The Bloodborne Identity with JanThe Bloodborne Identity with Jan: Part 9

lol @ that beginning. Without getting too spoilery, defeating a boss is very often a trigger for new events in the world. Sometimes even areas you've already been to will change after certain bosses so be careful doing things off-screen if your stream ends with beating a boss.

Jan's voice was so soothing and chill in this, love a good chill time, although sadly missed it live due to commuting from work.

Glad to see you get to explore some new areas, Hemwick is a good breather after an intense boss or two, and putting that saw spear to good use too.

Don't worry much about grinding for echoes unless you're hurting for vials (Hemwick drops quite a few iirc), you'll get a good amount from bosses and the enemies leading up to them to eventually put toward levels, the game generally doesn't mean for you to grind a bunch before bosses (although they do balance them to be completed in a certain order; Amelia post Hemwick for example).

Also of course while it's temping to beef up your stats, investing the echoes in vials is never a bad choice, survival in a tough spot is just as important if not more so than shaving an extra inch off an enemy's health bar.

In regards to the grinding question post stream I think Hemwick is your best bet at the moment, there are many low health enemies and since it's the latest area you'll get more echoes per kill than say if you went back to grind Central Yharnam or Cathedral Ward. Clear out the main road including the big dudes and you'll have a good amount of spending echoes. (There's a phenomenal grinding spot later)

There is plenty of wild stuff to see and atmosphere to drink in so I hope we'll keep seeing Bloodborne on the site, I like the idea of doing grindy stuff on your personal channel and keeping new areas / bosses for the main course. Of course I'd devour it all because I'm a blood(borne)starved beast.

Loving the series Jan! I highly recommend that you take time to read all the item descriptions when you get a chance as they go a long way when it comes to helping understand the story. Also, for farming, I like the hypogean gaol. The bag guys are super easy to kill if you charge an R2 behind them as they buff themselves allowing you to chain viscerals. the run nets a ton of echos and is pretty fast.

Jan,

Wanted to make this post a bit longer so that I could potentially help illuminate some of the more obscure stuff in terms of mechanics, world, and some combat strategy. Overall you're catching on very and i really love watching you playthrough bloodborne. First is on weapon mechanics.

Each weapon has a rating in terms of strength and dexterity. This is from D to S iirc. As you scale up your strength and dex levels these weapons will do correspondingly more damage multiplied by the D to S rating. The good thing about ludwigs holy blade is that it has equivalent ratings in strength and dex, a good animation in both forms, and scales up to S as you upgrade it. That's the other function i'm unsure if you're aware of, as you upgrade your weapons with bloodstones the scaling factors go up from D to S and the base damage is increased.

One tip on "grinding"/the echoes economy from me would be to when in doubt of where and how to farm just go to the hardest area you are comfortable with and farm enough souls for a level or two at the doll. Inevitably the requirements for each level will be such that when you level up you will have a significant chunk left over. These should then be dumped into blood vials and bullets. Doing this left me always capped at 20 bullets and 20 blood vials at each respawn.

In the world you're doing a great job of looking through every nook and cranny, you even found that shortcut on the elevator next to the church that i had never found before. In general the key to the world right now is the branching out point from vicar amelia. There are three distinct directions you could go from this area so if you're at a loss of where to go consider exploring this area.

In terms of combat you're also doing very well compared to where i was on my first playthrough. You've discovered the secret trick of these games much faster than me though you don't use it as much as you could which is that sprinting past things is a legit strategy. When in doubt if you're freaking out, just run past some people.

Overall in terms of the meta of the souls series the previous Dark Souls games can be "slower"/more conservative but you also have the option to run around with a sword and a parrying dagger and play it like bloodborne. That's how i came to enjoy them and i would encourage you to try them out if you enjoy exploring twisted gothic/medieval settings with fun bosses.

Thanks for the series!

@31:30

Did Jan just pass by the lightning mace, or does that come later?

EDIT: Also, poor Jan doesn't realize he'll need four more levels before he can use the holy blade. Too bad bloodborne doesn't have any sort of respec option.

"Where the fuck are we?" Yup, This is Bloodborne!

Jan, these videos are a lot of fun. I recommend also getting the Ludwig's Rifle, it was my gun to use in this game and it also looks real cool. I think overall the Blunderbuss is a bit better because its more effective up close, but both are worthwhile.

loving the series Jan

Jan has internalized that new paths only lead to funner friends!

caught up on Part 8 with michael and Part 9 just today. this series continues to deliver.

the ending of Part 8 in particular with bloodstarved was a particular highlight :-)

@mobiusfun: No, that was where the lightning mace (tonitrus) is. There’s a mini-tonitrus hunter’s tool that comes later.

Hey Jan! Just wanted to let you know your doing good for your first souls game! Like Tamoor said, you just have to have the tenacity to push through and keep playing sometimes. Only thing I would recommend is that you spend your blood echos towards increasing your vitality. It helps new players out the most in the beginning by giving them more room for error by having more HP, IMO. Hope you stick with it and continue the series!

Sherman. Herman. Larry.