To progress in Bloodborne, you need to adapt to your situation, and one of the best ways to do that is to use gems, more specifically blood gems, special items that slot into your weapons to make them more powerful. Each weapon has three sockets, which unlock progressively at weapon levels three, six, and ten. For more versatility, there are multiple types of gems, with varying effects, and even curses. Some gems are better than others, so this article will compile some of the most effective gems based on their bonuses, and degree of curses. This also means that this list will show the locations of the best version of each gem (lower-level gem locations can be found in the wiki)

10. Striking Blood Gems

Striking blood gems are a great tool for any hunter, seeing as they boost charge attacks, up to a maximum of 7%. The use of these gems shows itself whenever you need to sneak up to an enemy and charge-attack it from behind, or when you are using weapons that rely on charged attacks, like the Boom Hammer or the Stake Driver Since it is to the back, normal attacks have increased damage, but the Striking gem increases it further, allowing you to nearly one-shot anything that you attack in this manner. They are dropped by Executioners in Cathedral Ward and Beast Patient in Old Yharnam.

Striking blood gems are great for:

• Increasing charged attack damage
• Boosting backstab damage

9. Pulsing Blood Gems

A neat gem bonus, the Pulsing effect adds continuous HP recovery, more specifically shown as a value per 3 seconds. This effect stacks, allowing you to gain up to +20 HP per 3 seconds, which equals roughly 1000 HP every 2.5 minutes. Most of these gems are found in the Chalice Dungeons and very rarely in the base game. In the base game, they are dropped by Silverbeasts in the Nightmare Frontier, and in the Chalices, they are dropped by the Beast-Possessed Soul and Beast Claw Hunters. Some players like to use these gems as a way to preserve Blood Vials and regenerate HP between areas.

Pulsing blood gems are great for:

• Having a continuous gain of HP
• Getting saved at the last second before dying
• Lowering the need for Blood Vials

8. Beasthunter/Kinhunter Blood Gems

Onward! Here we have gems that cater specifically to damage one type of enemy. Most of the enemies in the game are either a beast or kin, with some stragglers in between. Beasthunter gems give you a massive bonus against beasts (up to 31.5%) and coupled with a Serrated weapon and Fire Paper, you can have a weapon that will absolutely destroy any beast you come across. Kinhunter gems are slightly less powerful because you don’t have hidden bonuses against kin on weapons, but nonetheless, you can get a boost of up to 26.7% against kin.

Beasthunter/Kinhunter blood gems are great for:

• Bonus damage against Kin
• Bonus damage against Beasts
• Beasthunter gems can go great with Serrated weapons and Fire Paper

7. Poison Blood Gems

Poison gems are very handy in certain situations where you need to whittle down the health of an enemy, instead of relying for raw damage output. The game has two types of Poison gems: Rapid and Slow. Slow applies a debuff after a certain number of hits, after which it drains HP progressively. Rapid Poison, on the other hand, triggers the same way as Slow Poison, but instead of slowly draining HP, it takes away a chunk of it… rapidly (shocker). 

Poison blood gems are great for:

• Killing enemies slowly
• Rapidly poisoning some specific enemies weak to it (Mergo’s Wet Nurse)
• Utilizing an aggressive playstyle

6. Scaling Blood Gems

Now we come to gems that increase the scaling of a certain stat (Heavy, Sharp, Warm, Cold). Scaling refers to the letter (E, D, C, B, A, S) which is present with each weapon/sidearm/tool. These gems increase those letters, so a Sharp gem +12 would increase the Skill scaling of a weapon from B to A, if that makes sense. Sharp gems increase Skill scaling, Heavy gems increase Strength scaling, Warm gems increase Bloodtinge scaling, and Cold gems increase Arcane scaling. Generally speaking, these gems are great for a hunter who wants to squeeze a bit more damage out of their favorite weapon. 

Scaling blood gems are great for:

• Providing variety to builds
• Increasing the damage output of a specific weapon
• Creating quality weapons 

5. Nourishing Blood Gems

Nourishing gems provide a solid damage boost to any damage your weapon deals. Some gems are better for Arcane builds, some for Skill, but Nourishing gems increase damage regardless of what you are trying to run. They are most effective on weapons with split damage types such as the Tonitrus, Holy Moonlight Sword, Boom Hammer, etc. Bonuses from these gems can get up to 15%.

Nourishing blood gems are great for:

• Increasing overall damage output
• Boosting weapons with mixed damage types

4. Poorman’s Blood Gems

Sometimes you want to dish out as much damage as possible, and that is enabled by Poorman’s gems. If you are beneath 20% HP this gem will trigger, providing you with a bonus % to your physical damage. Assuming you are using the highest quality Poorman’s gems, each of them will give you a staggering 39.2% boost to physical damage. Yes, those are real numbers, and that is  awesome.

Poorman’s Blood Gems are great for:

• Attaining a ridiculous damage output
• More entertaining gameplay due to the risk factor
• Synergy with Beast Blood Pellets

3. Elemental Blood Gems

Alright, top three. Here we have blood gems that convert any physical damage your weapon deals to the listed damage on the gem. For example, you can have a Saw Cleaver with 200 damage. If you slot a +15% Fire gem into it, the 200 damage will be converted into Fire damage, and then the +15% will be applied. Because of how this works, gems like these are best used on Arcane builds, since the new elemental damage weapon will scale only with Arcane from then on. The types of elemental gems you have are Arcane, Bolt, and Fire. 

Elemental Blood Gems are great for:

• Arcane builds
• Adding Arcane scaling to weapons
• Using enemies’ weaknesses against them

2. Adept Blood Gems

Now, Adept blood gems have a duality to them. More clearly, they can either boost Blunt damage or Thrust damage. Which one you get is entirely random. There isn’t much more to them except that they are an excellent addition to any hunter’s arsenal. They are dropped by Executioners and Undead Giants.

Adept blood gems are great for:

• Focusing on a specific type of damage output
• Boosting already powerful weapons

1. Tempering Damp Blood Gems

For the final entry, we have Tempering blood gems. These are undoubtedly the best gems in the game, for the simple reason that each weapon has at least two radial slots, which these gems fit into. There isn’t any gimmick with these, however, since all they do is boost physical damage, and they do it nicely. The best Tempering gems are found in the Pthumeru Chalices.

Tempering blood gems are great for:

• Any build
• Boosting consistent damage output significantly
• Easing progression

There we go! Most of these gems can be found in the base game, but the best are found in the chalice dungeons, for sure. Chalice farming can be a pain, so you can utilize summoning friends, or just using glyphs to easily find community-sourced gems, as well as runes. I hope this list can give you some idea of how the confusing gem system works, and that it can help you in your playthrough in general. Happy hunting!

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