Bloodborne Blood Rock Guide: All Locations, Chalice Glyphs, and +10 Upgrade Tips

Why the Bloodborne Blood Rock Is the Game's Rarest Upgrade Material

Your weapon is stuck at +9, the boss is at 10% health, and the only thing standing between you and a finished build is one glowing chunk of crystallized blood. A Bloodborne blood rock is the single material that pushes a trick weapon from +9 to +10, and the game hands them out with a stinginess that still surprises veteran Souls players. This guide covers every confirmed Bloodborne blood rock location — story route, DLC, Insight shop, and Chalice Dungeon — plus the farming math, so you never waste one on the wrong weapon.

Bloodborne's upgrade economy is deliberately tight. You will finish a first playthrough with enough Blood Stone Chunks for maybe three +9 weapons and only a couple of rocks to spend. Knowing exactly where they are, and which ones are renewable, changes how you plan a build.

The Full +10 Path: What You Need Before a Rock Matters

A Blood Rock is useless until a weapon is already at +9. New players often grab one early and then discover they are still dozens of Blood Stone Chunks away from using it. Here is the complete upgrade ladder so you can budget materials properly.

The Chunk wall is the real bottleneck, not the rock. Depth 4 and 5 Chalice Dungeons, the Forbidden Woods, and late-game areas are the best Chunk sources, and most bosses in Depth 5 dungeons drop them reliably. Stockpile chunks first, then decide where your rock goes.

Every Bloodborne Blood Rock Location, Ranked by Effort

There are four categories of source in the current version of the game. Each one has a different risk and time cost.

Nightmare of Mensis: The Safest Guaranteed Rock

This is the one rock every player can get without touching the DLC or the chalices. The trick is to drop the Brain of Mensis before you go hunting for the item, because its gaze inflicts Frenzy across the entire zone.

Two prep tips matter here. First, spend your Insight at the shop before you go — carrying a large Insight total makes Frenzy build faster, so banking it in the Dream is strictly better than losing it to a Winter Lantern. Second, equip your best Frenzy-resistant attire and any relevant Caryll rune. Community reports consistently name this the lowest-risk route to a guaranteed rock.

Pulling the lever also drops the Brain of Mensis into the abyss, where you can perform the Make Contact gesture for the Tier 3 Moon rune and pick up the Living String needed for the Great Pthumeru Ihyll Chalice. Some players report you can still earn the Moon rune after killing the Brain outright by standing in the right spot, but that is player experience, not a guaranteed mechanic — do the gesture first if the rune matters to you.

Fishing Hamlet: The Old Hunters Pickup

From the Lighthouse Hut lamp, take the elevator down toward the boss arena and head into the large room opposite the tunnel watched by two Winter Lanterns. Push through the snail women to the far side and the rock is sitting there in the open. It is a longer walk than the Mensis route but far less punishing, and it is the only DLC rock in the game.

Insight Bath Messenger: 60 Insight, No Combat

Once Mergo's Wet Nurse is dead, the Insight Bath Messenger in the Hunter's Dream stocks a Blood Rock for 60 Insight. That is expensive, but Insight accumulates passively from boss kills, Madman's Knowledge, and co-op. A dedicated farming loop in a short, easy Chalice Dungeon can produce a rock every couple of hours — slow, but fully offline and repeatable within a single playthrough.

Bloodborne Blood Rock Farming in Chalice Dungeons

High-level root chalices are the only semi-repeatable source. The rules are specific and worth memorizing before you grind.

• One Blood Rock is available per chalice type: Pthumeru, Loran, and Isz. Hintertomb does not count.
• Once you have taken the rock from a given chalice type, further rocks in that type are replaced by Great One's Wisdom.
• That limitation does not reset when you enter NG+.
• Depth 5 dungeon bosses, including final bosses of root chalices, have a low chance to drop a rock outright.
• Higher Discovery improves your odds. Level Arcane or slot Eye runes before farming.

Community-Shared Glyphs Worth Trying

The following codes come from player experience on the Bloodborne wiki and community boards. Glyphs require an internet connection to search, and you generally need the matching root chalice and rites unlocked on your own save before you can enter.

Because dungeon servers and glyph availability shift over time, treat every code as "worth a try" rather than gospel. If a glyph fails to load, look for a more recent share.

Which Weapon Deserves Your First Blood Rock?

Because rocks are so scarce, the choice matters more than the upgrade itself. Use this priority list as a starting point.

Scaling matters too. A +10 weapon gains roughly 10% more base damage over +9, but the bigger jump is in scaling letter grades on certain weapons. Check the stat screen before committing, and check the official PlayStation Bloodborne page for the base game overview if you are returning after a long break.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Blood Rocks are in Bloodborne? There are two guaranteed pickups per playthrough — one in the Nightmare of Mensis and one in the Fishing Hamlet with the DLC — plus one purchasable Bloodborne blood rock for 60 Insight after Mergo's Wet Nurse, and one per chalice type in Depth 5 dungeons.

Do Blood Rocks respawn in New Game Plus? Story and DLC pickups reset in a new cycle, so you can collect them again. The chalice dungeon limit does not reset, per the wiki, though community reports occasionally claim otherwise. Plan on roughly three to four rocks per full cycle.

Can I farm a Bloodborne blood rock offline? Yes, but slowly. Run a short Depth 5 dungeon you have already cleared for Insight, kill bosses with high Discovery, and buy rocks from the Insight Bath Messenger at 60 each. Expect a couple of hours per rock.

What happens if I use a Blood Rock on the wrong weapon? Nothing permanent — the upgrade stays on that weapon. The cost is opportunity, since the rock is gone. Save before committing if you are unsure, or check the weapon's scaling at +10 on a wiki before spending.