Did anyone go full alchemy tree?

[Goodmongo]

Alchemy is very powerful once you get 6-8 slots and 25-30 skill points. Till then it is pretty hard and the early levels (1 through 4) are very hard. You damage output basically sucks as does your defense.

Best advice is to go sword till after White Orchard then spend 1000 gold to switch. Even signs at the lower levels are harder than swords.

---------- Updated at 04:06 PM ----------

Want to add one other thing. For me going into inventory all the time distracted from the games combat. On a keyboard/mouse using bombs is not that much fun and stopping combat to drink a potion broke immersion. So yes it's very strong but it has it's downsides.

 

[Sharpy47]

The Undying skill

Wow thanks, never knew about it! Where do I get this skill? Im pretty far in the game atm tbh.

 

[Solid_Altair]

I'm going for it and it's a lot of fun! It adds some slow menu micro-management, but it's still worth it, imo. I don't recommend it for a first playthrough, but for a second, as I'm doing it, it's cool.

And Refreshment reduce sthe micromanagement a little bit. I have offensive potions in the quick slots and use them for healing. I only need the actual helaing potions when I'm really battered. This means I need to eat less food, too.

The extra health and extra helaing lets you defend arrows with your chest, basically. Not as elegant as what i did in my first playthrough, but cool for a change.

 

[Captmorgan72]

Alchemy builds are where it's at.

I'm playing a bomb/potion/crit build on Death March and once you unlock certain skills, you can turn yourself into a walking death machine.

I played a full combat build on my first play through on Blood & Bones and this build is much stronger and more fun to play.

That is because a Witcher's true power lies in the potions. Isn't that mostly the reason for the Trial of Grasses? Those that survived got superhuman reflexes and senses, immunity to diseases, accelerated regeneration and mutated metabolisms that gave them a high resistance to toxins/poisons. This allowed them to drink toxic WItcher potions that gave them abilities that border on the supernatural. Without the potions Witchers are superb warriors that can use simple magic, but can't match the abilities of most monsters or even highly skilled human/dwarf/elven warriors/mages.

 

[Costa417]

Wow thanks, never knew about it! Where do I get this skill? Im pretty far in the game atm tbh.

It's on the last column on the sword tree. I think that column is called trance or something

---------- Updated at 03:31 PM ----------

I read all the post and to all the people that say alchemy tree is better than sword tree, well that's simply bullsht.

Show me alchemy tree or sign tree that can do 2500+ damage on critical hit ignoring enemy armor. With Rend and Sunder armor i took almost half health to a "draconic thing" (dont remember which type) and it was 3 levels above me on death march difficulty.

On my first playthrough on blood and broken bones I LITERALLY killed Eredin with 4 full charged Rend.

Not to mention the Deadly Precision skill gives you 2% chance of insta killing an enemy EACH adrealine points you have, the Undying skill together with Razor Focus that significately adds adrenaline points PER sword blow. And last but not least Counterattack skill.

 

[hedop]

Not sure about Alchemy... but Cat School coupled with Rend and the likes is massive... like stated before 2500 points damage output and more, 1000 and more on non special attacks... I shredded through anything and everything after level 16. Elemental? Done in two strikes. Cyclops? Done in 2 strikes. Ice Giant? Done in about 3 strikes. Eredin? Rend 4 times and done. I guess if leveled right then most skill sets will be devastating. Funny enough you don't even need the top tier skills on the swordplay tree. I never leveled them past Rend because past that you don't add crit damage or crit chance.

They key is crit damage and chance... level that up with any skill and you'll just feel like Geralt from the books.

 

[HozzM]

I don't know that Alchemy is the most powerful tree but 2 points in Acquired Tolerance are the best 2 points you can spend for a large part of the game. Around level 20 that will let you run 2 decoctions and 3 potions. For two points. On the first tier.

Its worth getting that 3rd point at some point but each point is less and less valuable.

 

[Costa417]

Not sure about Alchemy... but Cat School coupled with Rend and the likes is massive... like stated before 2500 points damage output and more, 1000 and more on non special attacks... I shredded through anything and everything after level 16. Elemental? Done in two strikes. Cyclops? Done in 2 strikes. Ice Giant? Done in about 3 strikes. Eredin? Rend 4 times and done.

