Endgame Witcher Gear Discussion

[LoneEagle]

I finally retired my Grandmaster Feline set and displayed it in my vineyard mansion. Now, I will be redistributing my ability points for the third time and using my new Grandmaster Wolven set. Instead of retribution for the armor, I am going to use the level 2 protection this time because I like the auto-Quen feature. Also looking forward to the 3 oils simultaneously and instant bombs features. I use invigorate for extra damage tied to vitality regeneration.

I really enjoy using Metamorphosis for the random element in combat. Makes things interesting. I want to research 8 mutagens so I can have maximum ability slots to use. I think I will add the frozen aard ability since it is way OP, but I still want strong combat ability because I prefer to use swords mainly. So I will have a balance of Quen / Aard / Combat / Mutagens.

I briefly considered the Manticore and Ursine sets, but decided against them for various reasons. And I think the Griffon set is mainly for people who want to mostly use sign magic.

So any thoughts about any of this? Suggestions? I am close to finishing Blood and Wine and don't really want this game to end.....

[charly4711]

I feel like I was playing a simpler style with mostly fast attacks and such. I went with Ursine armour and Levity (was that the name?) runewords to make them be treated like light armour but still give me the extra adrenaline. Sprinkling in signs like Quen and frozen Aard always felt like doing enough for me.

[LoneEagle]

Fast attacks are what I used for pretty much the whole game. I still plan to use them, but I am mixing up my skills and strengths to make things more interesting. Yes, Levity is the name and I almost did that exact same thing. The main thing that stopped me is because I think I would need to craft every piece of Ursine gear from regular, enhanced, superior, mastercrafted all before I could craft Grandmaster whereas the Wolven gear allowed me to go straight to Grandmaster. I don't know how much that would cost for Ursine, but I am guessing a LOT (30-50k crowns probably would be my guess) I might craft it if I have a bunch of extra crowns at the end of the game. The Wolven gear seems pretty cool like a good balance though.

I consider Counterstrike and Undying to be mandatory skills in the Combat tree.
I am disappointed that one of my strategies did not work though. I wanted to put the brown ability skills in the middle so I could max out the mutagen bonuses around the edges of the ability tree, but it only allows blue, green, or red skills in there (with Metamorphosis) or just blue with Frozen aard...oh well

And I was incorrect about something I wrote earlier. 8 mutagen upgrades unlocks all except 1 ability slot. You have to research all 12 mutagens to get all slots opened and unless I get to level 80 or so, I am not sure that would be a wise move. Currently, I am level 46 and I doubt I'll get much past level 50 before beating Blood and Wine (could be wrong, we'll see...)

[dantès]

Like you, fast attacks (whirl) was my bread and butter, until I tried 'Rend'.. nothings was more satisfying than hearing that 'gong' sound when you kill an enemy with rend while having the 'Hen Gaidth' armor (or Tesham Mutna armor) equip.... probably shattering someone using 'piercing cold' mutation would be tied. lol

Don't think the idea for the mutations is for you to have all of them researched.. Think its designed to just go down one or two branches.. cause by the time you get them all, there wouldn't be anyone else to kill in the game.

I used three armor sets.. feline, griffen, and the hen gaidth.. each designed for a specific type of battle. feline load-out more for sword fighting (specters, elemental etc) - griffen I built around sign damage, using the 'entanglement' enchantment to maximize the 6/6 grandmaster set 200% sign intensity bonus. and the hen gaidth armor was pure tank build...

just have fun,, there's no right or wrong here.

[★ FmNey ★]

I use manticore + euphoria for boss and griffin + frozen aard for others,

[Sep]

I use all armor, make Jack of All Trade build. Work well at hard difficulty.

The only armor I have yet to upgrade to grandmaster is griffin.

[LoneEagle]

I agree that there is "no right or wrong here" because you can defeat all the monsters pretty easily no matter what strategy you use (at least on normal difficulty). Maybe I should increase my difficulty, but I like having easy battles. I work hard on the computer all day at work and I don't want my video games to feel like more work. Just a small amount of challenge is sufficient for me. :)

I am using the auto-quen frozen aard combo now, and so far it is working nicely. Also my swords are pretty strong in case my aard doesn't work so well or if I get bored of using it.

Gotta say I am pretty impressed with the amount of content in this Blood and Wine DLC. I still have some Gwent tournaments, fist fights, side quests and more of the main story to finish. It has already been more than worth the money I spent. There is so much detail here, and any time I feel like reading the little notes / books laying around it gets even better. Some of the stuff is really hilarious to me! :)

I am about to take out a massive bandit fortress castle battle on top of a mountain and it is almost as exciting and rewarding as sex LOL

Update: Okay, killing all the bandits and their leader was fun. Jumping off the castle tower to my death was not so much....the only time I ever die in the Witcher games is when I fall / jump to my death like an idiot....lol :)