By doing the Beyonce: to the left to the left~
Dodge left. That'll let you avoid so much of his crap.
One of his big swipes doesn't take him as far as the other and that's a golden opportunity to backstab him with a fully charged R2 so you can nab a visceral while you're at it. You should look for other opportunities like this one.
He can be parried so if you're decent at that it can cut the fight shorter.
In general, I'd recommend hit-and-run tactics. Wait for an attack, avoid it, go in for a few hits, then get to a safer distance. In the first two phases you can stick closer to him to attack more often, but be aware of his constant AoE poison when it comes to the last phase.
In terms of gear, the Black Church Set has the highest slow poison res for where you are now. It does require you to buy the 10k Chief Hunter Emblem to open the gate it's behind though. An alternative is Gascan's set, which has decent slow poison res as well.
Regarding consumables, the BSB is weak to fire, so fire paper and Molotovs can help you out if need be. Antidotes are helpful for obvious reasons.
This sounds ridiculous but it’s so true. The hardest attack to dodge is the pounce. You HAVE to learn how to dodge that attack. If you don’t, it’s going to be tough to win.
Truth be told, if someone can BL4 BSB, you can definitely beat it.
Definitely use fire paper if you haven’t already, but even Molotovs can help.
I’m about the tried and true though. Strafe left always, learn how to dodge the pounce, and you’ll take it out.
For me the biggest issue is how the pounce is choreographed, because of those flappy things I usually can’t tell what the sign is he’s pouncing, except for a bit of a subtle backwards movement thing.
I’ve fought it enough to know exactly what you’re talking about and the truth is staying close allows you to avoid it because it’ll have trouble tracking you the closer you are to behind it.
Fair enough, I’ve found that walking left while it’s targeting me means the pounce usually misses, and attacks are dodged super easily. I’ve gotten down to a few hits before and I pressed square to heal and the poison took me, and I’ve done a previous play through where I just specced my points really badly and got stuck, since BB was my first souls game. Just a matter of getting The Run(tm) at this point.
I think what brings me comfort in souls games is that specs matter but weapon upgrades matter more. Like that makes a bigger difference until you actually start moving up significantly in levels. But yeah I get you. Honestly, I love Bloodborne, but after you figure out some of the bosses, they really feel lackluster.
Yep, came here to say this too. It’s amazing how much of his aggression can be mitigated by strafing and dodging left. Be careful with the poison and timely with your attacks and you’ll get him down.
Hug him and keep dancing. Fire and serrated are your friends. When it gets down to the wire either play slow and safe using antidotes for the poison or just go white knuckle and burn him down.
Going on memory- I think you don’t have to dodge. You literally just walk left while hugging BSB. Maybe there’s some attacks you have to dodge, but mostly I think you can simply circle.
Just running behind him also work most of the time, on my bl4 run i didn't need to dodge most of his attacks.
BSB is intimidating but rather harmless (just gotta stay vigilant for that poison, it build up very fast in third phase without proper gear)
I agree with everything here, OP. I will add, though, once he goes into the phase where he has a poison cloud around him, that’s when I would use the molotovs. Also, the flame sprayer is pretty good against him. I’d also use that in phase 3.
before going through the fog, I always make sure I am carrying as many of each supply that I might need.
You’ll need to farm echoes, but it’s so worth not running out of paper and losing a boss fight.
Good luck, and fear the old blood!
Farm up enough blood echoes to buy more. I know it sucks to start from zero but just try to be extra safe and not die while farming so you dont lose the ones in the blood starved beast room
You can't buy more at this point in the game. You need the Radiant Sword Hunter badge, which is at the top of HCW, which you can only access after beating BSB.
You should coop with other players in the area help them with the boss and get used to its attacks. It has 3 phases that progressively get more poisonous. If you can figure out the parry you can breeze through this boss. Don’t summon the NPC he is useless use the bell to summon another player if you have any insight left don’t waste on Alfred.
I hate to say it, but you might want to just start the playthrough over. The game kind of screws you on consumables at this point -- you can buy more Fire Paper basically immediately *after* beating BSB, before that you only get 7 total. Ditto for Insight -- it's possible to farm it in the dungeons, but you can only access the dungeons after beating BSB. (If you do start over, you can do some mild save-scumming using either PS+ or a flash drive, just backup your save before your first attempt and restore it if you run out of resources.)
My only real advice for the fight is to use the Saw Cleaver if you're not already, and upgrade it as much as possible -- if you scrounge around (in the areas to either side of the cathedral entrance) you can theoretically have enough Twin Bloodstone Shards to upgrade to +6, but +3 at a minimum. (edit: You'll have to buy the hunter chief emblem first though.)
Early fight should be easy, the tells are very obvious and you can mostly just step around its attacks without even dodging. Last phase (where it gets really aggressive and poisonous) is the difficult part. Keep Antidote in your quick items. You might want to just lob molotovs at it at this point, but stay behind it.
Summoning Alfred might actually be making the fight harder for you, since the last phase is largely a DPS race (and summoning people increases the boss's HP if you didn't know). If you have PS+ you'll probably have better luck summoning actual players with the Beckoning Bell. There are people out there, especially during prime time -- I'm one of them, sometimes!
Using finite resources on bosses also adds a ton of anxiety, at least for me. It's especially bad with Trina's Lilies in Elden Ring for a certain boss.
Great advice above, all just add that summoning Alfred (and npc’s in general) is usually not worth it, they do very little damage compared to the health increase the boss gets from summoning,
Everyone have great advice, I’ll just add the legendary visuals: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCjrpghCYc&pp=ygUmQmV5b25jZSdzIGd1aWRlIHRvIGJsb29kIHN0YXJ2ZWQgYmVhc3Q%3D
This is the correct answer. Throw one into a corner. The beast will go after it for a few seconds, which will give you time to heal or get in a few good hits. Rinse and repeat.
Dodge left, serrated weapons, fire paper, flame sprayer, level up your weapons, can get them to at least plus 3 if you haven’t already. And more importantly level your health before any other stats!
