@zeik: Yeah but I kinda just want to get rid of them since they're just taking up space. 5 crowns a pop is better than nothing.

@quantris: This is the reason I stayed away from it until now. Now I understand why they did it. Even less than 10 points put into alchemy can make a dramatic difference.

I'm at a part in the game where I you take environmental damage from a blizzard if you are not in cover. I don't know about other possible environmental damage sources but if you have the active shield for Quen, not only does it block the environmental damage for a decent amount of time, but it treats it as an attack so you gain health back, you do move slowly however so I was taking the damage, using Quen to heal up, then running again. Since you can't meditate in the part I'm at it saves you potions and consumables.

@overnow: That part took me awhile to get through, as I kept overshooting the path and dying trying to find my way down. It wasn't until pretty far in that I realized I could use Quen to prevent some of the damage. Although I just used normal Quen.

Also I'm pretty sure I used my Echidna decoction + Whirl trick to keep my HP full.

@overnow: @zeik:Troll concoction bros :P Walk in the park.

@probablytuna: how do you open up those slots?

@dudeglove: I switched from keyboard and mouse to controller when I played Witcher 2 and I can say I had a better experience playing the game with it. I suggest you plug a controller in and see how you feel about it.

Not sure what you mean, can you elaborate?

Aard also gives you a one-shot on humans if it knocks them down..

@probablytuna: the slots that let you equip the skills you buy with skill points.

@sonny6killer: You get them at certain levels, it should be right there in the UI.

Yeah like Tennmuerti said they unlock after you reach a certain level. You can check what level unlocks each slot by moving the cursor over to the locked slots.

Hey guys. I'm desperatly trying not to start a second playthrough. I need some high-level enemies to fight for now. I killed the level 40 archgriffin north of the elven crypt, but I don't remember coming across anything comparable. Please, pleeeeaaase point me to some other worthwhile vermin!

It works the same for all flying enemies and also enemies on horseback. Why would this be a spoiler?

@dudeglove: Well i dont know, playing around with the decoys rarely pay offs for me and i find weather effects are very usefull. The blizzard is devestating towards monsters and their muster ability as an example.

I usually steamroll the enemy by throwing down a couple of handshaking units and a horn in round one. They usually pass when you get a lead by 50 to 20 as an example. Then in round two it gets real becouse the enemy HAS to win so now is the time to bait their good cards. Depending on the situation you can pass this round and go for the win in the third round.

Also spycards and medic cards are the best cards in the game. The key to steamrolling is always having more cards on the hand than your opponent. Baiting the opponent with melee spycards and then pull out the snowcard is always a great strategy.

When the enemy pull out spycards on you use the medic to throw those spy cards right back at them in the following round.

Is 12 powers and 4 mutagens the max spots or it expands as you level up? Is there a gold/yellow mutagen? If there are only 12 power spots then it's silly that the same spells leveled up don't stack on top of each other. Upgrading the damage of Igni and turning it into a firestream shouldn't take up 2 out of 12 spots, just 1.

@deathstriker: Yes that's the max. No, only blue/red/green. Why not, everything else functions like that.

@deathstriker: Since none of us is really able to shoot fire out of our palms, you have to accompany a statement such as yours with a thorough analysis of the positive influence of the postulated change on the balance of the whole system. Otherwise we have to assume that the thousands of hours of testing the game has undoubtedly undergone proved that this solution is better. Hey, I know it's not pleasant to feel that you wasted some points, but choosing is what you have to do in this game. And you can always respec using a potion of clearance sold by several people in the game for a cool 1000 crowns.

@qrdl: Honestly, the option to respec makes it okay since we can figure out what we want later on and build into that. And being able to swap out abilities in the slots works for me, too. I swap out Sun and Stars with Axii whenever I finish a fight, and swap it back once I've recovered my health. So not being locked down entirely to those slots has been useful for me, especially with having more abilities than I have slots right now.

@firecracker22: I gave up using Sun and Stars around level 20 and simply carried some food on me to avoid dipping into the swallows. When I completely respecced about 10 hours before the end I didn't even consider it. I'm not above micromanagement, but I'd do anything to avoid swapping those abilities every half an hour or so. Also, check out the ability in the alchemy tree that lets you gain some health back from every potion you drink. It doesn't have to be equipped to work, like the 360-degree Aard.

I never have problems with character development in RPGs, I do what I can with a system I've been given. I find that limitations make this process much more interesting. It was a bitter moment, when it dawned on me a couple of hours into Oblivion, that you can basically become a master of everything. Superman has never been an interesting superhero, has he?

