farming. Discovery has no impact on the quality of gem drops, so its only use is helping those gems drop in the first place. Since all depth 5 bosses in root dungeons have a 100% chance to drop a gem, there is no reason to stack discovery for them. However, mobs regularly have consumables and materials in their drop tables, meaning an Eye and/or Milkweed rune will help their gems drop more frequently. I see the phrase “Unable to acquire ?GoodName? due to inventory or storage max” while farming, is this something to worry about? No, this is a harmless side effect of editing dungeons. It’s a broken drop script attempting to give you an item that does not exist. You can safely disregard this message. What do OoS and OoE mean? OoS stands for out of shape. This refers to when a gem drops in a shape that is not native to the corresponding chalice (radial in Pthumeru, triangle in Hintertomb/Isz, and waning in Loran). The chances of this happening are much lower than in the main game, making OoS gems found in dungeons very valuable. The only enemies that drop gems with distinct shapes regardless of the chalice are the Beast-possessed Soul (enemy version, not the boss) and mobs spawned by the rotted rite. OoE stands for out of effect, referring to primary and secondary effects on blood gems that are not native to the gempool of a particular chalice. In layman’s terms, they are extremely rare effects you will practically never see. For instance, while obtaining a Bloodtinge gem from the Merciless Watchers boss in unedited Pthumeru Ihyll is technically possible, the chance of it happening is 0.008%; an astronomically low possibility that few will ever see. This fits the bill of an OoE gem. What is a gempool? Each chalice has its own gempool, which determines all of the possible effects a blood gem can have and their likelihood of occurring. In unedited dungeons, Pthumeru gempools focus on physical damage and support effects. Hintertomb follows the same pattern with a slight emphasis on poison. Meanwhile, Loran leans more heavily into elemental damage and poison, while Isz has a lopsided mix of everything. With save editing, it is possible to share dungeons with purposely-tweaked gempools. These make obtaining certain gems in different shapes much easier and may also improve drop rates altogether. See the following section and question for more information.

Save-Edited Dungeons What is a save-edited dungeon? Save-edited dungeons are made by players with access to a third party save-editing program, allowing them to make limited modifications to a dungeon. They are generally created for the purpose of easier blood gem farming. While these dungeons are beneficial for farming certain gems, it is impossible to manually input custom drop rates with a save editor. At best, we can only work with what is already programmed in the game, so some gems remain tedious to farm. Additional uses for save editing include: Creating false depth and reverse depth dungeons Stacking multiples of the cursed rite for increased item and blood echo drops Accessing developer test dungeons Changing what enemies are spawned by the rotted rite or spawning all of them at once Forcing a dungeon’s fourth layer open Spawning the Beast-possessed Soul mob and/or the chalice messenger bath What is a test dungeon? Test dungeons are incomplete maps that contain swathes of cut content, including architecture, mobs, and even bosses that were left on the drawing board before the final release. With a save editor, it is possible to access these dungeons’ IDs and publish them as public glyphs for the broader player base to explore. These provide a unique opportunity to see content that was once planned for the finished game before being scrapped. While they do not usually provide checkpoints for you to warp back to the Hunter’s Dream, falling to your death in one of the many pitfalls of these dungeons will do the trick. If you’re sitting on a large stock of Blood Echoes, make sure to spend them before entering one. What are False Depth and Reverse Depth dungeons? False depth dungeons are late game dungeons that have been made accessible much earlier than intended. They can be found via glyphs once you have obtained the Pthumeru Root Chalice from layer 2 of the first Pthumeru Chalice. These allow you to obtain uncanny/lost variants of base game weapons, tier 3 runes, powerful blood gems, and even skip directly into later fixed dungeons to unlock the best farming glyphs within hours of creating a new character. Reverse depth dungeons are depth 1-2 root dungeons that have been edited such that enemies drop late game upgrade materials, namely Blood Stone Chunks and Blood Rocks. These enemies will retain their early game scaling, making them trivial to dispatch in a couple hits at most. Chunks can be farmed from any boss, while rocks will be a rare drop from layer 3 or 4 bosses. Remember to equip an Eye or Milkweed rune to improve the drop rates of these materials. These dungeons greatly streamline the buildmaking process, cutting down the time investment needed to reach the depth 5 dungeons and farm. However, for hunters venturing into Bloodborne for the first time, they have the potential to sour the experience by allowing them to outpace the game’s difficulty curve and skip large amounts of content entirely. For these reasons, it’s generally recommended that new hunters look into these dungeons sparingly or not at all until they have completed a first playthrough. Are there any malicious save-edited dungeons I should be concerned about, and if so, how can I identify them? Unfortunately, because anybody with the knowledge and save editor required can publicly share any dungeon, there are a few problematic test maps out there. These dungeons have no lamps to leave or cracks in the architecture to force a death by gravity, causing them to permanently trap any character that enters. Some of them can be escaped naturally if playing on the European Game of the Year edition, but they still remain dangerous on all other versions of the game. In January 2022, a glitch was discovered that allows players to confuse the hunter’s spawn point in dungeons, which can be applied to escape these test dungeons. An explanation of the glitch and instructions on how to use it for this purpose can be found in this Reddit post. While this discovery does mean that these dungeons