Chikage - Bloodborne

Chikage
Imprints (Normal)
Imprints (Uncanny)
Imprints (Lost)
Damage
92	92	--	--	--
--	30	100	100	120
Requirements & Scaling
10 E	14 D	12 C	-- D	--

Chikage (千景 Chikage lit. "A Thousand Views") is a katana in Bloodborne. There are 3 versions of this weapon: Normal, Uncanny and Lost. The only known differences being the Gem Imprints and the locations in which they are found

Chikage Description

"Foreign-made weapon wielded by the royal guards who protect Annalise, Queen of the Vilebloods at Cainhurst Castle.
When the intricate, rippled engraving that spans the Chikage's blade is imbrued with blood, the sword sings in scarlet hues.
However, the rite eats away at the wielder's very essence."

Chikage Information

• Transforms from a sword to a two-handed 'Bloodied' sword.
• To perform a leap attack, input forward on the left stick as you press R2.
• To perform a transformation attack, press L1 while performing another attack or dodge.
• The Lost Chikage has a circular blood gem imprint, like guns.
• The Uncanny Chikage has a waning blood gem imprint.

Location

Normal

• Join the Cainhurst Vilebloods covenant available at Cainhurst Castle, and then purchase from the Messengers for 50,000 Blood Echoes.

Uncanny Chikage

• Cursed and Defiled Root Chalice - Fetid/Rotted/Cursed (unknown whether you need these offerings)
• Glyphs: 7h87j4h7 (Layer 1), xy8abwm9 (Layer 2), div596ff (Layer 2)

Lost Chikage

• Pthumeru Ihyll Root Chalice
• Glyphs: 89kdkqhd (Layer 1 pre-boss area), wic63yn8 (Layer 2 pre-lamp area)
• Sinister Pthumeru Ihyll Root Chalice
• Glyphs: 2ac8vumx (Layer 2)
• Rotted Pthumeru Ihyll Root Chalice
• Glyphs: yrim6m23 (Layer 1 in the pre-boss area)
• Cursed Fetid Rotted Pthumeru Ihyll Root Chalice
• Glyphs: kwnp6g7i (Layer 1 in the first bonus area)
•  
• Cursed Fetid Rotted Pthumeru Ihyll root chalice
• Glyph: xnrajnz6 - Layer 2 bonus room contains a lost Chikage as well as an Oedon writhe rune on layer 3 bonus room.

Player Notes

• The Chikage deals physical damage in normal mode and blood damage in transformed mode, not both types at once. Moreover, the damage in normal mode scales with Strength and Skill, whereas that of transformed mode scales with Bloodtinge.
  • Blood gems that boost physical damage will increase both the physical and blood damages of this weapon.
• Move sets (except R2 and L2 behaviors) when wielded one-handed or two-handed are identical, although two-handed attacks consume slightly more stamina per swing.
  • Pressing L2 when two-handing initiates a thrust attack that can be followed up by pressing L2 again, which is a diagonal slash with surprisingly long range.
• When transformed, the Chikage drains approximately 0.85% HP/s from its user.
  • The HP drain in the transformed form takes place after every full second spent in transformed form, meaning that cancelling it before a full second has elapsed will not cost any HP. This can be abused by using two transform attacks back to back. This combo takes little under two seconds, costing only a single tick of HP.
  • If the hunter dies while using the transformed mode, they will respawn with the transformed mode active and therefore continue to drain HP. Keep this in mind when going afk.
• During the one-handed-to-two-handed transformation (while the sword is sheathed), pressing R1 or R2 will cancel the rest of the transformation animation and initiate a quickdraw attack.
• The transformed R2 attack drains 200 to 400 HP from its user depending on how long it is charged for. Thankfully, this can be bypassed somewhat by using R2 attack during the transformation as mentioned above, which halves the amount of HP drained in addition to increasing mobility by reducing the amount of time the hunter is rooted for. As such, it is recommended that one only uses the transformed R2 attack this way.
  • This attack also causes the hunter to dash a short distance, increasing the longer the button is held down.
  • A fully charged R2 attack can be followed up by pressing R2 again, which is an upward diagonal slash that does not drain HP.
• Any enemy that can be knocked down by a firearm (dogs, spiders, etc.) will also be knocked down by the transformed form of this weapon.
• Two-handed mode innately causes rapid poison with each attack. The base poison damage is 30 as can be seen on the weapon info screen, and one can increase the rapid poison buildup with Dirty Blood Gemstones. If one installs dirty gems then they will also deal rapid poison damage in the normal form.
• The Chikage cannot be buffed with fire paper, bolt paper, or empty phantasm shell.
• Provides a means of killing yourself in order to reset your world or to reset your vial/bullet counts without returning to hunter's dream.

