I've Jumped on the Chalice Dungeon Train.

It's full speed ahead it seems. I needed some Ritual Blood (2) to open up a Chalice Dungeon so I checked online to see what chalice had some. I had the correct chalice (I'm only completed 4 Chalice Dungeons so far), but I decided to use the search function because it apparently doesn't use any resources.

A quick scroll through the dungeon list revealed that a couple had max skeleton ratings on them. I chose one of them and jumped right in. I figured it was rated high for a reason and I think I discovered that reason because I found AN ILLUSIONARY WALL! There were a lot of goodies in the first layer and I'm really excited to see what else I'll find because all shared dungeons are static so the good stuff will always be there every time it's recreated according to the code/password thing.

I recommend that everyone hits up that Chalice Dungeon search function and jump into the high ranked dungeons for great loot.

There's a thread over at gamefaqs with a list of chalice dungeon codes. So anybody looking for a specific treasure item should be able to narrow down where to find it there.

There is also a Google doc over on reddit that has a bunch of dungeon codes and what you can find in them. I recommend you give it a look.

I love the Chalice dungeons like the OP said they are pretty fun and you can get some good loot in them, not to mention there some fun bosses and enemies you won't find in the main game.

Wait, there are hidden walls in chalice dungeons? I didn't know that! What is the code you are using golguin?

I've completed maybe a dozen chalice dungeons. There's definitely some cool stuff in there, but the loot is pretty lackluster. Pretty much the only drops worth anything to me at this point are high level blood gems.

I don't know if I'm a good enough Souls player for the later Chalice Dungeons. Some of the later stuff feels much harder than anything the previous Souls games put you through.

It's a low level dungeon, but the code is...

a8fadty8
Pthumeru
Depth 1

It's in layer one and you'll know it when you see it.

@golguin: Is it a root or a non root? Non roots are the same for everyone. Only roots are random. As in its randomly generated when the person makes it.

Also anyone find layer 4 on the Lower Pthumeru Chalice? Wikis claim it has a fourth layer, but I just beat the layer 3 boss, and I don;t see any way out of this round room to continue on.

Never mind, I was in the root and not the regular one.

Yes, it's a root. That dungeon also has an Uncanny Saw Spear.

I also just created my own dungeon and found an Uncanny Threaded Cane in the first layer if anyone wants it. It has a crescent slot as the 3rd gem.

Update: 4 Shaman Bone Blade from black coffin if you want PVP fun from that same Uncanny Threaded Cane dungeon.

Defiled dungeons suck. Your HP is halved while inside them.

@golguin: How did the illusionary wall happen? Actually next time you find one would you mind making a video of it? I figured they were probably around but too lazy to actually look everywhere for them.

@sterling: I believe the Defiled Chalice is "special" so it's only 66% or something, actual curses are 50% though.

@sunbrozak: They're certainly very difficult but still doable and I gather there's cheaper ways to go about doing them if you want to look those up, once you get past the Defiled Chalice you never have to do curses again unless you want Abyssal Gems. You could also try doing them in co-op.

I've found 2 so far and I'm recording everything so it's recorded. Let me find the time stamp.

EDIT: It's at 1:08:05. The first one I found wasn't as obvious as this one. It was in a large room with some steps leading up to a large wall. I hit the wall and it vanished. I have found similar walls since then with a similar setup and they were not illusionary walls. I would say I got lucky, but it was a high ranked dungeon on the list, but I'm guessing the rank was for the Uncanny Saw Blade.

http://www.twitch.tv/golguin1/b/646227884

Yeah! The first one is super hard, a giant difficulty spike! the thing about reducing the health to half is it also reduces your healing potential - meaning if you take a hit (speaking about bosses now), if you survive you almost every time need to heal twice (vials heal something like 30% of your max) to get back up to full health, which means you spend more time healing and you are effectively reduced to 10 vials as well.

I am at the fiery-hound boss at the non-root chalice dungeon and it's pretty damn hard, I always die because I ran out of healing items. I will beat him though, just you wait!!

I haven't screamed at my TV this much in a long time, both in frustration and triumph!

@golguin: Thanks.

I got Amygdala a whole bunch of times at the end of Depth 5 root chalices but I finally got something more interesting (also nigh impossible with certain weapons), this boss isn't nearly as hard without half health (it does behave somewhat differently than Paarl):

No Abyssal dropped so I guess they're not guaranteed even with as many modifiers as possible.

