Any good witcher builds you can suggest?

drsalvation · May 2022

I'm making an alt toon for fun, so far I've made him imperial, vampire, and dragonknight, mostly because I originally wanted to switch to dragonknight but the whole crafting research, horse training, quests, skyshard hunting, recipes and crafting skills levelling from 0 all over again was demotivating.

Anyway, currently I'm using 2H weapons on both bars, I'm using clever alchemist and moon hunter (and molag kena for monster helm but I think I could get a set that's more useful for general alchemy purposes, and vateshran mace for the carry).
As for my skills, I'm trying to keep them witcher related but also useful
Yrden = Time stop from Psijic Order
Quen = Blocking (with time stop equipped a bubble appears which creates a dmg shield and it looks like Quen)
Igni = Noxious Breath
Aard = unfortunately there are no skills that do knockback which aren't side effects of other skills, and there aren't many of them either, so for now I'm using dragon leap.
Axii = No skills that would ever make an enemy your temporal ally, which would be cool to have in the future, but for now, I'm using intimidation and persuasion for dialogues and Stupefy from vamp in combat.
I also have crossbow just for the dmg buff and also because they do use crossbows in witcher 3.
Using clever alchemist and moon hunter make alchemy based builds more viable, and for jewelry I have potion cooldown, which makes it 24 second cooldown instead of 45, allowing me to keep CA's buff active.

As part of CP, I'm using sustained by suffering, and my potions usually buff weapon dmg and crit, and nerf my armor, to grant me negative effects to increase my sustain, and while using snakeblood, the negative effect is shorter in the overall duration. (I wish snakeblood would reduce the negative effects instead of reducing their duration).
It makes me use potions more strategically instead of just chugging tri-stat pots.
One of my other favorites are potions that make me invisible, using the vamp passive of leaving sneak or invisibility for an extra dmg buff + clever + moon hunter, it's a nice burst.

This build is very DoT heavy tho, but despite it all, I can't figure out a good way to make it past 14k dps lol, it's so bad, I'd just need to figure out better rotations and learn which skills to leave behind, I mostly use my back bar for healing and buffs, maybe I could drop race against time from psijic for a hard hitting skills.

Anyway, I do want to improve this build, but I want to make other builds that could be witcher related (or at least heavy based on alchemy) that could be used for support, such as tanking or healing in dungeon groups.

Anyone have any suggestions or knowledge on what sets could be related to alchemy and used for tanking?
Or anyone made a nice witcher build that is also good for vet group dungeons as DPS?

Here's a screenie of how my toon looks.

SammyKhajit · May 2022

This one has no idea, but just want to post admiration for your dedication to role play!

drsalvation · May 2022

SammyKhajit wrote: »

This one has no idea, but just want to post admiration for your dedication to role play!

lol thanks, I figured I could have a highly functional character, or have some fun in the game, so I went with the latter and it kinda revitalized me in some way lol. I've also seen you comment on other threads and I also admire your dedication for RP.

I can use corrupting bloody mara to make it look like he has high toxicity from potions, and purifying bloody mara as white gull (the one that purifies all toxicity). The vampire skin takes care of the rest lol.
I also made bastian as Dandelion using resto staff to fit a bard's role (it would be nice if we get joke weapon skins that made swords or staffs into lutes or drums)

At this point I'm just wondering if there's any other sets that proc when using poisons or potions and make builds around them too, I doubt I'd ever make a highly functional witcher build to go on par with my actual useful main, but at least it's fun.
I was also able to "solo" fungal grotto (I use solo lightly because bastian's heals are pretty good)

Mythgard1967 · May 2022

I have to agree with Sammy on this. SAdly, I am not good enough to speak to the help you need but just wanted to say I appreciate greatly what you are trying to craft here. And my brain started thinking of all kinds of possibilities....like you know...so which house is gonna be his primary and how much fun that would be decorate...but I have digressed.

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

honestly 14k dps for a RP character is pretty good, its slightly better than my pure stealth toon which sits at 10k (that ive still solo'd normal dungeons with lol)

i am not familiar with the witcher (never played any of the games, i tried one for like an hour but disliked the combat system in there and never went back) so i wont be able to offer any skill suggestions to fit the theme

ZOS_Hadeostry · May 2022

Greetings,

This thread has been moved to the Players Helping Players section, as it is better suited there.

Thanks

drsalvation · May 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

honestly 14k dps for a RP character is pretty good, its slightly better than my pure stealth toon which sits at 10k (that ive still solo'd normal dungeons with lol)

i am not familiar with the witcher (never played any of the games, i tried one for like an hour but disliked the combat system in there and never went back) so i wont be able to offer any skill suggestions to fit the theme

Thanks! Maybe it's because I'm juxtaposing it with my main who deals almost 30k that 14k doesn't feel as punchy (And of course, youtubers are there to humble and make me realize that 30k is also low by their 90k standards)

I found another set which grants the group like 40 ultimate whenver you chug a potion, and it's heavy so it would fit a support role better than a dmg, so I'm thinking about splitting skills that benefit more a DPS, like keeping time stop, mesmerize and the bubble shield for a tank build, and use noxious breath, crossbow and more 2H skills for a DPS build instead.

