From Software's Bloodborne

...Why do I get the feeling (after some DLC) this game is gonna pull a Nier and make us feel terrible about killing the bosses?

Considering all of the suffering they caused I doubt killing them is a bad thing.

I think the loading times patch is out now?

Edit: Yep, loading times are like 5 seconds now going to the Dream and at most 20 seconds when teleporting to huge areas and the loading screens contains item descriptions like in DS 1.

edited 23rd Apr '15 3:11:41 AM by LordofLore

This is how good the loading times are now.

Reading item descriptions while the game loads is better than staring at the game's logo, that's for sure.

The load times when respawning I'm an area seem especially hugely improved. 5-7 seconds for the Nightmare Frontier, by my estimation? Truly a relief.

Also, worth noting that, unsurprisingly, FROM has taken the opportunity to do some balancing to some things..

At the least, he Cannon now consumes 10 bullets to 12, and the Old Hunter Bone and Choir Bell have dropped from 6 and 10 bullets to 5 and 8, respectively. As much as I like the former, I feel the need was probably justified. There is already much gnashing of teeth over it, also unsurprisingly.

I'll be curious to see if anything else has changed.

edited 23rd Apr '15 11:20:03 AM by RegisteredUser

I've finally beaten the BSB. It turns out that the range on the cane and the spear make quite a difference in how easy it is to hit it with a charged attack.

By the way, does anyone know if the Holy Blade's any good for skill-based builds? The cane's lack of range is beginning to irritate me.

edited 23rd Apr '15 11:34:59 AM by Bisected8

The Blade has superior Strength scaling... But its Skill scaling is still actually great, at least at higher upgrades. (Terrific Arcane scaling too, incidentally. It's a tremendously good weapon all around, probably the best overall weapon in the game.)

...gah, I spent about 30 minutes running through Central Yhardtospell (fighting the werewolves past the shortcut and returning at the Church lamp) to get the 20,000 echoes I needed to buy the blade, but it turns out I need another 4 strength to use it.

Anyone know a good place to farm for echoes at this point (I need about 30,000 for those 4 extra levels)? Running through the area with the werewolves is a bit risky (they could kill me quite easily if I'm careless).

edited 23rd Apr '15 3:27:16 PM by Bisected8

Grinding for Echoes isn't something I've run into much in my games, thus far... Particularly at that point. I dunno, maybe looping Cathedral Ward might be for the best? The Church soldiers and giants can be learned, controlled and exploited fairly easily... ish?

Though, if you haven't gone past the Great Cathedral at the Ward's end, yet, then I'll tell you that there's an area to the left of it that's worth exploring, one that oughta be a good source of enough Echoes in relative safety... At least I can promise you there are no wolves down there. (Dogs, though, I can't promise against that.)

The cane in whip form is one the longest range weapons I've encountered. Have you tried using that form more often? Not to say that Ludwig's Holy Blade is a bad weapon.

edited 23rd Apr '15 4:44:27 PM by ShadesWord

The problem is that it becomes much less damaging and can't be charged in that form (and loses some of the speed which makes it so useful in the first place).

edited 23rd Apr '15 5:03:08 PM by Bisected8

Yeah, I think that when I get the game I'll go with the Saw Cleaver for my initial weapon.

It's still a pretty good weapon (its whip mode's perfect for multiple enemies).

It's just the lack of range and damage at the same time that's annoying sometimes.

Try the rifle spear, it's one hell of a bastard.

Yeah, that's one of the few that I'll get too. Along with Ludwig's sword. And most likely his gun.

For me, my go to weapon ended up being the Axe I started with. I just couldn't find anything else that could compete with it's reach and power (apart from Ludwig's). The only other thing I've found myself using is the Tonitrus, purely because it's Bolt damage murders everything the axe doesn't.

Personally I want to get the Blade(s) of Mercy; between its skill scaling and arcane damage, it seems perfect for a skill build.

Rifle spear and Reiterpallasch are both broken right now - although in different senses of the word.

The Reiterpallasch is supposed to get elemental bullets based on your blood gem slot usage, but in fact this doesn't work - as such, elemental damage is useless on it.

Instead, the rifle spear got this effect, but only for Arcane... For every single one of its pellets.

If you stack flat increase arcane gems, your shotgun attack will suddenly be able to one-hit-kill virtually everything.

Aside from that, it's a legit great weapon. Just overpowered by a bug.

The Blades of Mercy are very good for PVE, not sure about PVP yet. The arcane scaling only applies when you put an arcane/fire/bolt blood gem on it, too. And from what I've heard, it's not entirely impressive - something like +40 at 40 Arcane? I might be misremembering, however.

edited 24th Apr '15 7:28:36 AM by Hydrall

Wait the damage increase for the rifle spear thing is that bugged? I may have to go try and use it

Yeah, it's pretty something.

This one with PVP.

It does have to be said, all these blood gems are from extremely late-game Chalice Dungeons, and are quite difficult to get your hands on.

edited 24th Apr '15 11:18:22 AM by Hydrall

Hmm, I guess I'll have to hold off on them for now then.

I was going through my Chalice Dungeons though because I don't wanna fight Ebrietas or the One Reborn right now. They're both too annoying.

But then I got to the last floor and I ran into Rom. That's not like actually him is it? I saw his corpse and everything.

edited 25th Apr '15 10:54:25 AM by LeGarcon

The One Reborn seems to be That One Boss for a few people, but I had no trouble with it. Did anyone else find him easy?

It's Steve; his second cousin twice removed, who really wanted to be a roguelike enemy.

edited 25th Apr '15 11:15:20 AM by Bisected8

You joke but I'm going to refer to him as that exclusively from now on.

The One Reborn just killed me almost immediately because I was trying to just kinda scope him out to see what he was like and I just didn't feel like trying again. Then Ebrietas is also getting on my nerves a bit. I need more paper for the both of them. And Steve

Killed my first Hunter in PVP though, which was fun.

edited 25th Apr '15 11:23:05 AM by LeGarcon