Bloodborne guide: optional battles with tough NPCs
Bloodborne offers players the chance to score a few extra kills on their journey. Don't look at this one if you don't want a few spoilers.
Bloodborne guide: optional boss battles
During Bloodborne, you sometimes come across enemies who are more than just faceless, replaceable grunts, but are full characters with stories of their own.
All the area bosses fall under the heading, arguably, but these optional battles are a bit different. You don't need to kill these ones to finish the game.
In our Bloodborne guide and walkthrough, we plan to skip these and just refer you back to this page. We'll be adding any extra optional battles we find to this list as we go along.
Djura, Old Yharnam
Note that this NPC can become friendly later. Killing him now will prevent you receiving a reward from him.
You encounter this fellow while traversing Old Yharnam. He's the bloke who talks to you as you wander the level, and fires a very annoying gun at you. You can find him by climbing the ladder near the shortcut gate before entering the church full of Beasts.
Battling this guy before you battle the Blood-starved Beast is very hard; when you climb the ladder to the area, he'll attack you right away; you start on the back foot. It's better to come back afterwards, as this advances time, making it dark. The Hunter won't see you, and you can start the battle with a Charged Attack and Backstrike, which is a help.
However, it's still hard, and you shouldn't underestimate the Hunter. Like the one you fought below he has all your moves, but his gun is more powerful, he loves to lob Molotovs at you, and he's super happy to heal up on the regular.
There's little advice to offer besides level up and be very, very wary of the wide spread of his gunfire. If you beat him, you'll receive the Powder Keg Hunter Badge.
NEW: If you visit early enough in the day (before beating many bosses), you can hang at the top of the ladder and pop up and down the top few rungs a few times, and he'll sometimes approach, fall off and die below you. If he falls off the building altogether, his loot will be back up the top of the tower when you return after visiting Hunter's Dream. Expect this cheese to be patched! It doesn't work later at night; his detection is too low.
NEW: If you wish to befriend Djura, you need to make sure you don't do anything to aggro him. You can upset him by: walking into Old Yharnam from the front so he shoots you; killing the Hunter at the base of the tower; approaching Djura before you beat Rom, the Vacuous Spider. The best way to guarantee him staying friendly is to avoid Old Yharnam until you have unlocked Yahar'gul, Unseen Village, then defeat the Darkbeast Paarl and approach Djura from the shortcut out of its boss arena. Head straight to Djura's tower without killing beasts, then climb up and agree not to hurt the beasts below the tower.
Iosefka, Forbidden Woods
Iosefka, the kindly proprietor of the clinic who will help you out on a few occasions, can be killed. You can get to her room via a side path in the Forbidden Woods.
If you want to murder her, you heartless individual, note that she won't give you any more assistance after that. You can come back and kill her after facing Rom, The Vacuous Spider with no negative consequences, although she won't put up a fight; you'll get a very rare item this way.
Iosefka isn't hard to kill if you use a quick weapon with fast strikes. Hit her three times at most, then dodge horizontally when she lashes out with a tentacle.
She'll heal up multiple times, which can make this a tedious battle, but don't be tempted to try and hit her harder unless you're very, very sure of yourself; attrition is best here.
If you win, you'll score the Oedon Writhe Rune. And that's all.
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