That said, I was able to bump up the DPS to 18k by transmuting sets, for now I'm just hunting skyshards because I need more skill points, but honestly questing is also very fun with a heavy roleplay emphasis.

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

honestly 14k dps for a RP character is pretty good, its slightly better than my pure stealth toon which sits at 10k (that ive still solo'd normal dungeons with lol)

i am not familiar with the witcher (never played any of the games, i tried one for like an hour but disliked the combat system in there and never went back) so i wont be able to offer any skill suggestions to fit the theme

Thanks! Maybe it's because I'm juxtaposing it with my main who deals almost 30k that 14k doesn't feel as punchy (And of course, youtubers are there to humble and make me realize that 30k is also low by their 90k standards)

I found another set which grants the group like 40 ultimate whenver you chug a potion, and it's heavy so it would fit a support role better than a dmg, so I'm thinking about splitting skills that benefit more a DPS, like keeping time stop, mesmerize and the bubble shield for a tank build, and use noxious breath, crossbow and more 2H skills for a DPS build instead.

That said, I was able to bump up the DPS to 18k by transmuting sets, for now I'm just hunting skyshards because I need more skill points, but honestly questing is also very fun with a heavy roleplay emphasis.

i have kind of similar situations, i have other toons which deal up to 45k dps in group content, but feel horribly slow compared to my stealth toon (who is speed capped while in stealth lol)

i did have a toon running double 2h at one point, i used vateshran 2h on the back bar to get the extra buff from that when using momentum, and the front bar you could use either a maelstrom or master 2h (one for the added dot or one for the big dmg cleaves, whichever might fit your theme better)

drsalvation · May 2022

I do have vateshran maul on my back bar (no poison, just for the buff) and I use moon hunter in the front with poison to proc the moon hunter set. It might be worth checking out master, I only ran that arena once and got sword and shield for my main toon and hadn't been focused on other types of builds.
Thanks for the suggestions!

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

master 2h can do a lot of dmg, im currently using it back bar on a tank toon and i can still get 40k dmg cleaves if i hit enough enemies with it

if you had other ideas what you were looking for theme wise i might be able to try suggesting some other sets

"mechanically" speaking dark convergence or rush of agony works really good with the masters 2h because it can pull the enemies in for the easy big cleaves

drsalvation · May 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

master 2h can do a lot of dmg, im currently using it back bar on a tank toon and i can still get 40k dmg cleaves if i hit enough enemies with it

if you had other ideas what you were looking for theme wise i might be able to try suggesting some other sets

"mechanically" speaking dark convergence or rush of agony works really good with the masters 2h because it can pull the enemies in for the easy big cleaves

Rush of agony is such an underrated set, even for AoE tanks (using jewelry and weapons), I do have vateshran's sword and shield as well, I can also pull all enemies using power slam (but a witcher using sword and shield doesn't really fit the style... and this is why I suffer an inner conflict, I personally will always go with sword and board, but for this toon's RP, I have to stay away from it lol).

But yeah, for now I'll have to grind for Master 2H, and stone garden for arkasis's genius.
I appreciate the insight!

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

master 2h can do a lot of dmg, im currently using it back bar on a tank toon and i can still get 40k dmg cleaves if i hit enough enemies with it

if you had other ideas what you were looking for theme wise i might be able to try suggesting some other sets

"mechanically" speaking dark convergence or rush of agony works really good with the masters 2h because it can pull the enemies in for the easy big cleaves

Rush of agony is such an underrated set, even for AoE tanks (using jewelry and weapons), I do have vateshran's sword and shield as well, I can also pull all enemies using power slam (but a witcher using sword and shield doesn't really fit the style... and this is why I suffer an inner conflict, I personally will always go with sword and board, but for this toon's RP, I have to stay away from it lol).

But yeah, for now I'll have to grind for Master 2H, and stone garden for arkasis's genius.
I appreciate the insight!

thats why i mentioned rush of agony or dark convergence, as both are sets that are independent of weapon, so you could still go with a double 2h setup

stampede trigger dark convergence or rush of agony, then cleave away

another one that might fit a theme would be syvarra scales, it creates a burst of poison when dealing dmg, and the poison dot has a high uptime and is aoe

drsalvation · May 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

drsalvation wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

master 2h can do a lot of dmg, im currently using it back bar on a tank toon and i can still get 40k dmg cleaves if i hit enough enemies with it

if you had other ideas what you were looking for theme wise i might be able to try suggesting some other sets

"mechanically" speaking dark convergence or rush of agony works really good with the masters 2h because it can pull the enemies in for the easy big cleaves

Rush of agony is such an underrated set, even for AoE tanks (using jewelry and weapons), I do have vateshran's sword and shield as well, I can also pull all enemies using power slam (but a witcher using sword and shield doesn't really fit the style... and this is why I suffer an inner conflict, I personally will always go with sword and board, but for this toon's RP, I have to stay away from it lol).

