Character Builds, Ability Points, & How to Kick Ass Thread

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Character Builds, Ability Points, & How to Kick Ass Thread

  • Primarily Combat Build. Blood and Fear!

    Votes: 193 34.9%
  • Mostly Signs. Your Mind Is Mine.

    Votes: 74 13.4%
  • Alchemy. Mutant and Proud of It.

    Votes: 82 14.8%
  • Hybrid, some of each. Polymath!

    Votes: 215 38.9%
  • I also love the General set! Lots of use.

    Votes: 27 4.9%
  • Can't decide. Many Respecs lie ahead!

    Votes: 37 6.7%

  • Total voters
    553
I poste din an earlier thread that I still change my mind daily about my build (even after 2 full playthroughs, one of which is NG+), but I’m pretty close to defining my style. And by my style, I mean all the things I use frequently.

Basically, you have 12 slots, and I want each and every slot to benefit me as much as possible. Also, I want all tools to be available to me that I use frequently, and them to be effective and reliable. I have no interest in slotting skills or strengthening skills which I’ll only use rarely.

What I use often:
- Quen, Igni, axii
- Rend and whirl (also mixed with normal attacks and parries mind, depends very much on the situation)
- Maribor forest, tawny oil
My idea is to usually incapacitate the enemy or enemies and then go in for maximum damage. This is done by raising adrenaline, critical damage/chance, sign intensity and a high stamina regeneration rate. Note that sign intensity is only raised to a point where the effects are reliably applied to enemies. Higher intensities are a waste.

What I use situationally:
- Blizzard and thunderbolt or petri’s philtre
- Yrden and aard
- Oils
- Northern wind/moon dust
Blizzard allows for full capitalisation of adrenaline and thunderbolt is just extra damage. Petri’s philtre instead of thunderbolt can be used if sign % is too low for it to apply to enemies (rarely).

So, allowing for these tactics to fully come to their own, I use the following skills on NG+ (in NG I don’t have enough points for the full build):
- Signs: Delusion and Quen alternate (Quen explosion, 1 point on NG)
- Alchemy: Acquired tolerance and Synergy
- General: Griffon techniques and Battle frenzy (new skill)
- Sword: Precise blows, Crushing blows, Whirl, Rend, Razor Focus (1 point on NG), Deadly precision
- Mutagens: 2 blue, 2 red
The core principle of the build is for fast stamina regeneration, adequate sign intensity and high adrenaline capitalisation.
Griffon techniques together with tawny oil make it so you have 40+ stamina regen. Perfect for continuously switching between normal attacks, rends, whirls and signs.
Sign intensity for burning and axii-slowdown/stun. Not needed for much else. But they need to burn, that’s key.
Battle frenzy (more critical hits, supported by high critical damage via armor/weapons) together with deadly precision (free instagib kills) and Maribor forest let you become an assault monster high on adrenaline. Couple that with blizzard and the battle becomes totally in your favour.

Armor is quite different In NG and NG+. In NG I mainly focus on critical damage, while in NG+ I’ll focus more on sign intensity (since enemies are more resistant to status effects)

NG armor/weapons:
- Silver: Venomous Viper sword (severance)
- Steel: Ofieri steel sword (severance)
- Armor: Ursine (Medium armor runeword)
- Gloves: Nilfgaard (Igni X 2)
- Trousers: Wolven (Axii X 2)
- Boots: Griffon (Igni)

NG+ armor/weapons:
- Silver: Griffon (severance)
- Steel: Griffon (severance)
- Armor: Griffon (deflection)
- Gloves: Griffon (Igni X 2)
- Trousers: Wolven (Axii X 3, Igni)
- Boots: Griffon (Igni X 2)


That’s it folks! I hope some enjoyed reading it or took something from it :)
 
Can someone who did a Cat School fast attack build share his experiences with me.?
1)Which Combat abilites you need? The fast ones ok but which in particular? Is whirlwind a good choice?

Well, whirl is useful when you don't have much room to maneuver, and looks KICKASS anyway, so for me it's a must have.

2)Which signs better support a Cat School build? Quen? Aard? Which other abilites should I consider in the Sign tree?

I used Igni and Quen (exploding shield) mostly, found Arad useless (havn't tried to upgrade it though).
Later game I used Quen Shield for health regain, and it kinda spoiled the whole NINJA feel i was getting at (forced me to stay mostly stationary), so i strongly advise against it.
 
