Magical Signs in TW3

[Pargulan]

Magical Signs in TW3

Hey Guys!

I've watched I guess all interviews and videos about TW3 already and I'm kinda curious about how they plan to "improve" upon the signs. Specifically how they want to make other signs than AARD usable.

In TW2 - at leas for me - AARD was far superior to all the other signs due to it's instant effects and -till fcr2- the ability to stun enemies. Other signs were completely useless if it wasn't for specifically designed encounters like the Kayran. I even tried at my last playthrough to use "igni" instead of aard, but ended up switching to aard again, because igni wasn't even close to how good aard is.

So regarding TW3, it's a confirmed fact, that the signs will have some sort of special improvements. As far as I understand, it's like you can chose AARD to be an effect who hits everything in front of you, or make it a surrounding effect or whatever. If that's the case for ALL signs, we might get a chance to utilize igni, or even some axii signs

But isn't the overall-concept of the signs a bit flawed if you only want to use "aard" and not all of them. Or at least "more". If i recall correctly, in TW1 you could use - lets say - Igni, to set enemies to fire (like those archespores) and your choices of signs were at least somewhat caused by the monsters you faced.
In TW2, setting on fire didn't really do that much, if you managed to do so at all.

So, what do you guys think about the AARD being way to superior to all the other signs. Does it bother you ?!

Cheers
Pargulan

 

[ReptilePZ]

They definiely need to work on balancing signs, they didn't do an amaing job in either TW1 or TW2. Don't agree that Aard in TW2 is far superior than the rest of the signs, though.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

To some extent the previous games required you to metagame a little, if you wanted to really explore the available abilities, like deliberately minimising use of Aard / Quen / Whateever.

TBH I don't expect much to change in this regard. Some abilities will ultimately own your play, if you let them.

Aard - even designed Overpowered - serves a purpose, and does it well.

 

[Bellator Pius Gratus]

In Witcher 1 I loved to use Aard or Igni signs. Rarely used any other sign.

In Witcher 2 Aard and Igni fell out of favour for the Quen sign. I enjoyed using it, but I have to give some credit to Yrden sign as well. Devs did a nice thing with the Kayran and using that sign to defeat it. Axii I tried to use once in battle, just to see what it did, but mainly used it in conversations(feel the force of the mind trick anyone?).

Never used Heliotrop. Looking forward to see what Witcher 3 has to offer regarding signs. Oh, the possibilities! Yay!

 

[Pargulan]

I hear a lot of guys were using the "Quen"-Sign, but I guess, thats the quen, after some patches. Because the Quen I know whas just a personal shielding with no other effect whatsoever. Now it seems to also deal damage when you get hit.

I guess the Axii's "conversion-time" just made it impossible to use. Because you only need it if there are too many enemies at once, and if there are, the other guys - but the one you try to get control over - will just simply attack you. So I too only used Axii in dialogs, which is kind of sad.

And since the magic-tree seemed a bit weak, I never got to heliotrop, what's it do ?

Cheers
Pargulan

 

[Aes Sídhe]

TW2's abilities do make for a wide variety of general strategies. it's one of the reasons i've played it so much I guess, because you can. The only thing in the game i've yet to really use is lures... my next playthrough - soon - is going to revolve around trying these out.

TW1, yeah you can nerf yourself a little there, but not much.

edit: Heliotrope slows time, bulletime.

 

[gregski]

@Kudos - ahh, those mythical lures.

Never worked for me, guess that makes me a shitty Witcher

But hey, maybe you have more luck with them!

 

[GuyNwah]

I didn't think the other signs needed improvement. I have put a lot of mileage on signcaster characters. The signs where skill improvements aren't devastating are Yrden and Axii, but the base signs are still very playable. Try playing mid-Act II to mid-Act III with a Geralt who is a mutant flamethrower: 6 vigor points, both levels of upgrade to Igni, big sign damage bonuses, and Heliotrope.

 

[Ondrex]

Igni is quite powerful if you give ability points to magic strenght and Quen is powerful too, but signs should be more balanced. It looks in The Witcher 3 it will be much better.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

@gregski; I realised as soon as I thought of it - ages ago - that i've never even heard of anyone use them... so aye, I'm ready for a pasting, if my planned lure & trap combo nuke doesn't do the job.

 

[Pargulan]

Sounds interesting, but I guess that only works out on "normal" difficulty, because on dark with fcr2 i only get 3 mutation-slots, so thats a bit off

Cheers
Pargulan

 

[Ondrex]

Kudos: I have never felt lures in TW2 are somehow important and useful so I have never used them. The world was too small for tracking monsters, I always knew where they are and I did not used traps, so it was pointless for me. But it is nice to hear that someone used them.

