Does the next gen update make signs more powerful?

[Gracey Face]

One thing that bothered me when I first played through this was how laughably weak signs were, seeing it has got a graphical update is making me consider playing through it again but signs are the only form of combat I find thematically interesting so I'd want to do a magic/signs playthrough again. I notice that part of the next gen update is a combat rebalance, so I am wondering if they got buffed.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Yes. Most of the changes from https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2788/ made it in, according to the author, and among those are quite a few changes to how signs work.

Notably,

• Static Discharge skill now removes a portion of enemy's current health instead of dealing very low flat damage. Damage depends on Sign intensity and can vary between 2% (lowest possible) and 10% or more of current enemy health per cast on maxed out Signs build. This makes casting Aard with Static Discharge a very good idea against tanky enemies, especially at the beginning of combat. Vanilla damage of Static Discharge was extremely low, so investing in this skill was a waste.

• Supercharged Glyphs skill damage is now scaling with enemy max health in addition to vanilla damage value. Vanilla damage of Supercharged Glyphs was extremely low, so investing in this skill was a waste.

That said, you do need to invest more if you want a high Burn chance from Igni or to reliably knock down enemies with substantial resistance to Aard.

[PostalGibbon]

Signs are weak...what? Igni + pyromancer kills everything excluding elementals. (burning proc does percentage damage so higher the level of enemy is more damage burning does.)
Yrden slow anything to crawl you are free to swing swords when enemies are slow motion. Signs are just fine no need to buff or nerf.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Sentient_Toaster:

Yes. Most of the changes from https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2788/ made it in, according to the author, and among those are quite a few changes to how signs work.

Notably,

• Static Discharge skill now removes a portion of enemy's current health instead of dealing very low flat damage. Damage depends on Sign intensity and can vary between 2% (lowest possible) and 10% or more of current enemy health per cast on maxed out Signs build. This makes casting Aard with Static Discharge a very good idea against tanky enemies, especially at the beginning of combat. Vanilla damage of Static Discharge was extremely low, so investing in this skill was a waste.

• Supercharged Glyphs skill damage is now scaling with enemy max health in addition to vanilla damage value. Vanilla damage of Supercharged Glyphs was extremely low, so investing in this skill was a waste.

That said, you do need to invest more if you want a high Burn chance from Igni or to reliably knock down enemies with substantial resistance to Aard.

Nice. Was always odd that signs were so weak when they're basically half of what makes a witcher a witcher.

[worm_master]

Dude completed pre-update game on Deathmarch with almost nothing but quan, it's not the signs that were weak, it was the players them-self's bad people allways blame their tools.. Of course the NPC's r so weak now, u don't need any signs what so ever, a sword much above the basic oe oils above regular.

Should also mention witchers aint wizards, there signs are meant as "support" not combat spells.

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by worm_master:

Should also mention witchers aint wizards, there signs are meant as "support" not combat spells.

They can be very much effective as combat damage if you build for signs usage.

[Danson]

Originally posted by worm_master:

Dude completed pre-update game on Deathmarch with almost nothing but quan, it's not the signs that were weak, it was the players them-self's bad people allways blame their tools.. Of course the NPC's r so weak now, u don't need any signs what so ever, a sword much above the basic oe oils above regular.

Should also mention witchers aint wizards, there signs are meant as "support" not combat spells.

Lol yes the sign where he pours fire out of his hands like a walking flamethrower is a "support" spell. Or the one where turrets fire magic at any enemies nearby. Or the one where he knocks people off of cliffs to their deaths. Signs take up 1/3rd of the skills you can invest points in for your build; pretty sure strong sign builds were intended.

Nobody said this game is hard or that signs NEED a buff, OP likes signs and was hoping they're better now. They are. Yay for him. Who knows why he thought they were weak before, I personally thought they were ridiculously strong when built right -- big caveat. Now I'm happy that I don't have to invest nearly all of my points into signs to make them fun to use.

[worm_master]

Originally posted by Danson:

Originally posted by worm_master:

Dude completed pre-update game on Deathmarch with almost nothing but quan, it's not the signs that were weak, it was the players them-self's bad people allways blame their tools.. Of course the NPC's r so weak now, u don't need any signs what so ever, a sword much above the basic oe oils above regular.

Should also mention witchers aint wizards, there signs are meant as "support" not combat spells.

Lol yes the sign where he pours fire out of his hands like a walking flamethrower is a "support" spell. Or the one where turrets fire magic at any enemies nearby. Or the one where he knocks people off of cliffs to their deaths. Signs take up 1/3rd of the skills you can invest points in for your build; pretty sure strong sign builds were intended.

Nobody said this game is hard or that signs NEED a buff, OP likes signs and was hoping they're better now. They are. Yay for him. Who knows why he thought they were weak before, I personally thought they were ridiculously strong when built right -- big caveat. Now I'm happy that I don't have to in
vest nearly all of my points into signs to make them fun to use.

In terms of magic yes, Witchers arnt wizards, and while yes u can incinerate very nicely with the right flame build, it's still a support spell it's not designed like a fireball.

I had my points tucked in Arrd, an I was blasting NPC's left right and centre, i even picked the freezing mutation, and freezing the NPC's, signs were plenty powerful enough pre-update, IF u knew what u were doing, consider still, they took points off the skills, and they feel weaker after the update to me.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

They can be very much effective as combat damage if you build for signs usage.

There might have been a game rebalance since I last played, which was when blood and wine released, but back then no signs could not be effective in combat.

A nice illustration is you hold the igni flamethrower on a basic enemy for 30 seconds to do 1/3 of its health while having something like 500% sign effectiveness. OR you do the potion build where you 1 hit kill everything short of bosses with the heavy attack while also fullhealing off of that heavy attack.