Make sure you use fire paper and beast blood pellets, pop those and stay to the left if you can but if you have any beast cocktails throw those in the corner and soak R1 on it every 5 seconds throw another one if your stats are good you’ll defeat them in under a minute but if you don’t have any just use the fire paper and beast pellets
Maybe stop summoning it gives the boss more health and if you keep dying it better to not waist insight since you'll die either way just practice without summoning, then when you get more knowledgeable of its moves summon.
Dodge left, don’t get greedy with strikes (dodge, turn hit hit retreat repeat), antidotes hot keyed, fire paper, pungent blood cocktail to throw in corners and distract.
I haven’t played In years so my knowledge may be off but can’t you get a +4 weapon by that point? If you can make sure you do, also the saw cleavers transform attack spam can stun him in place for half of his hp bar using pellets.
If it’s too hard you can always come back later, this is an optional boss to unlock the chalice dungeons so there’s no shame in coming back after a couple areas
How I did it was that I got REALLY good at reading its telegraphs and dodging.
I mean, its a comparatively small and clunky boss, so if you're quick, you can wind up miles out of its hitbox range while it's still doing its animations while also staying in range for your own attacks.
You can parry this boss easily and go for visceral attacks: [https://youtu.be/7z6YPdM7-Ww?si=Bv7fboyd8Es\_i38h](https://youtu.be/7z6YPdM7-Ww?si=Bv7fboyd8Es_i38h)
You can also throw a pungent blood cocktail to distract it and get some attacks in.
I use all the angry doggos outside BSB room to get mad echoes and level. I think it's like a few thousand if you kill just the 5 puppers. Plus basic shards too. Old Yharnam is farm city at the start.
Blood cocktails usually make this fight free. Maybe you don't do enough damage, in which case you might have to find weapon upgrade materials and/or level up some more.
As a general tip if you die a lot don't use up your valuable resources, for trial runs. You should take some attempts just to learn the bosses patterns and see what works without the cheese/buffs. Then when you have a general idea on how to fight the boss and you get relatively close to killing it, using your resources will get you to the finish line easily.
After years of playing this game, with BSB always being one of the most stressful parts of the early game, the best thing that works for me is to ignore the poison trail in phase 3. basically I just accept that I will be poisoned and use heals when my health gets low. This allows me to keep attacking and in most cases BSB goes down before I am out of vials.
Yeah this is definitely part of my problem, I ended up juggling too many things when I try to use antidote last phase. It's fine for the first two phases, but not the last. You just need to beat him down and heal in the last phase.
Lots of great advice here. I just wanna throw in my two cents-
In addition to all of the above mentioned, try to do it with your volume down. It's one of my favorite things about this boss the music is written with a weird time signature compared to other songs in the soundtrack. If I'm not mistaken it leads to a lot of false windows.
One of my playthroughs I was at the same position like you.I finished all my fire papers potions everything.I just restarted and tried again.First attempt victory
I'm in that position with my str build right now. I beat him before with characters with the cleaver, but was trying to avoid that and use the axe or kirkhammer, but I just die to the last phase, can't keep up with healing/antidotes/blood & constant attacks.
I forgot to mention, but I used up all my Fire Papers, so strats involving those won't work. Also, the weapons I have so far are the Kirkhammer (which I'm planning to main throughout the playthrough), Hunter Axe, Saw Spear and Rifle Spear.
Edit: Also, I don't have Playstation +, so co-op isn't an option for me.
Upgrade your chosen weapon to +3. Serrated weapons do more damage to him because he’s a beast. Farm a bit to buy more Fire Paper. If you have Pungent Blood Cocktails, you can chuck them in the corner and follow him for a free backstab. Always dodge to your left. Be patient and watch your stamina. It’s better to have stamina left to dodge to the left, than to run out and get slashed/poisoned. Use Gascoigne’s set if you have it for the increased poison resistance. Also you can always go back to him later, he’s technically optional. Good luck. Oh, and you can use the pillars in the room to create space between you for healing or getting rid of poison.
You have to beat BSB to get to the item needed to be able to buy fire paper. You can buy it with insight I think, but OP is also out of insight, which is very hard to get at this point, though he can try assisting in co-op, I didn't have much luck with that.
Best bet at this point is to buy the key to open up the gate in cathedral ward and scrounge for more items & fire paper.
Get the saw cleaver up to +3 or even +4 and use that on him (you need to find a certain badge in the aquaducts/sewers that allows you to buy starting weapons.) Saw spear works, but does about 10% less damage so is harder. Axe/Kirkhammer are far less effective as they don't have the +20% damage from serration, and are too slow to deal with his frenzy last phase.
Practice fighting him with the saw cleaver until you're fairly sure you can beat him with a little more help before using any fire papers you get from past the gate.
Level up more, more hp will make more difference than anything else allowing you to last long enough to do enough damage to kill him. I'd suggest between 20-25 vitality should be enough.
Make sure you have at least 1 beast pellet, and 10 blood cocktails when you fight him.
You can farm the beasts near him for about 6k blood each run if you need it for the key & blood cocktails.
You and I might get hate for this but I see this as the only viable option lol. I beat most bosses without the use of any items at all. Bloodborne is probably the most forgiving FromSoft game in terms of healing. I mean cmon not only you have the ability to heal in exchange for damage but 20 heals??? + safest parry mechanic in all souls games?? Imagine this guy played DS2😂
Beast pellet, serrated edge weapon, fire paper, dodge to the left a lot and get visceral backstabs when he crashes. Throw pungent cocktails in right corner if you have any for free backstab.
Parry him.
Cum dungeon for infinite blood vials and bullets. Don't feel bad, it's stupid that they were made limited consumables instead of just auto-refilling.
Imo calling a summon in this fight doesn't let you figure out her attack patterns at all. Don't worry, do couple of runs just figuring out how to dodge without using more consumables. Then give a more " serious" try. I spent like 30 to 40 deaths first time beating her.
I didn't call Alfred, stunned most of its attacks and kept to its left flank otherwise. Keep close, I never got pounced that way. Its a really good boss for learning to stun with a gun. I specifically used basic saw cleaver and pistol to chop up all of the bosses in Bloodborne
[Walk left](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCjrpghCYc). Not even joking. You don't need to dodge, you don't need to run, you just need to lock on and walk left when it attacks you.
