How do blade oils work?

[Hackie P4ckie]

It's my first time playing TW3 and as is customary to making me hate myself, I decided to play on Blood March difficulty with no tutorials. So far the game hasn't been to hard, and I've mainly just been using quick attacks and Quen to beat pretty much everything.

Now I find myself stuck trying to beat this level 16 Fiend, although I'm only level 6. I'm sure I can do it, as I've already gotten him down to half health, but it takes a hell of a long time to get him to that point, and one mistake means I'm dead. I figured I could make this a little easier by finding some relict oil.

Then I realized I still had the necrophage oil and the spectre oil I had crafted before. I thought they were one use only (and I even gathered spare ingredients to craft more if the need arose). Turns out that I can keep putting these oils onto my blade seemingly infinitely. I can't find any counter that tells me how much I have left.

I'd be surprised if it was, but is blade oil infinite? I know it has a set amount of charges, but the oil itself never seems to run out. Also, does anyone know where I can find some Relict oil, or at least the recipe? I've already checked with the Pellar and Keira Metz. She seemed to have every recipe but relict oil, sadly. I'm all the way to Velen by now and I've just finished the Lubberkin quest for the Bloody Baron.

[FrosTytheNoob]

Originally posted by Grizzly:

It's my first time playing TW3 and as is customary to making me hate myself, I decided to play on Blood March difficulty with no tutorials. So far the game hasn't been to hard, and I've mainly just been using quick attacks and Quen to beat pretty much everything.

Now I find myself stuck trying to beat this level 16 Fiend, although I'm only level 6. I'm sure I can do it, as I've already gotten him down to half health, but it takes a hell of a long time to get him to that point, and one mistake means I'm dead. I figured I could make this a little easier by finding some relict oil.

Then I realized I still had the necrophage oil and the spectre oil I had crafted before. I thought they were one use only (and I even gathered spare ingredients to craft more if the need arose). Turns out that I can keep putting these oils onto my blade seemingly infinitely. I can't find any counter that tells me how much I have left.

I'd be surprised if it was, but is blade oil infinite? I know it has a set amount of charges, but the oil itself never seems to run out. Also, does anyone know where I can find some Relict oil, or at least the recipe? I've already checked with the Pellar and Keira Metz. She seemed to have every recipe but relict oil, sadly. I'm all the way to Velen by now and I've just finished the Lubberkin quest for the Bloody Baron.

once crafted, blade oil is infinite. You need to gather "recipies" to upgrade it further giving it atleast a maximum of 50% damage depending on what kind of monster you are fighting and what "proper oil" you are using. Read the bestiary to find monster weakness and tactics.

Other recipies can be bought once you have progressed further in the game, or when you open chests or treasures [random drop by the way].

Good luck on the path... and Witcher 2 was way more difficult

[Spotty Dog]

JUst click (or double click, can't remember) the oil and pick the weapon you want to put it on. Viola, more damage against that type of monster (look in bestiary for different types).

[marstinson]

There are several different types of oils (about a dozen, off the top of my head) and each comes in three versions: basic, enhanced and superior. Two of the oils (Beast Oil and Hanged Man's Venom) can be applied to your steel sword and the rest get applied to the silver sword. Application is just dragging the oil onto the appropriate sword while you are in inventory view. Applied oils replace whatever oil is currently on the sword. So if you have applied Spectre Oil that still has 12 charges left and apply Vampire Oil, the Spectre Oil is removed and replaced by the Vampire Oil with 20 charges remaining.

Oils, potions, and bombs will restock automatically when you meditate, provided you have strong alcohol in your inventory, so they are essentially infinite as far as not having to rebrew them. The game likes to use whatever alcohol in your inventory is strongest, so if you're hoarding that White Gull for later, drop it from your inventory before you meditate so the game will use something else and pick it up again after you finish meditating.

Basic oils do an additional 10% damage against the particular creature type (check the bestiary) and have 20 charges (you can hit 20 times before it needs to be reapplied - and that's any hit on any creature, whether affected by the oil or not). Enhanced oils do additional 25% damage and have 40 charges. Superior oils do additional 50% damage and have 60 charges.

A couple of the recipes are given to you automatically, but you have to either find or purchase the rest. Alchemists usually have some recipes, while herbalists are kind of iffy. The one in White Orchard has some basic ones. Once you have a recipe, it will never appear in merchant stock or as loot again. I'm not sure what happens if you get the recipe and then drop the item after you craft it. Once you find the Master Alchemist and get access to his stock (there's a quest to complete), you should be able to purchase whatever recipes you don't already know by that point.

[Furiey]

To summarise: the oil in your inventory is infinite, once you put it on your blade you have so many charges (hits) before you have to reapply it form the infinite supply in your inventory