Bloodborne Arcane Build In-Depth Guide

Bloodborne Arcane Build In-Depth Guide by dr_raza

A guide for Arcane builds from beginning to the end

Walkthrough:

1. Pick Cruel Fate
2. Pick Saw Cleaver, then find the Saw Spear in Central Yarnham, upgrade it as much as possible
3. After beating Gascoigne, get the Flamesprayer from Gilbert at the Central Yarnham lamp
4. From the Cathedral Ward go through the left exit, find a passage to go through Old Yarnham and defeat Blood-Starved Beast
5. Die to a Sack-man that have spawned in Cathedral Ward to be sent to Yahar’gul
6. Find Tonitrus in Yahar’gul, find as many twin bloodstone shards as possible. You should now upgrade Saw Spear, Flamesprayer, and/or Tonitrus only
7. Access the Hunter’s Workshop by going up the elevator in Cathedral Ward. Drop down near the Crawling Nightmare bug-like creature, and fall down the first ledge next to a bunch of ropes, drop once more to access the Source of the Dream where you will find Old Hunter’s Bone (15 Arc). Continue going down the workshop, past the beast, and explore the streets. You will find a brainsucker (use thrust attacks to defeat it quick, also hunter’s torch work well as suggested by M3mn0ch_1987) guarding your first waning gem next to a well.
8. You can now do the first Chalice Dungeon, the dual-wielding fire enemies drop cursed fire radial gems
9. You can continue doing the Chalice Dungeons until you get to defiled for better gems, or progress through the story
10. Get the Tonsil Stone in Forbidden Woods from an NPC in a house next to all the dog cages, beyond the dog area you can find Beat Roar (15 Arc) in a house next to a sack-man, there is at least 1 Bloodstone Chunk in Forbidden Woods guarded by 3 Snakemen. You can farm celestial mobs (the alien creatures) for triangle gems here as suggested by Furtivecutless. Go back to Forbidden Wood’s dog area and find a cave leading into poison pools (you can find a nourshing and arcane triangle gem), find a ladder on the opposite side and climb it to find yourself inside Central Yarnham again
11. Get grabbed by the invisible hand in the Church to the right of the Grand Cathedral right after the shotgun and tonitrus wielding hunters. You should be in the 1st floor Lecture Building. Find a key to open the middle door, fight off the slime students, go into the room on the right and find Augur of Ebrietas (18 Arc). Go through the giant door to access the frontier.
12. Go through Nightmare Frontier and collect chunks from big versions of the crawling nightmares and farm the Loran Silverbeasts (fire-wielding werewolves) for better waning gems.
13. Messenger’s Gift (10 Arc) is found in the poison pool area that you are kicked into by the Spider, its in a cave-like area with a Frenzy Brain monster.
14. Beating Amygdala gives access to Ailing Loran Chalice where everything drops Waning gems, you can also get Bastard of Loran to continue the Pthumeru Chalices and do cursed dungeons. Depth 4 and 5 Chalice Bosses have a chance of dropping chunks
15. Find the Cainhurst Summons in Iosefka’s clinic, by going through the backdoor, go to Hemwick and stand near the pillar next to the two giant axe-wielders to summon a carriage to ride in
16. Go to Cainhurst, find chunks, its possible to farm chunks from the Gargoyle-Vampire creatures if you want. Executioner’s Glove (20 Arc) is found in a chest within a library with headless ghosts, normal ghosts, and blowpipe candle-holder
17. Now with your +7/8/9 fire or bolt weapons you can easily destroy Rom and the Shadows solo, you will find Empty Phantasm Shell (15 Arc) in the upper floors of Byrgenwerth
18. After Rom, go through Yahar’gul, once you find an area with all the hags, there is a break in the fences on the right, right before engaging the hags once going up a set of stairs
19. Fall through the break, and you’ll enter an area right above a cage there is a witch and brick troll, fall down a break into the cage and collect Upper Cathedral Key, the chest has Tiny Tonitrus (25 Arc)
20. Go back to Cathedral Ward, go up the elevator and continue ascending to find a chest with Radiant Sword Hunter Badge, you should be able to open the door with the Key
21. Go through the Upper Cathedral area, find the Cosmic-Eye Watcher badge which unlocks Rosmarinus in the Messenger shop. After beating the Celestial Emissary break the giant window next to the lamp, here you can find A Call Beyond (40 Arc). Defeating Ebrietas allows you to make Isz Chalice, where all monsters drop triangle gems.
22. Finish Yahar’gul, find many chunks, defeat the one reborn to find yourself on the second floor of the lecture building. Go through another big door, and access mensis.
23. Progress through Nightmare of Mensis, use frenzy resist runes and equipment. In Micolash’s second room, get the iron key near the bottom mirror. Once you defeat the Micolash, the cage-elevator with the broken door can be used to jump on to a window while its going down or up. Go through the window, prepare for frenzy brain monsters. Go through the area, pull the lever and drop the big brain. Find a hole in the area and drop down next to a place with 2 spiders and frenzy brain. The chest contain Choir Bell (15 Arc). Go through the area, collect the droplet gems and drop down where big brain was hanging to get a Bloodrock.
24. You are set with all items and ready to unleash your wizardy
25. You can continue doing chalices for top tier gems. See nagamasaarai’s guide

What to level:

• At the early levels upgrade vitality at least to 20 and endurance to 15.
• 12 Strength is a must to use the Tonitrus
• If you wish to use Ludwig’s Holy Blade, you need 16 Str and 12 Skill
• Level up arcane as much as possible after 20 vit/ 15 end

This is my level 96 build:

• 50 Vitality
• 20 Endurance
• 12 Strength
• 9 Skill
• 5 Bloodtinge
• 50 Arcane

Using the tools Effectively:

• A Call Beyond consumes 7 bullets, so always use extra bullet runes and make blood bullets. Its terrific for taking down large enemies, dealing as much as 2k+ damage when all shots connect. The seeking-shots also knocks back smaller enemies (hunter-sized) on to the ground.
• Beast Roar is situational but also fun and useful. Most hunters in PvP, even those that aren’t arcane builds, use it to knock other hunters over ledges.
• Augur of Ebrietas does only small amounts of damage, but it knocks over all hunter-sized enemies. It can be used to get in a quick vial when low on health or throw hunters off of ledges. Only costs 1 bullet to boot.
• Old Hunter’s Bone essentially makes your hunter untouchable in dodges for 16 seconds at the cost of 4 bullets.
• Executioner’s Gloves are perfect for bosses like Amygdala with its 3 homing skulls. Its also great in PvP to distract other players while you can close in for the kill.
• Messenger’s Gift is almost always exclusively used in PvP to take other players by surprise. Be warned, most experienced players can tell that you’re a fake.
• Tiny Tonitrus will deal large amounts of bolt damage at high arcane levels. Best used in small corridors and/or against multiple enemies.

Arcane Weapons Notes:

• Any pure physical weapon instantly turns its base damage into Arc/Fire/Bolt once a gem with those types of damage is put in.
• Tonitrus Arcane scaling isn’t much, but the L1 gives it a massive AR boost for Bolt Damage. One of the best PvE weapons. The boost dwindles down if you aren’t at full HP.
• The Logarius Wheel is actually a nice Arcane weapon, all though it requires 20 Strength investment. The Arcane modifiers occurs in its transformed state. The transformed state is great in PvP for its hyper-armor.
• Ludwig’s offer the best Arcane scaling, however it too requires a stat investment with 16 Str and 12 Skill.