Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Tips & Tricks - Spoiler Free!

Moderator Edit: Please clearly mark and warn about spoilers, and avoid them completely if you can. Let's use this thread as a general collection point for tips & tricks in Wild Hunt. If you want to talk about something specific to the storyline or the game itself, this may be a better topic for you, or perhaps start your own topic. Thanks!

Just want to start a thread where people can post helpful tips and tricks they found whilst playing Wild Hunt.

1. First thing first, swiping up or down the touchpad opens up the world map.
2. Holding down touchpad opens up the inventory.
3. Dismantle junk items for crafting materials so you don't have to buy the same materials at 100x the cost from vendors.

Edit: Woops, I should mention that I'm playing on PS4.

You can get an extra 5 ability points in the first area by simply visiting the places of power (stones that buff a particular spell for half an hour). Much more then you normally get from level up at that stage in the game.

Igni sign one shots wolves even at its most base level.

Quen while says it only absorbs only 10% of your total Vitality in damage will actually always absorb at least 1 hit even if that hit would have been for half your health.

Just because something is several levels higher then you doesn't mean it's unbeatable or even hard per se.

For the card game, target dummies are OP as fuck. Both to scale down your play and make opponent overspend cards plus to counter spy cards.

Potions and Bomb consumables only need to be crafted once. They restock when you meditate and use hard alcohol from your inventory in order to replenish.

If you are playing on hard get the ability that lets you regen decently in daylight and less fast at night asap, as normally there is no default healing from meditation at that difficulty.

Silver sword is for monsters.

• Get horse saddlbags early on so you can carry more weight.
• Loot absolutely everything. On higher difficulties food will be your best friend (aside from Quen of course.) Stuff in people's houses will actually get filled up again after a while. (I think it's triggered by meditating.)
• Be sure to craft a few good potions/bombs early on. They help a lot.
• For Gwent: Try beating the guy in the royal palace even if it takes a lot of tries (it took me about 10-15 until I got lucky), his card makes things a lot easier. Next best card can be gotten from the Bloody Baron.
• If you happen upon a Person in Distress marker on the map be aware that some of them have to be done immediately, else the event fails.
• The roll is way better than the dodge. (Ciri's dodge is the best thing ever, though.)
• If an enemy proves to though, run away and heal/regenerate, then go back and finish them off. Most enemies don't regenerate health.
• Dismantling weapons is better then selling them 80% of the time. You also get your runestones back if you dismantle.
• You can safely sell about 80% of the stuff in the "other" part of your inventory, without loosing out on much from dismantling.
• Completed markers on your map grey out. (I didn't notice that one for a long time.)
• Combat on the horse = not a good idea. Just get off and take it from there.

Where do you go to dismantle weapons?

@simpsonsfan: any blacksmith or armorer can dismantle stuff for you.

Edit: added armorer

@simpsonsfan: Weapon and armor smiths have the dismantle option in their shopping menues.

@viqor: Ok thanks.

Hold onto your old currency. Merchants only accept one type of coin, but the others (which will appear as junk) can be exchanged later for usable money.

I foolishly went on a main storyline quest without stocking up not realising it would last for ages, have no vendors and also have a boss at the end of it! And now my sword is broken too, so don't be an idiot like me!

@johnnymcginley: Pretty sure I know which quest you are talking about, and it seemed like you could actually get stuck in there if things went real bad (unless I'm missing something). I am keeping at least one extra save that isnt too far behind the main one from now on just in case.

@mrck: Yeah I think you have it right. All the quests up to that point had been in the open world.

I have a save just before the last boss with no healing and a sword below 50%!

Definitely going to be more careful with saves now.

I am going to give this a few more tries before loading up an older save.

@sessh: The roll stops stamina from regening so I get less Quen spam and sometimes makes you go too far away so it's harder to get a counter in time. The dodge is fine for sidestepping 90% of the attacks I've seen for the first 12h and leaves me more open to do whatever I want.

craft silver sword of the viper asap(part of a side quest in white orchard), when you get diagram... gives you 20% exp bonus

My first instinct was to rely on roll as it is the safer dodge move, but I agree that the sidestep dodge is actually far more effective in most cases because of the improved counter opportunity.