But yeah, for now I'll have to grind for Master 2H, and stone garden for arkasis's genius.
I appreciate the insight!

thats why i mentioned rush of agony or dark convergence, as both are sets that are independent of weapon, so you could still go with a double 2h setup

stampede trigger dark convergence or rush of agony, then cleave away

another one that might fit a theme would be syvarra scales, it creates a burst of poison when dealing dmg, and the poison dot has a high uptime and is aoe

Syvarra looks interesting, I'll see how that one works out for me on DPS build. Clever alchemist and moon hunter are awesome but I feel like it's not helping me reach out to my max, so maybe Syvarra will help.

For now I have a tank build which is pretty cool
Iron Flask + Arkasis Genius.
For chugging one potion, I get like 7k armor AND 40 ultimate for myself and my teammates.
This tank build should help me get through Dragonstar, for master 2H.

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

drsalvation wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

master 2h can do a lot of dmg, im currently using it back bar on a tank toon and i can still get 40k dmg cleaves if i hit enough enemies with it

if you had other ideas what you were looking for theme wise i might be able to try suggesting some other sets

"mechanically" speaking dark convergence or rush of agony works really good with the masters 2h because it can pull the enemies in for the easy big cleaves

Rush of agony is such an underrated set, even for AoE tanks (using jewelry and weapons), I do have vateshran's sword and shield as well, I can also pull all enemies using power slam (but a witcher using sword and shield doesn't really fit the style... and this is why I suffer an inner conflict, I personally will always go with sword and board, but for this toon's RP, I have to stay away from it lol).

But yeah, for now I'll have to grind for Master 2H, and stone garden for arkasis's genius.
I appreciate the insight!

thats why i mentioned rush of agony or dark convergence, as both are sets that are independent of weapon, so you could still go with a double 2h setup

stampede trigger dark convergence or rush of agony, then cleave away

another one that might fit a theme would be syvarra scales, it creates a burst of poison when dealing dmg, and the poison dot has a high uptime and is aoe

Syvarra looks interesting, I'll see how that one works out for me on DPS build. Clever alchemist and moon hunter are awesome but I feel like it's not helping me reach out to my max, so maybe Syvarra will help.

For now I have a tank build which is pretty cool
Iron Flask + Arkasis Genius.
For chugging one potion, I get like 7k armor AND 40 ultimate for myself and my teammates.
This tank build should help me get through Dragonstar, for master 2H.

the nice thing about syvarra is that it comes in all 3 sizes, the not-nice thing is how difficult/expensive it is to get the light and heavy variants lol

most of its bonus are generic max stats, and i think it comes with a added bonus of reduced environmental dmg (like from lava and traps), so its very flexible

if you wanted to stick with the poison/dot style build you could throw something else on there like vipers sting (its not like as effective as it used to be, but its still 100% uptime and easy to trigger)

leeching plate also spawns poison cloud when you take dmg that heals you for enemies in it, so good for survivability

i also like sheer venom now that it is cooldown per target, but i dont think there is a good way to mass apply it with 2h (executioner is single target, the other morph that hits aoe still only applies the execute on the main target with the aoe dmg scaled off the initial dmg)

drsalvation · May 2022

Thanks for the suggestions.
I do have a newbish question tho, I noticed dragonknight has a passive that buffs up poison and fire dmg, does that apply to weapon poisons, or only to skills with poison dmg?

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

i believe the "world in ruin" passive mentions increase dmg to fire and poison "area of effect abilities", so i would assume any skill which does fire or poison and is also an aoe

drsalvation · May 2022

Was it in an update that hasn't reached xbox yet? I see in the websites that it mentiones AoE abilities, but the full description on my xbox is "Increased the damage of your flame and poison attacks by 2%" (nothing about AoEs)
Either way, I guess it's safe to assume poisons apply

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

since i was not in game when i checked that i just did a google search and the info might not have been fully updated (i think i just did a quick check with the fextralife eso wiki)

checking some other sites it does just mention attacks, im assuming anything that is fire or poison dmg will be counted, but not in game right now to confirm if it also means weapon poisons (i dont know if those are like generic dmg or specifically say poison dmg either)

buttaface · May 2022

Be sure to take a 2 minute break every 5 minutes to simulate all the cutscenes in Witcher 3, then you will have it nailed