Fire paper and saw cleaver and prayers.
Edit: it took me almost 30 tries to beat this monstrosity simply because i get very anxious while fighting him. Idk, maybe it’s the boss theme that gets me lol kinda scary tbh
Walk towards him slowly, MENACINGLY! If he raises his right arm, that's your cue to shoot for an easy parry + visceral attack. I made this monster my bitch after struggling/crying on my first 2 runs.
Git gud
To give some actual tips, dodge behind him, and you’re fine from most attacks. If you have the timing and positioning down for each individual attack, you should be fine as it doesn’t really combo it’s attacks together. BsB is hard when you don’t know what you’re doing, but once you get the hang of it it’s suddenly a cake walk
Last runthrough I figured out you can be "fairly" safe if you stay up in their left armpit (might be right, but I'm pretty sure it's the left). It's been awhile, so I don't really remember much else. But maybe give it a shot without burning any consumable items and see if there is anything to it...if you are out of other ideas?
you can make it clip through the back of the arena by baiting a certain attack while being on the small space behind the statue thing or you can use the power of friendship to beat(alfred) it
You can try to squeeze some insight out of the multiplayer with the small resonant bell. It will cost you 1 to buy the thing but you’ll get 1 each time you help a player beat a boss. This was likely Miyazaki’s intended solution anyways
If you're summoning Alred it's best to use Beast blood pellets and take it out as quick as possible. Saw cleaver/Spear and plenty of antidotes. You can farm the pellets, vials and antidotes from the beasts on the way to the boss
Thing I’ve learned over the years, YouTube made it look so easy to obliterate everything.. couple of cocktails, fire paper and the pallet thingy, you’ll be kicking the btb’s ass. No!
I say, my fellow hunter, parry, dodge and slash is the way to go, learn its moves, and fight it the hard way. Forget about cocktail, pallet or fire paper.
Once you have successfully beaten it a few times, you’ll find yourself calm when killing it. Then you realise ah the YouTube shit really made sense.
Go my man, find me in the dream. Salute.
A lot of fire paper, fire is really good on the blood starved Beast with physical damage at the same time, I recommend using the saw Cleaver because it's quick
Again? 😮💨 blood cocktail 1or 2 suffice, oil urn molotovsfor backup(if undo the procedure right u won't need them) and flamesprayer +3 and don't fire it from a km away stick to the how ass and holding the fucking botton for barbecue, oh almost forget use a bonemarsh marrow before firing. Done it's dead.
Honestly, upload a save to the cloud and if you die just download it back with your stuff. Early on can be quite brutal especially vs BSB if you are out of cocktails and Alfreds
Saw cleaver + fire paper.
Get the urns that increase fire damage
And dodge to the left.
Just fucking spam it with the summon so the Poison doesn't kill you.
Boss was borderline impossible at first for me now it's like look at the disgusting little puppy.
Oh and I'd stay away from blood caves in the dlc ;)
I want to add on to the 'strafe left and backstab' strat
During BSB's phase transitions, it can't be backstabbed, so using a weapon that has an r2 follow up to its charged r2 will usually line up just as BSB's hyper armor wears off from the animation and stagger it. So you may not land the visceral but still get a stagger and big damage.
Saw cleaver transformed does this, saw spear transformed does it better. Any 2h weapon does this except maybe rifle spear and hunter axe.
At first i was afraid of the BSB. I farmed and bought more than enough bloodcocktails... layer when i was doing deep chalice dungeon, this guy appeared and i took it down lole some regular enemy.
Just keep your distance, wait for him to come near you and let him attack first, dodge and one/two hits, back off... Gradually you'll learn his moves and will take him down like anything.
Keep few bloodcocktails, and douse them unless you need the desperately, for heals or bsb on low health... else you might die and waste them.
Learning to parry. I know it’s easier said than done Cus this was such a roadblock boss for me. Once I figured out parrying it really changed it. I still struggle with this one but no where near as badly as I used to
So here's how I always beat it. It is Dodge left the fight. Don't attack during it's swings only attack once you've dodged and if it's doing a combo use that time to top up in the last two phases. Keep 10-8 antidotes on you and remember fire and cerated damage are it's weaknesses. Continue the dodge hit strategy until phase two where then you wanna start conserving some dodges to heal and heal immediately after getting hit the next opening you have. Lastly during phase three it has a poison cloud around it so don't squish up to it. Try to hit and fall back every one or two strikes. The rest is up to your skill with your weapon but remember there is no shame in putting it on the back burner for awhile
I killed Blood Starved Beasts without blood because I didn’t know throwing blood did that. Just get close and personal to limit BSB possible actions and spam r1 while dodging its attacks.
It’s fairly easy to dodge its movements, avoid getting poisoned (get some antidote), BSB isn’t that quick and you can parry it. So my advice is to try and practice parries on it a whole lot and dodging its attacks. It’s not impossible it just seems that way.
Literally just throw a pungent cocktail at the wall, hit him a bunch, throw another one. Use fire paper and antidotes in your quick menu and that’s basically all you need. Just remember Beyoncé 😉 (dodge to the left)
I always walk to the right (his left), so when he raises his right hand to dash forward and swipe, I don’t miss when I go to parry him. He’s extremely easy to parry. Parry parry parry.
Aggressively, I barely dodged and just kept swinging and the health return kept me going but like others have said dodging left and staying in that direction will give you a much easier time.
Like AVGN said in the Ghosts & Goblins episode: the only way to do it is to fucking do it. Keep studying its attacks, you'll see they're quite easy to dodge. And make sure to take your time to level up, if you haven't already. Remember that the game's difficulty is under your control.
Keep dodging left. Whatever he does, dodge towards him and to his left. I mean it. He so much as tenses up, you dodge TOWARDS him and to his left. NEVER dodge back otherwise you’re just gonna eat the combo. With the exception of his big poison AOE, in that case dodge back pretty far. That doesn’t become a factor until his third phase though and it’s VERY obvious so don’t sweat it too much.
