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Bloodborne is one of the toughest games in existence. From the same cloth as Dark Souls, it challenges you in so many ways and none the least of those is in the boss battles. Not only are the bosses tough here, but they’re also some of the most terrifying experiences in gaming. Bosses range from disgusting monstrosities to witches, fallen heroes, and some Eldritch horrors as well. Whether you’re just starting with the game or going for your 4th run, it’s worth having a strategy in mind when heading in to face these beasts.
Cleric Beast
Bloodborne throws you into the fire quickly and your rude introduction to the pain Bloodborne has in store comes in the form of the Cleric Beast. This is a massive boss that can obliterate you in seconds if you aren’t careful, so as soon as the fight starts, beeline it to a spot behind its legs.
It might seem crazy, but you’re going to have to get up close and personal with this boss to survive the fight. You want to utilize the regain system here, so if you take any damage, you can quickly recover it by wailing on the back legs.
Once you get acclimated to the fight, you’re going to want to assault this boss with Molotov cocktails. You can acquire these in a variety of ways, but buying them from Hunter’s Dream shops are the easiest way to get them.
The Cleric Beast is incredibly vulnerable to fire, so peppering it with Molotov Cocktails is the best option here. If you can’t get these for whatever reason, you want to constantly be on the remove right beneath Cleric Beast so you can quickly deal damage and dodge without getting hit. It’ll take more time this way, but eventually, you should emerge victoriously.
Father Gascoigne
This boss is almost as difficult to fight as his name is to pronounce. As the fight starts, you’ll notice one thing, Father Gascoigne is really fast. You need to counter that and there are a few ways to do that.
We can rely on skill and attempt to stagger Father Gascoigne by parrying his attacks with a gun. This is tough to do as his attacks are fast and damaging, but a supremely skilled player can manage this and beat him easily this way.
The other way to do it is to find the Music Box. Wandering around Yarnham you need to find a lantern-lit up on one of the doors, if you do this, you’ll run into an upset little girl who will give you the Music Box. While a seemingly useless item, if you use it during this fight, you will trigger Father Gascoigne’s transformation and also be able to stun him constantly.
With this item in tow, this boss is toast and you’ll be able to unload Molotov Cocktails and power attacks to take care of him in no time at all.
Blood Starved Beast
This is one of the more gruesome-looking enemies in the game, and its appearance matches its ferocity. Immediately, the Blood Starved Beast (here to known as BSB) will charge you. Get ready to dodge as soon as the fight starts and when you get some distance, use some Fire Paper on your weapon. If you don’t have any available, you can try Molotov Cocktails, but they’re tougher than usual to land here because of BSB’s size and speed.
If you can manage to get Fire Paper, then you’ll be in business. The name of the game is waiting and react here. You don’t want to charge in slashing like a crazy person here. Instead, wait for BSB to make a move and then quickly counter it. The regain system is your best friend here, so even if you get hit, keeping close to BSB will keep you from losing too much health.
There is an alternate way to defeat BSB, though this could be looked at as a glitch. Bloodborne is hard as hell, so you need any help you can get. If you can time it properly, you can get the boss to kill itself by dodging near the wall in the back. It’s risky as you need to make it so there’s very little between you, the wall, and BSB, but if you dodge right as it’s about to hit you, it will go through the wall and die shortly after.
Vicar Amelia
A lot of players say the Father Gasciogne fight is the “Welcome to Bloodborne” moment, but for me, Vicar Amelia was that fight. As you approach a seemingly innocent nun, she quickly turns into this horrific Wolf-like monstrosity that has one of the most chilling roars in video game history.
Right away you’ll notice the large area of space that Amelia covers with each of her massive swiping attacks. You need to learn these fast and each time, dodge to the side the attack is coming from. If it’s a right swipe, you want to dodge towards her right arm before she swings and vice versa.
I took the Kirkhammer as my weapon of choice in this fight and primarily relied on the power attack of the hammer form. This will deal massive damage at full power and shorten the fight considerably.
The main time to strike is when she holds up her pendant, readying a devasting attack. Get in quick here and unleash a full-power hammer smash and you’ll do a ton of damage each time. Careful dodging and opportunistic strikes will make you emerge victoriously.
The Witch of Hemwick
After the last few bosses, you need a break and thankfully, The Witch of Hemwick is that break. You would think a witch in the world of Bloodborne would be horrifying, but The Witch of Hemwick is just a tiny little robed figure that summons shadows to attack you. The trick to this fight is The Witch of Hemwick will summon shadows to fight you while turning invisible herself. These shadows go down quickly and do little damage, so the only thing you need to worry about is tracking down the witch mid-fight.
