Choosing which sword to use

[Hayashi.226]

Choosing which sword to use

Would appreciate some advice or tips please.
In general, is it better to choose a sword that does slightly less damage (say 5 - 10 points less) but has 3 slots for runes/glyphs, or go for the one that does a bit more damage but has only one slot?
At the moment I have a number of runestones but most of them are of the Lesser or medium variety.
Thanks.

 

[slothman32]

I use the adrelian(sp) alot so I would add glyphs to increase that rate with perhaps a lower attack. Some people go for effects like bleeding and use glyphs for that.
Other people like high attack so they don't use glyphs; perhaps if the things they use are build in to the sword. It depends on your play style.
The runes on armor are similar.
After a part of HOS this won't matter but that might be level 20 or even higher.

 

[gr24griffin]

i am a new user and i cant figure out how to post stuff so i guess ill just ask it here since its slightly relevant lol. What gear did you end up using? my favorite is the full griffin set. and to answer your question i would say that any witcher swords are very good. Depends on the style you are going for. They all have very valuable bonuses.

 

[Animoral]

Asking here, since it's relevant.

Right now I use relic gear (armor and swords). It looks like the stats are better than what I get from the witcher sets matching my level (17).
So I'm a bit confused, since I thought that witcher sets should be the best.
What am I missing here?

Thanks.

 

[Hayashi.226]

My guess is that once fully upgraded the witcher gear becomes quite powerful as they have more slots for runes & glyphs, plus set bonuses.
But for now I'm just going for whichever gear looks best, until the time I can get a set of fully upgraded witcher gear.

 

[Zoolock]

Equipment scales to your level so just use whatever has the best rating at that time. The witcher gear is best but as you progress quickly becomes outdated & some of the relic swords & armor can have amazing powers like boosting quen or fire damage so even though they have slightly less base damage when you add the right runes to complement their power they're devastating. Later in the game if you bought the HOS expansion you can also visit the runewright at the windmill & for a price he will add sockets to equipment & enchantments to make them even more powerful.

 

[KitsuneBlake]

I usually prefer items with more slots. At the beginning, I didn't have choice but to use what I was finding during explorations. Once I started earning some money, I started using witcher gears only. I ended my first run with the Cat gear, the second one with the Wolf gear, and I literally LOVED the Manticore gear in BaW.

Regarding sword runes, I think bleeding and burning effects are really useful against humans, while I chose stun and bleeding runes against monsters. On the armor, I use to add Quen, Aard and Igni glyphs.

 

[e-ahmet]

I'd choose the slightly less damaging one with more slots if I can enhance its effects with the slots. I have a stun heavy steel sword with less damage but it is still very good. IIRC it has stun, stagger and burn. All of them interrupts enemy attacks. There is also the bleeding fast style skill.

 

[MetalHead367]

Just depends on your play style and maybe what effects/looks you want to go with.

 

[qOjOp]

My fav inventory items

 

[Typ093]

I have always found that the attack power bonuses along with the critical hit chance and amount buffs that are offered in the swords are way better than the actual damage output. up to a reasonable difference anyway, like 20 or so damage. but I play on deathmarch difficulty so crits are the only way to do relevant damage half the time. I stream on twitch if you want to check it out @ twitch.com/typ093

 

[rsny]

I don't think there's any "better" option. It depends so much on what you personally want, even from fight to fight. You can use a higher powered sword with only one slot or a lower powered sword that has the specific stats you want and the ability to enhance it with additional stones. My favorite steel sword has been Glory of the North for much of the game (level 24 currently). I only just swaped in the enhanced Griffin sword and Blade from the Bits, to see how I like those. I put the Glory in my stash just in case I want to switch it back in again.

 

[Deraj-Mohah]

Anything with a decent(better than 7%) crit chance and either a proc effect or armor piercing is good for me early-ish then I try and focus on what i wanna do. Caroline, Moonblade, Bloodsword, Tir Tochair Blade...These are great swords to supplement until you either find or craft a sword that truly works for you.