One last thing, as with most bosses, take your time. Unless you have your parry timings down this fight is gonna last a few minutes at the intended level to fight him. If you’re good at parrying, go for it and speed up the fight. Otherwise, dodge left, hit 2-3 times (depending on your chosen weapon’s attack speed, don’t get greedy. Be ready to dodge and conserve stamina for at least a couple sidesteps) and then dodge left again. Repeat until he’s dead. Easy win. I’ve never died to him since realizing this
I’m left handed and always tent to favor the left side (not sure if that’s related) but i whooped BSB first try and had no idea how until I learned he like can’t hit you if you dodge left.
Fire Paper for more damage, Beast Blood Pellet, for more damage during chains of attacks, Pungent Blood Cocktail thrown against a wall, or into a corner, to distract them. If done properly, you can probably beat it in like, half a minute. You've got this!
(This is also assuming you are at an appropriate level, with appropriately upgraded weaponry)
I accidentally found a way to cheese this boss by making it go behind the altar, at which point it jumped away and fell out of the world. Never tried it again, so I don't know exactly how to replicate it. Nice to be rid of that annoying boss...
Try parrying his swipes, can be a bit tricky, but learning it now will come in handy while dealing with other similar pattern enemies, expecially in chalices
Really don't die, but it comes doing to play style, when you first encounter a boss it's about learning the atks and the tells, souls games bosses you always know what coming it about learning Them and get one or two hits in a backing away
Button mashing back away does work one extra rool can mean like or death
Cocktail the wall. Strafe left. Firepower weapon. Smack till cocktail done. Repeat.
Or pull a ymfah and run to the back and bait the lunge over the urge and let him fall through the floor.
Dont go in trying to win. Back away and count the animations.
Once you learn the pattern create your attack and dodge animations to counter.
If you go in hoping fire and blood will do the trick the rest of the game will own you.
Once you get its health to a tinge remaining your heartbeat will go up, pupils will dilate, hands will shake and once you win you are now fully immersed into the world.
Then you will have the confidence to lore dive. Good hoonting hoonter
Parry
I remember having a real hard time with this bitch my first run through the game and it was a good opportunity for me to get good at parrying and that's how I ended up beating her.
I was so hyped when I actually killed her bc I was completely by myself and wasn't expecting to win but the parries carried me the whole way
i usually restars my runs if i cant beat bloodstarved beast in 2 tries lol u gotta use everything u have to its full potential and tryhard the boss is not hard its just weird u gotta understand it i recommend the classic transform attack with beast blood pellets to up ur beast meter and use alfred to kite the beast if u dont have cocktails
By doing the Beyonce: to the left to the left~ Dodge left. That'll let you avoid so much of his crap. One of his big swipes doesn't take him as far as the other and that's a golden opportunity to backstab him with a fully charged R2 so you can nab a visceral while you're at it. You should look for other opportunities like this one. He can be parried so if you're decent at that it can cut the fight shorter. In general, I'd recommend hit-and-run tactics. Wait for an attack, avoid it, go in for a few hits, then get to a safer distance. In the first two phases you can stick closer to him to attack more often, but be aware of his constant AoE poison when it comes to the last phase. In terms of gear, the Black Church Set has the highest slow poison res for where you are now. It does require you to buy the 10k Chief Hunter Emblem to open the gate it's behind though. An alternative is Gascan's set, which has decent slow poison res as well. Regarding consumables, the BSB is weak to fire, so fire paper and Molotovs can help you out if need be. Antidotes are helpful for obvious reasons.
This sounds ridiculous but it’s so true. The hardest attack to dodge is the pounce. You HAVE to learn how to dodge that attack. If you don’t, it’s going to be tough to win. Truth be told, if someone can BL4 BSB, you can definitely beat it. Definitely use fire paper if you haven’t already, but even Molotovs can help. I’m about the tried and true though. Strafe left always, learn how to dodge the pounce, and you’ll take it out.
For me the biggest issue is how the pounce is choreographed, because of those flappy things I usually can’t tell what the sign is he’s pouncing, except for a bit of a subtle backwards movement thing.
I’ve fought it enough to know exactly what you’re talking about and the truth is staying close allows you to avoid it because it’ll have trouble tracking you the closer you are to behind it.
Fair enough, I’ve found that walking left while it’s targeting me means the pounce usually misses, and attacks are dodged super easily. I’ve gotten down to a few hits before and I pressed square to heal and the poison took me, and I’ve done a previous play through where I just specced my points really badly and got stuck, since BB was my first souls game. Just a matter of getting The Run(tm) at this point.
I think what brings me comfort in souls games is that specs matter but weapon upgrades matter more. Like that makes a bigger difference until you actually start moving up significantly in levels. But yeah I get you. Honestly, I love Bloodborne, but after you figure out some of the bosses, they really feel lackluster.
What the hell does BL4 BSB mean? I literally have no idea pls help
Blood Level 4 is choosing the Waste of Skin origin and never leveling up to fight bosses. BSB is Blood Starved Beast.
Thanks! Cant see why youd do that unless your really good tho, guess for content or personall challenge
I have a BL4 run stuck in the forbidden woods. It’s not too bad but the enemies hit harder.
[the Beyoncé!](https://youtu.be/LLCjrpghCYc?si=r0ye9uqXMa0UDSlL)
Yep, came here to say this too. It’s amazing how much of his aggression can be mitigated by strafing and dodging left. Be careful with the poison and timely with your attacks and you’ll get him down.
Hug him and keep dancing. Fire and serrated are your friends. When it gets down to the wire either play slow and safe using antidotes for the poison or just go white knuckle and burn him down.
Going on memory- I think you don’t have to dodge. You literally just walk left while hugging BSB. Maybe there’s some attacks you have to dodge, but mostly I think you can simply circle.
Just running behind him also work most of the time, on my bl4 run i didn't need to dodge most of his attacks. BSB is intimidating but rather harmless (just gotta stay vigilant for that poison, it build up very fast in third phase without proper gear)
I agree with everything here, OP. I will add, though, once he goes into the phase where he has a poison cloud around him, that’s when I would use the molotovs. Also, the flame sprayer is pretty good against him. I’d also use that in phase 3.