 

[Blothulfur]

To be honest I play Geralt like in the books and don't use signs too much, ocassional use in a scrape but hardly rely on them. Probably used Yrden the most.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

@ondrexcz. @Blothulfur; Yep, we all have our particular favourite ways, like a path of least resistance we take, but TW2 in particular does allow the player to change their play up quite abruptly... I've found focusing on aard & swords, or yrden & bombs, or similar combos with magic, or even just going all Getafix provides real different games.

Maybe next time, if I can get the lures to work at all, this'll be another viable way to play. I can easily imagine a Witcher carefully preparing a devastating trap for monsters, rather than always hand to hand with the stinking beasties

 

[BroccoliSouP]

Hey Guys!
In TW2 - at leas for me - AARD was far superior to all the other signs due to it's instant effects and -till fcr2- the ability to stun enemies. Other signs were completely useless if it wasn't for specifically designed encounters like the Kayran. I even tried at my last playthrough to use "igni" instead of aard, but ended up switching to aard again, because igni wasn't even close to how good aard is.

But isn't the overall-concept of the signs a bit flawed if you only want to use "aard" and not all of them. Or at least "more". If i recall correctly, in TW1 you could use - lets say - Igni, to set enemies to fire (like those archespores) and your choices of signs were at least somewhat caused by the monsters you faced.
In TW2, setting on fire didn't really do that much, if you managed to do so at all.
Pargulan

That is not true at all. I went for swordmaster so I can´t say if upgraded versions of spells make differnce yet I still used vigors mostly for signs in fight and not for parying. Aard is cool if you want to stun a stab in the back(lower health ones), Igni is indeed worst(but unupgraded!), yrden was very good against enemies which had lot of health and it was hard to get in their backs, Queen was very good against hard hiting enemies(you could avoid huge chunks of damage) and Axii was especially usefull against big groups of human enemies to attract attention out of you. And I used all of them depending on situation. Only that useless Igni but I have to say third time that it was unupgraded version.

In Witcher 1 I have to agree that Igni and Aard were the strongest but my friend said he maxed Quen and with levels it gets very strong. Other two were kinda forgotten but question is if they were really that bad or just unpopular choice(I would have to play Wicher like 4th time to find out ).

 

[val.mitev]

@ondrexcz. @Blothulfur; Yep, we all have our particular favourite ways, like a path of least resistance we take, but TW2 in particular does allow the player to change their play up quite abruptly... I've found focusing on aard & swords, or yrden & bombs, or similar combos with magic, or even just going all Getafix provides real different games.

Maybe next time, if I can get the lures to work at all, this'll be another viable way to play. I can easily imagine a Witcher carefully preparing a devastating trap for monsters, rather than always hand to hand with the stinking beasties

When I replay TW2 I either focus on the sword tree or the signs tree, it does provide a different experience.
So I'm really interested in what the skill trees will be in TW3. Hopefully they provide large enough difference so that it makes sense to focus on different things in subsequent playthroughs.

 

[Mothra]

While Axii certainly was situational and not the most "effective" of signs I enjoyed using it very much
I never took the Axii upgrades in the tree though, I hope TW3 will bring some interesting side-effects to them so they get more love.
Regarding TW2 i tried all different combinations, I even made a build using all 3 trees and taking none of the high-level passives and all of them worked if you are a good enough player. sword/alch is still unbalanced and OP.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

I hope the basic philosophy of TW2'S skilltrees is kept or expanded upon, it's great to see others agree they are versatile, since occasionally someone posts they're insufficient, and I tend to think they just haven't explored them.

Also that lures make the cut, even if they aren't made more viable, though imagine how they could be with an open world & maybe the witcher senses.

 

[val.mitev]

I hope the basic philosophy of TW2'S skilltrees is kept or expanded upon, it's great to see others agree they are versatile, since occasionally someone posts they're insufficient, and I tend to think they just haven't explored them.

Also that lures make the cut, even if they aren't made more viable, though imagine how they could be with an open world & maybe the witcher senses.

I always had lures stuffed in my pockets, just to attract the occasional monster so that I could fight more.
I really enjoyed the fighting in TW2, hopefully the arena makes a return as well.

 

[whiplash27]

Aard, Chop, Chop, Chop, Aard, Chop, Chop, Chop. Rinse and repeat. Definitely need to make these types of strategies less effective.

For me Igni was pretty good, especially after you become much more powerful with your signs. It becomes pretty useful for crowd control, but it's still not as good as Aard for one on one battles. Quen was a beast especially before the patches nerfed it. It was at a point where you could just Quen the entire game and not use any other sign if you wanted. Whereas in TW1, Quen was kind of useless. Yrden I've never found use for and Axii is fun once in a while, but it's not that useful.

Anyway, they've said they're going to flesh out the signs more in this game, so we'll see what happens.