Chalice Dungeons or DLC?

[AJ_Radio]

I'm pretty much at the game's end as far as the story goes in the base game.

 

I have one more badge to obtain in the Upper Cathedral and then it's to the Chalice Dungeons to obtain the second the last badge. The final badge isn't obtainable until you kill Father Gehrman, but you are forced into New Game Plus to actually obtain the weapon unlocked from the badge. Although I just reload my save from the cloud, which is what I've done for all three endings of the game.

 

I'm currently Soul level 105 with a pretty balanced stat distribution other than Bloodtinge and Arcane. To reach the Queen it's recommended I have at least Soul level 120, but I don't know what the recommended level is for starting the first few Chalice Dungeons.

 

I can start doing the DLC which I hear is much more difficult than the base game mostly due to the bosses. However I hear people start going in at Soul level 45 - 50 which is absolutely insane considering that that's fairly low level to start a new area, especially a DLC. At level 105 I don't think I'll have too much trouble but I don't know. I hear a lot of people struggle with the bosses in this DLC, as a matter of fact they often compare them to the Watchdog and Amygdala encounters in the Chalice Dungeons.

 

My plan is to finish the DLC first, obtain all the normal weapons and finally tackle the Chalice Dungeons to reach the Queen.

 

What do you guys think?

[Bartolomeus]

Sounds like a good plan. The first chalice dungeons are going to be easy, as they're meant to be played on fairly low level. A couple of bosses right before the Defiled Dungeon might be a bit tricky, but I think you'll do just fine. As for the bosses in Defiled, I think a few levels won't really do much difference - the bossfights are unforgiving regardless, and it's all about really learning their attack pattern (to a larger degree than many bosses in the main game). By playing through the DLC and the chalice dungeons up to Defiled you'll get enough blood echoes to level up several times, and then you should just go for them. You should consider farming some blood vials, both for the DLCs and the dungeons. I sure needed a lot of them. As you said, the DLC bosses are hard, but personally I found the Defiled bosses harder.

 

Which weapons do you use?

[AJ_Radio]

I got two weapons at +10. Hunter's Axe and Ludwig's Sword. But in all honesty I should of upgraded the Saw Cleaver. I think it's a much faster weapon.

 

Yeah the Defiled bosses sound like the hardest of the bunch, and that includes the DLC bosses. Most people I've seen who struggled with the DLC were doing it on New Game Plus because they didn't want to play the entire game over again to get all the items and whatnot. I think New Game Plus buffs enemy stats several times, so that explains why the bosses are that much harder.

 

In all honesty I'll probably do the DLC first, then start on the Chalice Dungeons since those levels will help me prepare for the tougher enemies. The Watchdog and Amygdala boss fights in the Defiled dungeon seem to be the "make it or break it" for the platinum trophy. I just hope I don't have to spend 5 - 10 hours of them. That would be quite demoralizing.

[Cassylvania]

Yeah, I don't remember the Chalice Dungeons being too hard until you get to Defiled. Of course, the same could be said for the DLC -- it isn't too bad until the end. From what I remember, there are only two difficult bosses in the DLC. One is the last boss, and the other is optional. So you could do either until you succeed or hit a wall.

 

Good luck!

[MMDE]

Once you get far in the Chalice Dungeons, you will start leveling up very fast. The DLC was rather easy, to me at least, but it's very punishing if you screw up. The Chalice Dungeons had like 1-3 tricky bosses.

Edited December 9, 2017 by MMDE

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Yeah, I don't remember the Chalice Dungeons being too hard until you get to Defiled. Of course, the same could be said for the DLC -- it isn't too bad until the end. From what I remember, there are only two difficult bosses in the DLC. One is the last boss, and the other is optional. So you could do either until you succeed or hit a wall.

 

Good luck!

 

I'll keep that in mind.

 

Got the badge from the Upper Cathedral. Only going to play until I get the weapon I need from the Chalice Dungeons, fight Father Gehrman a FOURTH time and buy the weapon unlocked when I enter New Game Plus. Then write over the save with the Cloud backup.

