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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Soldato
Joined
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mind telling/showing what skills you chose?

I personally am finding it still a bit hard on the sword and blood setting. level 10
I have 5 levels in RED fast attack, 3 in shield sign, rest in fire sign, 3 in Mind control sign, medium armour specialisation talent.

Griffon armour set.

Start fight /w shield.

If wraith - trap -> kill.
If other dodge until gain distance -> Sustained Igni (fire) -> melle.

Rebuff shield as needed - mind control one if too many - repeat.

As long as you roll swipes & dodge hacks you can avoid them while gaining stamina, using rolls only when needed (to keep stamina regeneration up).

For potions - Thunderbolt & Swallow (both enhanced) - for harder fights food/swallow.

On hard difficulty you don't need decotions, oils, runes, counter attacks, bombs or the crossbow to kill pretty much anything. Getting a feeling I'll need to start again on hardest to keep the game challenging, I can drop half the HP from groups with a single Igni as it stands.

I don't think they have thought about how strong the multipliers are, for example - with 1 Greater blue mutagen (Easy to get, only red ones a pain) you can get +40% to sign intensity.

Every few levels you can whack another 40% as you unlock those 4 mutagen slots, not to mention the increases from gear or talents for signs.
 
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Associate
Joined
5 Sep 2014
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1,692
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Glasgow
I have 5 levels in RED fast attack, 3 in shield sign, rest in fire sign, 3 in Mind control sign, medium armour specialisation talent.

Griffon armour set.

Start fight /w shield.

If wraith - trap -> kill.
If other dodge until gain distance -> Sustained Igni (fire) -> melle.

Rebuff shield as needed - mind control one if too many - repeat.

As long as you roll swipes & dodge hacks you can avoid them while gaining stamina, using rolls only when needed (to keep stamina regeneration up).

For potions - Thunderbolt & Swallow (both enhanced) - for harder fights food/swallow.

On hard you don't need decotions, oils, runes, counter attacks, bombs or the crossbow to kill pretty much anything.
My build is pretty similar,i put points in yardin instead of axii tho ,Trap mob>back off a bit>Dragons dream bomb>Igni>profit :D
 
Soldato
Joined
18 May 2010
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22,586
Location
London
Im only level 5 at the moment.

I invensted all my points in fast strike (5) and heavy strike (1) and shield (1).

The reason why I went for the fast and slow attacks, is I guessed those where geralts main attacks so they should be upgraded first.

To heavy strike do you just hold down the left mouse button? Im not too sure. :o
 
Associate
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Location
Glasgow
:D I mostly use Axii for the quests/convo options!.


I wanted to do that,but the way skill system works totally sucks in the early game,at points i had points to spend but no slots to add new skills till i lvled up :(

Might just get the respec potions,rolling crowns now im lvl17 :p



For anyone struggling for potions/decotion/bomb diagrams,just to immediate northeast of the novigrad gate at Oxenfort their is an alchemist hut,he sells all the early game crafting diagrams for pretty cheap :D
 
Associate
Joined
5 Sep 2014
Posts
1,692
Location
Glasgow
Im only level 5 at the moment.

I invensted all my points in fast strike (5) and heavy strike (1) and shield (1).

The reason why I went for the fast and slow attacks, is I guessed those where geralts main attacks so they should be upgraded first.

To heavy strike do you just hold down the left mouse button? Im not too sure. :o

Hold shift and left click for heavy strike m8
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Oct 2009
Posts
5,066
Dodge instead of roll whenever you can, as it doesn't eat up your stamina, whereas rolling does. Means you can keep your quen up and use other signs more often. I'm on blood and bones and it seems to get easier as you progress. I did drop down at one point because my save was zero health, no potions and right before a boss fight so I couldn't meditate.

I bound Dodge and block to my mouse side keys and that made combat much better for me. Strong attack is now right click and senses are middle click. Makes more sense to me.

Makes sense. Might change heavy to right mouse. I have a weird grip on my mouse. I can then bind thumb side button to dodge instead of roll
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Sep 2011
Posts
10,575
Location
Portsmouth (Southsea)
I find the game much easier to play on the controller tbh.

Using my PS4 game-pad & the button layout feels nice & intuitive, l1 block, r1 sign, X roll, Circle dodgy Square light attack, triangle heavy etc.

Dodging, rolling & blocking are all vastly more user friendly, as is the 'auto-ride' mode in which it follows roads sees to work better on the joy-pad (sometimes too well!).

One thing I do find, that block is pretty useless in most cases, in a 1 vs 1 & they lack a 2 handed weapon then yes. But almost all monster attacks & 2 handed wielding enemies break it - then simply dodging is superior in every single way. Am I alone in rarely using block?.
 
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Associate
Joined
22 Mar 2007
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2,031
Loving the game and about 22 hours in, and Lv 8 I think as I keep wandering off checking undiscovered stuff. :D

I'll be streaming in on my twitch.tv channel and would appreciate the more knowledgable folks dropping in and offering advice, with and sarcasm ;)
 
Associate
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Exactly, baby mode :)

I dunno....I am playing on hard and put one foot wrong when tackling a bunch of drowners, and yer toast.....'Hard' is only fun when genuine fast reflexes and sound strategy can win the day, i.e. when there is a skill based learning curve.....Witcher 3 combat doesn't really have that though.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Posts
10,575
Location
Portsmouth (Southsea)
Tbh even on hard the only difficult missions I've done are when I'm so far below on level it takes 10mins to kill each enemy & I die in one hit. (Swordsmith line I do this, as the other swordsmiths I can find seem to be buggy & can't speak to them).

Everybody should play the difficulty best to them, but I'd say this game is very easy on even normal - on easy it's face-roll. It detracts from some of the combat complexity if you can hack everything to death with one button & will diminish some enjoyment from the game).

Obviously if a person is happy/finding it challenging they should stick to that difficulty but if it's too easy (for many it is) I'd most certainly whack that up a few settings.

I dunno....I am playing on hard and put one foot wrong when tackling a bunch of drowners, and yer toast.....'Hard' is only fun when genuine fast reflexes and sound strategy can win the day, i.e. when there is a skill based learning curve.....Witcher 3 combat doesn't really have that though.
I've had a fair few interface related deaths, but assuming you have good sign usage then death should be a rarity on hard. Saying that the game is much more difficult at the start when you lack many abilities (low level signs don't work half the time).

Aard sign with low sign intensity just pushes them, once you get a blue mutagen it knocks them down for ages (Allowing you to one hit them) - huge game-play differences there & makes the difficulty sink like a rock.
 
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Associate
Joined
1 Dec 2010
Posts
655
I dunno....I am playing on hard and put one foot wrong when tackling a bunch of drowners, and yer toast.....'Hard' is only fun when genuine fast reflexes and sound strategy can win the day, i.e. when there is a skill based learning curve.....Witcher 3 combat doesn't really have that though.
Putting one foot wrong against a group of enemies would count as unsound strategy. Sound strategy is to be extremely careful. Jumping into the middle of a crowd like you would in Batman, Assassin's Creed or Shadows of Mordor, and thinking you're going to dive around blocking and dodging everything is just absurd.

40 hours in on hard mode and I've definitely changed my mind on the combat. There is a learning curve, and it's in how you approach combat entirely. Knowledge of the way enemies act is far more important in this game than mad skillz and APM.
 
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