Bloodborne Combat: Understanding Stats, Attributes and Status Effects

Stats in Bloodborne go a long way in determine what kind of a character you have, their strengths & weaknesses, and what kind of equipment you can use. Much like in Dark Souls, there is a huge list of offense, defensive, and utility stats that govern the performance of your character in the game.

For more help on Bloodborne, read our Weapons Locations Guide, Beginner’s Guide and Characters Origins Guide.

Understanding Stats, Attributes and Status Effects

Understanding these stats is extremely important, because they allow you to determine what weapons suit you best, how you will build your character, and where your deficiencies lie.

General Attributes

Primary Stats

Level
The level of your character is determined by the number of points you have invested in your various attributes.

Blood Echoes
Blood Echoes is the currency of the game, and is obtained by killing enemies. It is lost whenever you die, but can be retained from the same spot after resurrection. Note that some enemies (with glowing red eyes) will actually attempt to take your Blood Echoes away after you die, so it is best to attempt to regain them quickly.

Strength
Strength is the primary stat for physical damage in Bloodborne. It will also determine the scaling of damage with certain weapons in the game. Strength soft-caps at 25 and hard-caps at 50.

Vitality
Vitality is the only stat in Bloodborne that determines the amount of HP you have. It also plays an important role in determining your Physical defense. Vitality soft-caps at 30 and hard-caps at 50.

Endurance
Endurance determines your resistances (including physical) and is the only attribute that governs the amount of Stamina you have. Endurance cap is 40.

Skill
Skill is analogous to Dexterity from the Dark Souls games, and determines the nuanced physical attack from your weapons. Certain weapons will scale their damage based on your Skill level. Skill soft-caps at 25, and hard-caps at 50.

Arcane
The Arcane stat governs the power of Arcane-associated attacks from weapons and other items. Certain weapons’ damages scale according to the value of your Arcane attribute. Arcane soft-caps at 25, and hard-caps at 50.

Bloodtinge
Bloodtinge is a stat that is closely tied to Firearms and a few Trick Weapons. Certain weapon scale (mostly Firearms) according to the value of your Bloodtinge attribute. Bloodtinge soft-caps at 25, and hard-caps at 50.

Derived Stats

HP (Hit Points)
Unlike in Dark Souls, only Vitality determines the amount of Hit Points your character will have.

Discovery
Discovery is basically the drop-rate of items from enemies. The higher the number, the more frequently enemies will drop items.

Stamina
Stamina is directly tied to the Endurance stat, and determines the amount of how frequently you can dodge, sprint, and attack.

Combat Attributes

Offensive Weapon Stats

Physical ATK
Determines the output of all attacks associated with Strength and Skill attributes.

Blood ATK
Determines the damage of all attacks associated with the Bloodtinge attribute.

Arcane ATK
Determines the damage of all attacks associated with the Arcane attribute.

Fire ATK
Determines the amount of fire damage you carry out, which is closely tied to the weapon type and Blood Gem in it. Somewhat tied to Arcane attribute.

Bolt ATK
Determines the amount of bolt (lightning) damage you carry out, which is closely tied to the weapon type and Blood Gem in it. Somewhat tied to Arcane attribute.

QS Bullet Use
Determines the amount of Quick Silver Bullets used in a single shot by your firearm.

Defensive Stats

Physical Defense
Physical Defense determines the amount of resistance you have to incoming physical attacks. The value of Physical Defense is generally the value of the amount of damage reduced of an incoming attack.

It is strictly tied to Endurance and Vitality.

Slow Poison Resistance
Slow Poison Resistance increases your resistance to slow poison. It will take more slow-poison inducing attacks to trigger the effect if you have a large resistance. It is directly tied to Endurance.

Rapid Poison Resistance
Rapid Poison Resistance increases your resistance to rapid poisoning. It will take more rapid poison inducing attacks to trigger the effect if you have a large resistance. It is directly tied to Endurance.

Frenzy Resistance
Frenzy resistance will increase the number of frenzy inducing attacks required to trigger the effect on a character. It is directly tied to Endurance.

Beasthood
Beasthood is a mysterious attribute; the higher the amount, the more likely you are to enter beasthood when transformed. Currently, this mechanic appears to be disabled. Beasthood can be gained by using the Beast Blood Pellet.

Status Effects

Slow Poison
Slow Poison works in the conventional way that any poison status effect would work.

The poison effect lasts for a certain limited amount of time, depending heavily on the attacks that are causing the poison. This type of poisoning can actually be stacked to last for a longer time.

Poison can generally be cured by an Antidote, and its maximum lasting time is 30 seconds.

Note that resistances will greatly reduce both the time of the poison as well as the number of attacks it takes to build up your poisoning. Characters will lower Slow Poison defense will get poisoned easily in one or two hits, while those with higher will need more hits to get affected.

Rapid Poison
Rapid Poisoning is a nastier form of Slow Poison, and is very similar to the ‘Toxic’ status effect in Dark Souls.

Unlike Toxic however, this form of poisoning can actually be treated with Antidotes, but it takes away your health very quickly. Typically, a Rapid Poisoning effect lasts around 15 seconds.

Characters with high Rapid Poisoning defense will usually need more hits to get affected from Rapid poisoning than those with low resistance.

Frenzy
Frenzy seems to be a strange mechanic with a bit of uncertainty as to how it works. Frenzy seems to be very similar to Curse from the Dark Souls games, except that it takes affect much more abruptly and can cause your HP to go down all the way to 1.

Like the Curse status effect, Frenzy is usually avoidable if you have a large amount of Frenzy Resistance.

Transformed
Tranformed is a status effect closely tied to Beasthood. Once it is filled up, it is expected that the enigmatic Beasthood mode would be activated once it is enabled in the game.