A wonderful, chilling adventure gets an exhilarating conclusion. Bloodborne has the potential for two final boss fights, depending on your player choices and how many Umbilical Cord items you've consumed up until this point. Head back to the Hunter's Dream, enter the newly unlocked field of flowers, and chat with our good friend Gehrman to commence the final battle, ensuring that you've eaten down those tasty baby cords beforehand.
Enemy hunters have been a constant annoyance throughout the entire game, utilising their high mobility and incredibly powerful trick weapons to great effect at various points. They're often tougher than the bosses themselves, right? Well, Gehrman is the king of all hunter battles, so prepare your sidearm and get your dodging finger primed – this is going to be a rough ride.
Phase One
The ol' man will be two-handing a trick weapon that is not yet accessible – the Burial Blade. This scythe delivers devastating heavy blows with a decently quick moveset to match, making it difficult to deal with at times. Try to parry as much as possible here, taking advantage of his current lack of a long range option and his slower state in comparison to later on. Find a groove, shoot your bullets at the correct time, and chunk off his health points in short order. There's no rush at all, so play slowly and prioritise avoiding damage rather than dealing it at this point.
Phase Two
About a third of the way into this duel, Gehrman will lose his Burial Blade in favour of a sword and sidearm, which will sporadically switch between a pistol and blunderbuss depending on the situation at hand. He'll also begin to really get going, unleashing speedy combos that can drain almost your entire life in a second or two if not correctly avoided. This is where it pays to take risks, really, and hunters should aim to buff their blades with Bolt or Fire Paper and get up close, utilising quick sideways dodges and one-handed combos to mitigate damage and regain on the rest.
You can often dodge to the right of his combos, retaliate with one of your own, and then back off without being punished whatsoever once the timing is correct. The arena is big enough to make space between the two of you for Blood Vial usage, so feel very free to retreat and take a healing break whenever it feels necessary.
Phase Three
At just under 50 per cent, the battle will change dramatically. Use your knowledge of previous boss battles and try to put this off for as long as possible, whacking away at the First Hunter without reprieve as soon as you see him begin to glow. Once he's buffed, he'll swap back to the scythe, gain teleportation dashes, near-instant death shockwave attacks, and even more painful combos. He's also impossible to parry. Brilliant.
At this point, you need to be constantly on the defensive. Ensure that your health is topped off at all times to stop any one-shot kills, avoid his combos, and punish him heavily whenever he gets near you and misses. Try not to let this phase go on for too long, and plan to prevent it from triggering for as long as possible, because you'll certainly be chugging Blood Vials heavily at this point. If you have a good supply of bullets left at this point, the Cannon combined with Bone Marrow Ash can help to make this stage end a little sooner as a last resort.
Once all's said and done, Gehrman drops to you, rewarding you with 128,000 Blood Echoes, the ability to buy the Burial Blade from merchants, an Insight for discovery and another three for victory. Onwards to Bloodborne's final challenge.
This section will only trigger at all if you've consumed enough Third of Umbilical Cords beforehand, so if not you'll need to wait until New Game +. If you've eaten those baby parts, though, let's kill a Great One! Don't worry, if you die here as you won't need to repeat the previous fight, so feel very free to intentionally fall in order to fully top up on Blood Vials and bullets, because this foe is no pushover.
The Moon Presence primarily uses three strike melee combos to damage you, which – like most melee attacks from boss monsters – can be easily predicted and dodged with a few sidesteps. Aim to get behind it and let loose with two-handed attacks before backing off and repeating. You can do this for the entirety of the fight with two exceptions that make affairs tougher.
Problem #1: His area of effect blast. This instantly reduces hunter HP to 1, regardless of location. Luckily, after this the beast is staggered for an extended period of time, allowing you to pop off Blood Vials to replenish the damage or move in for the kill at high personal risk.
Problem #2: See those orbs that will occasionally be cast? They're numbing mists, completely disabling the ability to heal for a short period of time. If you manage to be struck by one, back away and stay away until the debuff fades.
After a few attempts, you should be done! 230,000 Blood Echoes and 10 Insight (five for discovery, five for victory) are your rewards. Congratulations hunter – you've escaped the nightmare and defeated Bloodborne! Chalice Dungeons and New Game + still await you, though, so there's enough to keep most players busy for a good long while. Look forward to the next hunt.
Have you finished Bloodborne yet? Do you think that it lived up to the hype? Let us know in the comments section below.
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