The Witch of Hemwick will give away her location by a little shimmer in the air. You’ll have to look carefully for it, but seeing it will clue you in on her position and from there you can just wail away. Kirkhammer is ideal here again as the witch moves very slowly, giving you ample time to charge up a power attack from the hammer.
Things get a bit more complicated because as you cause more damage, more witches appear. At half health, a second witch will appear and do more damage with a grab attack and a magic attack. Kill both of these as fast as you can because if you don’t a third witch appears and if you don’t kill all of them within a minute of each other, they all respawn with a small bit of health.
The Shadow of Yarnham
Sticking to the same theme as The Witch of Hemwick, the Shadow of Yarnham is multiple foes again. You’ll be facing three robed figures, each with a unique attack. One uses magic strictly and will shoot fireballs at you, another has a sword that does heavy damage up close and the final one has a sword and magic.
The trick to this battle is focusing on one at a time. You want to be fast with your attacks here, so any weapon with quick attacks will do here. Dodging their attacks is key as is circling behind them to attack yourself. Each time you kill one, the other two get stronger, so what we’re going to do is get each one down to a sliver of health. Once we do that, you can take out whichever one is most troublesome and leave the easiest one as the last foe.
The magic-user is the toughest, but if you leave the sword user last, he will summon giant snakes to aid him, so I would take him out first, then the sword and magic one, then the strictly magic-user.
Rom, The Vacuous Spider
This boss is a freaking nightmare. While you can get lucky and beat it on your first try, some have taken hours to down this monstrosity, and it’s no secret why.
Whenever you attack Rom, he will spawn little spiders all over the place. Each one is pretty tough to kill and they multiply fast and can track you down even faster.
To counter this, we’re going to hit Rom as fast as we can on his side. He has no armor here and takes massive damage before he tries to attack you. More spiders will spawn, so it’s time to take them on a ride. Start running across the map and take the spiders for a loop, and then head right back to Rom to attack again.
At a certain point, Rom will disappear into a white light, but this won’t do damage so continue to attack here.
The main attacks Rom has are when he rolls onto his back and launches boulders at you from the ground and also when he lifts his head to fire boulders at you that way. He also will glow with blue light, signaling a big blast is coming, so be sure to get away from that.
Rom will also flail like crazy each time you get close to him and this will damage you as well, you can counter this by tricking him into flailing and then backing away and attacking as soon as the animation stops to get a few hits in.
This strategy will make this fight less painful, but you should still expect to die a few times before perfecting it.
The One Reborn
You’re essentially fighting the fetus of a god here. Bloodborne is fun, right? With that in mind, expect an insanely challenging fight here as you’re going to have to have a ton of awareness and resources to survive this one. Immediately at the start of the fight, you will need to kill the three bell ringing women on the balcony. Each one dies fast, but you need to reach them fast because The One Reborn will be launching spells at you and trying to claw you to death in the process.
Once you’ve killed the bell ringing women, head to the bottom floor and get ready for the big fight. You need to be fast here as this boss is massive and can hit you from pretty much anywhere. The attacks to watch out for are his vomit attack which is signaled by a bizarre roar and its projectile attack which you’ll see comes from a glowing ball above its head. You’ll also need to dodge an area of effect attack that is signaled by him glowing red.
The good part about The One Reborn is how slow he is, so after you dodge any of the attacks you can get in close and hit him for plenty of damage. Fire Paper helps big time here and can shorten the fight considerably. Be sure to have Blood Vials on hand to heal yourself as his attacks cause a ton of damage and can one-shot kill you if you’re not careful.
The Darkbeast Paarl
This is a tough fight, but entirely optional, so feel free to skip it if you can’t handle it right away. This is one of the coolest-looking enemies in the game as well as one of the toughest. Paarl is incredibly fast and powerful. He has several quick slashing attacks and an insanely powerful area of effect attack that is signaled by him standing still and charging an electric aura. When this happens, run as far away as possible.
When it comes to damaging Paarl, we want to aim underneath the beast. Make your home directly between its front and hind legs and just attack as often as possible and make sure you’re glued to that spot because anything further away will allow its attacks to hit you.
You will need to wait for it to strike before you can get under it, so be patient and dodge while it attacks you from the front.
