Bloodborne Weapons Guide#

Bloodborne has no officially published damage tables, and a weapon’s actual output shifts constantly with its upgrade level, blood gem setup, and your character’s stats — any fixed “damage comparison chart” you come across is unreliable. This page therefore skips specific damage and attack-speed numbers and instead gives you criteria for choosing a weapon: look at category traits, look at the trick mechanism, look at how stat scaling is oriented, and look at gem slots and your progress through the material chain.

Judging whether a weapon is worth upgrading matters more than “which number is bigger”: will you happily use both of its forms, do its hidden traits match the enemies you plan to fight, and does its stat scaling land on the attributes you intend to stack? The rest of this page follows that logic.

Weapon Categories and Trait Criteria#

Hidden Traits and Status Effects#

• The serrated bonus only works on beast-type enemies — it does nothing against Kin or human foes. The game never displays the exact multiplier, and the numbers circulating in the community are all datamined results with no consistent standard, so treat them as directional guidance only.
• A hidden bonus against Kin enemies exists on a few specific weapons such as the Blade of Mercy; the more universal approach is socketing blood gems with the corresponding effect.
• Fire, Bolt, and Arcane damage mostly come from blood gems that convert physical damage into the corresponding element; the Tonitrus is one of the few weapons that produces Bolt damage on its own once transformed.
• Poison comes in two types, Slow Poison and Rapid Poison, both exclusive to blood gem effects — don’t expect every weapon to be poisonous out of the box.
• The Chikage’s drawn-blood form continuously drains your own HP in exchange for bloodtinge damage; that is a built-in weapon mechanic, so decide whether you can live with the health drain before building around it.

Trick Weapons: Dual Forms Are the Backbone of the Design#

Nearly every melee weapon in Bloodborne is a trick weapon, switched between two forms with the transform button (L1):

• Transforming is itself an attack that cancels the recovery of a normal strike, letting you weave transformed attacks into combos — this is the core of the game’s melee feel.
• The two forms differ drastically in reach, speed, and multipliers; picking a weapon really means picking two movesets, not one number.
• Some boss-tier enemies (Father Gascoigne, for example) stagger noticeably to specific transformed attacks, so it pays to drill a few combos before a boss fight.
• A few weapons need a matching Caryll Rune to unlock their second form (Beast Claw and the Kos Parasite, for instance), so keep an eye on your rune slots while collecting weapons.
• Transforming never changes a weapon’s blood gem slots or scaling orientation, and the upgrade level applies to both forms at once.

Notable Trick Weapons at a Glance#

Weapons left out of the table follow the same dual-form logic: the Rifle Spear and Reiterpallasch carry built-in firearm mechanisms and can land gun parries; the Boom Hammer’s head glows red-hot with added fire damage once transformed; and Logarius’ Wheel and the Kos Parasite are deeply tied to Arcane. Just run them through the same criteria above.

Upgrade Material Chain (+1 to +10)#

Weapon upgrades are performed at the Workshop in the Hunter’s Dream. Upgrading only raises panel values; it never changes movesets or gem slots. Each material maps one-to-one to an upgrade range:

• Upgrading consumes both materials and Blood Echoes, with the per-level cost climbing as you go — concentrate materials into your main weapon.
• Farm exactly the tier of material you are missing; there is no need to hoard Echoes waiting for shop restocks.
• When materials are the bottleneck, push the main story to reach new areas rather than grinding low-tier shards in old ones.
• Besides materials, the Chalice Dungeons also award special weapon variants (Lost, Uncanny). Their movesets are identical to the standard versions; the only difference lies in the shape configuration of the blood gem slots. That is deep-build content, and a regular playthrough can skip it.
• Save Blood Rock for one main weapon you are certain to keep using long-term; don’t waste it while you are still swapping weapons in the early game.

Blood Gems and Enchantments#

• Every melee weapon has a fixed number of blood gem slots (usually three). The slot shapes (Radial, Triangle, Crescent) are determined by the weapon, and upgrading never adds or changes slots.
• Fire, Bolt, and Arcane gems convert a weapon’s physical damage entirely into the corresponding elemental damage, and you lose the benefit of physical-scaling effects — suited to Arcane builds or targeted boss fights.
• Poison gems let a weapon stack Slow Poison or Rapid Poison; they pay off best on weapons with fast light attacks (whips and dual blades).
• Physical gems boost by attack type (slash, thrust, blunt). Check your main weapon’s attack type before choosing a gem instead of staring at percentages alone.
• Firearms use dedicated Bloodtinge gems; a Bloodtinge build that leans on gun damage needs a separate set for the off-hand.
• Cursed blood gems roll higher effect ceilings but come with a built-in drawback; they belong to deep Chalice Dungeon play, and a normal playthrough need not chase them.

Firearms and Left-Hand Equipment#

• You start by choosing between the Hunter Pistol and the Hunter Blunderbuss: the pistol has a concentrated shot and a quick draw; the blunderbuss spreads wide and is more forgiving at close range. New players are advised to start with the blunderbuss.
• The payoff of a gun parry is not damage — it is interrupting an enemy’s attack and creating a visceral attack opening. Spend bullets with restraint and keep spares on you.
• Special firearms like Evelyn rely on Bloodtinge and become the main off-hand once a Bloodtinge build is online; there is no need to force them early if you cannot get one yet.
• Parry timing varies by enemy: humanoid enemies are generally easier to parry than beasts, so start practicing on the humanoid hunters in Central Yharnam.
• Light-source left-hand gear such as the torch has real practical value in dark areas like the Forbidden Woods and Old Yharnam; it only occupies the left-hand slot, so keep one around.

Selection Criteria (Qualitative)#

1. Settle your main attribute first, then pick weapons: Strength builds look at the Hunter Axe, Kirkhammer, and Ludwig’s Holy Blade; Skill builds at the Saw Spear, Threaded Cane, Church Pick, and Rakuyo; the standard Bloodtinge setup is the Chikage plus Evelyn; Arcane builds are best started as Strength or Skill, then transitioned once Arcane weapons like Logarius’ Wheel and the Holy Moonlight Sword are in hand.
2. Beast enemies are dense in the early and mid game, so serrated weapons (Saw Cleaver, Saw Spear) are the most cost-effective interim choice.
3. Feel beats the panel: only a weapon whose two forms both flow for you is worth upgrading all the way to +10.
4. Concentrating materials on one main weapon plus one sidearm is far more effective than spreading them evenly across four or five weapons.
5. Chalice Dungeon variants and max upgrading are post-game depth. For a first playthrough, pick a weapon using the four points above and don’t agonize over the community’s various “strongest weapon” rankings — those depend on max-level characters and god-tier gems, and copying them in the early and mid game only wastes materials.