I had to pause my Witcher 3 life for a while, started it back up and just finished Hearts of Stone. Wow. Every time I think I can’t be any more wow-ed by these guys, the up the game. Just now starting Blood and Wine expansion, and I have a question.
At the end of Hearts of Stone, I was gifted Iris’s Sword. I’ve been using all Griffin armor and weapons for all the bonuses that come with full sets, and they are all Mastercrafted. My dilemma - Iris’s sword is quite a bit more powerful than my mastercrafted Griffin sword, about +47. But I use signs as a key part of my game, especially Yrden (fully advanced, this is almost overpowered.) And of course I can’t upgrade this to Grandmaster.
Any thoughts on Iris vs, the fully decked out Witcher swords?
Don’t you only get the set bonuses when they are ‘grandmastercrafted’ or whatever it’s called, from the Blood and Wine expansion?
Hearts of Stone was great, O’Dimm is such a menacing antagonist. I thought Blood and Wine was even better, so you still have a great time ahead. What a great game.
Yeah, you’re right. But looking at all of the bonuses I’ve got with my mastercrafted Griffin steel sword, including the 25% Sign bonus, plus I’ve got some of those special runes on it from the runemaster guy, I think I’ll just keep using it.
From memory +47 isn’t too significant. If you use signs extensively +25% to them sounds more useful than what may be +10% of weapon damage (I can’t remember the values very well, I played the game recently too, shocking memory).
If I recall correctly Griffin sword had lower damage than Cat/Bear even in vanilla version. But it comes with various sign bonuses so it’s worth keeping. Your sword damage is probably pitiful if you’re a full sign build anyway.
Yeah good point on sword damage. My entire perks or whatever it is tree is filled with blue/signs. I just did a quest for a winemaker where I had to clear out a cave full of huge spiders, they were 40, I was 38, and I through down the Yrden sign mode that shoots lightening bolts or whatever at them, and when it hits them it also surrounds them with new Yrden circles of signs, then attack them while they are struggling with that. I think I could have just sat back and lured them in and taken them out purely with the Yrden sign,
Which leads to a question: Most of the time when I use the alternate Yrden mode and lay down that sign, it shoots the bolts at the enemy and also surrounds them with a circle of Yrden with each hit. But I’ve noticed once in a while I’ll attack some enemy and the Yrden bolt hits them, but does not generate the Yrden circle around them, Any reason it behaves that way on occasion?
It’s been a while since I played so I don’t remember the spell details but I think Yrden’s secondary mode stuns enemies on hit? Maybe the monster resists the stun or something like that (either through diminishing returns or natural resistances).
And I have a question of my own - has anyone tried the Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition mod? If so, please post some impressions.
Wow, Blood and Wine. I’d forgotten what it was like to run away! I’ve gotten so used to walking into any monster nest or just about any thing else and cleaning up that I was shocked when I waltzed into an interesting structure and suddenly was faced with monsters with skulls over their names! I ran away shrieking like a little girl!
Blood and Wine in some ways is like starting over, in a good way. It’s very cool to have an entire map to explore again - I’d explored just about every inch of the previous maps and hadn’t found anything new in a long, long time. As mentioned, once again there are things out there I can’t yet handle. The entire world is bright and new and not devastated by war. It’s like a new Witcher game. Even the cities are of a totally different architecture and structure. And even for monsters that are around my level, the combat is much tougher - I find myself in some cases having to figure out a strategy, as just running in slashing and throwing down Yerden results in getting hurt badly, quickly.
I quickly found the quest for upgrading my armor and weapons to Grandmaster. Found the Griffin set, got it made, and a nice quirk/bug - I’m level 40, when crafting it says minimum level to use it 41 but when I crafted it I was equipped with it and it said min level 40. One major negative surprise - while my runes in my Mastercrafted stuff carried over to the new stuff, EXCEPT in my chest armor, I lost the enchantment from the Rune Master that I spent so much to obtain, And of course, the Rune Master is on a previous map, so no way to get it back. :(
Love that I have what feels like a new Witcher game!
I zoomed all the way back and didn’t get the map that showed the whole world… wait - I didn’t do that at a marker/fast travel. Duh. Thanks. LOL! Now I’ll just have to get all the money again to be able to repurchase.
No worries! Getting enough money may be a problem though. I never had any money issues before Heart of Stone, but now, with the costs of the new armor, runes, redecorating the wineyard etc I’m near-broke all the time!
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever realized just how bad the hit detection in this game is until I installed the EE mod which bumps up the damage and disables i-frames on dodge. It’s amazing how much the combat is carried by dodge move in vanilla version. For an AAA action game with strong emphasis on combat this is embarrassing, at this point it would be better if they went back to dice rolls.
And the fucking pirouettes, jesus. Just swing the goddamn sword, man!
A sadist. I’m guessing things improve later on when you get some armor (the stat, which apparently has some actual effect now) and can poise tank the hits. But when you’re starting out with white gear and without any advanced talents it’s hard to deal with more than one target at once. I think I spent about an hour earlier getting my shit pushed in by a group of drowners that you can find 50 meters down the beach from the first village. Felt like a multi boss encounter from Dark Souls, except I had no estus to heal up.
Those same drowners confounded me for quite a while too when I first started the regular game with too many bad Souls habits. They set up shop in the right place.
I’ve given up on the mod. I think this must be a first for me. It wasn’t too difficult, it was just too damn annoying. It has so many features that add tedium instead of removing it (for example, all crafting items now have weight again - WHYYYYYYYYYYYY). It’s also aimed at keyboard users so as a gamepad player I missed out on a few crucial features like free aim and distance control for swings.
But oh boy is it good to be back in this world, I almost forgot how good W3 quests are. I can’t wait to get to high levels and finally experience new content that was introduced with Heart & Stone and Blood & Wine.
