Bloodborne Warlock Arcane Build Guide

Bloodborne Warlock Arcane Build Guide by raisetheglass1

As you all know, Blooborne doesn’t allow you to play a caster-type character. There are interesting magical items, and some of them involve powerful spells, but all of these are late-game, resource intensive consumables. I’ve seen a lot of people say that the arcane build as a whole won’t work until late game, and I’d like to share my experience with the arcane build, and explain how you can create a badass warlock right after defeating the first boss.

Low Levels

Your goal as a warlock should be to acquire the Ludwig’s Holy Blade, a fantastic greatsword that has A scaling with arcane at +10. You won’t be able to get this weapon until after defeating the third boss, but you can prepare for it by leveling your strength to 16 and your skill to 12. This should be your first priority, in my opinion, since 16 strength/12 skill is more than enough to clear the Cleric Beast and Papa G with any of the starting weapons, or the Saw Spear, or the Kirkhammer. After you reach 16/12, you should pump as much vitality as you need. I got to around 20, I think, but I have a tendency to overlevel while exploring.

Once you have 16 strength, 12 skill, and enough vitality to make you feel comfortable, start pumping arcane. The soft cap is 25, so don’t stop until you get there. ‘But I don’t have any arcane-scaling weapons!’ you say. Wrong! I made this post earlier about the Hunter’s Torch, the Flamesprayer, and of course the Cocktails, all of which deal fire damage and scale with arcane. The area after defeating Papa G has a ton of beasts who are weak to fire, and honestly you could clear the whole area with the hunter’s torch if you master the one-pump-chump ‘combo.’

http://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/30intn/psa_arcane_build_viable_at_lower_levels_some/

For the third boss, just use your cocktails liberally, and don’t be afraid to spam your flamethrower as it will do a ton of damage. Once you clear him, you’ll need to get yourself a real warlock’s weapon. You technically have two choices, but since you would have to walk right next to one in order to get the other, how about we get both?

To get the Tonitrus with a suicide pull, read this post here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/30jmmf/psa_powerful_arcane_weapon_available_immediately/

This post also details how to get to the Hypogean Gaol lamp. You need to use your new magic mace to smack the crap out of some body snatchers until you have something like 16 twin stones. That’s enough to get a +3 weapon to +6.

If you’ve noticed the Toniturs has some limitations, well… it does. It’s now time to get my favorite weapon so far, Ludwig’s Holy Blade. To get it, go to the Cathedral Ward lamp, take the right door that opened after beating the third boss. Take the elevator and cross the bridge to that tower. The Radiant Sword Hunter Badge should be on the second floor of that tower. This will also you to buy the Ludwig for 20,000 echoes. But first, go back down to the bridge, and circle around the tower (to the right, if facing the tower from the bridge) and jump down the broken ledge. You can circle around until you find a deep pit and a wooden walkway. Jump down to a platform behind you and to your left, then down to a door. Open the door to find the Old Abandoned Workshop and (surprise!) your first real piece of magic, the Old Hunter’s Bone. This takes 6 quicksilver bullets and transforms your dodge into a teleport.

Keep traveling down the pit until you reach the bottom. Kill the man-beast, and enter the streets beyond. One of the loot drops in here has a fire gem. I think it’s in the back left corner, but either way it won’t be hard to find.

There’s also a body snatcher here, so if you haven’t already gotten the Tonitrus then you can just let this dude kill you after you get your fire gems. One you have these gems, you need to farm the body snatchers at the Hypogean Gaol until you get your Ludwig’s Holy Blade to +6. Then you can enchant it with fire. At this point, you can safely toss your old Hunter’s Torch in storage, as your fire blade has just become a damage dealing machine. If you’ve reached the arcane soft cap at this point, expect to see your damage go up by about 65%. Really the only downside is that it doesn’t glow with the cool effect you get from the fire paper… :)

Congratulations! By putting in a little extra work, you’ve created an arcane-wielding, werewolf hunting badass just after completing the third boss in the game! You’ve also gotten a teleport stone, a flamethrower that does a fair bit of damage, a tesla coil mace, and hopeful a whole ton of cocktail firebombs. At this point, even the enemies at the Hypogean Gaol should feel pretty easy, and that area is quite far along in the story!

High Levels – Spell Catalysts

Bloodborne’s magic system is much different from the systems in Dark Souls 1 & 2. You discover several magic consumable items throughout the game; let’s call them spell catalysts. These catalysts function much like the Beckoning Bell, consuming a resource instead of the item itself upon use. But instead of taking insight, these spell catalysts consume a set number of quicksilver bullets in order to produce the desired effect.

If you followed my previous guide, you probably found the first spell catalyst, the Old Hunter’s Bone. After you beat Vicar Amelia, you can find three more: Beast Roar, Augur of Ebrietas, and Executioner’s Gloves. The first catalyst, Beast Roar, consumes two quicksilver bullets to produce an AoE knockback. It doesn’t damage enemies, but it casts very quickly and is pretty useful. The second catalyst, Augur of Ebrietas, summons some real nasty tentacles (for the low low price of one quicksilver bullet) to knock a single enemy back, and do a fair bit of damage as well. This is surprisingly effective, especially if your warlock is tired from swinging the Holy Blade about. The final catalyst, Executioner’s Gloves, consumes three quicksilver bullets to conjure three orbs of blood magic that home in on a target. The spell can do pretty high damage to most enemies, and for only 3 bullets it’s a good deal. I should warn you, though: This catalyst is going to be pretty damn hard to get if you are low level.

Okay, text wall time. Videos also abound, so don’t be afraid to google things.

