NG+, I feel too overpowered

[Lytha]

NG+, I feel too overpowered

I started my NG+ deathmarch as a lvl 52 Geralt. I'm now lvl 66 or so and when I last night ran into that nekker/troll monster den just north of the Pontar river and wiped it clean in 2 minutes (not a joke), I realized that the gameplay feels too easy now.

And that is with suboptimal build and gear.


Build:
http://www.rpg-gaming.com/tw3.html?...7a0cb03c23d2be2g&m=08152232&r=c76a4123859&u=8


Gear:
Grandmaster Feline boots, gloves, pants.
White NG shirt (3 glyph slots). (NG shirts have armor 1, NG+ shirts have armor 111.)
1 glyph slot not used
1 greater glyph of mending
rest (uhm 7 total?) greater glyph of quen.

Ursine Grandmaster Steel Sword (runeword: Preservation).
Aerondight (lvl 45), more or less fully upgraded to current level (runes: burning, armor piercing, stunning).

I found loads of better steel swords already of course (the grandmaster ursine is a lvl 40 sword, I am lvl 66), but I cling to the preservation and I don't think that I could get the chunk of jade for runesmith currently.


Fight behaviour:
- Ekidhna potion, tawny owl, quen. I could throw in more to boost Euphoria some more, but that is not necessary. Stuff dies fast already.
- usually just fast attacks, thus rendering the grandmaster feline bonus useless.
- "stab stab dodge". Or "stab dodge stab dodge". It can also be "stab dodge dodge"


Nekkers (lvl 70) died in 1-2 hits from the blade. Troll required 4 or 5 hits. He also hit me once when my quen wasn't up and dealt 95% of my whole health as damage; but I could recover from that quickly.

I've never really done NG+ before, since I vastly prefer NG and the search for formulae. I'm doing it now to unlock all mutations and for the "shirt in NG+ deathmarch" feeling of achievement. The one time I did NG+ in the past, Crones and Iris' Greatest Fear were difficult. I also overleveled everything badly then, because I had been running "always full XP for quests" mod, so things might have been a bit abnormal.

So, I have no idea if this is normal or not.


In NG, this nekker cave in particular is something I leave alone until I am lvl 22+, because those hordes of lvl 18 nekkers scare me. I also do a much more tactical approach and try to pull single nekkers out of the crowd so that I can kill them safely. In NG, I do not do anything like: "just run in and kill everything in 2 minutes".


Questions:
1.) Is this ridiculous easiness of the battles actually normal for NG+?
2.) Will NG+ become more challenging later on? I guess there might be a point where the monsters become tougher while my build remains static?
3.) If not, and if this deathmarch basically remains in "just the story" combat mode (except for the "one blunder and 95% of my own health are gone or I am dead", which is not really "just the story"-mode alike ) any suggestions for making it more challenging?

 

[Boromir2015]

Questions:
1.) Is this ridiculous easiness of the battles actually normal for NG+?
2.) ...

Yes, that's a general problem, I fear. So in past a German games-magazine "Gamestar" wrote, that NG+ is a kind of challenge only if the player uses the "Deathmarch"-mode...

 

[Lytha]

I am playing in deathmarch mode.

Should have put that into the title.


It's the deathmarch which currently feels like "just the story".

 

[Boromir2015]

I am playing in deathmarch mode.

Should have put that into the title.


It's the deathmarch which currently feels like "just the story".

I agree 100%. I tough the same by my last NG+ playthrough. That's one of the reason why I have decided to play only "normal" walkthroughs in future...

 

[Lytha]

I agree 100%. I tough the same by my last NG+ playthrough. That's one of the reason why I have decided to play only "normal" walkthroughs in future...

Yeah. I also like the fact that NG is challenging at first and then gradually becomes easier. That feels like progress.

This NG+ felt like easy mode right from the start. That may bend into "and then it becomes harder, once you've all your skills", but currently, I do not think that this couldn't be fixed by keeping the toxicity at higher levels (for more Euphoria damage), and by adjusting the skills some more and maybe removing the rather useless skills in preparation for the battles (i.e. the crossbow time slowing skill that I currently use at all times.)


Well. For some potential troubles, there's still the Crones and Iris Greatest Fear looming ahead; and the fact that yeah, I can die really suddenly if I make a mistake.

Oh, and the interesting challenge of: "where the hell do I find a merchant with enough money to buy those 30 swords, 250g/ea"...


My motivation in this NG+ is just the following:

- "I want to finish a NG+ without being overleveled once!"
- "white shirt in NG+ deathmarch!" to stroke my ego a bit
- "want to see all the mutations in action once" <- that is not going to happen in a NG.
- "I wonder how many crowns I'll have in the end"


Still, any ideas to make things more challenging? Should I just dump Euphoria?

But I accidentally ran around without it for a while (diving drowners asked for Cat's Eye, and then I forgot to swap back afterwards) without even noticing the lack of it very much...

 

[Goodmongo]

If your command of dodging is that good then there is nothing you can really do to make the game harder. That was shown the one time you got hit for 95% of your health. No imagine if your command of dodge and attack was flawed and you took 2-4 hits per fight.

There is not much the game can do to counter near perfect fight mechanics on your part. You can wear no armor and do 10 damage but if you never get hit you'll eventually win.

 

[Lytha]

If my command of the dodging were so foolproof, I wouldn't need the permanent quen.

I'm currently relieving Novigrad of everything that shines up yellow to my witcher senses, and I had some discussions with Whoresons on the way. If the tactic: "Axii -> instant kill" fails, then these battles were relatively intense (more than 2 stabs per bandit, that is. Most like 2-4 per bandit.) That was nice.

So maybe the way to a challenge would be to just use the NG grandmaster gear for a very long time.