 

8 hours ago, MMDE said:

Once you get far in the Chalice Dungeons, you will start leveling up very fast. The DLC was rather easy, to me at least, but it's very punishing if you screw up. The Chalice Dungeons had like 1-3 tricky bosses.

 

Punishing as in lack of checkpoints?

 

I hear some of the regular enemies are pretty brutal.

[MMDE]

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

Punishing as in lack of checkpoints?

 

I hear some of the regular enemies are pretty brutal.

 

No, as in easy if you don't screw up, but if you screw up, you're going to get punished for it, hard. I guess this is more about if you're more used to not dying than dying in these games. I died a couple of suicide runs in a very specific place in the DLC, a certain river, just to pick up items without needing to fight a lot of strong enemies. Else, I died like 3 times during the entire DLC. Some of the enemies can do massive damage. There's a lot of attempts to trap you or surprise attack etc. One of the bosses can be tricky I think, but nothing was like what found in the chalice dungeons IMO. Some of the bosses in the chalice dungeons when you got reduced health can be rather tricky.

[Seasonreaper]

Two things, actually. Which ending are you going for on this playthrough? If you're going for the ending with the umbilical cords then you won't immediately enter NG+. So if you die/kill yourself after Gehrman (or Hunter's Mark out, if you can? I've never tried) then you can immediately pick up the Burial Blade without entering a new cycle. Otherwise yes, you'll have to enter NG+ before getting that weapon.

 

Secondly, the Chalice Dungeons stay unlocked once they're activated, and the materials available from the Insight shop stay available even into a new cycle. On top of this, their difficulty isn't at all effected by NG cycle. They'll be just as easy or tough regardless of whether they're on NG or NG+7, so you don't need to worry about going into NG+ for that.

 

The DLC is much tougher than the main game though, so going in on NG+ is inadvisable. The first and last bosses will absolutely punish you for anything you do slightly wrong, much more so than anything in the main game. The other two bosses and the optional boss aren't much of an issue (although they're still capable of demolishing you if you aren't careful) but I still wouldn't advise starting at NG+ for them.

 

As for the Queen, I just got to her and beat her at last today. She's actually really easy. Defiled Watchdog took me a few days to kill though, and Defiled Amygdala is actually what caused me to stop playing the game months ago, took me a couple hours every day this week until I finally took her down. They're easily the toughest thing in the game as they're both very much capable of oneshotting you no matter how much Vit you have with some moves or taking a good 80-90% of your health off with the rest of their moveset. Going through NG+ has been a breeze compared to them.

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

Two things, actually. Which ending are you going for on this playthrough? If you're going for the ending with the umbilical cords then you won't immediately enter NG+. So if you die/kill yourself after Gehrman (or Hunter's Mark out, if you can? I've never tried) then you can immediately pick up the Burial Blade without entering a new cycle. Otherwise yes, you'll have to enter NG+ before getting that weapon.

 

I'm done with the endings. I just played all of them so I could get the three gold trophies. Already bought the last weapon I need, therefore Weapon Master is already finished.

 

2 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

Secondly, the Chalice Dungeons stay unlocked once they're activated, and the materials available from the Insight shop stay available even into a new cycle. On top of this, their difficulty isn't at all effected by NG cycle. They'll be just as easy or tough regardless of whether they're on NG or NG+7, so you don't need to worry about going into NG+ for that.

 

I struggled a bit with the Ailing Loran Chalice Dungeon. Those damn red spiders have been the death of me 50+ times, lost more than 300,000 Blood Echoes from them.

 

Defiled Chalice Dungeon seems to be the platinum breaker for most people. But I'm missing a couple ingredients so I'm going to have to replay the dungeons.

 

2 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

The DLC is much tougher than the main game though, so going in on NG+ is inadvisable. The first and last bosses will absolutely punish you for anything you do slightly wrong, much more so than anything in the main game. The other two bosses and the optional boss aren't much of an issue (although they're still capable of demolishing you if you aren't careful) but I still wouldn't advise starting at NG+ for them.

 

Read up on this before playing the game. Seems to be a tradition that From Software makes the DLC much more difficult than the main game.