For these kinds of games I always have a ridiculous amount of saves. I always start off with maybe three or five, always saving over the oldest one. I think on Dragon Age: Inquisition I ended up with close to twenty. I just compulsively save at every chance because I'm afraid of losing progress, then I get paranoid about corrupt saves so I start making more and more... always have the option to roll back up to several hours.

I think this thread would make a good sticky. Not sure how that works.

Early on in the first area shy away from crafting anything until you get a quest that gives you some specific patterns. You will know the quest I mean when you find it. If you search the first area thoroughly you will find tons of gear that is equal or only a tiny bit worse than the armor you can craft for 100% free.

Quen is your friend. Like seriously, especially on high difficulties.

To add on to what @tennmuerti said... craft potions and oils ASAP. You only have to craft them once (unlike the previous two games) and you auto refill them using various alcohols when you meditate.

In the first area there is a grindstone and an armor bench in the Nilfgaard camp. Use them religiously to give yourself a nice long lasting buff to armor and weapons.

Check the Bestiary - it will tell you what certain monsters are weak to. Some may be weak to Igni, etc.

@karkarov: The grindstone and armorer's table don't cost any materials to enhance your equipment right? I was a bit hesitant to use them but I ended up doing so for the griffin fight. It never told me what materials were used so I'm assuming none are taken.

alright you guys ready here's my hot witcher 3 tip straight from the streets

use quen

@mrck: The number one rule for a witcher. Prepare.

Anyone know why the controller vibrates randomly when roaming around the map? Witcher senses pick up nothing.

@probablytuna: If you are sprinting I think it rumbles whenever you run out of stamina.

Remember to pay close attention to your equipment durability. Especially the silver sword. Early on in the game it can be a mess to be stuck without a silver sword, especially if you're in the middle of a quest or don't know where to find a blacksmith nearby.

@probablytuna: No materials, completely free.

@probablytuna: It also rumbles when you get stuck on geometry or make a fast turn, so I think it's just a bug.

@sessh: @tobbrobb: Hold on, I think it's to let you know Quen is no longer in effect.

@probablytuna: Yeah, I know that's also a case were it vibrates. Still think it bugs out sometimes, but it's a non issue anyway.

None are taken, it is just a long duration buff. I think it lasts 15 minutes. Abuse the hell out of it man. Also I may be mistaken but I was playing with oils last night.... and they apparently never run out anymore. So there is literally no benefit to not oiling your weapon up with "something".

@karkarov: they didn't require hard alcohol to restock during meditation?

@sessh: I always thought it was because you went over something important, after activating it with the Witcher sense. Maybe it was coincidence. Great tips!

I'm sorry, but I found this hilarious.

I'm a child.

I haven't been playing very long, but I'd like to echo what @mosdl said: Check the bestiary for enemies weaknesses. Press right on the D-Pad (consoles) to see what those icons mean.

If you tap circle/B when galloping on the horse, you can jump! Did this by accident, and MAN what an obvious feature they should've covered! No more sudden fence-stops!

Also sort of a glitch, but the jump is so janky if you sprint and time it right you can leap straight up the side of near-vertical surfaces, just try and get the momentum of Geralt on-point with the 'middle' of the surface. You'll get it!

Yep the oil inventory items are infinite use. When applied to a weapon they have hit charges. Oils also start out fairly weak with only a 10% buff, but can be later upgraded into more powerful versions with superior oils giving a very significant 50% damage buff.

@tennmuerti: @karkarov wow that is crazy....so, Always Be Oilin', then.

If you are struggling for food take time to craft the Swallow potion. I've not used food in hours. It's a great healer. Coupled with the fact it replenishes on meditation (as long as you keep alcohol on you), it'll solve your food woes.

