So, Bloodborne is built on an assumption: that you're going to level up pretty much just one of the four "throughput" abilities - Strength, Skill, Arcane, and Bloodtinge. But at some point, I decided that as fun as the Chikage is (basically, once you get over the fear of the constantly-draining health, it's a really powerful weapon) I wanted to try to be viable with other weapons. But I realize now that I could have either Skill or Bloodtinge up at 70 or so at this level, but instead have one in the 40s and the other in the 30s.
That said, while I struggled with Ludwig, I've been making pretty steady progress through the Old Hunters after I took him down.
Indeed, really it's the first phase of Ludwig that is the wall. I only got him to his second phase twice, securing the kill on the second time (this was not the case when I first played the game in 2016 or whenever - I also didn't know you could skip the mid-fight cutscene, so it was kind of agonizing). But so far, I think the only real "walls" I've hit have been Martyr Logarius and Ludwig - and I suspect that if I weren't champing at the bit to get my hands on the Chikage I might have held off on Logarius and leveled up some more before taking him on again.
Thankfully, I found that even going into the Paleblood phase of the game, I was still able to give Alfred the invitation to Cainhurst and get his Wheel Hunter badge.
Anyway, I believe that Logarius and Ludwig are the only bosses so far that I've needed more than two attempts on (embarrassingly, I died to the Living Failures when I got greedy for staggers and visceral attacks, but I only took two attempts for Lady Maria, which felt pretty good - I just parried her a lot, and got better about dodging at the right time - though on the last phase, I'd parry her attacks but still get hit by the fire and thus be unable to get off my visceral attacks).
Once again, I'm really finding myself wishing the game were a little more open to experimentation the way that Elden Ring, and even Dark Souls III have been - you only get two Blood Rocks the whole playthrough (the item needed to upgrade a weapon to +10) so you basically need to really commit to it, and without being able to respec, your only options to correct your build are to either grind a ton or start a new character.
If I find myself starting another character after this (which I figure will happen eventually) I do think Arcane will be the way I go - it just feels the most fun, with all the different elemental gems and Hunter's Tools, though like the Bloodtinge build, you don't have a lot of support for it through maybe half the game.
I've now got the elevator to go see the Orphan of Kos, and of course I already have Laurence's Skull, so I've really got very little left to do (though I can't seem to remember how to get the Blood Rock in the Fishing Hamlet). With Skill and Bloodtinge as my high stats, I'm thinking Simon's Bowblade will be my other maxed-out weapon.
I am, of course, only playing this while I'm using some serious cleaning chemicals in my room and can't play Baldur's Gate 3. I still haven't caught up to where I was in Early Access, but it's nice that I'm accumulating XP after having hit level 5. Can't wait to get Aura of Protection!
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