I played three non-root dungeons, and I liked what I've played. I've gotten at least one good gem in each dungeon, but the pull for me so far has been the boss fights. I hope the loot gets better in higher level root dungeons.

Anyone have any tips for the flaming dog boss on level 2 of the cursed Pthumeru? He one shots me with his flaming jump attack. And I can't avoid it. Its like he changes direction in the air. Fuck this halved HP bullshit.

@sterling: The charge always goes in a straight line in the direction he's facing. If he's charging frequently then you're probably hitting him in the head too hard. The safest place to be in this fight is directly in front of him, baiting melee combos (which get more elaborate as the fight goes on) and hitting him once at the end of each; getting some free damage when/if he does the fire spit.

@sterling: Don't lock on to the Watchdog. That is the key. Never run straight towards him, always widen your approach. He is easy if you follow these steps.

@fredchuckdave: I just tried this like 20 times. He is way more aggressive for me than in that video. He does the lung thing like every 3rd or 4th attack. I can never seem to get out of the way of it.

@sterling: He won't do the charge unless you're too close or too far away from him (or hit him in the head too hard) except like every once in a blue moon (like once an hour or two). However when he does it it is very obvious and has a very long startup. Comparitively Ebrietas' charge has a much wider hitbox, comes out quickly, and is virtually impossible to dodge when locked on. By lunge do you mean charge or the downward chomp thing that he gains later in the fight? That can be sketchy to dodge but it is possible to range it perfectly so it won't hit you even if you don't dodge, in any case dodging to the right seems to work well enough; also late in the fight it's basically the best attack to get damage in on him barring miraculous lava spit. He gets more aggressive the more nodes on his legs you blow up I've noticed so just stick to one for the fight.

Possible Spoiler:

AI aggressiveness does seem to be a thing but I think in the case of Watchdog you can just lock him in looped melee patterns. But just look at these two versions of Bloodletting Beast (I don't think its a memory leak, pretty sure one of the chalice modifiers just turns up the boss aggression a whole bunch):

Essentially the harder version has most of the attacks that the OG Bloodletting Beast has instead of being on the slow side and also jumps around quite a bit more; that coupled with curse and a lower ranged weapon gave me some serious trouble.

I tried the first dungeon and got my ass handed to me. I'm a bit more leveled now I'll give it another go soon.

Currently on the hunt for "Bastard of Loran" ritual items. Gamefaqs search says the Loran chalices (duh) but they mention specific ones and specific layers.. I think someone mentioned Ailing Loran, which is the first one, but I went through it all and didn't find any. So I guess I have to dive into the Lower Loran chalice next.

@seikenfreak: Its on the second layer bonus room of the first chalice. You should get 2 chests with 2 each.

@fredchuckdave: His stupid fire flash lung. I see it coming, and jump to the side. But he still some how manages to touch me and kill me with a full health bar. I'm at the point now where I might just go grind a million echos and level up my health 20 points.

@sterling: Any chance you know exactly which side area? Luckily I still have that chalice open. It looks like the doors are open on the side areas so I definitely went in them. I'm usually super thorough on clearing them so if you can point me to the exact side area (if loading in at Layer Two lamp) then I'll try and recheck it.

@seikenfreak: I would have to run it again to give that kind of detailed instructions. I did it the other night and I remember finding two chests, each with 2 in them. One was a regular small chest, the other was one of the gold caskets. I think 2 of them were in a door after the boss before the next layers first lamp. And the other was just in a regular level area not a side area I think.

@sterling: Hmm.. yea I just went through the only layer two side area and there was only one chest. I'm thinkin this stuff is not all the same or something because I'm super thorough and didn't find any in the later stuff either. And these places suck enough that I don't want to re-run them haha. Thanks for the info though.

Edit: Scratch all of that. I'm an idiot and forgot I actually skipped the last side area on purpose because the infinitely spawning spiders would get me. Thats only time I ever skipped one and then I beat the boss and forgot. Duuuuurr. Sorry. Hopefully they are in here.

Here's a mind fuck for you (or something totally obvious): You can break the arrow trap statues. A wolfman showed me, nice guy.

Started on the Defiled Chalice.. think this might be the end of the road lol First layer boss kills me with 1 hit because of the half hp crap. And this is one of the bosses that I could easily destroy previously. Regular monsters were often killing me in one hit. I almost killed it and its pretty straightforward but I just can't make a mistake, and that isn't exactly fun at this point. If an "easy" boss is this gnarly in this defiled chalice then I probably don't stand a chance against something more tricky. Meh. I kinda don't think I care that much about whatever this story related boss is enough to pursue this. Might be time to just finish the main story boss and move on.

