Signs only Mage build even with swords equipped and on Death March is totally OP

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Signs only Mage build even with swords equipped and on Death March is totally OP

After reaching LvL 30 and playing Geralt as a swordsman I got the Potion of Clearence and tried a sign only build.
Such a build is totally OP. Not equipping your swords will dramatically increase sign dmg, but since the devs wrote today morning that this is a bug and will be probably fixed with 1.06 patch I tried a sign only build with swords equipped.
Still while slightly weaker it's still totally OP: at lvl 30 I can kill a lvl 35 Archgriffin on Death March in 4 seconds! LvL 43-45 guards are no problem either.
While creatures that are immune to burning (Wraiths etc.) are more difficult, it's still no challenge. Fighting monsters that are higher lvl than yourself on Death March should be very difficult, should require you to use many potions, use whatever you can to your advantage and still you should be barerly able to kill such an enemy. But right now it's way to easy.
Either there should be a higher difficulty than Death March or signs expecially Igni should be nerfed.

Below gameplay example of the above said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ3KIaoKnbA&feature=youtu.be

Don't get me wrong it's great that we can play Geralt as a Mage, but it's badly balanced.
 

Mohasz

Forum veteran
Wow, that damage with the Igni.:wat: That looks wrong, I'm glad that a) I went with a hybrid build b) I'm a noob so it's somewhat challenging for me on Broken Bones. Although I might change it to Death March, because it's getting easy at lvl 27.
 
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You can do the same with just strong attack + heavy armor + heavy armor talent + superior thunderbolt if you're swordsman build, critting for 8-9k with proper gear and 2-shotting every opponent so it's not like this is unique to a signs build.
 
They've stated that this is a bug, and it'll be fixed in the next update (the one just around the corner)
 
Well Wild hunt soldiers and the bosses are a pain in the butt with signs, but that's the only point where it gets hard/impossible (imherlith and leader immune to burn).

Would be nice if there were more ways to damage enemies with signs (aard last skill scaling with intensity and level) while igni gets a burn stun nerf and the burn damage being made not percentual anymore but a value that scales with player level and intensity too. The basic Igni damage could use a buff while the firestream is an instagibber.
 
I did this without the sword buff for my first playthrough and the mobs didn't die that fast even with 300-340 sign intensity (depending on the sign, igni had 345 iirc).
 
The high level skills break the game. I'm sure this wasn't meant to happen, but it's the same lack of polish of game mechanics that always happens these days. You can't fault them for being out of the ordinary in the lack of polish given to the gameplay, at least. All of those skills and the idiotic mutagen link do seem like afterthoughts. Particularly stupid ones.

Thing is, even on death march they break the game, which is a problem
 
So you have found a way to exploit an obvious bug and you have come here to complain about the game being too easy? Amazing... it has been acknowledged by CDPR and they are fixing the bug in the next patch.
 
Yep, pure sign build by level 25 and onwards becomes by far the strongest in the game, and pretty much downright broken. The fact that you need less total points to invest, and blue mutagens are propably the most common does not help either. I had uploaded a short video of my lv38 character vs skellige guards that were level 52-53.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP4mV2Na5vg&feature=youtu.be

Here with swords equiped(so no bug), and no potions at all i was burning them for around 2.2K per second while also stunlocking them, and of course you have the advatnage of range. Sure it gets SLOWER(not harder) on enemies that cannot be burned, but still, with ultra upgraded quen, and some axii or yrden you are still immortal.
 
Why are people still creating these overpowered threads about the game and these people not getting it?

Here is what we see..... You, OP (And others) want CD RED to increase the difficulty or "nerf" by changing items......skills.....weapons......armor......food usage.....What you fail to understand OP is that RED doesn't need to waste time changing anything. What you do not get OP, and like others of your ilk, is that you want RED to do the changing because you have no self control, no discipline to do the adjustments yourself.

Its there.....so you use it, even though you know you will bitch and complain about it and post meaningless threads on the subject no matter how odd they make you appear to others. How much clearer can we make it until you folks get that Epiphany?

You people complain a game is too easy and yet, unbelievably, you use all the best items and single mindedness when it comes to placing stats, or, here is the even bigger joke, you utilize all the points given to you and complain that you spent them.

Its like you wanting to change a channel on a tv and saying you do not get enough exercise. Instead of getting off your ass you yell for your wife or kid to change the channel or use the remote, you then complain the channels are not being switched fast enough. When in reality you could get of your ass and walk over and flick those channels as fast or slow as you want.

I see these easy or overpowered threads and I see people complaining they are getting fat, all the while they are talking about getting fat they are stuffing their mouths full of food. Same reasoning.

If you need CD RED to change a game because you cant control yourself or use available tools, and there are a ton, many you do not need to use if you want more "challenge", then you have greater problems that need to be addressed.
 

