Why is Yrden and Axii so useless?

[F4TAN82]

Axii is stupid and useless as hell at the start, its only good when you level it up and use it on conversation, but still sucks since if there's 2 people, for some stupid reason Geralt will only use Axii on 1, so the other would start panicking and fight will still break out.

Yrden is literally useless against every enemy other than Spectre. The description is "a trap, blocks the monsters from getting closer, scaring them off" but lets be real, it never happened lmao. the only usefulness is when you fight Spectre that you cant attack, and if use Yrden, you can finally attack them, oh and its useful in that Battle for Kaer Morhen mission to close the Hunt's portal (which is weird since it took Keira long ass time in the cave to close it but apparently Geralt just need to use Yrden). but that's it

[charly4711]

Well, I'd say the actual reason is: Because most other witcher techniques are stronger for more situations.
Yrden _is_ kinda meh outside spectre or Noon-/Nightwraith fights. I think there are a couple more uses, but I personally feel slow at changing signs and hardly ever feel the benefit of losing time to switch to Yrden to then slow down enemies.
Axii on the other hand isn't sooo bad. Sure, it's not mind-blowing from the start. But that's the whole reason for being able to level your character. In a 1:1 fight Axii can be used for cheese like: Stun enemy from outside his reach, then move in to attack a couple of times, move out again, rinse and repeat. Puppet on an archer can be nice, and obviously alghouls and their annoying spikes.

[Orion Invictus]

Axii can keep an enemy off your ass temporarily. Very good to take some pressure off while fighting multiple enemies.

Yrden slows enemies down, makes it easier to dodge their attacks and lets you get in more attacks before they can attack once. I don't know why you think this is useless.

[Sentient_Toaster]

An upgraded Yrden can slow enemies down, shoot projectiles out of the air or zap enemies from a decent distance (if alternate mode), and do damage that scales with the enemy's maximum HP (supercharged glyphs). Some enemies simply can't be set on fire regardless of how much you pump Igni, so having a another source of scaling damage is nice if you're running a signs build.

[LordOfTheBread]

If you8 find them useless you're nopt playing on Death March.

[Gorkon]

Axii is great for stunning enemies and leaving them open to attacks, especially when fighting against humans.

[Blimphead316]

Originally posted by F4TAN82:

Axii is stupid and useless as hell at the start

So level it up and make it better?

Originally posted by F4TAN82:

Yrden is literally useless against every enemy other than Spectre.

Then don't use it; nobody is forcing you to.

[LordOfTheBread]

Originally posted by Blimphead316:

Originally posted by F4TAN82:

Axii is stupid and useless as hell at the start

So level it up and make it better?

Originally posted by F4TAN82:

Yrden is literally useless against every enemy other than Spectre.

Then don't use it; nobody is forcing you to.

You can make very powerful builds on both sighns and yes, Yrden is pretty mandatory on higher difficulties to fight ghosts.

[Vjottir92]

You think they are useless, because you are a hobbit, living in a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, and you're lucky that Hobbits are sentient beings, and Witchers don't usually hunt those. I would.

[wtiger27]

They are not useless. Enemies using a shield, simply Axii them and they are open for attack. Yrden is very useful against certain types of enemies and if you perk for it, can help a lot.

Also level 3 Axii, can resolve dialog options and save you some time.

[p00se2]

i learned to appreciate yrden sign alot more

also using quick casting buttons helps alot to

axii is a stun of sorts
and that can be extremely useful

[Graf Erik]

Neither yrden nor axii is useless, they are just more situational.

Quen is easy, its always good, even a braindead slug could use that. Igni and aard are pretty straight forward too.

Yrden is mandatory when fighting ghosts in general. It also slows down enemies, which makes it pretty usefull when fighting large packs of hostiles.

Axii is pretty usefull in combat (just be aware that some creatures are immune to it). It stuns one ememy, so unlike yrden its not good for groups of enemies. It very good against enemies with a shields. It can interrupt special attacks. On high levels is can force targets to fight for you, which makes it good against groups of enemnies again.
In general it leaves the enemy very vulnerable. I had more then one boss-fight that I won by a single axii followed by a strong attack.

[Vatt'ghern]

Yrden is very quite useful if you equip all skills from the yrden tree. Magic trap will zap arrows incoming also enemies and spam 2 more yrden circles will zap and slow enemies inside.

[W!SS]

Yrden is always useful with ghosts, any type of ghost, Axii is amazing especially if you cast it on an enemy and you just finish him with one hit.

[Crix]

Not useless, I use them most often actually. Axii is really fun if you actually use it but since it's worthless to you, you wouldn't know. ;)

[Neon Noodles]

"This wrench is useless as a hammer!"

~Tools are made for a specific purpose~