TW2: When/how do critical effect bonuses get applied?

[johnjsal]

TW2: When/how do critical effect bonuses get applied?

I just put a second point into Whirlwind, which is supposed to give +20% to critical effect chances. However, when I checked my statistics, I noticed that all of my critical effects were still listed as 0%. I assumed this was because I didn't have a sword drawn.

So I drew my sword, and some %s went up, but most stayed at 0. Then I figured maybe I needed the actual crit effect on the weapon before the bonus worked. So as a test, I applied a critical effect mutagen (because I had read that this will give you a "base" crit % for all of them, and bonuses will then apply, even if it's not on the sword). But no, the only %s I saw were 3% (from the mutagen), but they did not include the 20% from Whirlwind.

Even more than this, even the crit effect that IS on my sword (Incineration, and I believe Bleeding and Stunning too), only showed something like 34%. But the sword itself already has 20% Incineration, so shouldn't it at least be 40% from Whirlwind?

What's going on? How does this work? And how can I make sure the other bonuses from abilities (like Whirlwind's resistances bonuses) are also working properly?

Thanks.

 

[Preserver]

Finesse and Whirlwind skills add a percentage of your current base critical effect.
base critical effects are those obtained via critical mutagens and your weapons.

for example:
let's say you're wielding a sword with 7% of stun chance and you have used a greater critical mutagen (3% to all critical effects). now your base stun chance is 10%, by having the first level of Whirlwind you get +10% of your current base critical chances. so your stun chance will become 11% not 20%. for others, 10% of 3% is less than 1% so other critical chances won't change and will remain 3%.


Precision skill is different and it will add the raw percentage to your base.

for example:
if you're wielding a sword with 14% of bleeding chance and you have used a greater mutagen (3% to all critical effects) then your base bleeding critical chance will be 17% and by having having the second level of Precision, your final bleeding chance will be 37%.

 

[johnjsal]

Finesse and Whirlwind skills add a percentage of your current base critical effect.
base critical effects are those obtained via critical mutagens and your weapons.

for example:
let's say you're wielding a sword with 7% of stun chance and you have used a greater critical mutagen (3% to all critical effects). now your base stun chance is 10%, by having the first level of Whirlwind you get +10% of your current base critical chances. so your stun chance will become 11% not 20%. for others, 10% of 3% is less than 1% so other critical chances won't change and will remain 3%.


Precision skill is different and it will add the raw percentage to your base.

for example:
if you're wielding a sword with 14% of bleeding chance and you have used a greater mutagen (3% to all critical effects) then your base bleeding critical chance will be 17% and by having having the second level of Precision, your final bleeding chance will be 37%.

Thank you! Not quite as powerful as I thought, but I guess it's something.

 

[Preserver]

Truth be told, I hadn't found bleeding effect useful in TW2.
to reach "Invincible" skill, you have to choose from "Precision", "Finesse" or "Sudden Death" and my choice is always "Sudden Death".

 

[johnjsal]

Truth be told, I hadn't found bleeding effect useful in TW2.
to reach "Invincible" skill, you have to choose from "Precision", "Finesse" or "Sudden Death" and my choice is always "Sudden Death".

Yeah, I was disappointed that I had to choose one of these three to advance, because none of them seem all that useful, but I chose Finesse because it seemed the most general of the three and affects more types of crits than the other two, albeit in a different way apparently (i.e. not a 5% boost in the case crit % as I thought). Maybe if I had known this, I might have chosen one of the other two, since I think they both provide a bonus to the base amount, so you don't necessarily need a sword with Bleeding or Instant Death on it.

 

[Selfluminous]

Hello,
I think this topic needs more discussion ,especially for new players.
In my first play through, I chose Dark mode (as recommended by the tutorial, i'm a big fan of TW1 btw and the new combat mechanics is absolutely amazing). After reading through some guide, I decide to make a Geralt that can rofl 1 hit 1 freeze enemies, since i read somewhere that, no creature in this game is immune to freeze (even boss ??).
So naturally I decide to rack up Greater critical effect mutagens and immediately use them to try out the effect. here is what I noticed:

1. Some people said that the critical effect is base chance that doesn't do anything unless the weapon you use has that effect (i.e. you won't ever incinerate if you sword has no bonus to incineration even if you have like 30-40% of base incineration in character attribute, same goes for freeze). Is that correct ? because after applying to mutagens, I got to around 70% incineration which is the effect with highest %, and I burns enemy pretty much with every hit with just a normal steel sword.

2. My hypothesis is that, the effect I do in combat is the one with highest percentage, TOGETHER with the effect the sword has. Very often these two are the same (the bonus on sword make it also the one with the highest percentage). Normally, I suppose with all effects have equal chance, and using a normal weapon without critical effect, nothing happens. However, I got pyromaniac attribute very early, my incineration chance is actually highest and thus I actually incinerates and poison enemy even when i have a sword with only poison effect.
I am very unsure about this, has anyone ever tried the critical effect build before ?

I am waiting for the moment I get my hand on the Negotiator, and with my current base 80% freeze, I could do 100% freeze. Also, will that make me freeze boss with every hit ? Would that work on boss like the Draug ?

3. The most important point, which is what I am very concerned about is whether you can simultaneously cause more than ONE critical effect with ONE hit , I have a lot of reason to suspect that this is not true, and if so, getting the Pyromaniac attribute would totally screw up my build.
My base incineration is 101% already, and if you can only have ONE critical effect for each attack, it would override every other effect, (to clarify, before I said I could both poison and incinerate is because, my chance to poison is 60% and incinerate is around 80%, both less than 100 % so sometimes I still see poison effect).

 

[Selfluminous]

Nevermind I found out the reason by looking at def_item_swordsteel.xml. It's in the tags of each sword:
The bleed, incineration, and poison effect in character statistics apply to every steelsword: For example, your sword doesn't need fire rune, if you have incineration base chance from mutagens, you can still incinerate enemies. The same applies for poison and bleed, but not freeze, stun and knockdown (I understand this is for balance reason, people can stacks greater crit mutagens and stun/freeze with almost every hit, it's really gamebreaking given how fast the attack of Geralt is).
Only Vrans sword can inflict freeze effect (no matter how high the freeze chance (given by mutagens) shown in the character stat is, it is useless without this sword). Even Beann'shie cannot freeze despite the stat saying so, both Wight, Eclipse cannot stun either (someone forgot to put the tag in these items )

 

[Garrison72]

The way this is 'explained' in the character stat screen is quite frankly a mess. I hope CDPR makes it more intuitive in TW3. I used to think the first Witcher was hard to understand but stats and effects are actually much clearer in that game. As for bleeding, I defeat Letho in Flotsam pretty handily with Jagged blade and brown oil.