 

2 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

As for the Queen, I just got to her and beat her at last today. She's actually really easy. Defiled Watchdog took me a few days to kill though, and Defiled Amygdala is actually what caused me to stop playing the game months ago, took me a couple hours every day this week until I finally took her down. They're easily the toughest thing in the game as they're both very much capable of oneshotting you no matter how much Vit you have with some moves or taking a good 80-90% of your health off with the rest of their moveset. Going through NG+ has been a breeze compared to them.

 

Yeah I'm worried about those two bosses.

 

Would like Bloodborne to be my 125th platinum. If things don't go well then I can just move on to Crash Bandicoot 3. I'm a lot better at platformer games.

[MMDE]

2 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

Two things, actually. Which ending are you going for on this playthrough? If you're going for the ending with the umbilical cords then you won't immediately enter NG+. So if you die/kill yourself after Gehrman (or Hunter's Mark out, if you can? I've never tried) then you can immediately pick up the Burial Blade without entering a new cycle. Otherwise yes, you'll have to enter NG+ before getting that weapon.

 

Secondly, the Chalice Dungeons stay unlocked once they're activated, and the materials available from the Insight shop stay available even into a new cycle. On top of this, their difficulty isn't at all effected by NG cycle. They'll be just as easy or tough regardless of whether they're on NG or NG+7, so you don't need to worry about going into NG+ for that.

 

The DLC is much tougher than the main game though, so going in on NG+ is inadvisable. The first and last bosses will absolutely punish you for anything you do slightly wrong, much more so than anything in the main game. The other two bosses and the optional boss aren't much of an issue (although they're still capable of demolishing you if you aren't careful) but I still wouldn't advise starting at NG+ for them.

 

As for the Queen, I just got to her and beat her at last today. She's actually really easy. Defiled Watchdog took me a few days to kill though, and Defiled Amygdala is actually what caused me to stop playing the game months ago, took me a couple hours every day this week until I finally took her down. They're easily the toughest thing in the game as they're both very much capable of oneshotting you no matter how much Vit you have with some moves or taking a good 80-90% of your health off with the rest of their moveset. Going through NG+ has been a breeze compared to them.

 

You know, you can just backup the save before the ending, then just do one ending, load back the old save, do another ending, load back the save and do the third ending. Do know that after one of the ending you'll want to play on until you get to the witch or whatever that can sell you the last weapon you need for the all unique weapons trophy. I loaded back to before NG+ again too and played chalice dungeons and DLC etc in NG, not that it matters in the case of chalice dungeons, but it does for DLC, and less problems unlocking DLC then.

36 minutes ago, Spaz said:

Yeah I'm worried about those two bosses.

 

Would like Bloodborne to be my 125th platinum. If things don't go well then I can just move on to Crash Bandicoot 3. I'm a lot better at platformer games.

 

 

Pretty easy if you follow the steps in the description.

 

I thought Rom was harder:

 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by MMDE

[AJ_Radio]

24 minutes ago, MMDE said:

Pretty easy if you follow the steps in the description.

 

I'm missing a few blood rituals (4) to get the Defiled Chalice ready.

 

Should I do Root Chalice dungeons or find some other way to obtain the ingredients?

[MMDE]

9 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

I'm missing a few blood rituals (4) to get the Defiled Chalice ready.

 

Should I do Root Chalice dungeons or find some other way to obtain the ingredients?

 

There's definitely an order in which you gotta do many of the chalice dungeons. I think there might be a little bit of optional paths, but there's definitely an order of sorts.

 

 

 

So to get the Blood Rituals (4) you need to get to a certain floor in a certain dungeon.

 

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Ritual+Blood

 

According to that, you can get Blood Rituals (4) from layer 2 of Lower Pthumeru.

 

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Defiled+Chalice

 

According to that you need:

 

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Bastard+of+Loran

 

Which is obtained from Ailing Loran Chalice layer 3.

 

As the reddit post says, "Make sure you get the Workshop Haze Extractor from Layer 2. There are 4 layers in this chalice.". (Lower Pthumeru)

Edited December 11, 2017 by MMDE

[Swotam]

10 hours ago, Spaz said:

Yeah I'm worried about those two bosses.