Finally someone talks sense

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

I still sometimes wish TW3's combat was faster like Dragon's Dogma, It would have been so badass to just assign 3 signs at a time and while in combat for e.g we could hold down RB tap X to igni real fast or hold RB tap Y for aard etc..etc.. let go of RB and X Y B all work as normal, oh and climbing monsters is always fun! I know they could do it in TW3 but I'll wish for it in TW4, it dosen't have to be as over the top as Dragon's Dogma. The thing is.. yeah, I like TW3's, combat, it is good, but what makes it fun is being able to unlock new fesh powerful moves along they way as we level up. I want to see my new level skills in action, not just a higher number with the same attack that does more damage lol.. anyways .. then we could assign our favorite skills/attacks like Dragon's Dogma. TW3's problem for me is, that the upgrades are boring when it comes to swordplay! I want to see Geralt do new shit with his sword moves, I mean signs get a visual power upgrade, why can't fast attack/strong attack follow suit? That's all I'm saying

 

[TheLocoMofo]

It's on the last column on the sword tree. I think that column is called trance or something

---------- Updated at 03:31 PM ----------

I read all the post and to all the people that say alchemy tree is better than sword tree, well that's simply bullsht.

Show me alchemy tree or sign tree that can do 2500+ damage on critical hit ignoring enemy armor. With Rend and Sunder armor i took almost half health to a "draconic thing" (dont remember which type) and it was 3 levels above me on death march difficulty.

On my first playthrough on blood and broken bones I LITERALLY killed Eredin with 4 full charged Rend.

Not to mention the Deadly Precision skill gives you 2% chance of insta killing an enemy EACH adrealine points you have, the Undying skill together with Razor Focus that significately adds adrenaline points PER sword blow. And last but not least Counterattack skill.

If all you care about is your biggest crit, then sure go a Rend build. Personally I hate Rend, because it's hard to land and unreliable, not to mention useless on groups. But while you're trying to land that big slow crit, I'll be standing at a distance drinking my coffee, while I lob cluster bombs blowing everything up to bits n pieces. Maybe I want to get in their face, well I can do that too by drinking a combination of potions/decoctions turning myself into a god.

Honestly, all three trees can be strong as hell if built right. But from my experience, (finished Blood & Bones using full sword build) I'm finding life a lot easier on my current Death March playthrough going full alchemy (bomb/potion focus). It was a bit rough initially, but once you have a few points to spend, you're good to go.

 

[brgillespie]

As I've said in another thread, I'm convinced that the game is balanced around Geralt having no points invested into any of the trees.

Any build is viable, honestly. All of them have borderline game-breaking skills (Undying, Alternate mode Quen, etc.). Some decoctions are also borderline game-breaking (Ekhidna, for example).

Even my current Aard build (I've switched builds multiple times) wrecks shit on Death March. Above 100% sign intensity the damn blast wave knocks over entire groups of enemies, allowing you to run around executing them while they're stunned on the ground.

TLDR; only "balanced", "challenging" build is to not have a build at all. Don't use Quen, either. And once you've reached level 35, just unequip your swords and punch things to death. I'm not complaining about balance (it's a single player game, after all!), I'm just humbly pointing out that any build is strong, even on Death March.

 

[Frybread]

That is because a Witcher's true power lies in the potions. Isn't that mostly the reason for the Trial of Grasses? Those that survived got superhuman reflexes and senses, immunity to diseases, accelerated regeneration and mutated metabolisms that gave them a high resistance to toxins/poisons. This allowed them to drink toxic WItcher potions that gave them abilities that border on the supernatural. Without the potions Witchers are superb warriors that can use simple magic, but can't match the abilities of most monsters or even highly skilled human/dwarf/elven warriors/mages.

Yeah, in the books he takes elixirs before a lot of his serious fights with monsters. Against humans he can rely on his mutated physical prowess alone.

---------- Updated at 07:14 PM ----------

As I've said in another thread, I'm convinced that the game is balanced around Geralt having no points invested into any of the trees.

Any build is viable, honestly. All of them have borderline game-breaking skills (Undying, Alternate mode Quen, etc.). Some decoctions are also borderline game-breaking (Ekhidna, for example).

