i joined the order the first time, this time i'll play on hard mode and go with the elves, but in a couple days hopefully will be playing strands of destiny mod. Btw about the basilisks, you must meditate a full day and leave the area and then go back, so it's a little bit of mucking around and you really don't need to do it. you can quite comfortably finish the game just doing the main plot quests, which is a little disappointing, but hey it's all good.
Mostly came from Kalkstein, selling him stuff after exp grinding.demoniksith said:
I don't bother grinding in this game .. it's quite pointless .. waste of time and quest XP alone is more than enough to get by.Possible exception in Raven's crypt, just to get a couple of gold talents before finishing the act.As for the OP, all the signs are awesome except for Axii ... it's faster just to kill stuff yourself.
My plan is to give myself all five levels of at least four of the spells, but choose which skills I unlock within each level very carefully. Last time I just plonked skill points into every level of every skill as I unlocked them. High level incinerate and stun are musts, of course. But I can probably live without a few of the combat skills and rely more on the enchantments on my swords. Really, in my last game, the combat became so easy it was silly. The only times I was ever in trouble were when I got surrounded and couldn't cast a spell. I'm f two minds about the spells. The game forces you to take Igni and Aard first, and so naturally they are more heavily weighed right from the beginning. Once you start using them you lose the incentive to give weight to the others. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to get them all at once. But it would be nice if you could be offered a choice of which one to take at each stone. That way you wouldn't be such a long way down the Aard/Igni path by the time the other spells are available.
Yeah, I got to second this one.Ok, fine, Aard was a plot device, but Igni isn't necessary for the outskirts .. I think Axii would be interesting to have, then .. rather than being largely useless for most of the game.
I suppose that the game does nudge you towards Igni and Aard, but frankly setting things on fire was pretty high on my priority list anyway!Not to mention that Igni is (so far as I can tell) pretty much the only way to kill consistently Bloedzuigers (sp?) without getting slimed. Without it fighting two or three at a time would be painful at lower levels.
It is my preferred tool against bloedzuigers 
... i usually run around in circles until I've gathered at least 3 or 4 of them, then spin around and igni the lot, then keep running as they burn ... periodically checking to make sure they've all remained "lit" ... wait until they start the explosion chain reaction. great fun
... i usually run around in circles until I've gathered at least 3 or 4 of them, then spin around and igni the lot, then keep running as they burn ... periodically checking to make sure they've all remained "lit" ... wait until they start the explosion chain reaction. great fun I use Igni only as the final "strike" on Bloedzuigers And if possible when a few more monsters joined the dance so they can get the full fatal batch of their poisonous explosion ]:->
And if possible when a few more monsters joined the dance so they can get the full fatal batch of their poisonous explosion ]:->Bloedzuigers don't start their exploding animation until you finish your combo.So if you sidestep (with A or D), either in the middle or as soon as you finish, using strong silver, you can then spin around (with the mouse) and run quickly enough to avoid getting hurt.
Pfft .. I play mage builds .. Geralt rarely draws his sword when I play him.Just pointing out it's possible to melee those things without the hurt.
In this game I'm only at levels two and three on my sword abilites, at level 25. I'm thinking that with the right potions and high levels spells I might just get throught it without maxing on the combat side. In my last game I killed that Kikimore Boss using mostly magic -- Igni, Aard and the Pain symbol-- although admitedly it took some time and a lot of dodging. I couldn't get near it with my sword without getting whumped. And that was the hardest boss by far, by a long shot. Azar was a pushover in comparison, although I confess Berengar took the brunt of that fight. And I beat Adda wthout killing her mostly by throwing high level Aard at her and running around the sarcophagus. So I might just take the chance and continue putting points into magic this time just to see what happens. I'd love to have a few more gold level spells. Gold level attributes are a must, of course, no matter which way I go.
I'm impressed that you actually killed the Kickimore Queen using magic, since the usual strategy is to kill her by pulling the ceiling down on top of her.Fraser said:
So, I've read a little, and I find it weird that I haven't really known about this before I finished The Witcher, so I've played around 50-60 hours in total, without knowing this:When I upgrade signs to the next level, do enhancements from previous levels still apply? For example, at lvl 3 in the Aard sign, you can get "Blasting Fist", which raises the chance of getting a knockdown. Do the enhancement "Disarm" which you get at level 2, which provides a chance of disarming opponents, still apply when you are at level 3?And in the "Strong Steel" tech tree, if you only have level 1 in that, don't you get any other fighting sequences? Or do these levels just increase the damage, bleeding etc. in the sequences? Are the sequences exactly the same visually, regardless of what level you are?
The answers to your two questions are different.For the sword skills, each level applies to that particular combo. So, when you see "First Attack," "Second Attack" and so on flash on the screen (if you don't have those messages turned off), the talents in that level apply to that part of the attack. This can make for some interesting decisions -- the lower-level sword skills aren't as powerful as the higher-level ones, but on the other hand, the higher-level ones don't kick in until later. It can be better to do less overall but do it sooner, so your enemy dies before it has time to do as much to Geralt. Decisions, decisions.If you haven't "bought" more advanced levels in sword, then you don't get them. But even at first level, Geralt has a basic attack, followed by the first level, so it's not just one swing over and over again.The signs, on the other hand, don't have clear and separate stages, the way the sword skills do. As far as I know, everything applies if you fully power-up a sign. I'm not sure which things apply and which don't if you don't power-up a sign.Flash? You've pawed through the guts of this game the most ... care to weigh in here?
Sign upgrades ...Take a "chance to stun" for Aard, and it'll have a chance to stun at level 5 ...So for the basic casting of signs, all upgrades should apply always.Doesn't apply to the charged versions of signs, though.I spend a fair bit of time with Igni 4, and charged version only at 2.It seems to me the ranged attack only does as much damage as it always did before I started putting silver talents in Igni, but ... when I took the -20% casting cost perk, I'm quite sure both "casting cost" bars went down.So ... I could be wrong, but at a guess ...The charged version uses all upgrades, but the basic effects (such as % damage reduced) is reduced down to the level your charged version is at.