I know you can respec, that's not the point. So few active skills being allowed in such a big RPG feels overly limiting to me. Not being able to shoot fire in real life has nothing to do with game design. Devs can still make bad choices regardless of the time and money spent on a game; that should be common sense. 12 spots is already lame, but stacking should be allowed to some extent if it's the same spell or action.

@deathstriker: What I meant was: since there is no real-life reason for stacking magic abilities, the only reason you can give has to involve a decent explanation why your solution would be better than what was implemented by the dev. And that explanation cannot amount to "it would be nice if I was more powerful". I don't know what's so lame about 12 slots. You can implement a useful system with only one slot - one powerful ability that you would have to choose before a battle. A bad system would for example put blocking among those abilities (wink) or allow you to choose once every 24 hours.

@deathstriker: 12 is plenty. You can already become ridiculously OP if you use those 12 slots efficiently. At least this way you have to pick and choose the way in which you will be OP.

Those intensity skills would be a waste of a slot anyway. You can get more than enough sign intensity by using mutagens and on your equipment, and they work on all signs.

I do kinda wish the white skills were passive though, or maybe had a separate slot or something. It's hard to justify using most of them when they don't give a mutagen bonus.

Probably old news by now, but Alt Quen mode is by far one of the bests way to regain health in the game. Every blow an enemy lands on you while it's activated immediately gives you back health, and it can withstand about 2 or 3 hits per use.

@zeik: If it was 12 spots and the passives didn't count then I'd be cooler with it. I like as much freedom as possible; I wasn't expecting a huge tree like Path of Exile, but I was expecting similar trees to RPGs like Skyrim, DA:I, or even Witcher 2, which I played for the first time last year. This is a tiny ass skill tree for such a huge game, if you guys disagree then so be it. From talking to my friends and watching videos it seems like most people ignore the green tree due to the leveling system. If someone made a mod that brought in the Witcher 2 skill tree into this game I'd probably download it.

@deathstriker: I think the skill tree in The Witcher 3 is way interesting than the one in Skyrim. You may have had the opportunity to get tons of perks in Skyrims, but very few of them felt like they changed the way you played in any meaningful way.

The only real reason I ended up ignoring the alchemy tree the first time is because the green mutagens kinda suck. If I could change that HP buff to something like potion intensity I'd definitely invest in that tree over the red tree, as there are a number of cool skills in there.

Alchemy tree is great as a supplement to any other build.

For example towards the later part of the game I had the first 6 slots filled with red skills, 3 with green, 2 with blue + 1 neutral. The big killers in alchemy tree are the toxicity buff from recipes known and the mutagen power buff to every slotted mutagen. So I had 2x(40%+20%)= +120% for sword damge, +900hp, +45% sign intensity, from mutagens. Basically the same amount of attack power as if I had full 3 red sets of skills slotted with red mutagens, more then a fully slotted 3 combo sign set, and plus the almost 1k hp, plus the neutral slot that didn't severely downgrade any of the bonuses.

At the end of the day you don't really need more then 6 slots to use the really important powerful sword skills.

While I could mod my alchemy buffs to either be, poison % with oils + damage resist, or have 230+ toxicity with full threshold, meaning either 2 mutagen concoctions plus other potions, or just 3 concoctions. And with just 3 slots of alchemy abilities used, potions would last much much longer. And let me tell you some of the mutagen concoctions are ridiculously powerful. And you are flexible too, drink a potion and you have guaranteed criticals, or infinite stamina that last enough for any fight and then some.

That's just one example, or you could go 9 red slots, 3 green for the ultimate attack power buff of 180%, when normally you would only get 160% with all of your skills being slotted red.

I like the system they have come up with a lot, it is much less passive then your normal put points into stuff and forget about it system. It's interesting. It's not a perfect system but then no skill tree system ever is.

The most hot tips. Ever.

#1. Quit your job.

#2. Beer.

#3. Some form of paper towels.

@bladededge said:

You've probably worked this out by now but you can double tap WASD to dodge.

@dgtlty: Wait what, really? I've finished the game never knowing that! That might have been useful.

@dgtlty:

First thing I did when I came across a boat was to sail up river towards Novigrad. Came across a guarded treasure. The griffin was many levels above me but as it flew out towards the water I managed to shoot it down. It landed in the ocean and died in an instant but it still made screeching noises. I wasn't able to loot it. I got the treasure from the nest though.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I just noticed a useful bug (at least I doubt this was intended). When I was looting a guarded treasure spot I found a white pair of boots so I left them in the chest and when I called my horse I accidentally clicked on the chest and it became the same item, but magic quality. I got on my horse and off and it became a blue quality of the same item. I repeated and it became magic quality again. So I suppose this can be used to get slightly better stuff if you find a white piece of equipment.