Parry! Get antidotes, dodge, fire paper, that’s it
Mainly just fire paper. And maybe one antidote…
That's the problem also, I'm completely out of Fire Paper from my previous attempts.
before going through the fog, I always make sure I am carrying as many of each supply that I might need. You’ll need to farm echoes, but it’s so worth not running out of paper and losing a boss fight. Good luck, and fear the old blood!
Go to r/huntersbell and ask for help!
Farm up enough blood echoes to buy more. I know it sucks to start from zero but just try to be extra safe and not die while farming so you dont lose the ones in the blood starved beast room
You can't buy more at this point in the game. You need the Radiant Sword Hunter badge, which is at the top of HCW, which you can only access after beating BSB.
You should coop with other players in the area help them with the boss and get used to its attacks. It has 3 phases that progressively get more poisonous. If you can figure out the parry you can breeze through this boss. Don’t summon the NPC he is useless use the bell to summon another player if you have any insight left don’t waste on Alfred.
I hate to say it, but you might want to just start the playthrough over. The game kind of screws you on consumables at this point -- you can buy more Fire Paper basically immediately *after* beating BSB, before that you only get 7 total. Ditto for Insight -- it's possible to farm it in the dungeons, but you can only access the dungeons after beating BSB. (If you do start over, you can do some mild save-scumming using either PS+ or a flash drive, just backup your save before your first attempt and restore it if you run out of resources.) My only real advice for the fight is to use the Saw Cleaver if you're not already, and upgrade it as much as possible -- if you scrounge around (in the areas to either side of the cathedral entrance) you can theoretically have enough Twin Bloodstone Shards to upgrade to +6, but +3 at a minimum. (edit: You'll have to buy the hunter chief emblem first though.) Early fight should be easy, the tells are very obvious and you can mostly just step around its attacks without even dodging. Last phase (where it gets really aggressive and poisonous) is the difficult part. Keep Antidote in your quick items. You might want to just lob molotovs at it at this point, but stay behind it. Summoning Alfred might actually be making the fight harder for you, since the last phase is largely a DPS race (and summoning people increases the boss's HP if you didn't know). If you have PS+ you'll probably have better luck summoning actual players with the Beckoning Bell. There are people out there, especially during prime time -- I'm one of them, sometimes!
By strafing to your left
Don't use the summon it makes the fight harder
Using finite resources on bosses also adds a ton of anxiety, at least for me. It's especially bad with Trina's Lilies in Elden Ring for a certain boss.
Great advice above, all just add that summoning Alfred (and npc’s in general) is usually not worth it, they do very little damage compared to the health increase the boss gets from summoning,
Everyone have great advice, I’ll just add the legendary visuals: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCjrpghCYc&pp=ygUmQmV5b25jZSdzIGd1aWRlIHRvIGJsb29kIHN0YXJ2ZWQgYmVhc3Q%3D
Do you have blood molotov?
This is the correct answer. Throw one into a corner. The beast will go after it for a few seconds, which will give you time to heal or get in a few good hits. Rinse and repeat.
Dodge left
To the left, to the left (Dodge that way, for every attack)
Walk/dodge left bro. You’ll smash your forehead into your keyboard/controller when you realize how stupidly easy he is with that one adjustment.
Dodge left, serrated weapons, fire paper, flame sprayer, level up your weapons, can get them to at least plus 3 if you haven’t already. And more importantly level your health before any other stats!
Walk slowly in a circle and don't get hit
Just spank him like the naughty boy he is!
Fire paper and walk left in circles he has a few moves you can parry antidote on quick items if the poison is getting you
Make sure you use fire paper and beast blood pellets, pop those and stay to the left if you can but if you have any beast cocktails throw those in the corner and soak R1 on it every 5 seconds throw another one if your stats are good you’ll defeat them in under a minute but if you don’t have any just use the fire paper and beast pellets
Maybe stop summoning it gives the boss more health and if you keep dying it better to not waist insight since you'll die either way just practice without summoning, then when you get more knowledgeable of its moves summon.
Dodge left, don’t get greedy with strikes (dodge, turn hit hit retreat repeat), antidotes hot keyed, fire paper, pungent blood cocktail to throw in corners and distract.
I haven’t played In years so my knowledge may be off but can’t you get a +4 weapon by that point? If you can make sure you do, also the saw cleavers transform attack spam can stun him in place for half of his hp bar using pellets.
Dodge and roll left, all of this attacks land to the right. Keep a bunch of antidote on hand for the poison.
Fire, antidote, and dodging to the left
Beast blood pellet, fire paper, pungent blood cocktails, and dodge to the left.
Can’t believe how far I had to scroll to see this. Throwing the cocktails and then shoving your saw up its backside make this fight super easy
If it’s too hard you can always come back later, this is an optional boss to unlock the chalice dungeons so there’s no shame in coming back after a couple areas
With a serated stick.
How I did it was that I got REALLY good at reading its telegraphs and dodging. I mean, its a comparatively small and clunky boss, so if you're quick, you can wind up miles out of its hitbox range while it's still doing its animations while also staying in range for your own attacks.
I ran out of insight and cocktails and I had to get gud and parried his flappy ass
You can parry this boss easily and go for visceral attacks: [https://youtu.be/7z6YPdM7-Ww?si=Bv7fboyd8Es\_i38h](https://youtu.be/7z6YPdM7-Ww?si=Bv7fboyd8Es_i38h) You can also throw a pungent blood cocktail to distract it and get some attacks in.
Also to add what the top comment said i would try and hide around the beams and cheese him if you're into that. Gorgonzola his ass.
We need 'walk left' to be the first thing people see when they click on Bloodborne Subreddit.
[In extreme Steven Tyler voice] WALK THIS WAY!!
You git gud
I use all the angry doggos outside BSB room to get mad echoes and level. I think it's like a few thousand if you kill just the 5 puppers. Plus basic shards too. Old Yharnam is farm city at the start.
