>that's my upgrade money! i'm pouring points into strength in
>order to use the kirkhammer and later ludwig's blade so i'm
>not keen on "wasting" those blood echoes on consumables. but
>it might only take a run or two in the right area to get
>enough echoes for a good base of blood vials

If you farm the very first area I believe you'll have enough for the vials, that's what I did because its so easy. Don't really stress saving that much cause you'll gain so many later you won't know what to do with them.


>i do not have access to the blunderbuss. should i have it by
>now? i went back and killed the cleric beast and i think that
>opened up a few items in the blood echoes shop. no
>blunderbuss in there though. i don't recall any alternate
>paths that i didn't take through central yarnham so i'm pretty
>sure i picked up everything. then again this is a miyazaki
>game so i'm sure i missed something

I think the one I was talking about was the starter one. Think they give you two options, the pistol or the shotgun, I chose the shotgun. The thing about the parry is diffrent guys have different parry windows. As soon as I learned how to perfect the brick guys I had to deal with the wolves and learn that over again, so for awhile it just seems like you get wrecked until you get the hang of it. I will say towards the end I got a lot better, even to the point I could parry the hell out of most bosses.


>this area actually didn't seem so bad until the hunter showed
>up. i think i can pull him into an isolated area and deal
>with him without having to worry about the gatling gun
>

You can skip both. I cheesed the gatling gun dude and skipped the other hunter until later. Gatling gun dude I just let fall off the edge when he charged me.