Has anyone figured out the stat caps yet? I'm around level 30 and I've been mainlining Skill with a little bit of Vit, and I noticed that my damage boosts on the Threaded Cane from levelling Skill started to slow right down around 25, and by 30 Skill I was only getting +1 damage for each point of skill, which is only about +0.66%.

I did a quick scan through the other topics, but I'm making a conscious decision to avoid the spoiler topic, so I don't know if anyone's already discussed this yet.

If no-one knows, what kind of boosts are you guys getting? I imagine the boosts on weapons like the Kirkhammer would have be a little bigger, if only to keep DPS balanced.

From the fextralife bloodborne wiki:

VITALITY: Soft 30, Hard 50
ENDURANCE: Soft is 40, beyond that there aren't any significant gains.
STRENGTH: Soft 25, Hard 50
SKILL: Soft 25, Hard 50
BLOODTINGE: Soft 25, Hard 50
ARCANE: Soft 25, Hard 50

Still no real idea what's important for what, but there you go.

Thanks man.

Those all seem exceptionally low, I'm still feeling like my DPS is a lot lower than I'd like it to be, but my main weapon is only +4 and I don't have any particularly good blood gems yet. I'm hoping that later gems allow significant arcane or bloodtinge scaling on main-hand weapons.

From what I'm understanding through chatter around various Souls water coolers, it seems like a lot of things open up after a certain event in game. I'm hazy on details (don't want spoilers) but there seems to be a lot more to it once you get to a certain point.

@oldirtybearon: I can confirm this. There is a TON of mechanics that they haven't even mentioned at the point where you're at in the game. (You mentioned where you were in the other thread.) And other aspects, already introduced, become considerably more important. There's depth galore in this game, they just mask quite a lot of it from the outset, probably as not to overwhelm the players.

As for the caps, the majority of the stats seem to fall off more and more every 5 points above 25. So, leveling strength up to 30 from 25 will get you more than leveling it up to 35 from 30, and so on for the next 5 levels, etc.

@ohnooh: I can confirm that there's plenty of that stuff, and then some. You can basically use gems to change the weapon type as if you were "ascending" them in Dark Souls (as in making a weapon enchanted, flame, chaos, raw, etc.) or do much crazier stuff. Also, it sounds like you're leveling arcane / bloodtinge. I get the impression that could really pay off later in the game from what I've seen.

There's magic! And fucking cannons, dude.

I'm happy to hear this. I was getting a bit worried. Looking forward to reaching this point. Is it one of those things where you absolutely know when you've reached it? Or do I need to look out for it?

@zevvion: Well, there is a fairly large indicator that the landscape of the game has changed. You will know it when you see it, take my word on that. (I'd say it's the coolest thing I've seen in the entire series, but stuff later on tops even that..)

As for the mechanics themselves, they begin creeping up on you prior to this point and become more and more relevant past that, so you will need to pay a bit of attention to the items you're picking up. You could end up missing out on some of 'em depending on whether find the corresponding items in the environment as well, so make sure to look around a-plenty. Not that I think you'll need a lot of reminders to do so. The game gets so god damn hard that you will be trying any and all measures to get through, though I say this with a smile as they're real inventive about what ends up causing you hurt.

I have stopped leveling strength at 20, I can't justify using a point to gain a single damage point, likewise I think I'll leave skill at 14. Is this wrong?

No, it's fine. In fact, it goes even further than that. I have Skill 25, yet every skill based weapon does the same amount of damage almost. I don't recall the actual numbers, but let's say I have 117 base damage for the Rifle Spear. It has C scaling in Skill and it gains +33 as a result. I also have the Saw Spear that has 117 base damage, a D in Skill scaling, yet also gains +33? It's totally weird. Only my Threaded Cane has a different damage amount; lower. Which is weird because it has the highest Skill scaling, and does gain slightly more, but only like +4, while base damage is much lower.

@zevvion: really confusing, but more and more im learning the damage numbers dont mean much. my kirkhammer says its hitting 50 harder than my axe, but the enemies tell a different story, the axe is still outputting more dps

@brotherbran: There are two different damage types for melee weapons. I imagine the Kirkhammer uses Blunt. The Axe may use Thrust? As far as I understood the description, Blunt now is what Strike and Slash used to be. Thrust is still spears and stuff. So it should be the same damage, but maybe I misunderstood and that might explain the difference. Some enemies are weaker to each stat.

it seem most of the interesting weapons scale better with skill/dex. Which is a bummer bc i focused on strength since thats what kirkhammer and this axe used, but i really want to use the mercy blade and i looked ahead to a couple other cool weapons that scale C.

I initially loved the kirk but these speedier enemies im fighting now are tough to nail with anything