The secret to this fight is using fire attacks like that will knock Paarl out and cause him to lose his electricity. Flamesprayer, Molotov Cocktails, and Fire Paper all work for this and it will give you a ton of time to wail away before he can recharge.
Amygdala
Another optional boss, but thankfully Amygdala is way easier than Darkbeast Paarl. You can select multiple targets on Amygdala, but the key is getting under its arms so that none of its major attacks can hit you. Staying here will let you survive the first half of the battle pretty easily.
Halfway down its health bar though, Amygdala rips off some of its arms to attack you with. Guess we can’t stay under its arms anymore, so instead, you want to stick right to the area the arms used to be.
Amygdala has a few laser attacks too, but these are easily dodged and after it’s finished, you can attack the head for some bonus damage while it collects itself.
Micolash, Host of The Nightmare
Another human-like boss, Micolash doesn’t want to fight you head-on, so instead, he lets his lackeys do the work for him. He’ll run away from you immediately, and in between, you’ll need to kill two skeletons while he attacks you. Once you’ve got him one on one, it’s clear you have the advantage and the only thing you need to worry about is his tentacle arm attack. Hitting him with regular attacks here will be easy enough just circling him and dodging and attacking will be enough to last through the first portion of the fight.
Once you get him down to half of his health, he runs again and you’ll now have to fight two Tiny Gents. They’re not too tough, but you need to be careful as you still must monitor your health for this next part.
When you track him down again, he runs again. This time he’ll drop down a level into a new room and then locks the door on us. You’ll need to find a hole in the floor from here to find him again and enter the final portion of the fight.
It’s another duel again with one big twist, he can now fire a ball of energy at you that fires multiple projectiles. You can cancel this attack with a strong enough weapon, but if not, keep dodging until the attack ends and then rip into him.
Martyr Logarius
Your prize for traversing the awesomely creepy Cainhurst Castle is a fight against a former king and decidedly Dark Souls feeling boss in Martyr Logarious. You’ll need to be fast here with a weapon that’s just as quick as Logarious can deal a ton of damage up close and from afar.
He’ll start out launching magic from his scythe and wacking away at you up close, and you’ll want to take your chances with the up-close attacks as he can be dodged fairly easily and hit many times after each attack ends.
The magic attacks come very fast though, so you need to be ready to dodge in between each attack you make. As you progress through the fight, Logarius gets faster and faster, making every attack of his that much harder to dodge. Keep locked on to him and take a swipe anytime you’ve dodged one of his attacks.
It’s an epic looking fight that will keep you on your toes, but as long as you have plenty of Blood Vials for healing and abuse the regain system to get health back anytime you take damage, you should be able to handle Logarius with little issue.
Mergo’s Wet Nurse
Oh, what an innocently named boss. Oh, it has a ton of arms equipped with very sharp objects trying to slice you to pieces? Nevermind then.
The boss starts with you seeing a crying baby that quickly gets shrouded by what appears to be a sentient cloak.
Immediately, get behind the boss as its many arms can slash you to pieces in a heartbeat. From here, use some Fire Paper to get in some major damage.
You’re near the end of the game now, so you should be good at dodging and you’ll need to be because there will be 4 swords slicing at your head every other second this fight. Circling behind the Wet Nurse makes this fight a breeze at the start.
Once the Wet Nurse starts teleporting though, you need to focus on dodging and little else. Eventually, she’ll stop and return to her normal attacks. From here, her attacks will be consistently wild and the teleporting will commence again.
While most bosses in Bloodborne gain power as they take damage, Mergo’s Wet Nurse seems to tire out, so just be careful and attack in slow bursts while taking time to dodge the onslaught of blades coming at you and you should be able to handle this one no problem.
Celestial Emissary
This is one weird boss. This is another mob-style boss in the vein of Rom and The Witch of Hemwick, so we need to focus on clearing the mob before all else. Finding the boss is the trickiest part about it as it’s hidden in the mobs.
The best way to deal with this is just to go crazy attacking the mob. Their attacks don’t deal a ton of damage and you’ll likely be able to tank whatever it can dish out at this point of the game anyway.
After you’ve dealt a bit of damage, the Celestial Emissary will transform. Immediately run to the stairs and run off the balcony. This will cause the mob to lose track of you while causing the Celestial Emissary to confront you one-on-one.
This becomes a fairly easy fight as you can just circle behind it and hit its back a few times to end the fight. None of the damage it can deal will matter much at this point, so you should have no trouble winning this one easily.