Craft the serpentine silver and steel swords in White Orchard. Even if you're in Velen it's worth going back and taking the time to find the blueprints and crafting materials. If you're struggling to get the mats, this will wake you up to the dismantling menu where you can probably get the ingots you need simply by dismantling stuff. You can top up on certain items at the blacksmith in Blackbough in Velen (this is also where you craft the swords and ingots.

@tennmuerti: I was running back through today to clear everything in the starting area and to get the 5 places of power and I found a 6th. So there should be 6 places of power in the first area.

@jnal Yea I wasn't sure of the exact number when i posted that, thanks :)

@tennmuerti: No problem! Wouldn't have gone back if I hadn't seen your tip in the first place.

Don't agree. The roll consumes stamina, the dodge doesn't. If you can get away with it, dodge is the way to go, with rolls are for emergencies. Dodge in particular is good for bosses and large monsters as it helps avoid their strikes but keeps you within striking range.

If you're importing a save from The Witcher 2, make sure you select the right one! The game only shows filenames and timestamps and doesn't give any indication of the choices you made, so it's really easy to mess that up. In my case, I accidentally imported my most recent hard save, when what you really want is the autosave the game creates after you beat the final boss. That mistake cost me a couple of hours.

@poisonjam7: Hey I am a grown man I can play with oils all I want! :D But no seriously they are really good in game.

Not totally sure it matters. I think imports are sort of bugged. For example I saw a witch get burned at the stake and it implied Geralt knew her from Witcher 2.... but my save was from Roche path and you meet her on Iorveth's path...

What. What what what. Does the game ever tell you that? I've been stuck without Swallow for like an hour and I just decided to dump it out and craft a new stack. They really seem to be downplaying the "prepping" aspect of these games.

No it actually doesn't you just sort of notice because it won't let you make more after you craft it the first time and when you eventually meditate you notice a blurb about using alcohol and boom you have all your potions back.

I'm fairly sure they state that you can replenish with alcohols in the alchemy tutorial screens.

It pays to explore the points of interests (especially in the starting area) since some of them have places of power which give you a free ability point. This really gives you an advantage when questing since having those extra ability points invested in skills makes your character more effective (Think i have gained about 7 or 8 free ability points that way...the number could actually be closer to 10).

Also for combat:

1) use sidestep for avoiding attacks and being able to strike back at them immediatly after avoiding the attack
2) use roll especially when fighting bigger monsters or masses of enemies since rolling away gives you more distance from enemies than sidestepping them
3) parry is really effective against shield users..since you can parry their blow and immediatly counterattack

For saving cash:

There are 3 separate armor types (light, heavy, medium). If you want to save cash then its better that you specialise in one of those armor types and only craft and use items of that type. You spend far less money that way on crafting.

As to getting hp back:

Take the skill where you generate hp during the daytime. This will save you a bunch of money from buying food or using potions (This applies to the harder difficulties where meditating doenst generate your health back).

Big money ===> If you're still in the prologue, you can sell honeycombs to the herbalist lady for 18 crowns a pop! I read a notice she hung on a tree by chance, then went running to sell them to her!

There's also another herbalist hanging around the marker east of the Abandoned Town in southern White Orchard who you can also sell the honeycombs to if the herbalist lady is out of money.

Also, the free ability points from the Places of Power are good and all, but you also need ability slots to make full use of them, unless you are focusing on putting points on only one or two abilities at the start. I have three slots open but I currently have four abilities unlocked with the Axii upgrade unactivated. Just a heads up for people trying to get those free ability points.

I just figured this out recently: People don't care if you take their stuff. AFAIK the only people who take offense are guards. So as long as a guard can't see you, steal away. This isn't Skyrim, people don't report crimes or attack you for taking their stuff.

Im not sure if this was stated in a tutorial message and I just overlooked it, but I wasn't taking anything from people in fear of them alerting the guards.

Continuing with the "this isn't Skyrim" theme: not everything has loot when you kill it. So don't go crazy looking for the corpse of the fourth ghoul you killed like me. If there isn't a corpse, he didn't drop any loot.

And I just discovered a third herbalist, east of the abandoned town you mentioned, standing next to a shrine that you purge of monsters.