Hey people I finished my campaign some months ago with a Ursine/adrenaline build was really nice but I played as an heavy swordsman with no particular tactics however this time I'm looking for Fast/Attack Cat school build for a Death March game....however I've really no idea in how to create this build.

Can someone who did a Cat School fast attack build share his experiences with me.?
1)Which Combat abilites you need? The fast ones ok but which in particular? Is whirlwind a good choice?
2)Which signs better support a Cat School build? Quen? Aard? Which other abilites should I consider in the Sign tree?
3)Which Decotions improve my fast attack skills? What should I specifically look into in Alchemy tree?
4)Special abilities? I guess Cat School techniques is important but aside from that?

Thank you for you imput and suggestions! :)

OK. I have played cat school extensively and it is my favorite. I exclusively use fast attacks.

Early to mid game: sword skills: get 2 whirl (take all fast attack upgrades except the row 4 one), get either the fleet footed or undying upgrades whichsoever you prefer, get everything under battletrance except flood of anger AND undying if you took fleetfooted.

Alchemy: enhanced tolerance

Signs: Quen row 1 all uprades,

Yellow: cat school technic, anger management? Lol whatever that skill which allows you to spam quen and other signs off adrenaline. A must on higher difficulties as you want quen on 100% of the time beflightcause you are a melee dps glasscannon basically.

Late game and ng+:

No more sword skills beyond the 6 I already mentioned! Unless you have spare points later. Or have 3 greater red mutagens. Good luck.

Signs: you can take igni but you are better off with the following:

Alchemy!: get 2 synergy (priority 1 late game). Afterwards dump points other useful alchemy skills to unlock and get two very great row 4 alchemy skills: one when fully upgraded (its the one all the way on the right) gives you 50% crit chance bonus after every kill (you won't be flighting in stormy weather all the time) and with whirl this = carnage vs standard groups of units. And the other is the row 4 oils upgrade which fully upgraded gives 100% damage bonus to any type of enemy you have applied an oil against. Use those two skills interchange ably between fightning regular mobs (crit chance upgrade) and bosses (oils critical damage upgrade).

Use katakan, Doppler decoctions, wraith vs tough bosses for defence. Some others.experiment.

Thunderbolt, blizzard. Those are most useful ones. Swallow too. Get DPS of 7500+ in late 30s lvls and even more in ng+.
 
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Survivability: LF Advice on Builds & Combat for NG+ Death March

The first time I played the game I just did Sword & Story difficulty, I knew from the get-go this would be a game I'd play through a second time, so here I am, New Game + trying Death March... and holy hell the difficulty spiked quite a lot (this is good, it's what I want).

I'm finding though that the difficulty is often coming from places I didn't expect, things I took for granted in the first playthrough. I'll wade happily into a Wyvern or Forktail guarding some treasure and destroy it with some bombs and well timed sword strikes, but I avoid packs of wolves and wild dogs like the plague, and if I'm not fighting groups of enemies on horseback, forget it, I get wrecked by their strikes of opportunity or ranged attacks while trying to deal with melee buddies.

Time for a respec, I have been planning to for awhile. My first playthrough was pretty much a full Signs Build with a little combat (fast attacks) where I relied heavily on Quen, Igni, and Aard. So I want to do something different, I had been going so far with a full combat build but find it... lacking. So I'm thinking a fun hybrid to respec to, especially since I'm using potions a lot more and relying more on bombs & swords to fight than Igni and Aard. Also I don't want to use Quen as my crutch this time around for damage mitigation, I like having to dodge, parry, and all of that, the problem is Geralt just isn't quick enough to deal with larger groups of fast enemies. I can kill a bear without taking a hit, but a pack of wolves I always have to chug some Swallow, and sometimes White Raffard's just to survive the fight. So I need some mitigation factor here.

So with all that in mind, I need to come up with a good build that either A) accommodates me not being able to avoid damage and able to lessen it or heal from it quicker, or B) gives me more tools to avoid damage, both preferably without relying on Quen too heavily.

Any advice would be welcome.
 
Try this hybrid build. Build is designed for NG, but it should perform decently in NG+ as well. (Aard intensity might not be enough once enemies start gaining more levels.)