Ebrietas
This is one horrific-looking creature, but there’s a simple way to take her down. Get out of the way as soon as the fight starts and start strafing. Ebrietas has a massive area of attack she can cover with all of her attacks, so you want to clear the space in front of her whenever you can.
If you take a hit from Ebrietas which you most likely will DO NOT ATTACK HER TO REGAIN YOUR HEALTH. This is a trap and you’ll likely be killed in the process. Instead, hang back and use some Blood Vials.
If you see Ebrietas raise her hands, a powerful magic attack is coming and will fire off several times in a row, so dodge from side to side to avoid it.
The key to this fight is getting behind Ebrietas. It’s easier said than done as she’s a massive creature that can hit from multiple angles, but if you can time your dodges properly, her back and side will be side open for attacks and you’ll be able to deal large amounts of damage in a short period of time this way.
Resource management is important here, so I hope you’ve been collecting Blood Vials. You might need to level up a bit to take Ebrietas down, but if your dodging skills are on point, you should be able to handle the challenge at this point in the game.
Gehrman, The First Hunter
Yup, that innocent man in the wheelchair who has been helping you throughout your journey in Hunter’s Dream is the final boss, and what a final boss he is.
Set amongst a field of flowers in the final unlocked area of the Hunter’s Dream, Gehrman is the ultimate form of all the other Hunter enemies you’ve faced up to this point.
He attacks with a massive scythe and is incredibly fast movement-wise, so you need to match that quickness in your attacks and movements as well.
If you can manage to get him against a wall, you’ll be able to deal a ton of damage as he won’t be able to escape, but your stamina will eventually run low, so make sure to dodge away quickly to avoid being caught by his attacks.
Aggression is vital here and Gehrman will come at you as hard and fast as any boss in the game, so you need to attack him just as quickly.
He has an incredibly damaging scythe that he attacks with and it covers a large area, so you need to be aware of your positioning at all times.
If he puts his scythe behind his back, take this time to quickly shoot him to stun him and open him up for a visceral attack. Your timing has to be perfect here otherwise you’ll get a little out of this counterattack.
At halfway health, Gehrman swallows a Beast Blood Pellet and if you’ve used one of these during the game, you know he’s about to get a whole lot deadlier. His attacks now hit way harder and he can teleport now, so be aware of his position every chance you have as losing him at this point in the fight could prove deadly.
His new attack in this phase will have him jump into the air and start attacking you. When this happens, dodge as many times as possible as this can completely wipe you out if you get caught in it.
Resource management and aggression will serve you well in what might be the final boss of the game for some players.
Moon Presence
The final, final boss, the Moon Presence is only fightable once you’ve gone on an obscure journey to collect the One Third of the Umbilical Cord items that can be found in various places throughout Yharnam and consuming them because…reasons. Once you do that and defeat Gehrman and refuse his offer, you’ll face the Moon Presence.
The Moon Presence is fast and attacks incredibly quickly, but like a lot of bosses in Bloodborne, you can rend him pretty useless by circling behind him and wailing away.
Do this a few times and the Moon Presence will charge up a huge red flash attack. This will hit you very hard, but don’t take this time to heal, instead, go on the offensive and tear into the Moon Presence as it just sits there recovering after using up all its energy on that attack. This will ensure you gain some health back via regain.
Repeating this process will eventually take this boss down for good. You’re now free to enjoy the completely bizarre and true ending of Bloodborne.
FAQ
Question: Can you face any of these bosses with another player?
Answer: Yes, you can summon another player to help you for any of these bosses and they’ll respond by gaining HP and hitting a bit harder. This significantly lessens the challenge of the game though, so keep that in mind.
Question: What is the best weapon to use for these bosses?
Answer: It’s all about player preference here and for me, a fully leveled-up Kirkhammer was the most powerful weapon I came across and lasted me the entire game.
Question: Are there additional boss fights?
Answer: Yes, the optional chalice dungeons have tons of additional boss fights that are all incredibly challenging, but they exist in a separate area from the main game. The DLC add ons also introduce some very hard bosses as well with The Orphan of Kos being the hardest of all.
Conclusion
Bloodborne is an incredibly challenging game and while some of the bosses are pushovers, others will make you perfect every move and demand the highest concentration imaginable. Overall, it’s one of the toughest gaming experiences around, and hopefully, this guide will make that trip a bit easier for you.
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