Mage Build? And is Igni even good?

[SamuraiCake]

Yo, so I'm more of a mage type char myself and am looking for some advice on builds.

Well, actually - I dumped all my early points into Igni, to only later find out, that it might actually just be useless.

I was staring down a couple of bandit leaders and a guy with that red skull on his head, popping some igni every now and then for a bit of damage and burn, this was getting me nowhere - Let's try Axii sign, stunned, swing my sword, oh, one hit kill.

Some with Aard sign - dump them on the flaw, stab them through the gut.
So how viable is igni in this game, I hate the though that I've gimped myself right away, is it best to start over??

[YeOldeMurloc]

Don't upgrade Axii. Converting enemies is useless.

[CriticalCore]

Finished the game on Blood and bones with mage geralt

Get the first 3 points in Axi for dailogue options, then dump em in alternate quen, alt igni and alt yrden.

[Niss]

Escrito originalmente por Dave1029:

Escrito originalmente por Niss:

Bleed is the exact opposite of burn. Bleed is super powerful when you're fighting enemies that have a red skull because bleeding damage is a percentage of your enemies health the more they have the more they'll bleed out. Igni deals a set amount of damage based on your level(/Sword?) somewhat and then buffed by sign intensity which is garbage if you're far below an enemies level who will just get a big defense boost.

Bleed scales very well with game difficulty as do 1 hit KO's from knockdowns, knockouts and stuns IE: Aard and Axii. Igni damage will just lower on higher difficulty because enemies get more defense and more health. I have abused puppet and bleed upgrades on more than one occasion to kill skull enemies. Completed master craft quests (lvl 25ish) before hitting level 10 though mostly due to puppet Axii.

No, burn is the exact same thing as bleed.

Indeed, I meant Igni. The base damage of Igni is a static amount but the burn effect is equal to poison and bleed etc.

[Evil1nside]

I play as a sort of a hybrid class... im not really a mage, nor I'm a fighter only class... I try and be pretty much master of all arts(swordplay+magic ftw), the thing I find most useful are exactly the Igni, axii and partially the aard sign... I didn't find the yrden to be that useful(a part from some specters that's just required to have/use) and the quen sign is pretty much op as it is once u just enchant the armors for quen intensity...

[Soulravel]

Yrden is quite powerful with it's alternate cast turret and the end of the line dot when enemies are affected by it. Axii is currently bugged where Delusion and Puppeteer can't work together but if you remove Delusion and just slot Puppeteer, it'll work.

[Songbird]

Yrden was pretty insane in Witcher 1, nerfed heavily in Witcher 2 and decent in Witcher 3 :P

[Clint Howard]

im playing a pure sign based geralt, and it is quite effective. I rarely use my swords to kill stuff. You definitely need to be using the griffin set, and have the medium armor skill slotted to be effective though

igni with firestream and melt armor just destroys everything except wraiths and stone elementals.

[Niss]

Escrito originalmente por Soulravel:

Yrden is quite powerful with it's alternate cast turret and the end of the line dot when enemies are affected by it. Axii is currently bugged where Delusion and Puppeteer can't work together but if you remove Delusion and just slot Puppeteer, it'll work.

Go to My Documents/The Witcher 3/ and open the input.settings file with notepad.
Search for all the (Action=CastSignHold,State=Duration,IdleTime=0.2) entries and change the delay to 0.1 and you're all set. Delusion speeds up casting of Axii a bit and makes the animation too fast for the base 0.2 delay to change your cast to the alternative one. A 0.1 delay is still enough not to accidentally do alternate signs by hitting the button.

[Tiger123]

I have a mixed build and i am loving it. i have 3 trees purely for magic and 1 for attack( dodging reduced dmg and fast attack build.
Build is purely based on fast attacks dont use heavy at all. When i hit thunderbolt potion my attack is at 2.7k ish and 140 ish sign intensity. All cat school items + cat skill from general skills adds another 25% crit and 5% fast attack ,simply amazing. I never liked to settle for one class.

My fav signs are aard alternative ( amazing blast radius when aard is maxed out), igni alt as well for monster fights, as well as queen alternative skill which is a heal skill can't play without it in big fights. axii using for shielded enemies to stun them easily. Yrden is amazing in big monster fights, i place yrdens everywhere literally so golems or cyclops can never hit me. :)

[Niss]

Fleet footed, the skill that reduces damage taken during a dodge, is broken at the moment on the PC. Really bummed me out since it's a nice bonus if it would for aggressive playstyles you can dodge towards your enemy take no damage and attack from up close. If you dodge and see Geralt took 0 damage pop up that's normal and means you just performed a regular dodge successfully.