Bloodborne PvP Trends Guide

Bloodborne PvP Trends Guide by PatientFlowCoord

Hello, I just wanted to do a little write up for those of you like me getting into the PvP portion of the game and want the down low on what’s currently going on. If you guys like this type of thing, I can do more in the future. Please note, a lot of this is only my opinion from observation. I’m no PvP god. May the old blood guide you.

Current Meta/PvP Hotspots:

• Soul Level: A lot of discussion has been circulating lately in the streaming community (Peeve, Yukas, DLS, and a few others) about what level is meta to ensure you are finding people in quick succession. Currently, the general agreement falls right around SL 110, although upwards of 120 are not uncommon. Obviously, level your character to whatever you desire. Those numbers are only a proposed “sweet spot” to try to put most matches on even playing grounds.

• VIT and the current state of Invader health penalty: Some are not aware of the 30% health penalty you receive when invading some one else. General consensus on this is not very popular, and with enough poking and prodding, this number may eventually change in future patches. However, in it’s current state, an endgame PvP build is almost required to reach the hard cap of 50 VIT, no matter what build you are running. You don’t realize how much 30% of your health is until it’s gone before you even start fighting. It’s just safe to hard cap it at the moment.

• PvP Hotspots: Itching for a fight? You’ll want to camp out/ring your bell in Nightmare Frontier or Mergo’s Loft: Middle.

Popular Builds/Top Tier Weapons:

• Quality: Quality (STR/SKL split) will always be a solid choice. The jack of all trades, excelling at nothing in particular. Access to every weapon with a wide variety in playstyle.

• Skill: Popular mostly due to the weapon choices that scale in SKL (Chikage/Blade of Mercy/Burial Blade/Threaded Cane). Hit like a truck, and look stylish doing it.

• Bloodtinge/SKL: This build is a bit more particular in weapon choice. Your main weapons end up being Chikage and Evelyn. Chikage has a high SKL scaling, and gains a big boost from BT when transformed. Evelyn also scales well with BT, looks cool, and has great damage.

• Bloodtinge/STR: Similar to the previous one, but utilizes the Cannon instead of Evelyn. I’ve seen a variety of mainhand weapon choices for this build, so take from that what you will. Many people consider anything based on BT at the moment pretty cheesy, due to the lack of resistances in armor/runes to defend against it. Get your opponent low, and hopefully pull off a big Cannon shot to finish them off… especially with a Bone Marrow Ash active. Which leads to….

• Pure Bloodtinge: Widely considered this game’s first “Cheese” build. It revolves around using Evelyn and Bone Marrow Ash. Toss on all 3 QS Bullet runes, pop your ash at the beginning of the fight, and shoot. That’s it. Your shots can hit for upwards of 600+ depending on your opponent, and with close to 30 shots at hand, suddenly it feels like you’re playing a completely different game. If you suck at dodging, watch out for this build, or prepare for the rektoning. With so many complaints about how Bloodtinge is, and the accessibility of Bone Marrow Ash, these types of builds will surely see some kind of change. For now, they are a force to be reckoned with for sure.

• Arcane: Probably the build I know the least about, and have seen the least amount of, but also gaining in popularity. With enough Arcane statted, some of the endgame spells hit really hard. You’ll never forget your first time getting one-shotted by Call of the Cosmos. I’ll be honest and say I don’t know much about what you would roll for your secondary stats or your main weapons… but this build is all about spells anyway.

Top Tier Weapons (In no particular order):

• Ludwigs Holy Blade – It carried you through your playthrough, surely it could win you some PvP matches, right?

• Burial Blade – Hard hitting, versatile, and generally badass. Reaper’s gonna reap.

• Chikage (千影 ) “The Blood Shadow” – Glorious Nippon Steel. Considered by many to be the best weapon in the game because of the Bloodtinge situation. The HP drained when transformed is minimal, but it does add up quickly. The charged R2’s and other combos with this thing do some pretty stupid damage. http://i.imgur.com/mITKTFA.gif

• Hunter’s Axe – Spin2Win. Great range and a nice moveset. Overall, a solid choice.

• Threaded Cane aka Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy – Aesthetically, one of the coolest weapons in the game. Good poke and decent range in Cane mode, great zoning potential and range when trick’d into the whip. The biggest problem here is, with the rise of Bloodtinge guns running about, you’re just asking to get stunned into a visceral if you tend to spam your whip R1’s.

• Blade of Mercy – Slice n’ Dice. Scales well with SKL, and some are even experimenting with adding Arcane to their builds to boost this weapons secondary modifier. This weapon also has the same problem as the pimp cane though. With the tendency to run in and start spamming, be careful not to get stunned and visceral’d. This weapon takes a bit more finesse to use. Has some awesome, flashy transform combos if you can learn to consistently pull them off. May Amygdala help you if you get cornered and your opponent is coming at you with these. That stunlock is real, and your HP will drop fast.

Other Tips/General Opinions:

• In other Soul’s games, the unspoken rule of not using Estus/Vials during duels went without saying, and most people seemed to understand. In this game, for whatever reason, most people don’t seem to mind chugging every single vial they have if it means they will win. Not my style, but it is what it is. If you find yourself running into Vial chuggers a lot (Like I do…) Bring along a stack of Numbing Mist. Yes, they are inconsistent, and hard to hit your opponent with. But it’s worth a shot if you’re trying to end you’re opponents life without chugging 20 vials to match him.

• If your opponent is spamming his gun at you, or you see them pop a Bone Marrow Ash, there’s a good chance he is going to do little else for the rest of the fight… until he kills you, or he stuns you and goes in for the kill. If you want to win the match up against Bloodtinge, remember what ol’ Patches O’ Houlihan told us. Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge! Use the terrain to your advantage. Eventually, they will have to hurt themselves for more bullets when they run out. Running in aimlessly swinging gets you killed quick in this game, but especially in this match up.

• Want a fair fight? The little things like letting your opponent clear out nearby mobs goes a long way, and also says a lot about you, without saying a word at all to them. Utilize the Point emote, and eventually, they will get what you’re trying to say. Also, throughout the series, the start of the duel is usually marked with an emote of some kind from each person, typically a bow for the sportsman. Obviously, just like in any fight, you never have to touch your opponents glove at the start. In my eyes, a true competitor would, but that won’t always be the case. Take from that what you will.

• Your experience with lag is going to vary. A lot. Some of your opponents are going to be normal, others are going to skip around the screen, not take damage when you clearly hit them, and do some pretty Dragonball Z shit to make your time fighting them a lot harder. That’s just how things will be until they patch the servers or allow us to search for opponents through a region lock.

• Protip: You can stun somebody with your gun during the heal animation. If somebody is chugging, punish them for it! It’s a small window, and takes a bit of reading into your opponent’s next move, but it’s very doable, and can easily turn the fight in your favor, or often win it for you.

•Cainhurst Armor Set: Not only does this set have one of the best stat spreads in the game, it’s also one of the better looking (imo) sets in the game. Expect to see a lot of this set. The clone wars have begun.

That’s pretty much all I have for now. Let me know what you think. Happy hunting, see you on the battlefield.