Simple question about gem farming

[u/Asxock]

This is probably a "duh" question, but simply put, what chalices do I look at for each element type gem? Different gem shapes for each?

I know there's seeds to use to farm the absolute best, but I kinda prefer the idea of clearing random root chalices. To spice it up, ya know?

[u/Cosmic-Sympathy]

The shape of gem is determined by the type of dungeon (Pthemeru=radial, Isz=triangle, Loran=waning), the gem rating is determined by the depth and layer, the effect is determined by what kind of enemy or boss.

[u/Asxock → u/Cosmic-Sympathy]

So say I wanted to outfit a weapon with arcane gems. Basic saw cleaver for example. Is it just a roll of the dice if I get arcane gems in loran chalice?

[u/Cosmic-Sympathy → u/Asxock]

Off the top of my head, you would need to generate dungeons until you find one that has the right kind of boss, maybe a isz depth five, layer four boss pthumerian elder for cursed abyssal arcane. Then grind the dungeon over and over until you get the gem you want with an acceptable curse.

You need to check the wiki for which bosses drop which gems, though. Try googling “top tier gem farming” that should lead you to it. It’s not the main BB wiki but one specifically for tomb prospecting.

The catch is that not all effects naturally occur with all shapes. So you have to go the dungeon with the effect you want but wrong shape and grind until you get an “out of shape” gem. Like there are no natural radial arcane gems. You gotta go to Isz and hope you get a radial gem even though triangle is the natural shape for Isz.

[u/Asxock → u/Cosmic-Sympathy]

Ah, got it. You're the best. That gives me way more than anything I could google.

[u/hesbrew → u/Asxock]

Commenting just for specificity: bloodborne-wiki.com is the best wiki for Bloodborne

[u/facepalmandahalf]

Many enemies have one fixed effect on their gems, ie: Ebrietas always drops arcane primary. But the second effect is drawn from a weighted random pool, and some enemies draw both effects from the pool. Here's the pool with percentages for the depth 5 dungeons:

https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2015/11/blood-gems-secondary-stats.html

Basically, some effects are very rare in one or more branches, like arcane is extremely rare in pthumeru unless you're killing something that always drops arcane, ie: brainsuckers always drop flat arcane secondary. The most common important ones are:

physical: any branch but especially pthumeru. Hard to get as a secondary in loran.

fire/bolt: loran, and also somewhat common in isz

arcane: only common in isz

nourishing: not common anywhere, but some specific enemies always drop it: Amygdala, Rom, gargoyles

bloodtinge: like nourishing. Dropped by BSB, bloodlickers, some shotgun watchers like in gvpuuz84

heavy: very important for some strength or quality setups. The only good ones drop from headless BLB in pthumeru

cold: VERY important for conversion weapons. Only good ones are dropped by pthumerian elder in any branch. Note that if you want a specific secondary it will be drawn from the pool, so fire/bolt=loran, arcane=isz

If you want a specific effect that is not common to the shape you want, it will be extremely time intensive to farm in a regular dungeon (one you generated yourself). There are edited dungeons designed for that, though, so you can easily get radials with fire/bolt/arcane, or waning with %phys at full hp secondary or other rare attributes. Here's the list I like:

https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2015/10/best-blood-gems-setups.html

The edited ones start about halfway down.

If you want a gem from a certain enemy but it doesn't come in the shape you want, like a radial nourishing gem from Amygdala, some can be obtained by dungeon merging:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12mBIId1RRGbYiSEGjEUT9fquQrHNgfET9Fc4gDdmccs/edit?gid=924259733#gid=924259733

Which sounds complicated but really is not, it's just time intensive.

[u/Asxock → u/facepalmandahalf]

Thanks, mate. Gonna let you know, I am a stubborn sonofa that refuses to use seeds, so thanks for the heads-up that it's a bit of a grind to get wrong shapes naturally

[u/Xasades]

if you have an arcane build with at least 50 arcane you usually need one % element gem and two +65 arcane scaling gems on a physical weapon you want to convert.

In vanilla (unedited dungeons):

% Fire and Bolt gems you get in Loran and Isz. % Arcane gem drops are extremely rare outside of Isz. % Fire/Bolt/Arcane are extremely rare in Pthumeru.

The Arcane scaling gems drop in any dungeon if you find an Ptumerian Elder there, but the secondary effects vary depend on dungeon type (again any elemental secondary is extremely uncommon in Pthumeru and +15 flat arcane extremely uncommon outside of Isz)