 
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Here is my build. Previously I relied on feline set and alchemy tree but recently I moved focus to heavier armor and combat skills. I relied on fast attacks since I felt best with them. Right now I still have light gauntlets, trousers and boots but I changed armor to ursine. It provides better protection while single heavy armor item doesn't ruin stamina regeneration and DPS with "Cat School Techniques". I changed swords from cat set to wolven since they have a bit better bonuses for adrenaline and sign intensity. All items are mastercrafted.

My skill set looks like this:


As I mentioned I fell best with fast attacks. I have all skills from "Fast attack" column + "Fleet Footed" skill.

From Alchemy tree I have four skills:
"Acquired tolerance" to be able use two decoctations at the time (for most of the time Succubus, Ekimmara or Katakan)
"Synergy" which gives nice bonus to mutagen slots
"Poisoned blade" - I have pretty good set of oils and this skill helps to get maximum from them - sometimes half damage I deal comes from poisoning or bleeding.
"Fast metabolism" - I have ugly habit of drinking 3-4 elixirs (Thunderbolt, Tawny Awl, Maribor Forest or Blizzard ) when I start some heavy combat. Even with ~250 toxicity points available you might get poisoned pretty quickly.

In my build Sings have auxiliary role - Axii for more dialog options, also works well with guys with shield. When I expect to fight wraiths I change Axii to Yrden skill.

Also few other skills like "Cat School Techniques" and "Rage Management".

Here are the stats:




 

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You're not taking advantage of having 3 of same skill in mutagen tree, bad idea. Here's mine, notice all builds are doubled thanks to one of my alchemy perks:
 

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You're not taking advantage of having 3 of same skill in mutagen tree, bad idea.
AFAIK bonuses scale up linearly, it doesn't matter if you have four skills equally distributed among two mutagens or have one mutagen with three skills and mutagen with one skill. In my build having two "yellow" skills in near green mutagens just turned out to be better than having two additional "green" skills.
 
My point was don't use the yellow ones at all. They're a waste.

Thats not true. It really depends on your build. If you want faster stamina regen because you want to use frequently Replenishment for example, then better to equip the griffin school perk. If you want more crit damage bonus, put in your slot the cat school perk. Want more crit chance, then use battle frenzy. It really depends on your build and the yellow perks can augment it.
 
i asked @milezZx on twitter about that and he said u can keep the points from the places of power because they are the reward for exploring and it would not make sense when u have to revisit them.
This is good to know, and I sure hope it is true...as I have returned to the game after a long while to experience the new expansion...I want a new take on the game this time around, and I was just dreading having to revisit the places of power just to feel I was getting anything out of swapping a few points around. I had heard rumor you would have to a while back...

I guess I'll give it a shot and hope I don't have to fast travel around the whole dang world again.
 
Playing styles?

I've just finished the game + expansion (death march), and had a blast. I went with light armor throughout, and invested heavily in light attacks and counter-attacks, because I love reflex dodges and parrying. Because I invested so heavily in swords, all that stamina from wearing light armor went to waste as my signs dropped off in usefulness; I basically only used an unspecced Quen against hard-hitting bosses, and Yrden on wraiths, as everything else was a waste of stamina.

So now I want to start a new play through with a hybrid build that mixes swordplay and signs (signs help set up opportunities for strong attacks), so combat feels even more dynamic and varied. Any suggestions? TW3 wikis I've seen are all rather poor (surprising given how popular the game is).

Another question: I had a problem with quickly out-leveling side quests because the main story provides so much XP. Should I focus on side quests first and only advance the main plot when an area is clear?

Thank you.
 
For me, it is very difficult to get through the entire game with a signs build because
1. it makes game extremely easy on DM...
2. it gets boring spamming igni as your primary damage source..
3. signs do not scale well except igni & quen (you could have +150% or +250% and it doesnt matter for aard, yrden or axii from a gameplay perspective

Some interesting quirks from my signs playthrough:
1. I got quen up to 900+dmg blocked and could kill enemies by shielding and reflecting damage (I felt retarded killing enemies with quen)
2. My very high igni trivialized many encounters. Igni massacres any draconid (griffon, forktail, wyvern etc) it also slaughters fiends, vampires, and makes most targets burn 100% of the time and is spammable so nothing can fight back unless its immune to fire
3. Its very easy to max out Aard, Yrden, and Axii (in terms of effectiveness) which is disappointing once you get those huge +200% sign bonuses.
4. I constantly wished the game difficulty was higher and never felt challenged at any point. I could always throw up Quen and heal to full and my stamina regen made signs spammable.

