How exactly does the Aerondight sword work?

[Villentretanmerth]

How exactly does the Aerondight sword work?

After reading some other posts on this forum, it seems that many people seem to think that aerondight levels up as Geralt levels up. But unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't work like that.

In other words, if you obtain a level 50 aerondight (because your geralt is level 50) and then geralt levels up to 51, the sword will not level up to 51 and the base damage on the sword will not change either. That aerondight will always be level 50.

The way to increase the base damage of aerondight slightly, is by killing enemies when aerondight is at charge 10. When that happens, the charge on aerondight is set back to 0. And the base damage of aerondight is permanently increased by around 2 points. This is not unlimited however. You can't use this method forever. I think 30 damage is the maximum amount that you can increase aerondight's base damage. Although it may vary depending on the level of the sword. For example, a level 50 aerondight may have a maximum of only a 10 damage increase.

Once you obtain that maximum damage increase (whether it's 30 or 10 or whatever), killing enemies at charge 10 will not reset aerondight's charge to zero anymore. Instead it will just stay at charge 10.

This is what I've personally seen from some testing. Can anyone correct me if I'm mistaken about something here? Or confirm it?

 

[cyberpunkforever]

every hit loads the sword with power, when it's fully loaded i deals more damage, but you don't have to get, don't receive damage or the loading interrupts and resets

 

[OutandBack]

I received my Aerondight at lvl46 and the damage was 513-627
I am now in NG+ and lvl61 my damage is 639-781 it is still more powerful than any sword I can build at this time.
In the text is says my sword has been boosted 140 and can go up to 160
hth

 

[Brogan80]

I just wish it had at least 5% crit chance.

 

[DinkzOfRivia]

I got my Aerondight at level 44, I didn't know it's base damage back then, but as far as the description goes, my attack damage has increased to 80 for a maximum of 80.
The way I see it is that, everytime Geralt's level goes up, Aerondight adds another 10 to the maximum attack damage bonus to the aerondight. So basically, your sword will be available again for leveling up. How? Charge the sword up to 10 hits, then kill an opponent with a fully charged Aerondight.

Anyway, when aerondight has 10 charges, it will have 100% critical chance.

 

[theslowarrow]

This is not unlimited however. You can't use this method forever.

In my playthrough, every time Geralt levels up the maximum base damage is increased by 10 points, and there doesn't appear to be any limit on that.

The best part of this sword is that aftering reaching full charge every blow lands a critical attack, that gives a damage boost of 2.6X to my character, not to mention the ultra awesome glowing effect(though I'd prefer it blue/indigo over chartreuse).

 

[Brogan80]

Ehh... thing is, I'm rarely getting 10 straight hits in on something without taking at least some damage.

I mean, I can do it if I specifically try to, but I'm not gonna be doing it every fight, and I've built my style around a high # of critical hits during any given fight.

Maybe I should just stick to the Grandmaster Ursine or Griffin swords (when I get around to making them, that is)

 

[DaSmas]

Quen plus whirl?

 

[theslowarrow]

This is how I do it:
turn off auto sword draw/sheath, find a pack of wolves/wild dogs, kill all except one with steel sword, draw aerondight and kill the last one with it.
wild animals have a high resistance to silver sword so you should be able to get 10 hits before killing it, also with quen activated it ought to be enough to avoid taking any damage.

 

[Brogan80]

lol

Yea, like I'd ever use quen...

 

[OutandBack]

Quen plus whirl?

Northern Wind plus whirl OMG it's a blood bath, haha

 

[Thewitchernut]

Northern Wind plus whirl OMG it's a blood bath, haha

I will 2nd that

 

[Ian_Gere]

Has anyone had the Runewright fit slots to their Aerondight so they can fit runestones? I was thinking of doing it and going for the enchantment set of stones that makes the grindstone sharpening buff permanent, but i can't find whether that would add up to more than 3x Greater Chernobog runestones at +5% attack power each... does anybody know exactly how much the grindstone improves a sword?

 

[Zoolock]

Has anyone had the Runewright fit slots to their Aerondight so they can fit runestones? I was thinking of doing it and going for the enchantment set of stones that makes the grindstone sharpening buff permanent, but i can't find whether that would add up to more than 3x Greater Chernobog runestones at +5% attack power each... does anybody know exactly how much the grindstone improves a sword?

Yes you can put 3 Rune slots on it for normal rune stones or have the Runewright enchant it with one of his specials & the grindstone gives a 20% buff I believe.

 

[PillarBiter]

Here's how aerondight works:

- You get it at a certain level with a certain base damage.
- For every charge built up by aerondight (1 for fast attack hit, 2 for heavy attack hit), it deals 10% more damage. Note that if you get hit, you lose charges (don't know how many exactly, but quite a lot).
- This means that at 10 charges (it's maximum), it deals double damage. Not only that, at 10 charges, it always critical hits.
- If you kill an enemy while at 10 charges, the base damage value of the sword is increased by 2.
- Intially, the maximum allowed to level up the base damage of the sword is 10.
- Whenever Geralt gains a level, the maximum allowed to level up increases by 10. So if geralt is 10 levels higher than when he got the sword, he'll be able to level the base damage up by up to 110.
- This works infinitely (up to geralt's level cap of 100, of course)


So basically, this sword'll keep being the best for ever and ever if you are methodical about keeping it topped up. Also, you can increase the amount of rune slots to 3 and add runewords as well.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Aha, but thinking about it, if I do go for the permanent grindstone enchantment, I can't add it again, if you see what i mean. I mean, if i go for 3 x Greater Chernobogs, I can also use a grindstone... for + possibly 35% total on top of 660 max to begin with - could have done with that at the very end of TW3 lol!

 

[dragonbird]

I'd go for the runestones. As you say, you can always do the grindstone when you need it.

 

[almahnsor]

Checked the damage increase with 10 stacks and it's just a 30% damage buff - which is not even near the 100% advertised...

 

[MARKXMMXM0R0S]

Best weapon idea in a game

 

[Ian_Gere]

I just used Quen to keep the damage down while attacking a pack of wolves with my Aerondight, coated in Beast Oil also mind you. Got 2 x 2pt base damage increases. I also used Axii to stun the Warg while dodging and rolling away to draw 1 wolf out from the pack. I've tried it against Bears too... trouble is that it takes far more than 10 hits to kill a bear and if there's 2 or 3 of them it gets difficult to avoid taking damage and also not accidentally kill them with signs or bombs - I have only managed to get 1 2pt increase out of a pair of bears and the same from a trio.