Stats/Scaling

R: Rally/Regain. The amount of HP regained on an R1 attack immediately after taking damage

														R
+0	92	92	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	D	C	D	40
+1	101	101	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	D	B	D	42
+2	110	110	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	D	B	D	44
+3	119	119	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	D	B	D	46
+4	128	128	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	D	B	D	48
+5	137	137	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	C	A	D	50
+6	146	146	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	C	A	D	52
+7	155	155	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	C	A	D	54
+8	164	164	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	C	A	D	56
+9	173	173	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	C	A	D	58
+10	184	184	--	--	--	--	30	100	100	E	B	S	D	60

Move sets & Videos

Results from testing on an unarmored level 120 character with a +10 Chikage with no gems. Numbers are rounded to the nearest 100th.

Regular Move Set

Move	Damage Type & Modifier	Stamina	Effect
R1 Combo	1x, 1x, 1.05x, 1.10x, 1.10x (5 hit combo)	23	A relatively quick flurry of slashes. The first slash is on a downward diagonal from right to left, followed by an upward diagonal from left to right, an upward diagonal from right to left, horizontal from left to right, a horizontal from right to left (that drifts somewhat down). If you have stamina to continue at this point, the series repeats starting with the second attack. If you can get an enemy caught in this series, this is a great combo to just not let up on.
Quickstep R1	1.05x (frontstep), 1.10x (sidestep)	30	There are separate moves for each direction, albeit two are very nearly the same. Stepping to the right leads to a right to left downward diagonal attack. Moving left is a left to right horizontal slash that drifts upward slightly. Moving back or forward leads to a mostly vertical slice from the ground to overhead. The windup is shorter on the front step, as the back moves forward a greater distance before attacking.
Backstep R1	1.00x	30	A horizontal slash from right to left after a short hop forward.
Dash R1	1.10x	30 (+run)	Right to left horizontal slash with a slight downward trending path. This attack and the backstep can be relied on for crowd control (as best is possible with this weapon).
R2 Attack	1.27x	40	A thrusting attack straight forward after a short pause.
Charged R2	1.85x	60	After extending the windup of the R2 by drawing the blade further behind the back, the blade is stabbed forward and down.
Backstep R2	1.25x	50	The sword is raised overhead and brought straight down into the ground.
Dash R2	1.17x	50 (+run)	A surprisingly quick forward thrust caps off this running attack. Very useful for getting a quick strike in.
Leap	1.45x	50	The sword is placed on the right shoulder during the leap and slashed into the ground vertically.
Transform Attack	1.42x	35 (+x)	The sword is sheathed and brought out in a slashing attack from left to right with a downward diagonal. This is the move, regardless of the prior action.