Spell Catalyst 1: Beast Roar

To acquire the beast roar, you need you defeat Vicar Amelia and obtain the password for the Forbidden Woods. Follow the path down to the lamp, then cross the bridge. (Remember to take the right path, curving up to fight a single werewolf instead of stepping into that nasty ambush.) After the ambush, make sure you go left, again fighting a single werewolf rather than walking into the wooden area / falling trap. When you see the gates to a small village, you know you’re in the right place.

Instead of going into the village, circle around to the left. Look for a red NPC lantern and a bunch of dog cages. ALL THREE spell catalysts are connected to this area. Talk to the NPC behind the lamp to acquire the Tonsil Stone. Go past the dog cages and check the houses (should be the second house) to find the Beast Roar spell catalyst. And finally, go back to the dog cages and look for the path on behind the house with the NPC. Follow this cave down to a poison lake. This part is scary, but you should be able to run across the lake and find a path with a very, very tall ladder. Climb that bitch. You’re back in the very first area of the game, just outside the clinic. Open the gate. If you followed this guide to the letter, you can skip ahead to the third second to see what to do here, since there’s one more chore you might want to complete before you leave. Otherwise, let’s head up the ladder to the Central Y lantern and go find our second spell catalyst.

Spell Catalyst 2: Augur of Ebrietas.

You have two spell catalysts now (Old Hunter’s bone and the Beast Roar), but none of them actually do any damage against your foe. Time to fix that. If you got the tonsil stone from the last area, port to the Grand Cathedral. If you skipped to this section because you wanted to find the Augur first, go back to section 1 because you pretty much need to do these in order.

Leaving the Grand Cathedral, take a left down to a plaza with a few houses and two hunters. (The item description says right, presumably because you would be looking at the church rather than leaving it when you checked the description. I guess whoever wrote it couldn’t teleport to the lantern). Kill those nasty hunters and make your way down the cliff. Either use the path or climb up the rocks to the left, killing the body snatcher to get the drop on the snipers below you. Then kill those two hooded trolls. You’re now in a small church, and if you pay attention to the door you’ll notice a weird purple glowy thing going on. You might have seen this glow earlier, just to the left of the Cathedral Yard where you get the hunter’s set and the top hat. Either way, walk up to the door and let the purple glow take you.

Right, that was weird right? Pretty sure you just got a flash-forward of a major plot point. Anyway, welcome to the Lecture Hall. Light the lamp, go into the main hallway, (talk to that chump behind the door immediately in front of you if you want) and start clearing all the rooms on the left. You’ll get some items and a key. Then go through the doors on the right until you find a door full of those weird scholars. Kill ‘em. On the other side of the room is a door, and inside that room is the chest with the Augur.

Spell Catalyst 3: Executioner’s Gloves

The next part is going to be pretty tough if you’re not a bit overleveled. If you followed the steps in part 1 of the guide, you’ve already opened the gate in the very first area. From the Central Y lamp, go down the ladder, and through the gate to the clinic, and then through the gate you just opened. Follow the corridor down to a small alleyway, then climb the ladder to the rough. Go through the door on the fire side, and you’re in the back door of the clinic. This is a really small area with two enemies and a hunter. You can kill the hunter if you want, but the only thing you really need is the Cainhurst Summons. Once you have this, go back the Cathedral, and go to the area to the right. You’ll need to progress a good bit of the way through this area, but you can run and skip tons of it if you want. If you’ve already been down here, just go to whatever Lamp you have that’s closest to the Witch of Hemwick. You’ll need to defeat the Witch of Hemwick and clear the enemies out of this area, but that won’t be a problem if you’ve gotten the Ludwig +6 from my earlier guide. Plus, clearing this area gives you access to Caryl Runes.

Once you’ve defeated the witch, backtrack a bit into the main open area before the boss. One of the pillars in the middle will glow blue and initiate a cut scene. You’ll enter a carriage and be teleported to Cainhurst Castle.

Depending on how far you’ve advanced in the game, this will be your biggest challenge yet. Light the lamp, then charge straight for that door you see off to your left. This is the front door to the castle, and it will open as soon as you approach. If you’ve aggro’d an enemy, I don’t know if the door will open fast enough for you to get in and escape, so you might need to open the door with a suicide pull. Once you get in, the going gets a bit easer as the enemies inside the castle are extremely slow. Go up the main stairs, to the left, through the dining hall of death, and onto the castle ramparts. The path is extremely linear until you reach a library. Immediately to your left should be the shortcut back to the lamp. Activate it in case you mess up. Take the elevator back up, then go left to the stairway across the room. Climb it, go straight for the back left corner of the room, and find the door sized hole in the window. Drop down, kill a few gargoyles, and go inside the door to find the Executioner’s Gloves in a chest to your right.

I should also point out that there is some great loot in this castle, and if you’re brave or high level you might want to explore a bit and see what you can find.

With these three spell catalysts, you now have the potential to do a fair bit of magic damage. If you followed my first guide you’re also a kick ass warlock and should be able to tackle the next couple of areas with ease. The best part is, you’ve only defeated 4 or 5 bosses and you’re already this good.

What’s next?

At this point, you should be able to find the Messenger’s Gift spell catalyst, but I haven’t picked it up yet and it’s not included in this guide anyways, since it doesn’t do any damage. After clearing the Forbidden Woods, you enter a small area (Byrgenwerth) that has the next spell catalyst, but this one doesn’t seem to be as helpful for pure warlocks. Besides those two spells, the next catalyst I know about is the Tiny Tonitrus, which you find in the Unseen Village. As I discover more tips for playing an arcane build, I’ll be sure to share them with you guys. Please feel free to offer any advice or add anything that you know in the comments! I will probably post a guide in the future to find the last couple of spell catalysts and finish out the build.