 

Keep in mind that since the DLC you can summon NPC's or other players to help you with the Defiled bosses. Of course, doing so means they have more health, but it's helpful to have someone else take the aggro from time to time.

 

Bloodborne was my first Souls game and I was able to get the Platinum without excessive amounts of trouble, and that was back when summoning wasn't working very well so I did it all solo. The Defiled bosses will test your patience, and you'll likely want to smash your controller at times, but with NPC or player help they're significantly easier in some ways. Watchdog of the Old Lords was a real pain for me, but to be honest the whole dungeon is a pain when you're running around with 50% health. Best bet is to take it slow, work on the bosses and be patient, and worst case summon another player or NPC to help if things get annoying.

[starcrunch061]

33 minutes ago, Swotam said:

Keep in mind that since the DLC you can summon NPC's or other players to help you with the Defiled bosses. Of course, doing so means they have more health, but it's helpful to have someone else take the aggro from time to time.

 

Even if you can't find anyone, and you have no friends currently playing, the in-game summons are quite good at defending themselves against the bosses. It was really helpful for that stupid dog that one-shots you.

[KaKrackle]

Never quite understood why anyone has problems with the watchdog. It only has a few attacks, which aren't to hard to avoid. Abhorrent / bloodletting beast are Definetly much harder. Also expect a heavy ass whooping from Ludwig in the DLC. He's pretty brutal. But on the other hand he was easily the most epic boss in the game for me.

[Swotam]

7 minutes ago, KaKrackle said:

Never quite understood why anyone has problems with...

 

Well, that's the age-old sentiment with Souls games isn't it? One mans nightmare is another mans walk in the park. I never had much trouble with Blood Starved Beast (which apparently causes a lot of problems for ppl) but ran into a major roadblock with Vicar Amelia (who most people supposedly find fairly easy).

 

Don't get me started on Orphan of Kos...?

 

Such is the nature of these games.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Swotam

[KaKrackle]

4 minutes ago, Swotam said:

 

Well, that's the age-old sentiment with Souls games isn't it? One mans nightmare is another mans walk in the park. I never had much trouble with Blood Starved Beast (which apparently causes a lot of problems for ppl) but ran into a major roadblock with Vicar Amelia (who most people supposedly find fairly easy).

 

Don't get me started on Orphan of Kos...

 

Such is the nature of these games.

Haha. This makes me happy man. I too had my ass kicked by Amelia. I was quite ashamed at the time, cuz like you said, she is considered easy. Orphan of Kos was pretty tough for me too. But everything about the boss is so cool, that I forgave it in the end for making me swear allot. I never actually tried to beat Lawrence, so I can't comment on him, but just talking in this thread makes me want to play the game again. 

[Swotam]

16 minutes ago, KaKrackle said:

Haha. This makes me happy man. I too had my ass kicked by Amelia. I was quite ashamed at the time, cuz like you said, she is considered easy. Orphan of Kos was pretty tough for me too. But everything about the boss is so cool, that I forgave it in the end for making me swear allot. I never actually tried to beat Lawrence, so I can't comment on him, but just talking in this thread makes me want to play the game again. 

 

I had an NPC help me with Lawrence, he was....painful to solo. My favorite from the DLC was Lady Maria, between the intro, fight, and music that was probably the best of the entire game for me along with the Gehrman fight.

[MMDE]

48 minutes ago, Swotam said:

Don't get me started on Orphan of Kos...

 

That boss I highly recommend a co-op partner for, at least that's how I did it on first try. Abhorrent Beast in the chalice dungeons is another one I highly recommend co-op partner for, but if you do it solo, you can cheese it with poison knives. In co-op you can have one aggro it, and the other hit it from behind and swap when the boss swaps who it follows.

 

Me doing it solo:

 

Me helping a friend with it co-op:

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by MMDE

[KaKrackle]

13 minutes ago, Swotam said:

 

I had an NPC help me with Lawrence, he was....painful to solo. My favorite from the DLC was Lady Maria, between the intro, fight, and music that was probably the best of the entire game for me along with the Gehrman fight.

