Going to start this on Death March. General hints & challenges

You ask no advice
You are young man

>>387691024

How to refill potions here for?

>>387690954
Use the oil and potion mechanics. Too often is this ignored for standard h&s combat. It's actually really rewarding and fun to use if you figure out how to use it effectively. Also, read the beastiary. Especially when you're on the hunt for a specific target. Learn, then plan, then strike. Makes you feel like a real witcher.

>Casualcher 3
>challenges

Read. Brew. Optimize.

It's tough at certain points and early on, but stick it out and you'll be overpowered eventually.

Use oils, potions and signs other than Quen. The people who fell for the "combat is bad" meme are the ones who only spammed Quen and wailed on the enemies, while playing on a low enough difficulty which allowed it.

Death March isn't even that hard, and I play most games on normal (until like the third playthrough).

>>387690954
>Asking for advice before playing.

Cringe.

Use dodge, don't roll.
You very rarely need to roll away from an attack, when in doubt, DODGE.

It might save your life.

>>387690954
Select ng+, you now have a lot of skill points to oberpower yourself right away.

>>387691167
>use oil and potions
>learn, plan, strike

>>387691247
>read, brew, optimize

you say that, but how it actually plays out is like this: You identify the monster by reaching a certain point of the quest or you have faced that monster type before. You read about it in the bestiary. No real reading is required, you don't need to infer clues or strategy, because at the bottom of the entry is a list of everything it is weak and strong against. Easy. What isn't easy and completely breaks immersion is the process of creating potions and oils for the first time. Why?

Well first you need a recipe. There is no way to predict who will sell what recipes without using a guide or looking shit up online. No way to ask, "hey, know any other herbalists that might have a recipe for Vampire Oil?" Nope, you either hope and pray you picked it up as a random loot drop earlier, you visit every single merchant in the game and go through all of their wares until you find it, or you just look shit up online. So your choice is between either luck, tedium, or crushing immersion and the flow of the game.

But wait, there is more! Once you have the actual goddamn recipe, you need ingredients! The fun part is that there is no way to research or discover where these ingredients might be without a guide! That is right, you can read up on magical bestiary entries on monsters that randomly appear in your possession at the appropriate time, but you cannot read on any necessary plants or herbs you would need for the potions to slay them! So once again you are visiting every herbalist in No Man's Land trying to find the right ingredients, randomly wandering around hoping to come across them, or looking up a guide to figure out where they grow.

Wow, what a great game. Such excellent design. All of those books in the game, and there isn't one that lists areas where potion ingredients commonly grow? There isn't one with Alcohol products that tells you where they are sold?

wooden sword + no armor playthrough for first playthrough on dm

You will be a changed man by the time the credits roll

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>>387693678
>mfw only started alchemy in ng+
>mfw already had a bunch of overpowered shit like white raffard decoction plus a ton of ingredients

>>387693936
>but it is ok because by NG+ you will have most of that anyway!

This is what Witcherfags are like

>>387694008
he wasn't implying that. why are you so confrontational and hostile man

Was playing recently and I decided to mess with alchemy because it obvious it gives strong buffs so when I reached the Blood and wine dlc and got the mutation upgraded i decided to go a bit more "deep". I'm using the 45% damage reduction + 25% damage reduction from the oil against that type of enemy + don't lose adrenaline points if I get hit
I'm doing contracts that are 10 levels above me without any troubles aside feel like I'm hitting a wall until it falls. I feel shame for fucking around with my build. All of this on Death march of course, are signs actually useful at all? even bombs can do their job better aside use them for quest related stuff.

>>387694008
>>387694078
Yeah, calm the fuck down man. I was trying to say that I'm glad I didn't even look at alchemy for my first run because it would have been tedious and piecemeal

>>387693685
Where do I get the wooden sword?
I'm doing minimal armor
>no gloves
>white t-shirt
I just started NG+, I haven't done either of the DLC yet either.

>>387694185
I just use ard, the one that knocks people down. I figured igni would be op and the shield one would be as broken as it was in the second game.

Spoilers but you might want them so you don't make the same mistakes I did

Take red fast attack skills first no matter your build
Freeing the tree spirit when doing the crones quest will end with Baron hanging himself which sucks ass
Yen is a bitch don't break Triss heart like I did
no one cares if but yourself if you fuck secondary characters
have to finish matter of state or whatever it's called and kill Rad without Sigi taking over to have Nilfgaard win if that's your jam

Skellige is a nightmare for completionists. Being strong alcohol IRL to help.

>>387694430
>Freeing the tree spirit when doing the crones quest will end with Baron hanging himself which sucks ass
You can just free the spirit before doing the crones quest, save the children and the baron wife
>Yen is a bitch don't break Triss heart like I did
I already did my first NG with Triss anyway

>>387690954
it's easy

>>387694591
>You can free the spirit first save the kids and Baron

Jesus. Whatever I don't want to save the tree spirit. On my ng+ I'm going to kill the tree spirit and the crones. Fuck their meddling.
Shame Ciri has to die for it oh well

>>387694078
forgive me for thinking otherwise, but usually when someone posts a smug reaction image with greentext stating that it wasn't an issue for them, then they are trying to refute the original point with faulty logic.

>>387694430
>Skellige

Jesus fuck I probably spent like 6 hours with all of those

I went full Signs / Igni buil on my first playthrough. Talk about broken. It burns for a % of their health, and on enemies that are over your level, they die in five or six ticks from the burning.

>>387694931
Yup same. My fingers hurt from holding shift. I'm really glad it's done. Can't tell you what the fuck they were thinking. They aren't even interesting it's just 95 percent fucking smuggler caches

Get a couple of good decoctions and it's a cakewalk.

>>387695137
Oh yeah igni is great. Really high health enemies just get fucked. Seems like if they are really high above you though they will resist the burn effect.

>>387691082
NO
Don't do it
pleas
im a griffin

main story is pure shit compared to the expansions. skellige is boring. there's no point replaying the game, just use the pre made character to start the expansions.

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>>387696047
>skellige is boring

>>387696203
>muh epic viking culture with muh strong, fair woman leader! fuck her brother, he's just some retarded brawler! yasss queen!

>>>/reddit/

>>387693678
The ONLY recipe that was difficult for me to complete was the one the required some ingredient found underwater. And maybe there was one with an ingredient found only in White Orchard. Everything else was easy enough to find so long as I actually went off the trails and fought some monsters.

At one point I was stuck for Bear Fat, but it takes 1 second to figure out what I needed to kill to find that. And, because I simply went through with story mode, I knew there were lots of bears in Kaer Morhan. Sure, the guide didn't tell me that, but it didn't take a genuine to figure it out.

Most names of ingredients infer where you get them. The rest actually look like plants in the gameworld. But you can avoid both problems if you just pick up the random shit you find on sidequests.

Or you can go to a merchant.

>>387696541
you know most ingredients are found in herbalists right ?
the "hard part" of most decotions is finding the recipe and killing the monster required

>>387690954
Turn off the minimap. That way you're actually looking at and absorbing the world and not just the corner of your screen.

>>387696541
I could never ever find a 2nd dark essence or shadow essence or w/e its called to make an oil, which meant i couldnt make the upgraded versions either

>>387699295
i think you get the essence from killing noonwraiths and nightwraiths

>>387699745
its all moot at this point. I'm level 54 with full GM griffon with 300 hours in this game. It just triggers my completionist autism, which is why im level 54 with 300 hours in a game