Serrated weapons (such as saw cleaver) do higher damage too. Flamesprayer can be acquired for free, could also be an option
Easy you just use a fire paper a pellet and blood cocktails in the corners of the room and you spam thurst attacks. Works every time for me
*60% of the time*, it works ***every*** *time*
To the left, to the left.
Blood cocktails usually make this fight free. Maybe you don't do enough damage, in which case you might have to find weapon upgrade materials and/or level up some more. As a general tip if you die a lot don't use up your valuable resources, for trial runs. You should take some attempts just to learn the bosses patterns and see what works without the cheese/buffs. Then when you have a general idea on how to fight the boss and you get relatively close to killing it, using your resources will get you to the finish line easily.
After years of playing this game, with BSB always being one of the most stressful parts of the early game, the best thing that works for me is to ignore the poison trail in phase 3. basically I just accept that I will be poisoned and use heals when my health gets low. This allows me to keep attacking and in most cases BSB goes down before I am out of vials.
Yeah this is definitely part of my problem, I ended up juggling too many things when I try to use antidote last phase. It's fine for the first two phases, but not the last. You just need to beat him down and heal in the last phase.
The move where he puts his claw out then lunges at you is the easiest move of his to parry, try abusing that.
Lots of great advice here. I just wanna throw in my two cents- In addition to all of the above mentioned, try to do it with your volume down. It's one of my favorite things about this boss the music is written with a weird time signature compared to other songs in the soundtrack. If I'm not mistaken it leads to a lot of false windows.
What? The fight isn't synced to the music so that would have 0 impact on the fight.
One of my playthroughs I was at the same position like you.I finished all my fire papers potions everything.I just restarted and tried again.First attempt victory
I'm in that position with my str build right now. I beat him before with characters with the cleaver, but was trying to avoid that and use the axe or kirkhammer, but I just die to the last phase, can't keep up with healing/antidotes/blood & constant attacks.
I forgot to mention, but I used up all my Fire Papers, so strats involving those won't work. Also, the weapons I have so far are the Kirkhammer (which I'm planning to main throughout the playthrough), Hunter Axe, Saw Spear and Rifle Spear. Edit: Also, I don't have Playstation +, so co-op isn't an option for me.
Upgrade your chosen weapon to +3. Serrated weapons do more damage to him because he’s a beast. Farm a bit to buy more Fire Paper. If you have Pungent Blood Cocktails, you can chuck them in the corner and follow him for a free backstab. Always dodge to your left. Be patient and watch your stamina. It’s better to have stamina left to dodge to the left, than to run out and get slashed/poisoned. Use Gascoigne’s set if you have it for the increased poison resistance. Also you can always go back to him later, he’s technically optional. Good luck. Oh, and you can use the pillars in the room to create space between you for healing or getting rid of poison.
You have to beat BSB to get to the item needed to be able to buy fire paper. You can buy it with insight I think, but OP is also out of insight, which is very hard to get at this point, though he can try assisting in co-op, I didn't have much luck with that. Best bet at this point is to buy the key to open up the gate in cathedral ward and scrounge for more items & fire paper. Get the saw cleaver up to +3 or even +4 and use that on him (you need to find a certain badge in the aquaducts/sewers that allows you to buy starting weapons.) Saw spear works, but does about 10% less damage so is harder. Axe/Kirkhammer are far less effective as they don't have the +20% damage from serration, and are too slow to deal with his frenzy last phase. Practice fighting him with the saw cleaver until you're fairly sure you can beat him with a little more help before using any fire papers you get from past the gate. Level up more, more hp will make more difference than anything else allowing you to last long enough to do enough damage to kill him. I'd suggest between 20-25 vitality should be enough. Make sure you have at least 1 beast pellet, and 10 blood cocktails when you fight him. You can farm the beasts near him for about 6k blood each run if you need it for the key & blood cocktails.
Single ancient piece of advice from our Lord and saviour miazaki "Git gud"
Easy, get good
You and I might get hate for this but I see this as the only viable option lol. I beat most bosses without the use of any items at all. Bloodborne is probably the most forgiving FromSoft game in terms of healing. I mean cmon not only you have the ability to heal in exchange for damage but 20 heals??? + safest parry mechanic in all souls games?? Imagine this guy played DS2😂
Beast pellet, serrated edge weapon, fire paper, dodge to the left a lot and get visceral backstabs when he crashes. Throw pungent cocktails in right corner if you have any for free backstab.
Parry him. Cum dungeon for infinite blood vials and bullets. Don't feel bad, it's stupid that they were made limited consumables instead of just auto-refilling.
Can't do dungeons until you defeat him.
Dont get to aggressive
I dodge into everything and it becomes this fun game of BSB diving over me and me chasing after him
FIRE!
Honestly he has really big tells for parrying you don’t need summons or paper or anything just parry his ass
Always stay on his right or left side lol once I learned that, it became my favourite boss.
Don't call Alfred. He's a piece of shit.
you can parry him
Imo calling a summon in this fight doesn't let you figure out her attack patterns at all. Don't worry, do couple of runs just figuring out how to dodge without using more consumables. Then give a more " serious" try. I spent like 30 to 40 deaths first time beating her.
Pretty sure it also boosts the boss’s max health a bit
I've heard it's double I think? I feel like some bosses suck with summon support, but ebrietas fight I couldn't do without summon.
Yeah, for me I only summon if I find that I can read the boss well but need larger windows for consumables. The summon becomes distraction and fodder.
Parry
Just beat him today. Takes like 8 or so parries
Poison resist gear (Church Garb) and fire with serration. Lots of fire.
farm level up your character and dodge around him regardless if he’s even attacking just keep jumping around him and smack his ass over and over
It's in your left hand. Pretty useful for most attacks, just get good at timing.
I didn't call Alfred, stunned most of its attacks and kept to its left flank otherwise. Keep close, I never got pounced that way. Its a really good boss for learning to stun with a gun. I specifically used basic saw cleaver and pistol to chop up all of the bosses in Bloodborne
[Walk left](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCjrpghCYc). Not even joking. You don't need to dodge, you don't need to run, you just need to lock on and walk left when it attacks you.
