Anyone can fill me in on how interesting they are and how do their enhanced abilities and acumen work? I picked the combat tree so there's not a lot of diversity here, even though I throw spells around they're pretty weak. Potions I use on a regular basis.

Playing on Hard, so would appreciate comments from the same difficulty, as the gameplay requirements are elevated so a Hard Sorcerer is probably a lot different than an Easy Sorcerer playthrough.

I am starting my second playthrough. I did my first on Hard, primarily in the sword tree with a little in the other two. Honestly, it was a piss-poor setup.

My impressions was that the sword tree is all but useless. The only skill I felt was of any use in that entire tree was the one half way down that lets you hit multiple enemies. I'm pretty sure the group finisher never, ever finished off more than one enemy, and while it can be useful to instantly kill something with it, due to the relatively slow gain of adrenaline and how that relates to what point you might be in any given encounter (ie: by the time you reach full adrenaline, you've probably eliminated enough mobs that the fight has become much easier and in no need of a finishing move), it's more of a gimmick than useful tool in that it really just shaves a few seconds off the fight, and even that's suspect since it adds a few seconds due to the animation.

This time around I'm going to concentrate a lot more on Alchemy and Magic, since your sword skills see very little (and this is the key word) practical improvement via the sword tree. Still torn whether to go halfway into swords for the multiple target hitting.

Just my two cents.

I tend to agree. The only real difference swords make is with Whirlwind rank 2 and Riposte. I tried to use the acumen many times, only once have I managed to kill 3 enemies with it. Once I was literally in the midst of a dozen Nekkers, fired off the acumen > result was one nekker dead.

I haven't finished the game but I'm tempted to just restart it with magic or alchemy, or like you said enough in combat for WW.

I'm almost a 100% sure that the group finisher only works on humans and when you use it on monsters only 1 will be killed. Kinda disappointing :S

The alchemist class has been alot of fun, their ability to buff themselves up to ungodly levels is amusing however I find I can't effectively get into a rumble with more than a few monsters straight up. Luckily traps and bombs are suped up so you can easily dispatch large groups with a few good bombs.

The limiting factor of Alchemists is that often times it is clear the developers didn't give even the slightest thought to An alchemists need to prepare before being thrown into a fight. The result is long cut-scenes ending with you being thrust into a boss without any buffs or anyway to stand a chance without turning the difficult down to zero.

So while it seems that some people in this thread find the sword tree a little lackluster just be happy that those benifts are always there, For instance, at the end of the battle in the mist quest I had to square off with the boss and I might as well have not spent any points at all.

Upgraded Quen is pretty OP and makes the game super easy. It can take a lot of hits, breifly stuns, reflects back decent amount of damage, reflects damage back to multiple targets.

You also have 5-6 vigor bars so you can pretty much keep quen up till the end of a fight. You should also have fast vigor regen in combat so if you run out, just gotta run a little before you're at full again.

Alchemist is awful. So many of the important boss fights, the ones you'd want it for, you either don't get amble notice of before a reload or you get loads of cutscenes killing the timers on your potions.

Potions really need to be reworked(to be usable in combat as in previous game) before alchemy is worth it. However the mutagen boosting talent is really good and possibly overpowered with a build that reaches lots of mutable talents. Talent doesn't work retroactively though, which should hopefully get fixed.

Going up to 2/2 impregnation is as far as I'd go in alchemy currently, for a mutagen build. Otherwise just 2 points in the +bomb/trap damage for any build is a decent investment.

Magic seems fine, though Quen not allowing vigor regen is questionable and could be an issue, as unlike sword builds magic builds use their vigor for damage.

I think magic is the only worthwhile tree, I cant imagine how they balanced the other two and through them to be worthwhile, its very disappointing because Swordsmen should be pretty powerful.

I'm pretty sure no vigor regen during Quen is intended. Otherwise you can keep it up all the time which makes you pretty much invincible.

they should all be fun thats all that should matter ... atleast to me

Alchemy is actually quite strong if you modify the potion timers since toxicity is broken. :p

Signs is really the idiot-proof way to go, with a few points in swords. Once you've maxed out the Quen upgrades, you basically just press A and make "awesome happen" so to speak. It's utterly boring.

Alchemy/Signs with three points in swords has been the most fun, which isn't the same as being idiot-proof. ;p

Just my updated two cents since my earlier post.

Magic is by far the best. Upgrading it so you can use six signs in a row makes you quite the offensive (and with the shield sign, defensive) force. There's nothing like killing an enemy by just shooting fire signs at him =)

Just for the record, I killed multiple enemies all the time with the group finisher. Its just a matter of them being reasonably grouped together, not even super tight. I dont know what it is about peoples different fighting styles that might make it not fire off. It was really satisfying too, especially during the big melee set pieces. And it is really nice against Lieutenant level big bads to insta kill them.

BUT. I still wouldn't recommend it over the magic tree adrenaline skill. That one will actually help in boss fights, whereas the real bosses cant be insta killed.

Honestly, in the fighter tree, besides the obvious gems like group damage,it was all the passives that really just made things easier. The +damage, and +damage reduction all adds up, and adding 15% to chance of critical effects with a good sword will see a lot of guys bursting into fire around you.


I'd call the magic tree better, but honestly, other than Quen, once I had filled out the good stuff and the passives in the fighter tree, I just didnt need spells, or potions. And yes, that was on Hard. I could wade into battle pretty recklessly. Sure, I could have done powerful magic stuff, but I didnt need to.

I'm finding the game is so easy on hard after level 10 then on my next playthrough I'm not touching the sword or sign trees. I find it makes you so over powered. I'm just going to stick with alchemy and see what happens.