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Axii and Quen are my two always-slots. And then the health-regen one too, since I'm playing on the 2nd highest difficulty where your hp doesn't regenerate when you meditate (although ironically other timer-based things continue to count when you meditate, the heal per second doesn't...)

Just had my "I'm a sap for happy endings" moment.

On the abilities, has the Axii issue, where having both Delusion (first rank improvement) and the second rank that allowed you to turn an enemy into an ally slotted at the same time, been fixed yet?

I've only managed to use the alternate Axii effect once out of countless attempts (before anyone asks, yes, I am aware how you make the alternate casts, and it simply doesn't work the vast majority of the time), and the rest just casts it as normal. Loads of people have experienced it since release, and no patch has helped yet.

I only upgraded Axii for that alternate cast, but I'd likely have ended up doing it so I can advance Quen further anyway; none of the other signs seems worth upgrading. Quen is by far the most useful, followed by Axii, then probably Yrden for dealing with Noonwraiths and the likes. Igni and Arden(?) I just can't find any uses for outside blowing in walls and doors, and lighting and extinguishing candles.

Aard can be useful for knocking people down for one hit kills, and knocking flyers out of the air. Alt Yrden had proven useful for me, as it creates a little turret that shoots lightning.

You can knock fliers out of the air with Aard?! Damn it, I need a Geralt with Aard in my 40k games...

 Enigwolf wrote:
You can knock fliers out of the air with Aard?! Damn it, I need a Geralt with Aard in my 40k games...

Yeah I thought it was the weakest of the powers when I first started through it but when I figured out you can knock fliers out of the air, knock people off tall buildings (with a single bound!) and knock people off their feet then auto-kill them on the ground witha quick tap of square I have reassesed it.

Normally in this type of game I just go full out combat-hobo, but I've put almost all my points into magic.

For me, I pretty much just stuck to 1 sign (igni) the whole time, and never used bombs, just xbows so it's always ready when I end up under water. And for potions I pretty much only ever had Cat ready to drink. on Xbone I found it annoying to have go into the menu every time I wanted to switch to a different item. Maybe it's more user friendly on the PC though. But whenever I play video games I always take the path of laziest resistance

 Avatar 720 wrote:
On the abilities, has the Axii issue, where having both Delusion (first rank improvement) and the second rank that allowed you to turn an enemy into an ally slotted at the same time, been fixed yet?

I've only managed to use the alternate Axii effect once out of countless attempts (before anyone asks, yes, I am aware how you make the alternate casts, and it simply doesn't work the vast majority of the time), and the rest just casts it as normal. Loads of people have experienced it since release, and no patch has helped yet.

I only upgraded Axii for that alternate cast, but I'd likely have ended up doing it so I can advance Quen further anyway; none of the other signs seems worth upgrading. Quen is by far the most useful, followed by Axii, then probably Yrden for dealing with Noonwraiths and the likes. Igni and Arden(?) I just can't find any uses for outside blowing in walls and doors, and lighting and extinguishing candles.

Setting people on fire is often very useful. Not only is it an AOE DoT, but it has a chance to cause combustion, which causes most living targets to scream and flail, allowing unblocked attacks of your own on them. Also, Igni can ignite the explosive barrels that are sitting around in some areas, which can be used to your advantage in clearing up mass foes (like, say, an army of Witch-hunters?).

The benefits of Aard have already been covered, but I couldn't let Igni be ignored.

 Necros wrote:
For me, I pretty much just stuck to 1 sign (igni) the whole time, and never used bombs, just xbows so it's always ready when I end up under water. And for potions I pretty much only ever had Cat ready to drink. on Xbone I found it annoying to have go into the menu every time I wanted to switch to a different item. Maybe it's more user friendly on the PC though. But whenever I play video games I always take the path of laziest resistance

Same, except that I only use Swallow rather than Cat

You guys need to get inducted into the Cult of Thunderbolt like yesterday.

I keep my TV set to "theater" mode which is always kinda dark, and I'm also too lazy to hit a button on my remote and switch it, so I found Cat to be the most useful for me

I like the flamethrower version of Igni. That's a fun power.

But generally I have a use for all of them:

Aard for flyers.
Igni for most things.
Axii for humans and bears.
Quen for some of the tougher bad guys (like the giant)
Yrden for Wraiths.

