how to find certain ingredients?

[👽Shini]

do i have to look up everything on google or is there a way to know these things in-game?

[Protoman]

There are some "master herbalists" in the game that have almost every ingredient available to buy, so you don't need to go around collecting rare stuff. One of them is the pellar in Velen (becomes available after a quest) and another is the sorceress Keira Metz (ditto).

Aside from that, buckthorn only grows underwater and mushrooms only inside caves. The game doesn't explicitly urges you to do this, but when you need the various kinds of alcohols (Cherry Cordial, Mandrake Cordial etc) to brew potions, it's inkeepers or quartermasters that sell those, not herbalists.

[👽Shini]

Originally posted by Protoman:

There are some "master herbalists" in the game that have almost every ingredient available to buy, so you don't need to go around collecting rare stuff. One of them is the pellar in Velen (becomes available after a quest) and another is the sorceress Keira Metz (ditto).

Aside from that, buckthorn only grows underwater and mushrooms only inside caves. The game doesn't explicitly urges you to do this, but when you need the various kinds of alcohols (Cherry Cordial, Mandrake Cordial etc) to brew potions, it's inkeepers or quartermasters that sell those, not herbalists.

so it's more about buying the ingredients rather than going out and finding it?
there's so many different kinds it's overwhelming.
if it's just gonna end up as a shopping list, i guess that kind of defeats the purpose of having so many variety.

[Protoman]

I think that happened because in the past two games, you had to brew potions individually. They probably got feedback from players and changed it in W3 so that you just brew them once ("discover"), and afterwards they work on "charges". You only need all ingredients the first time.

About buying ingredients, at least the way I saw, some of the stuff is so rare that it doesn't grow anywhere in the world, so yes, you HAVE to buy it. One good example is Bison Grass, which sounds like something very common, but it doesn't appear on the overworld at all. Only herbalists sell it.