What about Ludwig though. The first time you see him pick up the moonlight greatsword is fucking brilliant. And his theme is just one of the best too.  Damnnnnnn. I'm really think this game should have beat the witcher for game of the year.

[Bullstomp]

Defiled is the hardest in the whole game. I beat all the DLC bosses except the last on my first try. My recommendation: keep some spare controllers available for the Watchdog fight, he sucks!  Here is my playthru on him -

 

 

 

[Bartolomeus]

27 minutes ago, KaKrackle said:

What about Ludwig though. The first time you see him pick up the moonlight greatsword is fucking brilliant.

Yeah, and after then fight when

you talk to his decapitated head, and you lie to him and tell him that the Church and its hunters have done well, because it feels wrong to bring the poor fuck down even further.

 

Wow, this is a good game. I want to play it again too!

[AJ_Radio]

Thanks for the appreciation and responses guys. Really helps me out.

 

8 hours ago, Swotam said:

 

Keep in mind that since the DLC you can summon NPC's or other players to help you with the Defiled bosses. Of course, doing so means they have more health, but it's helpful to have someone else take the aggro from time to time.

 

Bloodborne was my first Souls game and I was able to get the Platinum without excessive amounts of trouble, and that was back when summoning wasn't working very well so I did it all solo. The Defiled bosses will test your patience, and you'll likely want to smash your controller at times, but with NPC or player help they're significantly easier in some ways. Watchdog of the Old Lords was a real pain for me, but to be honest the whole dungeon is a pain when you're running around with 50% health. Best bet is to take it slow, work on the bosses and be patient, and worst case summon another player or NPC to help if things get annoying.

 

I think you can summon Vladr for most fights, or whatever the hell his name is. Don't know where to find him.

 

The Defiled bosses are much, much tougher than the DLC bosses, at least on your first playthrough. I beat both the Failed Ones and Lady Maria within 10 minutes of each other. Ludwig took three attempts to beat because his one wave attack in his second form can almost one shot you.

 

As hard as people claim Laurence and Orphan are, I don't think I should have too much trouble with them.

 

Defiled bosses on the other hand are a nightmare. I'm having trouble with the first guy and he is the easiest since he is vulnerable to visceral attacks.

 

8 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

Even if you can't find anyone, and you have no friends currently playing, the in-game summons are quite good at defending themselves against the bosses. It was really helpful for that stupid dog that one-shots you.

 

A tactic I like to use is try to get a summon in so I can attack in a flurry with Beast Pellets. They help deal more damage which is extremely important for the tougher bosses, especially the ones in the later Chalice Dungeons that have a lot of hitpoints.

 

That dog is probably going to kill me though. Having enough trouble already with the first boss in the Defiled Chalice.

 

6 hours ago, KaKrackle said:

Never quite understood why anyone has problems with the watchdog. It only has a few attacks, which aren't to hard to avoid. Abhorrent / bloodletting beast are Definetly much harder. Also expect a heavy ass whooping from Ludwig in the DLC. He's pretty brutal. But on the other hand he was easily the most epic boss in the game for me.

 

The Abhorrent Beast has a somewhat predictable pattern but he can't be parried and his attacks come out quick. I used a summon against him for distraction while I used a Beast Pellet to take down over half of his health within the first minute or two.

 

Ludwig isn't bad if you're over level 100 and you're still on your first playthrough. In New Game Plus and beyond he's much harder, so I've heard.

 

6 hours ago, Swotam said:

 

Well, that's the age-old sentiment with Souls games isn't it? One mans nightmare is another mans walk in the park. I never had much trouble with Blood Starved Beast (which apparently causes a lot of problems for ppl) but ran into a major roadblock with Vicar Amelia (who most people supposedly find fairly easy).

 

Don't get me started on Orphan of Kos...

 

Such is the nature of these games.

 

Blood Starved Beast was a pain because his poison takes down your health rapidly in the early game. He also has that one grab attack that almost guarantees a kill, even more so during the Ailing Loran Chalice Dungeon where you have to fight him. Took a lot of attempts.