Maxed out the Axii mind control talent so that I could Jedi Mind Trick my way through difficult conversations. Didn't quite work as intended with the Witch Hunters.

Maxed out the Axii mind control talent so that I could Jedi Mind Trick my way through difficult conversations. Didn't quite work as intended with the Witch Hunters

Indeed it did not, but I reloaded that save and went through it as far as I could, which ended up in a fairly satisfying ending all the same.

I'm guessing you guys are at a point where you've pumped enough points into the Signs skill tree where your stamina regen is through the roof? Mine never regens fast enough to want to use anything else besides Quen and one other, so I have less use for Signs, thus want to put less points into it...

Nah, my stamina's pretty terrible. I've got max Igni, Axii and Igni flamethrower... and max Quen. But that's all. Only those 4.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nah, my stamina's pretty terrible. I've got max Igni, Axii and Igni flamethrower... and max Quen. But that's all. Only those 4.

I'm fairly sure that you get the same amount of increased stamina regeneration (+0.5) in combat from every sign upgrade no matter what, so even if you redistributed those into the other signs, it'd be more or less the same. I've got 3 points in Quen, and 4 in Axii, iirc. The rest have gone into fast attack, one or two pointless ones in marksmanship, and the rest into defence, because negating 100% of damage taken whilst rolling is great, especially against attacks with large AoEs or wide arcs, and the extra 30% counterattack damage is substantial.

Don't forget that wearing medium or heavy armor impacts stamina regeneration.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Don't forget that wearing medium or heavy armor impacts stamina regeneration.

I always found that amusing, given that Medium armor is the one that gives you all the bonuses to Signs...

Right, but that means your Signs hit harder, but you can't fire them off as rapidly. It's a balance between the two.

Speaking of sign power. Does anyone notice what having higher intensity Quen does? Quen just seems to only ever absorb one hit ever...

 Enigwolf wrote:
Speaking of sign power. Does anyone notice what having higher intensity Quen does? Quen just seems to only ever absorb one hit ever...

I think it does more damage/knockback when it explodes. I got it up a bit with a mutagen (up to 21% now, I believe) and it was cutting weaker enemies' health by half if they got hit by it.

I've been wondering what it would be like to do more of a sign mage rather than going full swords like I did before. I ended up going with the light armor anyway, but that was more because I looted everything that wasn't nailed down and heavy armor meant I'd be overburdened all the time. I have so many herbs there aren't enough merchants to buy them all :(

https://www.premier.gov.pl/en/news/news/prime-minister-ewa-kopacz-visits-developers-of-witcher-3.html



So the Witcher 3 is now a national treasure of Poland!

Not really surprised.
It was made by a Polish company and based on a popular series of Polish fantasy novels that are heavily influenced by Polish culture and folklore.
That's like, Poland^3
Its probably the most Polish thing to have been released since they were occupied by the Soviets.

Skellige: Watch your boats, Sirens will actually attack them, and I'm not yet sure that you can fight in a boat.

On the plus side, if you've ever played Skyrim and thought "Really wish I was Geralt right now", Skellige looks like you're in Skyrim, except for the Irish voice-actors.

 Psienesis wrote:
Skellige: Watch your boats, Sirens will actually attack them, and I'm not yet sure that you can fight in a boat.

On the plus side, if you've ever played Skyrim and thought "Really wish I was Geralt right now", Skellige looks like you're in Skyrim, except for the Irish voice-actors.

Yes you can! You can fight with your sword or with a crossbow!

Ok, good, because I just held down shift and sailed away like I had an Evinrude under it, but I may want to come back and deliver a beating to them.

I found the flying sirens to be too annoying. When they come I just dive into the water and 1-shot em with my xbow. I got the skill that slows time when you aim, comes in real handy.

There's also a quest somewhere in skelegah where you get a magic horn, if you blow it all the sirens fall out of the sky and you can just walk over and assassinate em

Yes, but that's "easy". I like to use igni to set them on fire so they come spiraling out of the sky in flames, like a WW1 dog-fighting movie, where I can deal with them at my leisure on the ground.

I still don't understand how the crossbow becomes imba-damage-dealing underwater...