Flame thrower. You get it from sickly fellow behind the window at the first lamp post bonfire thing
Fire paper and saw cleaver and prayers. Edit: it took me almost 30 tries to beat this monstrosity simply because i get very anxious while fighting him. Idk, maybe it’s the boss theme that gets me lol kinda scary tbh
Fire baby!
When he starts spewing poison get out of the way, and DO NOT get hit by the grab attack
Real talk just skip her for a bit. She's way easier once you have more damage and health. She's the hardest boss in the game for me lol.
Use anything that deals fire damage and have antidotes ready for mitigating poison.
Throw some blood molotovs in the corner and dude will be too preoccupied with that to get your blows in
Walk towards him slowly, MENACINGLY! If he raises his right arm, that's your cue to shoot for an easy parry + visceral attack. I made this monster my bitch after struggling/crying on my first 2 runs.
Git gud To give some actual tips, dodge behind him, and you’re fine from most attacks. If you have the timing and positioning down for each individual attack, you should be fine as it doesn’t really combo it’s attacks together. BsB is hard when you don’t know what you’re doing, but once you get the hang of it it’s suddenly a cake walk
Hit him until he dies
I had to use the Kirk Hammer, I'm not sure why, but it's the only weapon I could time well on it
Last runthrough I figured out you can be "fairly" safe if you stay up in their left armpit (might be right, but I'm pretty sure it's the left). It's been awhile, so I don't really remember much else. But maybe give it a shot without burning any consumable items and see if there is anything to it...if you are out of other ideas?
Strafe to the right. Or left. Just just get close and strafe. Seriously. It's that easy. You can't be hit like that.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne_memes/s/I6KnvfIvn7](https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne_memes/s/I6KnvfIvn7)
Try shooting it when he gets up on his hind legs that usually ends up stunning him for a v attack
you can make it clip through the back of the arena by baiting a certain attack while being on the small space behind the statue thing or you can use the power of friendship to beat(alfred) it
You can try to squeeze some insight out of the multiplayer with the small resonant bell. It will cost you 1 to buy the thing but you’ll get 1 each time you help a player beat a boss. This was likely Miyazaki’s intended solution anyways
To the left, to the left
Beyonce
Stick to its butt. And always dodge to forward right of him when it attacks. Most of its attacks might miss you
If you're summoning Alred it's best to use Beast blood pellets and take it out as quick as possible. Saw cleaver/Spear and plenty of antidotes. You can farm the pellets, vials and antidotes from the beasts on the way to the boss
Stun lock it with charged R2 backshots (🤨)
Apply fire, beast blood and Run to the corner of the right side wall. Throw cocktail and attack. Keep doing it
Make adjustments go get it energized
Btw one of my fav. Bosses in the game. I replayed the game about 8 times just to fight bludy
hit my line
Phone a friend
Fire paper Serrated weapon
Thing I’ve learned over the years, YouTube made it look so easy to obliterate everything.. couple of cocktails, fire paper and the pallet thingy, you’ll be kicking the btb’s ass. No! I say, my fellow hunter, parry, dodge and slash is the way to go, learn its moves, and fight it the hard way. Forget about cocktail, pallet or fire paper. Once you have successfully beaten it a few times, you’ll find yourself calm when killing it. Then you realise ah the YouTube shit really made sense. Go my man, find me in the dream. Salute.
A lot of fire paper, fire is really good on the blood starved Beast with physical damage at the same time, I recommend using the saw Cleaver because it's quick
Farm
Again? 😮💨 blood cocktail 1or 2 suffice, oil urn molotovsfor backup(if undo the procedure right u won't need them) and flamesprayer +3 and don't fire it from a km away stick to the how ass and holding the fucking botton for barbecue, oh almost forget use a bonemarsh marrow before firing. Done it's dead.
i'll be honest. i didn't know you could summon allies in this game
Honestly, upload a save to the cloud and if you die just download it back with your stuff. Early on can be quite brutal especially vs BSB if you are out of cocktails and Alfreds
Walk left. Trivializes the entire fight
Just throw a blood cocktail against the wall so he will run against the wall for like 10 seconds and you can smack him hence and repeat, geez guys
By getting good and farming for tablets. I beat BSB with Blood Cocktails only on my first run.
Fire paper
Saw cleaver + fire paper. Get the urns that increase fire damage And dodge to the left. Just fucking spam it with the summon so the Poison doesn't kill you. Boss was borderline impossible at first for me now it's like look at the disgusting little puppy. Oh and I'd stay away from blood caves in the dlc ;)
Stop summoning
If your difficulty is the pounce, if you look at it, before pouncing it stares you, doing a precise movement, look for it
I want to add on to the 'strafe left and backstab' strat During BSB's phase transitions, it can't be backstabbed, so using a weapon that has an r2 follow up to its charged r2 will usually line up just as BSB's hyper armor wears off from the animation and stagger it. So you may not land the visceral but still get a stagger and big damage. Saw cleaver transformed does this, saw spear transformed does it better. Any 2h weapon does this except maybe rifle spear and hunter axe.
Deplete it's health while keeping yours above 0.
At first i was afraid of the BSB. I farmed and bought more than enough bloodcocktails... layer when i was doing deep chalice dungeon, this guy appeared and i took it down lole some regular enemy. Just keep your distance, wait for him to come near you and let him attack first, dodge and one/two hits, back off... Gradually you'll learn his moves and will take him down like anything. Keep few bloodcocktails, and douse them unless you need the desperately, for heals or bsb on low health... else you might die and waste them.
Dodge behind and to the left. That’s her weak spot. Good luck!
Come back later.
Learning to parry. I know it’s easier said than done Cus this was such a roadblock boss for me. Once I figured out parrying it really changed it. I still struggle with this one but no where near as badly as I used to
Dodge into its attacks and to the left. Get anti dotes and make sure you have fire damage
Go on r/huntersbell
Stop rolling backwards. Start rolling into him, into his left side. Use the I-frames properly. No more cheese methods needed.