I did personally complete a signs only playthrough because I like signs as a concept but I respecced a couple of times into just melee and it was like playing an entirely different game. To quote a friend who I had play through a single combat encounter (the fight in the graveyard before you meet your vampire friend) with a signs build who had previously been playing a melee build;

"Jesus Christ I understand why you wanted me to try this now. You really played through the whole game like this? Why did you do that to yourself?"

[worm_master]

I beg to differ, as i said, the Arrd skill properly built, enabled you to freeze enemy after enemy, easier then using a Northwind bomb, the Quann was perfect for shielding against a heavy attack, so u could get in potion to deliver a blistering counter attack.

Admittedly I've never actually "used" signs apart from Arrd Quan an the slow sign. BTW since i got the Relivers potion, i have no need to use "slow" when fighting wraiths, all special ability's are cancelled. CAVAT... It didn't seem to work on the wraith in the "Elven ruins" but it worked on others including bansh'ee an regular wraiths.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by worm_master:

I beg to differ, as i said, the Arrd skill properly built, enabled you to freeze enemy after enemy, easier then using a Northwind bomb, the Quann was perfect for shielding against a heavy attack, so u could get in potion to deliver a blistering counter attack.

Admittedly I've never actually "used" signs apart from Arrd Quan an the slow sign. BTW since i got the Relivers potion, i have no need to use "slow" when fighting wraiths, all special ability's are cancelled.

Quan is actually a useful sign (I can't remember them by name, Quan is the shield and Arrd is the TK shove right?), but it's the only useful sign and requires no investment to be useful and is used by every build as a free hit.

It's using signs offensively that is weak as none of them scale well, they start weak and become borderline unusable whereas just hitting guys with a sharpened metal stick never stops being powerful

[worm_master]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by worm_master:

I beg to differ, as i said, the Arrd skill properly built, enabled you to freeze enemy after enemy, easier then using a Northwind bomb, the Quann was perfect for shielding against a heavy attack, so u could get in potion to deliver a blistering counter attack.

Admittedly I've never actually "used" signs apart from Arrd Quan an the slow sign. BTW since i got the Relivers potion, i have no need to use "slow" when fighting wraiths, all special ability's are cancelled.

Quan is actually a useful sign (I can't remember them by name, Quan is the shield and Arrd is the TK shove right?), but it's the only useful sign and requires no investment to be useful and is used by every build as a free hit.

It's using signs offensively that is weak as none of them scale well, they start weak and become borderline unusable whereas just hitting guys with a sharpened metal stick never stops being powerful

I think u missed the "offensive" use of Arrd, freeze em and knock em back, and since Arrd had a update that enabled damage, if u managed your stamina and had rage on, you could kill groups of things with nothing but Arrd... or blast em outta ya way, to get to the boss

[Kotory]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by worm_master:

I beg to differ, as i said, the Arrd skill properly built, enabled you to freeze enemy after enemy, easier then using a Northwind bomb, the Quann was perfect for shielding against a heavy attack, so u could get in potion to deliver a blistering counter attack.

Admittedly I've never actually "used" signs apart from Arrd Quan an the slow sign. BTW since i got the Relivers potion, i have no need to use "slow" when fighting wraiths, all special ability's are cancelled.

Quan is actually a useful sign (I can't remember them by name, Quan is the shield and Arrd is the TK shove right?), but it's the only useful sign and requires no investment to be useful and is used by every build as a free hit.

It's using signs offensively that is weak as none of them scale well, they start weak and become borderline unusable whereas just hitting guys with a sharpened metal stick never stops being powerful

They were weak prior to 4.0
Now they are anything but weak.
Aard for instance now deals % damage of current health instead tiny flat damage and extremely effective in melting down of fat enemies with full hp bar.

[worm_master]

Lol why is every one missing how unweak Arrd was pre update? I keep saying this, i had summit like 750H pre update play, experimented with all the signs and builds and found them all lacking, the only 3 that were of any use was Arrd Quan and the "slow", but even then u had to build your char right.

The only reason the signs seem stronger is coz the enemy's are so much weaker.... Observe https://youtu.be/vWc-N1LhrxI

[eyeC]

I have tried leveling up a signs build in the past, and it was just too much trouble. Now at max level, I have switched from my combat/alchemy leveling build (Euphoria) to a signs/alchemy build (Piercing Cold) ... and it's a blast. It's not OP, but it's good enough so far (the final battle will tell all),

So right now I feel things are pretty well balanced for end game but may or may not be for leveling. Are signs stronger now with the next gen patch? I think they are, but that's gut feel and not evidence.

Finally, I'll just say that the Legendary Grandmaster Griffin set looks damned good, and isn't that all that really matters?

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by eyeC:

I have tried leveling up a signs build in the past, and it was just too much trouble. Now at max level, I have switched from my combat/alchemy leveling build (Euphoria) to a signs/alchemy build (Piercing Cold) ... and it's a blast. It's not OP, but it's good enough so far (the final battle will tell all),

So right now I feel things are pretty well balanced for end game but may or may not be for leveling. Are signs stronger now with the next gen patch? I think they are, but that's gut feel and not evidence.

Finally, I'll just say that the Legendary Grandmaster Griffin set looks damned good, and isn't that all that really matters?

I personally disliked the way the griffin armor looked myself. Especially the shoulder plates. I really liked the bear, and a lot of the generic armor looks better than the "witcher" armor. It's a shame you can't visually replace one armor set with another while keeping the stats so you could wear griffin but have it look like ursine (for example).