Again this joke of an argument "just dont use the best stuff". Just no. When people fire up the top difficulty in the game, they expect it to be challenging enough to require using everything at their disposal. It's called maximum dificulty for a reason, and as such it should require maximum effort to beat. Not this "tie one hand behind my back and still dance thru the so called death march" thing.

What you fail to understand is that this is not about "discipline and selfcontrol". There is no "joke" in using what the game lets you use. This is about wanting to be actually challenged by the maximum difficulty, wanting to have to think instead of being able to hitdodgequen thru everything, wanting to actually have to put in some effort even when using the full witchers arsenal.

If we take your fat analogy and make it actually make sense for a change, this is about people complaining about getting fat because the game does not give them enough exercise. At maximum difficulty players should be challenged by the game instead of having to invent extra house rules for themselves. Otherwise there is no point in having difficulty levels in the first place, just play on the lowest one and "control yourself".

On top of that, you know nothing about what RED needs or not, your tv analogy makes absolutely zero sense, and you're certainly not in any position to speak about what problems other people might have.
 
They've stated that this is a bug, and it'll be fixed in the next update (the one just around the corner)

So you have found a way to exploit an obvious bug and you have come here to complain about the game being too easy? Amazing... it has been acknowledged by CDPR and they are fixing the bug in the next patch.

What bug am I exploiting? Yes the devs wrote today morning that the unequipping the swords is a bug. This is why I equipped boths swords. It there another bug I do not know about?
With both swords equipped such a build is extremely strong. I am not ranting, just saying that I hope this get's balanced out, because clearly the devs intended Death March to be harded than that.
 
What bug am I exploiting? Yes the devs wrote today morning that the unequipping the swords is a bug. This is why I equipped boths swords. It there another bug I do not know about?
With both swords equipped such a build is extremely strong. I am not ranting, just saying that I hope this get's balanced out, because clearly the devs intended Death March to be harded than that.

Yes unequipping, they are fixing it in the next patch, games this large always have teething and balancing problems for certain members of the populace, I think these people should play the dreaded Dead is Dead mode of their own, you die you have to start all over again ! I am sure CDPR are reading these threads at any rate, they might include a higher difficulty mode for these people, I myself am finding it challenging still at level 17.
 
Of course there is an easy fix but most will hate it. Create a difficulty where damage by Geralt is capped, and DR is capped. People will complain that they can no longer get 2.5K DPS etc. but that is another story.

Just like all other RPG games I play it to role-play and for the story. Then after getting totally bored I go god-like mode to either depopulate the world or just to do it.
 
I've beaten the game on Death March (lvl 35) without using any skills beyond second row (2 blocks for signs, 1 block for swords, 1 block for alchemy), and Geralt still was an immortal death machine, but that build was quite fun to play with, because I've combined a lot of different approaches to the enemies.

So, I assume that all high-level builds are OP, you just have to choose one which you like most.
 
Could people please stop with this silly concept of "it's a single player game so balance doesn't count"? It's a complete nonsense. Either in a single player game balance IS important, elsewhere what point there is on either having a gameplay to begin with? Simply have 1 hit kills for every enemy on a game and that's it.

Since there's a gameplay obviously balancing that gameplay becomes a necessity. If you have skills that are of equal level/cost in comparison to others but they are much more powerful then this is clearly a problem from a gameplay perspective. As for the point "simply don't make a signs' build": why should you not go on a path if you want to play in that way? Also this concept doesn't make any sense. If you aren't cheating and the skills you are taking are provided by the gameplay then you should be able to utilize them to the fullest of their capability.

Now, a little of leeway can naturally be expected and it is true that in a single player game balance is not as much important as for a PvP context, but it still IS important. It is not as important as to become necessary to the details as it happens with a PvP system, but on general terms the gameplay must assuredly be balanced or elsewhere there's no either a point to have a combat system with skills to begin with.

Signs have always been the bane for CDPR it seems. They always make them overpowered in the end. I am actually dabbling with the modding files to see if I can rebalance them but I hope instead that they will fix the thing themselves.

These are my suggestions to balance signs:
More than the base damage for Igni it's the burning effect that's overpowered; it does too much damage in total and it can stunlock enemies, plus it is too easy to proc (practically with all upgrades you can burn enemies half the times, really too much, it should be at most a 10% chance). I either thought of enabling the burning chance to proc only for the channelled usage instead of always, also this could be an idea (along naturally the reduced proc and damage). As for Yrden it is the secondary usage that's OP (too many traps and they do too much damage; or you have them stagger or you have them do good damage, noth both). Axii, then, requires too little stamina per second to Dominate and the puppet does too much damage with upgrades (it should max at +20/30%, not more). Aard is the only sign that's fine as it is, maybe a little underpowered either.
 
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Don't get me wrong it's great that we can play Geralt as a Mage, but it's badly balanced.

LOL of course it's BADLY BALANCED, but you are the one who chose to make it badly balanced by investing all the points into signs!
 
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