Bloodborne Upgrade Materials: Every Blood Stone, Chunk, and Blood Rock Explained

A +10 weapon hits dramatically harder than a +0 one, and the entire gap between those two numbers comes down to Bloodborne upgrade materials. Every shard, twin shard, chunk, and Blood Rock you pick up is permanent damage you carry into the next boss fight, which is why understanding Bloodborne upgrade materials matters more than almost any other piece of gear knowledge in the game. This guide covers the full upgrade ladder, the exact counts each weapon demands, and the fastest places to farm every tier.

The Blood Stone Ladder: From +1 to +10

Weapon fortification in Bloodborne runs on four tiers of Blood Stone, and each tier is gated behind progressively later content. You cannot skip a step — a weapon must pass through Twin Blood Stone Shards before it will accept a Chunk.

The first two tiers are generous. Shards and Twin Shards drop from ordinary enemies and sit in dozens of chests, so most players finish +6 without ever farming. Chunks and Rocks are the bottleneck, and that is where the real Bloodborne upgrade materials grind begins.

Exactly How Many Bloodborne Upgrade Materials You Need

Every weapon follows the same cost curve, and the totals are higher than most players expect on a first run.

So a single fully upgraded weapon consumes 16 of each Blood Stone type plus one Blood Rock. Community reporting on the Bloodborne wiki confirms that exact figure, and it is worth internalizing before you spend Chunks casually.

Because Chunks are scarce in the base game, pick two weapons — usually one main-hand and one backup or firearm-adjacent tool — and commit. Spreading Chunks across four weapons leaves all four stuck around +7.

Where to Farm Bloodborne Upgrade Materials

Farming routes change depending on which tier you are missing. The table below reflects standard routes that the community has refined over years of play; drop rates are probabilistic, so treat "player experience" figures as rough expectations rather than guarantees.

Two habits make any Bloodborne upgrade materials farm noticeably faster. First, stack Discovery through runes and gear before you start the loop — higher Discovery raises the odds of rare drops. Second, use Bold Hunter's Marks or simply die to reset an area instead of walking back, since respawns are what actually generate drops.

Depth 5 chalice dungeons deserve a special mention. Bosses there are the most reliable source of high-tier Chunks and Rocks in the entire game, and the gems they drop are often better than anything in the main campaign.

Blood Gems: The Upgrade Layer Nobody Counts

Blood Stone fortification is only half of a weapon's power. Once you pick up the Blood Gem Workshop Tool early in Central Yharnam, you can slot gems into a weapon's imprints and multiply its damage far beyond what a raw +10 provides.

Gem quality scales with chalice depth, so a depth 5 root chalice produces the strongest modifiers in the game. If your weapon is already +10 but feels weak, the missing piece is almost always gem quality rather than another Blood Stone.

Ritual Materials: The Other Half of the Category

The Materials category in Bloodborne covers two families. The first is fortification. The second is ritual components used to open Chalice Dungeons — and those dungeons are where the best Bloodborne upgrade materials actually live, so ritual farming pays for itself.

Higher ritual tiers only drop in dungeons at or near their own depth, so if you are hunting Bastard of Loran, run Loran, not Pthumeru. This is one of the most common mistakes players make when they stall out on chalice progression.

A Practical Upgrade Plan

Use this order of operations to avoid wasting scarce materials:

• Commit to two weapons by mid-game. One primary and one backup. Chunks are too limited for anything else on a first playthrough.
• Take your main weapon to +6 immediately. Twin Shards are abundant, and +6 carries you through most of the campaign comfortably.
• Hold Chunks until you have 16. Dumping three Chunks into four different weapons leaves everything mediocre.
• Save your Blood Rock for the weapon you actually use in boss fights, not the one that looks coolest in the inventory screen.
• Buy what you can. The Bath Messenger sells lower-tier Blood Stones for echoes, and the Insight shop offers Chunks and a Blood Rock — community-reported prices put a Chunk around 20 Insight and a Rock around 60, so bank Insight rather than spending it on consumables.
• Run depth 5 chalices before a second playthrough if you want multiple maxed weapons without waiting for New Game Plus.

For a refresher on the game itself, the official Bloodborne page on PlayStation covers the base release and its expansion content.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the final Bloodborne upgrade material for +10? A Blood Rock. Only one is required per weapon, but they are strictly limited per playthrough — a couple of guaranteed pickups plus rare depth 5 chalice drops and a purchase from the Insight shop.

How many Blood Stone Shards does a full upgrade take? Sixteen Blood Stone Shards for the +1 to +3 range, sixteen Twin Blood Stone Shards for +4 to +6, and sixteen Blood Stone Chunks for +7 to +9, followed by one Blood Rock. That is the full Bloodborne upgrade materials cost for a single weapon.

Can you buy Bloodborne upgrade materials instead of farming them? Partly. The Bath Messenger sells Blood Stone Shards and Twin Blood Stone Shards for blood echoes, while the Insight shop stocks Chunks and a Blood Rock. Everything above that tier has to be found or farmed.

Do Blood Gems count as upgrade materials? They are not listed under Materials, but they function as the second half of weapon progression. A +10 weapon with poor gems will lose to a +9 weapon with strong depth 5 gems, so treat gem hunting as part of the same upgrade project.