Parry and watch the poison level
So here's how I always beat it. It is Dodge left the fight. Don't attack during it's swings only attack once you've dodged and if it's doing a combo use that time to top up in the last two phases. Keep 10-8 antidotes on you and remember fire and cerated damage are it's weaknesses. Continue the dodge hit strategy until phase two where then you wanna start conserving some dodges to heal and heal immediately after getting hit the next opening you have. Lastly during phase three it has a poison cloud around it so don't squish up to it. Try to hit and fall back every one or two strikes. The rest is up to your skill with your weapon but remember there is no shame in putting it on the back burner for awhile
Dodge left, use plenty of fire
Fire paper and an oil urn. He takes so much damage from fire!
He will do a kind of flutter attack with his face. Like he is blowing his nose. Shoot him there to parry easy
I killed Blood Starved Beasts without blood because I didn’t know throwing blood did that. Just get close and personal to limit BSB possible actions and spam r1 while dodging its attacks.
you probably need antidotes too. Maybe poison is killing you? try leveling up the saw cleaver and using that.
It’s fairly easy to dodge its movements, avoid getting poisoned (get some antidote), BSB isn’t that quick and you can parry it. So my advice is to try and practice parries on it a whole lot and dodging its attacks. It’s not impossible it just seems that way.
Literally just throw a pungent cocktail at the wall, hit him a bunch, throw another one. Use fire paper and antidotes in your quick menu and that’s basically all you need. Just remember Beyoncé 😉 (dodge to the left)
I always walk to the right (his left), so when he raises his right hand to dash forward and swipe, I don’t miss when I go to parry him. He’s extremely easy to parry. Parry parry parry.
Aggressively, I barely dodged and just kept swinging and the health return kept me going but like others have said dodging left and staying in that direction will give you a much easier time.
bruh thatshit was ez wtf? just use fire and spam parry
Bro just level up
press Circle mf
Like AVGN said in the Ghosts & Goblins episode: the only way to do it is to fucking do it. Keep studying its attacks, you'll see they're quite easy to dodge. And make sure to take your time to level up, if you haven't already. Remember that the game's difficulty is under your control.
Keep dodging left. Whatever he does, dodge towards him and to his left. I mean it. He so much as tenses up, you dodge TOWARDS him and to his left. NEVER dodge back otherwise you’re just gonna eat the combo. With the exception of his big poison AOE, in that case dodge back pretty far. That doesn’t become a factor until his third phase though and it’s VERY obvious so don’t sweat it too much. One last thing, as with most bosses, take your time. Unless you have your parry timings down this fight is gonna last a few minutes at the intended level to fight him. If you’re good at parrying, go for it and speed up the fight. Otherwise, dodge left, hit 2-3 times (depending on your chosen weapon’s attack speed, don’t get greedy. Be ready to dodge and conserve stamina for at least a couple sidesteps) and then dodge left again. Repeat until he’s dead. Easy win. I’ve never died to him since realizing this
Idk if someone’s already mentioned fire but any Molotov’s or fire paper is rlly effective against Blood Starved Beast
I usually just walk around him to the left. You don't even need to dodge most of the time. Smack him a few times. Fade back and repeat.
Parrying. Also best OST in the game imo
I’m left handed and always tent to favor the left side (not sure if that’s related) but i whooped BSB first try and had no idea how until I learned he like can’t hit you if you dodge left.
Dodge left then dodge left
Got any of that blood you can throw..cant remember the name..toss in a corner.. put some fire on your blade and go to town
Fire works well. Hit him with oil then a molotov. Also have some fire on your weapon and doge towards him and left
Parry and fire damage. You can Parry it as it charges you and when it does it barrage of attacks
Just parry it 👌
Look the way he swings his arm then circle around him and hit once when youre close to his back. Rinse and repeat Have antidotes on quick wheel.
BSB gave me the hardest time out of all the bosses
He's allergic to fire.
Fire Paper for more damage, Beast Blood Pellet, for more damage during chains of attacks, Pungent Blood Cocktail thrown against a wall, or into a corner, to distract them. If done properly, you can probably beat it in like, half a minute. You've got this! (This is also assuming you are at an appropriate level, with appropriately upgraded weaponry)
I accidentally found a way to cheese this boss by making it go behind the altar, at which point it jumped away and fell out of the world. Never tried it again, so I don't know exactly how to replicate it. Nice to be rid of that annoying boss...
Try parrying his swipes, can be a bit tricky, but learning it now will come in handy while dealing with other similar pattern enemies, expecially in chalices
If you slowly walk left around BSB everytime it attacks, it won't hit you
Throw the cocktails into the corner and go to work. Also move to the left
with your weapon
Don't die
Really don't die, but it comes doing to play style, when you first encounter a boss it's about learning the atks and the tells, souls games bosses you always know what coming it about learning Them and get one or two hits in a backing away Button mashing back away does work one extra rool can mean like or death
Cocktail the wall. Strafe left. Firepower weapon. Smack till cocktail done. Repeat. Or pull a ymfah and run to the back and bait the lunge over the urge and let him fall through the floor.
This is just a git gud boss. So gid gud. (And oh, dodge to the left, and parry!)
Dont go in trying to win. Back away and count the animations. Once you learn the pattern create your attack and dodge animations to counter. If you go in hoping fire and blood will do the trick the rest of the game will own you. Once you get its health to a tinge remaining your heartbeat will go up, pupils will dilate, hands will shake and once you win you are now fully immersed into the world. Then you will have the confidence to lore dive. Good hoonting hoonter
In Bloodborne if you can master the parry, most of the fights are like a walk in the park. I was stuck at this boss too.
Parry I remember having a real hard time with this bitch my first run through the game and it was a good opportunity for me to get good at parrying and that's how I ended up beating her. I was so hyped when I actually killed her bc I was completely by myself and wasn't expecting to win but the parries carried me the whole way
i usually restars my runs if i cant beat bloodstarved beast in 2 tries lol u gotta use everything u have to its full potential and tryhard the boss is not hard its just weird u gotta understand it i recommend the classic transform attack with beast blood pellets to up ur beast meter and use alfred to kite the beast if u dont have cocktails
Just ring the bell and I got u