Is the Aerondight really the source of the problem?
Hm,but would I want to ditch it?


I could try and do it without the permanent safety belt of a quen, but maybe start doing that in a NG because the loading screens last too long to really enjoy that.

 

[lucasra]

I have never used quen since my first playthrough and I would recommend anyone to do it, but only if you're familiar with every mob already. You need to be very patient as it is very hard to find openings on some monsters this way. There are some fights that can be a bit broken without quen though, such as griffins (they're the hardest to dodge attacks) and a big pack of wolves. In those situations I think it's ok to use quen, otherwise it's just too hard sometimes. I also barely use the other signs, at most 1 use per fight to keep things interesting

My way to challenge myself in the new ng+ I'm about to start will be no quen or healing during fights. I'll avoid getting hit at all costs and, to reward that, I'll be using the wyvern oil and that new skill that increases attack power for every hit until Geralt gets hit.

Once you have 300+ hours like I do, you need to change things up a bit

 

[Lytha]

@lucasra : which glyphs do you use if you never use quen?

I felt totally stumped with that question, then looked at my magic use history and could only opt for quen, really. Since Axii works well enough anyway, and I barely use igni, aard or yrden - though I tried yrden a bit now and it seems amusing and useful, after all.

 

[lucasra]

@lucasra : which glyphs do you use if you never use quen?

I felt totally stumped with that question, then looked at my magic use history and could only opt for quen, really. Since Axii works well enough anyway, and I barely use igni, aard or yrden - though I tried yrden a bit now and it seems amusing and useful, after all.

I like igni the most, but there are only 2 or 3 slots because I'm not using any armor set right now. Basic wolven armor (dyed brown), kaer morhen trousers and mountain folk boots because my Geralt is a simple witcher
:geraltsad:

 

[Goodmongo]

I like aard and rarely use quen. All I use it for is to give me space. The bigger monsters that are immune to aard rarely are in any groups. But it works nicely against groups of humans to give me some space to fight them in smaller groups.

 

[Lytha]

@Goodmongo : Yes, Aard seems nice too. NG+&some levels above me-Kiyan refused to be treated with my normal "Axii -> stab" technique last night, so I chose to aard him away from me. That was effective for sure.

I guess I'll first wait and see if things become harder as soon as I got all the skill slots filled.

 

[Ingsoc85]

I have the same problem when I played NG+ on deathmarch, my solution was to choose my fight against enemies that are well above my level (about 10-20 higher, sometime more) it certainly add much to the game difficulty, especially if you face a group of enemies rather than a single monster.

 

[Krull32]

I have to agree, Ng+ should be a bit more difficulty. At least on Deathmarch.
Finished B&W with Manticore Set, started NG+ again on Death March and played through it (nearly finished the main story ) with the Manticore Armor from first run.
Not really difficulty. No Upgrades and even no other blades needed till now. Died a few times but mostly because of my own mistakes.

Dark Mode, where are you....:sofa:

 

[Lytha]

I'm now running around in southern Velen currently, mopping up ?s and doing some higher level witcher contracts. I'm the equivalent of lvl 18 (=70) (well, 19 (=71) now).

I thought it would be a jolly good idea to visit the gravehag lvl 27(?) (uh, 79?) at her hidden treasure on that peninsula, and to have a discussion with the griffin on the road (lvl unknown).

Sure, both worked. For the gravehag, I had thrown in a thunderbolt in addition to some more drugs, and had a nicely high amount of toxicity (which... uhm... didn't matter, since I have currently Cat Eyes mutation active because I forgot to swap it back... uhm.) So, yeah. The scary part was afterwards when I just ran on to the lvl 18 (lvl 70) drowner variety along the shores. And they just exploded after 1 stab each.


Fights with beasts are more challenging, because I still use the grandmaster ursine blade. Just can't part with the preservation. I am feeling silly about that by now though and have so many better blades, and they would do almost double my current DPS... ah well. Fights with humanoids are still the Axii-Stab technique that I grew so fond of.

And I actually upgraded the armor to legendary basic feline gloves, boots, pants now. They do not reflect light as brightly as the metal bands of the grandmaster boots.


I think I'll give a spellcasting focus-heavy build a go in my next NG and try less quen then. Loading times are too long to do greater experiments in NG+.

 

[Lytha]

Sooo.... still at this playthrough, still using Quen, dodge and stab stab stab.

When I finished mopping up the quests of act 1 and saw Vesemir in Kaer Morhen and noticed that I was really close to 79 (= "lvl 27", the point when Evil's Soft Touches loses the red skull icon), I decided that I wanted to go and start HoS and proceed with it until auctionhouse, before any potestacquisitoring or adventuring with Lambert.

That was one or two levels below the comfortable range for HoS; even the flaming knights were 1 level too advanced.

So, instead of fighting with those knights, I went ahead and "aerondight+quen+stabstabstab"ed monsters instead. It went remarkably well, considering that they all had a red skull icon. This was interesting while it lasted.

With the runesmith then receiving the jade stone, me not having even remote monetary issues about giving him 30k crowns, I then quickly ended up with another preservation on my legendary ursine steel blade. And I put up an invigoration onto aerondight to see what this might do. While doing all this, I hit the optimal HoS level range, and upgraded my gear to superior legendary feline gloves, boots, pants; a NG+ white shirt; and a superior legendary ursine steel sword.

Ekimmara + 2 greater glyphs of mending + invigoration seems ... hm... explosive.

Things are getting a bit silly now. I do not recall that I have seen a >20k hit yet, but ~15k hits are aplenty. Sure, the monsters also seem to have billions of healthpoints now (at least while they have a red skull)... but it feels somewhat ridiculous.

Ah well.


Most amusingly, I am now mortally afraid of wolf packs though.