Edit: Oh and now I see that chalice isn't even the last one to get to that boss. Meh.

Man after doing a cursed dungeon, these other depth 5 dungeons seem so easy. I'm just blowing through them. Fuck the cursed dungeons.

@sterling: Agreed, just finished my Platinum after spending a bunch of time stuck on the Defiled chalice dungeon. After I got past the fire dog and Amygdala in Defiled, the rest felt SOOOO much easier.

I have no idea what I'm doing with chalice dungeons. I can't interact with the first gravestone because I don't have a short chalice. Is there any difference between the rest of the graves or are they just 'slots' to store dungeons? How do I make use of all these weird materials I have like living string? How do I make a dungeon that is level appropriate where I can get decent loot? Is there a point to them other than maybe getting a rare crafting stone?

I made one dungeon that required 2 ritual blood. I one shot every enemy and they gave me like 23 souls each. I feel like I did something wrong and they're way too low level. Once I finish do I just remove the chalice? i could only go back to the hunters dream at the end of the one I made.

Everything about the dungeons gradually get more frustrating. I just finished the Defiled Dungeon and all I can say is fuck that dungeon. I am finally on the last dungeon but my frustration got to a point where I need to take a break for a while before I finish it. Literally my last trophy for the game comes from beating this dungeon too.

The very first one requires a chalice you don't get until way later. Its for speical co-op searching only. The others are just slots so you can leave some open for sharing.

To get more chalices you have to progress through them, usually the final boss of the dungeon, layer 3, gives you a new one. Only Chalices with Root in the name are random, the rest are the same for everyone. And the ingredients are used for deeper chalices and root chalices for making them more powerful, have better loot. You get your first two chalices by beating optional bosses in the main game. Then as you progress through those you get the root for each one. Then when you progress through the root you get the next normal one in the chain, and so on.

Maybe read this on one of the wikis.

The only half decent thing I got out of chalice dungeons is the ash bone armour. How rare are the uncanny weapons? Are they worth leveling up?

@sterling: Ok thanks for the help. I'm on NG+ and an insane level so I probably should have dipped in to these before. Though really all I want are blood rocks. 1 per playthrough is really rough.

@alistercat: You can get one from this code on layer 2: fmu9qx9g

However its an Isz chalice, so you have to beat Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos to get the Great Isz Chalice, then run the Great Isz Chalice and beat its layer 3 boss to get the root. And surprise, the layer 3 boss is once again Ebrietas. Then make your own root. As you can't use a code for a chalice you haven't created once already yourself. So after you make your own you can run it to see what you get, remove it and use the code to make another at no material or soul cost.

Also I just found this for a second blood rock and more:

Central Pethumeru Root - Glyph Code: gfh57567

• Lost Burial Blade
• Lost Chikage
• Lost Blades of Mercy
• Blood Rock

FYI, the loot is only usable once. So if you run it, get the blood rock, remove it and create it again. When you go back to the chest it will be an insight item. Which kinda sucks.

You can also use this handy thing people are putting together.

@boozak: They are exactly the same stats wise, they just have variations of the runs you can use on them. So unless you have a really kick ass rune that you can't use on your favorite weapon, they are pointless.

Yea the chalice dungeon difficulty ramps up as you collect different "deeper" sections/versions. Doing the Ailing Loran one I was getting a ton of echoes. Often 5-10k per enemy. I'd end up leaving after each little section with 100-200k echoes.

So can you not use the beckoning bell to get help in the regular dungeons? This defiled chalice is a sack of crap and I'm stuck at Watchdog. I tried for awhile yesterday and no one showed. Left the game running in suspend mode overnight hoping that it'll bug out and make him easier. My +10 ludwig and gems are barely scratching Watchdog so it's just going to take forever without making a mistake. Any of the videos for it show him just doing the same left/right bite attacks over and over which, of course, mine doesn't do so frequently. Managed to get past the Keeper by kind of cheesing it with the beast claws and beast roar trick.

Edit: Yea now he is mostly doing the one bite attack. Almost got him on first try.

@seikenfreak: For co-op you have to share the dungeon, and then someone else would have to be in it ringing there bell. You basically have to coordinate with someone to do it. Since its your dungeon no one has access unless you turn on sharing.

@sterling: Ah okay.