 

Vicar Amelia is mostly about staying at her back and hitting her. But her side to side attacks can kill most people off guard.

 

6 hours ago, KaKrackle said:

Haha. This makes me happy man. I too had my ass kicked by Amelia. I was quite ashamed at the time, cuz like you said, she is considered easy. Orphan of Kos was pretty tough for me too. But everything about the boss is so cool, that I forgave it in the end for making me swear allot. I never actually tried to beat Lawrence, so I can't comment on him, but just talking in this thread makes me want to play the game again. 

 

I haven't gotten to Orphan or Lawrence. Most people who played through the DLC were playing on New Game Plus, and that makes the bosses and regular enemies much tougher.

 

6 hours ago, Swotam said:

 

I had an NPC help me with Lawrence, he was....painful to solo. My favorite from the DLC was Lady Maria, between the intro, fight, and music that was probably the best of the entire game for me along with the Gehrman fight.

 

Lady Maria is one of the easier fights in the DLC. Easier than Ludwig. Haven't gotten to Lawrence or Orphan yet.

 

5 hours ago, MMDE said:

That boss I highly recommend a co-op partner for, at least that's how I did it on first try. Abhorrent Beast in the chalice dungeons is another one I highly recommend co-op partner for, but if you do it solo, you can cheese it with poison knives. In co-op you can have one aggro it, and the other hit it from behind and swap when the boss swaps who it follows.

 

Abhorrent Beast is very doable solo without poison knives, but his attacks come out very quick and deadly towards the end which have a lot of people panicking. For this fight you can summon in a NPC and use Beast Pellets. Helped me tremendously in getting most of his health down since the NPC was distracting him, then when the NPC died I played carefully and did hit and run on the Abhorrent Beast until he was dead.

 

5 hours ago, KaKrackle said:

What about Ludwig though. The first time you see him pick up the moonlight greatsword is fucking brilliant. And his theme is just one of the best too.  Damnnnnnn. I'm really think this game should have beat the witcher for game of the year.

 

I think the reason The Witcher 3 won is because it was a 100+ hour long adventure with several stories intertwined with one another, basically a book in of itself.

 

Bloodborne has lots of action and has plenty of enemies to boot. To me it was a very close second. Fallout 4 is nowhere near The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne as far as quality goes.

 

5 hours ago, Bullstomp said:

Defiled is the hardest in the whole game. I beat all the DLC bosses except the last on my first try. My recommendation: keep some spare controllers available for the Watchdog fight, he sucks!  Here is my playthru on him -

 

 

 

 

Thanks. I'm going to need all the hope and luck I can get.

 

5 hours ago, Bartoulum said:

Yeah, and after then fight when

  Reveal hidden contents

you talk to his decapitated head, and you lie to him and tell him that the Church and its hunters have done well, because it feels wrong to bring the poor fuck down even further.

 

 

Wow, this is a good game. I want to play it again too!

 

I felt real sorry for the poor guy. Shame the other fights aren't as creative as the first one.

[Seasonreaper]

People having different bosses as their tough point is very much a Souls staple, it seems. I had a lot of issues with Vicar Amelia on my first play actually, she's probably the boss that gave me most trouble in the main game. Rom gave me a lot of issues too. as for the DLC, Ludwig and Orphan gave me a ton of problems as well, but Living Failures, Maria and Laurence only took a couple tries each.

 

As for Chalice, I have a lot of trouble with Abhorrent Beast no matter where it shows up, plus naturally Defiled Amy and Watchdog. Nothing else gave me much trouble, even Rom and Bloodstarved didn't give me any issues in the dungeons.

 

That said I went into Bloodborne after Demon's/Dark/Dark II so the experience probably helps even if Bloodborne plays a bit differently.

[AJ_Radio]

Just earned the platinum. Easily one of the most rewarding and satisfying platinums I have earned thus far on this account.

 

8 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

That said I went into Bloodborne after Demon's/Dark/Dark II so the experience probably helps even if Bloodborne plays a bit differently.

 

Definitely going to get back into Demons Souls after this. I've had Dark Souls sit on my shelf for three entire years, probably time to dust it off and get to gaming.