are no longer true softlocks, performing the escape is a hassle and you should generally avoid any unknown dungeon that has these traits in its menu: Broken descriptions/names with “?PlaceName?” or ?menuText?” text Depth 0 or 6-8 dungeons Multiples of the same rite applied or has the sinister rite stacked with other rites Glitches, Exploits, and Softlocks I’m trapped in a boss room with a Pthumerian Descendant, how do I get out? See if you have a save file backed up on the PlayStation Cloud or on a separate USB drive from before you entered this dungeon. You may lose some progress, but this will let you restore your character to a safe spot. If you don’t have one available, your only option is to use a glitch to force yourself out. You can find guides about how to execute it here. What is the dungeon merging glitch? The dungeon merging glitch was discovered in early 2022 and its applications are versatile. To simplify this complicated exploit, it requires placing one character in a specific spot in a dungeon and using a second character to quit from a co-op or invasion session. When executed correctly, loading the first character will cause them to spawn into another predetermined dungeon, which retains the gem shapes, effects, and values from the dungeon they were initially set up in. This glitch is quite difficult to explain in short terms, so for a more involved explanation, see the Dungeon Merging tab in the Bloodsheets. This glitch is usually employed to access blood gems that are otherwise tedious or outright impossible to farm. It can also be used as an emergency option to escape soft-locking test dungeons, as explained in the prior two FAQs. Is there a way to get to the last chalice boss more quickly? Yes, there is. This FAQ will not be sharing the edited glyph or how you get to it, but the information is one searchbar away if you’re desperate enough for it. What on earth is the cum dungeon? The infamous cum dungeon, cummmfpk, is a save-edited dungeon created by the prospector XTrin that exploits an unfortunate enemy placement and the way Bloodborne progressively loads assets. In the first side area of this dungeon, a tomb prospector NPC stands in the path of a swinging axe that continually damages him. Because the game doesn’t fully load all assets until you get close, remaining in the hallway outside causes this NPC to remain stuck in place while the axe continually damages him, providing an efficient, effort-free source of Blood Echoes each time he dies. The dungeon has also been edited to stack multiple cursed rites, greatly enhancing the amount of echoes obtained. This is why your HP is so critically low while inside. For a visual explanation from an expert on how Souls games work, modder and content creator Zullie the Witch has a short video explaining cummmfpk’s exploit as well. Is it okay to use the cum dungeon / Is the cum dungeon cheating? Yes, it’s fine to use it, and yes, it is cheating. It would not give you so many echoes or be available so early into dungeon progression if it wasn’t edited to work the way it does. Even so, you needn’t worry what other people think of you using it. Many will rightfully caution you if you’re a new hunter planning to power level yourself early to steamroll the game, but even then, the choice is yours. Just be mindful that any remorse you feel for consuming the cum chalice is entirely your fault. I’m not getting free echoes from cummmfpk, why? cummmfpk’s echo farming exploit works so long as you do not approach the layer 1 pre-lamp side area. Bloodborne gradually loads NPCs and objects based on distance, so if you get too close to that area, it will be further loaded and the NPC hunter that would otherwise be killed by axes will instead be knocked away, saving him from further damage. Taking a step or two out from the Chamber of the Seal lamp and checking for damage numbers to your left is all you should be doing. Miscellaneous How do I deal with the Defiled Chalice? As recommended in a previous section, come prepared with a high Vitality stat (as close to 50 as possible) and any HP or defense-boosting runes you have available. Play cautiously and limit your swings to avoid being punished for overextending. Weapons with long reach, such as Ludwig’s Holy Blade, Burial Blade, Hunter Axe, and Church Pick excel with their ability to poke at enemies from range. Conversely, shorter weapons like the Reiterpallasch and Blade of Mercy require you to play dangerously in dire conditions, so they are not the best choices. Finally, don’t neglect your consumables. Blue Elixir allows you to safely run past most mobs, Pungent Blood Cocktails can distract beast mobs, and Bone Marrow Ash can give your gun some added kick to finish an enemy off from a safe range. Did the community ever figure out what the deal was with Guidance Tier 3 and Revered Great One Coldblood? Both exist in the game’s data and are fully functional, but neither can be obtained without modding on a jailbroken console or a save editor. While both were mentioned as lootable from depth 5 root dungeons by an official guide, a complete exploration of every root dungeon has proven this to be false. Does the Yharnam Stone do anything? No. Thanks to the efforts of Lance McDonald, we know that there were plans for a piece of dialogue with the Hamlet Priest NPC that would have been triggered by having the Yharnam Stone. However, this event was not kept in the final release of the DLC. The stone is best looked at as a testament to finishing the dungeons and nothing more. Can Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen be found in the root dungeons? Yharnam is exclusive to the fixed Pthumeru Ihyll dungeon. Can I get variants of DLC weapons before entering the DLC? Uncanny and Lost DLC weapons are only unlocked at chalice messenger baths after you obtain their original versions from the DLC campaign. There is no way to save-edit weapons to appear at chalice merchants earlier than normal. Has everything in the dungeons been found? With two complete rounds of community mapping for every root dungeon in the books and modders digging into the game’s files for years, it’s safe to say that every major secret in the dungeons has been laid bare. It’s very possible that there are other glitches and exploits yet to be found, but groundbreaking discoveries like new enemies and bosses are things of the past.