Even my current Aard build (I've switched builds multiple times) wrecks shit on Death March. Above 100% sign intensity the damn blast wave knocks over entire groups of enemies, allowing you to run around executing them while they're stunned on the ground.

TLDR; only "balanced", "challenging" build is to not have a build at all. Don't use Quen, either. And once you've reached level 35, just unequip your swords and punch things to death. I'm not complaining about balance (it's a single player game, after all!), I'm just humbly pointing out that any build is strong, even on Death March.

Maybe one could invest in only a few skills in the Combat and Alchemy trees and none in the Sign tree. After all, Geralt doesn't use his magic all that much in the books - mostly to supplement his swordplay.

 

[soot00]

Yes I respecced to alchemy at level 26. Synergy is sort of bugged when you use Dimeritium Bombs. Look at your character stats once you spam a few of these bombs. My perma stat ended up over 50k Vitality and 4k DPS< LOL. I don't think the developers meant this to be. In order to fix your character you have to unlink and link Synergy skill til your stats drop and no longer move.

There was past post from one of the CDPRO guys claiming it was fixed in a recent patch, nope. Am sure there are a few other players running around with broken stats like I was but have no clue why... lol...i just happened to check my stats when I realized my health bar wasn't dropping in fights, hah. Normally at level 30 my vitality is around 8k so to get a broken perma boost over 50k is a bit borked, hah.

 

[DragoNDai]

Full Alchemy is insane. There are even two ways to play it, thanks to the ability in the Potions tree that makes your potions last forever if your potion (NOT decoction) toxicity stays high. So you can do a potion focused build or a decoction focused build. I've been running with a decoction focused build and it's just nuts. I can run 3 decoctions (for +3000 health) and 1-2 potions or 2 decoctions and all the potions I want. And while the decoctions are good on their own, they are amazing when you start combining them.

Then you get into the oils tree (for +100% charges, chance to poison, which does TONS of damage, and, most importantly, +25% resistance to ALL damage), and bombs (for more bombs and crazy stupid huge explosions of DOOOOOOOOOOM) and you have what is easily the most ridiculous set of abilities in the game. Alchemy is strong. WAY stronger than the other trees, and that's counting things like super Quen or channeled Ingi.

 

[Costa417]

If all you care about is your biggest crit, then sure go a Rend build. Personally I hate Rend, because it's hard to land and unreliable, not to mention useless on groups. But while you're trying to land that big slow crit, I'll be standing at a distance drinking my coffee, while I lob cluster bombs blowing everything up to bits n pieces. Maybe I want to get in their face, well I can do that too by drinking a combination of potions/decoctions turning myself into a god.

Honestly, all three trees can be strong as hell if built right. But from my experience, (finished Blood & Bones using full sword build) I'm finding life a lot easier on my current Death March playthrough going full alchemy (bomb/potion focus). It was a bit rough initially, but once you have a few points to spend, you're good to go.

Im not saying that alchemy is not strong. Im just saying that alchemy is not stronger than sword. And for groups you have Whirl.

It's all about how you want to play the game. If you want to throw bombs and sht, that's ok. I personally find that annoying, but that's just me. No other tree in the game can dps so high with just sword blows, I find it very satisfying and cool.

Again, it's all about how you want to play the game.

 

[Exentryk]

How much max toxicity do you need to run 3 decoctions? What extra abilities do you need to run 3 decoctions?

 

[Alakar]

How much max toxicity do you need to run 3 decoctions? What extra abilities do you need to run 3 decoctions?

I think you need around 240 toxicity points, I'm currently running 3 decoctions plus 2 potions thanks to fast metabolism I can wait a few seconds for toxicity to drop and keep stacking more potions.

 

[Exentryk]

I think you need around 240 toxicity points, I'm currently running 3 decoctions plus 2 potions thanks to fast metabolism I can wait a few seconds for toxicity to drop and keep stacking more potions.

Yes, thanks. I actually used the same last night, and it works great.

 

[G3nome]

when you reach 200 points for toxic you can drink potions like if they where water

 

[ShariusTC]

alchemy is overpower as F, there are many combo with alchemy that broken the game, ex: