In Bloodborne, you will have to be self-sufficient as far as upgrading, maintaining, and infusing your weapons is concerned. This means there are no more cranky and half-crazed blacksmiths to deal with this time around from From Software.
All your maintenance and blacksmithing work is carried out in the Workshop, located in your hub area Hunter’s Dream. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the Workshop if you want to get the best out of your equipment.
For more help on Bloodborne, read our Weapons Locations Guide, Understanding Stats, Attributes, Status Effects and Character Class Guide.
Workshop Location
The Workshop is located in Hunter’s Dream near the fireplace. You should be able to spot it, as it is a large desk with various kinds of brutal weapons hanging around it.
Weapon Fortification
The primary thing you will be using your Workshop for is weapon fortification and repairing. Fortification is basically the upgrading of your weapon, and it works in a very similar way to how it was in Dark Souls.
In order to fortify a weapon, you will need a specific kind of stone.
The type of stone required varies from weapon to weapon and also the fortification level. Generally, most weapons can be fortified up to ten times (+10). However, there are some weapons that have only a specific amount of fortifications.
Like Titanite in Dark Souls, you will need a special stone to upgrade weapons in Bloodborne.
The stone in this is known as Bloodstone, and it comes in various forms: Bloodstone Shards, Twin Bloodstone Shards, Bloostone Chunks, and Blood Rock. These stones are acquired from various places and foes across the different areas in the game.
In addition to further strengthening you weapon according to the Weapon Scaling, Weapon Fortification also plays an important role in unlocking Blood Gem Imprints.
Blood Gem Imprints are basically ‘slots’ in which you can embed Blood Gems to give your weapon special effects. Each weapon has its own different kind of Imprints, and each weapon tier (Normal, Uncanny, Lost) also has its own kind of Imprints.
Fortifying a weapon to +1 unlocks the 1st, +3 the 2nd and +5 the 3rd Blood Gem Imprint (the 3rd varies with weapon). Fortifying a weapon also automatically repairs it, so you don’t need to spend anything extra on that.
Repair Weapons
The second basic function of the Workshop in Bloodborne is to repair your weapons.
All weapons in Bloodborne have a specific Durability rating. As you use your weapon, it will gradually degrade, and its durability will decrease. Once a weapon’s durability reaches zero, it breaks, rendering it useless until it is repaired in the shop.
For obvious reasons, the last thing you want in a game like Bloodborne is your weapon breaking while you fight a mob of beasts – or worse: a boss.
For this reason, it is important that you head to Hunter’s Dream whenever you have a lamp available to repair your equipment, even if have of the durability still remains. You’ll be surprised by how quickly a weapon actually degrades.
Note that repairing your weapon costs you Blood Echoes, so be sure to have some on you when you do go to the workshop.
Blood Gem Infusion
Blood Gem Infusion is also carried out in your Workshop, but this is not a default function.
Blood Gems can be infused into Imprints which are revealed as you fortify a weapon. Once you have your Blood Gem Imprints revealed and a few Blood Gems to use, you will need to figure out a way to infuse them into your weapon.
For this, you will need the all-important Blood Gem Workshop tool. This tool is found in Central Yharnam in a chest located immediately after the Byrgenwerth Spider message before a set of stairs going up.
Once you have acquired this item, you can bring it to the Workshop. You will then be able to upgrade your weapons by infusing available Blood Gems in them.
It is important to note that Blood Gems can actually be reused; they can be swapped out for others of similar type, and used in other weapons. This makes it usually worthwhile to use your best Blood Gem in a weapon that you might dispose of later on; just make sure you take out the Blood Gem when you do.