This defiled chalice is going to make me cry. I made it past Watchdog, now I can't even get past the next room. The pet dogs are relentless! Arrrrgh! You can't run, you can't seem to stagger them for any good amount of time even with a big weapon, if I shoot one down then the other one comes, and I can only shoot one down at a time with the pistol. Even knocking both with the blunderbuss, they still dont stay down long enough for me to get in there. You can't out dodge them because they are non-stop on top of you. This place is going to make me rip my hair out.

@seikenfreak: You can stealth past the dogs, blue elixir stuff is your friend. Or just run for it. They only seem to notice if you walk in water.

@fredchuckdave: Yea I ended up sneaking past them and then eventually opened the other nearby door, they somehow saw me like a minute later, and then jumped into the pit thing. I was able to kill them after awhile.

All is good now though since I beat the game finaaaaally! Every boss done and without using summons (every time I tried through the game, no one came). I'll admit to having that suspend mode AI bug for the last couple chalice bosses. Even with it, I found them very difficult. As @sterling said, once you make it through that Defiled Chalice, the last one in that set is much easier to blast through aside from the bosses. After finishing the Chalice boss, I reset the game and then finished the final story boss on second try. So much easier than that chalice stuff. Feels like a weight has been lifted.

Freedom! Now I can focus more on Pillars of Eternity and can dig through lore threads and stuff.

Thanks to everyone who helped with info and listened to me whine like a sissy about everything.

Welp, I managed to beat the Queen chalice boss. My commitment to using only the Rifle Spear and the Stake Driver almost drove me mad in a few of the fights, but I made it. It's good to get that off my plate so I can take a breather from Bloodborne and collect my thoughts before writing something a little more in-depth. The Chalice Dungeons certainly proved to be an interesting element in the game. I may dive back into them at some point to see if I can get any worthwhile loot, but I need a break for now.

I did not know that... interesting throwback to Demon's Souls.

I finally found a regular Bloodtinge Gem in a Chalice Dungeon! Turns out the asshole mini mages can drop them, just don't get combusted in the face for 2000 damage.

@sunbrozak said:

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on both weapons, I've dabbled in both but haven't taken them through the nitty gritty of endgame. My impressions are the Stake Driver R1's are deceptively fast, the pilebunker R2 is very useful for bosses with long staggers like Watchdog. For the Rifle Spear I often end up using it 1h to chase bosses down, the first hit of the 2h R1 has lackluster range that I'm often punished for and while everyone hypes up the 2h R2, it borders on unusable for fast bosses and some will even dodge out of the way if you try to cheese them like regular enemies.

The stake driver seems to be the best fast weapon that doesn't require you to spec into skill. It has a pretty impressive damage output, and the sweeping motion of it's non-primed attacks renders it a good moveset. The special R2 attack it has is very cool, but I found it less and less useful the farther I got into the game. The long charge-up, coupled with the fact that unless you have a lot of endurance it'll empty your stamina bar, made it a risky venture without a lot of payoff. More often than not it was safer to simply spam R1 or go for the other charge attack. In fact the other charge attack is quite fast, and if you can backstab/stagger an enemy, there is enough time for you to do another charge attack and then follow up with a visceral attack. The primed R2 attack is best left to explosive and showy finishes. I also tested the Beast Blood Pellets with the weapon and it unfortunately doesn't build up Beasthood very quickly at all. I imagine that's a balance thing. It's a good weapon, and one of my favourites, but I wouldn't expect the special R2 to do wonders in the Chalice Dungeons or NG+.

As for the Rifle Spear, it's an interesting weapon. It's piercing attacks proved to be very useful against several enemies throughout the game. Obviously the charged two-handed attack has seen a lot of praise, and it is very good against standard mobs, but I found myself using the running two-hand stab attack the most, as I would have time to follow it up with an additional slash or two. It proved to be both a good and a bad match-up with the stake driver. On the one hand the two-handed sweeps gave me the range that the stake driver lacked, but in terms of scaling the two weapons are a little incompatible. The stake driver is your quality build type of weapon, probably best paired with Ludwig's Holy Blade, and the rifle spear favors a skill/bloodtinge type of build. I was also using the cannon, so I very rarely made use of the gun element of the rifle spear. I imagine there's a strategy for that, but not one that suited my character. All in all, I'd say the rifle spear isn't one of my favourites but it's very good at mob killing, especially enemies you're afraid to get close to. But maybe use a different weapon for fast/aggressive bosses, like you said.