Your other question about out leveling side quests....
1. This happened to me as well, so I downloaded a Mod that makes sure you get full XP for each quest in the game. But what happened to me was, I leveled up way too quickly and by the time I was done with Novigrad I was already level 26 and the game difficulty was super trivial.

2. The No XP from out leveling side quests seems to be intended to slow down your leveling so you dont get too overpowered too early in the game.

3. For my next playthrough, I'm going to do the main story first and try to clean up on some sidequests later (except the ones that I have to complete or they will be considered failed)

If you are going to do a hybrid build, you might want to consider going Combat, Sign, and Alchemy each 1/3 investment. That will keep you overall weaker and more balanced and will probably provide you a more challenging / rewarding experience.
 
Yea shaiwan I was expecting the difficulty to be brutal, and it was early on when I didn't know wth I was doing, but quickly settled into just average difficulty (HoS was harder though).

I hadn't planned on speccing alchemy, but you gave me an idea: increase max toxicity and always roll with the forktail decoction, to basically force me to play as a hybrid to overcome the weakness of a spread out build.

Thanks for your reply.
 
Honestly it doesn't matter what build you use, almost everything makes the game quite easy, even on death march.

Personally I use 8 Alchemy skills, 1 general and 3 Signs. My build isn't the most perfected or ... hah, even that good, but it gives me options for every scenario, and still relies on some skill. I usually either have the Ekhidna or Doppler decoctions activated, plus some of the other normal potions. Blizzard, Tawny Owl, Maribor Forest and Petri's Philter for when I'm outnumbered. Thunderbolt for when it's stormy or I need the extra attack. Golden Oriole against poisonousness enemies. Swallow for general healing if I don't have the Ekhidna Decoction. In Skellige , I use the Bear armour and gloves with the remaining pieces being Wolf gear, and in Velen I use all Wolf gear. The build works fine with either. My adrenaline points regen so quickly, and because of rage management I can cast a bunch of signs even in heavy armour.

Aard Sweep is effective against most groups (and the effect looks cool :p). If Aard Sweep does nothing I have a selection of bombs too. The Yrden alt is great against wraiths or bosses. I also like Delusion for the conversation options and to stun enemies so I can get behind them for some nice crits.

Alchemy (all maxed):
Poison Blades
Acquired Tolerance
Protective Coating
Heightened Tolerance
Frenzy
Synergy
Refreshment
Cluster Bombs

General:
Rage Management

Signs (you need to waste 3 points to unlock the two alt. signs):
Delusion
Magic Trap
Aard Sweep

I'm hoping that they add some more slots with Blood & Wine, as I'd like to add some combat abilities. I want to try and be an all-around witcher, even though it's usually better to focus on one tree only. If they don't, I might respec and try something different.
 
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Have you tried the Enhanced Combat mod? It makes most actions (e.g., rolling, strong attack) require stamina. The game starts off slightly easier than vanilla, but then it stays moderately hard for much longer than the vanilla game. It might be what you're looking for if you find the game too easy, as I did.
 
Help with fun build for NG+ on DM

Hey all! I'm looking for a fun build to play in NG+ on DM difficulty level. I've already played the game on the B&B difficulty level where I only used skills in the combat tree (fast attack based). So I'm looking for a build with another playstyle than this. If you know a fun build to play please let me know (would love to hear the details too: your chosen mutagens, type of armor, if you used fast or strong attack etc.). I've been playing with the skill tree myself, came up with the following build. I'm wondering if it is any good. (not really sure about the type of armor and the strong style and some other skills):

-Griffing School Techniques, Strength Training, Crushing Blows
-Exploding Shield, Delusion, Active Shield
-Quen Intensity, Firestream, Melt Armor
-Synergy, Fixative, Hunter Instinct

Thanks in advance for helping me out!
 
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Firestream not so good even with like 250 sign intensity. Rend should be a very good investment and a better damage dealer if you use delusion to stop critters. And get heightened tolerance or whatever it called from alchemy to get more toxicity for every potion you know that skill is a must. You want to use 2 decoctions and some elixirs on top of that especially in the dlc.
 
A "not too OP" build

This would be my second playthrough and, on the first one, some stuff really caught my attention as being "cheap" or too powerful (Whirl, Igni/Yrden and the knockdown from the counterattack skill comes to mind).

What skills would you consider overpowered and to avoid if you want a fair challenge on death march?
 
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