Transformed Move Set

Move	Damage Type & Modifier	Stamina	Effect
R1 Combo	0.95x, 0.98x, 1x, 1.02x, 1.07x	25	This combo is very similar to the normal mode R1 combo, except the sword is used with both hands. There are slight variations to angle (most prominent with upward diagonal slashes) but the attacks are roughly the same and in the exact same order.
Quickstep R1	1x (frontstep), 1.04x (sidestep)	35	As with the R1 combo, the moveset is the same as the regular mode, except the weapon is used with both hands.
Backstep R1	1.02x	35	Another small change of angle here. The regular mode drifts slightly up with it's horizontal slash, while this attack does not.
Dash R1	1.17x	40 (+run)	A nearly vertical downward slash, that travels somewhat from right to left.
R2 Attack	1.50x	55	The sword is sheathed and the attack is from the draw. It is from left to right on an upward diagonal. This is accompanied with a quick loss of health.
Charged R2	2.25x, 1.92 (follow-up)	60	The animation starts similarly to the standard R2 with the weapon being sheathed. However, the sword is drawn up and then down and to the right. The health loss is the same as the R2, as it occurs during the initial sheathing process. The additional windup time has no effect or increased health loss.
Backstep R2	1.29x	60	The blade is raised overhead as the hunter hops back. The left hand comes off the handle and touches the back of the blade, then snaps back to the handle to bring the weapon down vertically into the ground.
Dash R2	1.15x	60 (+run)	An even faster forward thrust than the standard mode attack.
L2	1.15x, 1.27x	55	The sword is cocked back with the blade parallel to the ground. The left hand comes up near the tip and the weapon is thrust forward. A second attack is a downward diagonal slash from left to right.
Leap	1.47x	60	Another move very similar to the standard form. The strike is more diagonal (from right to left) than its counterpart but also slashes into the ground.
Transform Attack	0.95x	20 (+x)	A quick left to right slash that throws the blood from the blade and reverting the weapon back to regular mode.

• R1: Vertical slashes.
• R2: Forward Thrust R2 (transformed): Quick-draw Slash.
• L1: Coats the blade with blood, inflicting a constant 0.85%HP/s debuff, and switches your damage type to "Blood" and inflicts Rapid Poison, which comes with an increased scaling bonus. The weapon will be kept in the sheath for a couple of seconds and the first R1 attack in this time will inflict double damage.

Trivia

• The Chikage isn't actually a katana - it is a katana/european sword hybrid. Its short crossguard resembles the one of an early viking sword, or the one of a xiphos (greek sword). The closest european crossguard shape with  this sword is the one of a Karabela (a polish sabre). In other hand, the  hilt and pommel resemble the ones of a longsword (a bit longer, to get easier katana traditional jutsu swings), while the blade shape and the 2-handed fighting style is very similar to a katana. A possible explanation for the origin of this hybrid is that the katana's design was imported to Cainhurst, where some modifications were made to create a sword similar to that commonly used by their knights.
• The Chikage is an allusion to a particular 'breed' of Katanas in the Souls games. While it is similar to both the Hiltless and Chaos Blade from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls respectively, the Chikage bears a stronger resemblance to the Magic Sword "Makoto" (also from Demon's Souls). The Makoto is the only one the bunch to actually DRAIN the user's HP over time, rather than decrease it with each successful swing.
• Chikage (千景) literally means "Thousands Views", however if you separated the word into Chi Kage (血影), it means "Blood Shadow". This could be correlated to the fact that Shadows Of Yharnam wield a similar katana with a slight  crossguard, however without using the bloodtinge.
• The transforming attack has the hunter sheathe the Chikage before unleashing a strike. This is a reference to Iaijutsu, a traditional Japanese sword technique that focuses on quick-drawing. At its finest, Iaijutse allows the warrior to unsheathe and strike at incredible speeds.
• The name seems to be a tribute to Chikage Yamamura (mentioned as a "special thanks" in credits)
• The name may also be a reference to the work "1000 Plateaus" by Giles Deluze and Felix Guattari, a famous philosophical essay about fluidity and functionality, maybe dirrectly tied to the esoteric nature of the weapons function.  

Concept Art

1. Tested in PvP with naked characters, BL120 with maxed weapon
2. Tested in PvP with naked characters, BL120 with maxed weapon