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Im about 30 hours into Witcher 2 , its a beautiful game aesthetically and an improvement on W1 around most things. I decided to play on Hard I also decided to use a Controller and not use M\KB and Im now very comfortable with using the Controller and the overall combat mechanics. Im enjoying the different quests and the main narrative around the Kingslayer makes you feel like you really part of a huge political change in the world, exciting stuff I had a very difficult first battle with Letho, it was very tough but I finally defeated him by strategic dodging his signs and bombs and using Yrden to trap him and then attack from behind and then rollaway The Kayran battle was also very tough but again Yrden saved the day and I have also started using Quen, its become my most useful sign in difficult battles Lots of exciting lore and narrative outcomes in W2 and I decided to align with Roche, the Scoia'tael just seem more barbaric and unconvincing than in W1 so it was another easy decision I have just lifted the blood curse and the mist. Like W1 the overall narrative and the choices you need to make represent some of the best parts of the game And I love the Alchemy mechanics and how you can utilize different potions and the signs really do make combat exciting and varied

Wizard/Chanter is always interesting because you can prolong all benefical effects with Wall of Draining, including effects from chants (including Ancient Memory and Mercy and Kindness) even though you don't sing them anymore. That is correct. It scales with character level but has no weapon proficiency (modal). Thus it is not great for Devoted. Since it already scales with character level it does not scale with Transcendent Suffering or Monastic Unarmed Training. Sure. It's also good to have a setup of fist + Tuotilo's Palm for backup. There might be enemies who are quite resistant or even immune to corrode damage (which is the damage type of Draining Touch). I personally value +5ACC over +10% damage. It's only additive damage and the bash (which counts as unarmed) as well as the fists base damage isn't so high that +10% means a lot. The bash does 8-10 or 9 base damage on average. +10% means +1 dmg per bash. Fists are 14-19, so 16.5 on average base dmg. +10% means additional 1.7 crush damage per strike. It's more if you use abilites because they scale up the base damage with Power Level a bit. But still... not my favorite enchantment. +5 ACC is more useful imo. Ah, by the way: Draining Touch does not cause Deep Wounds (Rogue) because it does not deal pierce, slash or crush damage. depends on what you plan to use. the Pike modal works for Spirit Lance - but only the initial target, not the AoE. It redices enemies deflection by 10. This can be helpful against high deflection enemies. You only need to graze and their deflection drops by 10. It's nice imo. As most modals you must decide when it's worth turning on and when not. Seems good to me. Human would be my pick, too. Fighting Spirit is so easy to trigger with a Bloodmage. Puh... so many options... I really like quick reloading, high ACC arbalest shooters as low-maintenance party members most of the time - but they can be extrmely valuable when they pin down difficult enemies with their modal. Something like Ranger/Paladin, Ranger/Chanter, Ranger/Cipher, Ranger/Rogue and so on. Another nice, low maintenance party member with big moments I like is dual pistol SC Kind Wayfarer. But you need a Chanter in the party then, too (for limitless summons which can be turned into free Zeal via Divine Retribution). That is the most effective approach. But the juggling of Grimoires can be a bit inconvenient at times. Which spells you use all the time depends on you. I think self-buffs you almost always want to cast at the start of battle are good candidates. Devil of Caroc's Breastplate heals per crit. I may be nice in combination with Blood Sacrifice. With AoE stuff like Spirit Lance I try to hit the 35 INT cap, so items such as Charm of Bones (+2) and Heaven's Cacophony (+2) are favorites of mine. Also Aloth's Armor (+15% AoE size) as well as the pet Loki (also +15% AoE size). But it's all not super important imo.

Wall Street losing $1 trillion overnight is delicious.

Thanks for reply I was coming back here to update, mostly because when I was searching for an answer all the related posts were 8-10 years old and for the PC. I truly wish I could go back to PC gaming but hasn't been in the budget since Icewind Dale ugh lol So, to all my console compatriots; I went back to the main screen, closed out the game, shut down the console, turned everything back on and went back into the game and held my breath..... Everyone was back Thanks!!!

No weapon type, it scales with your level. In a party you can get so many acc buff that I'd say better is +10% damage. But with mega bosses maybe better +5 acc, if you wanna make them. Pick club. You'll ended with so many modals that it doesn't matter, you can pick Pike, small shield for Tuotilo's and so on... Party. I think a Cipher like Serafen could be good, also a Ranger as Maia, or pick Ydwin and you can use her as a Cipher and ranged Rogue. Attributes: 11/10/16/18/19/4 is better to me. Max int. No MIG below 10. CON 10 should be enough. Yes, better pick monk abilities. Take only one or two spell you are always going to use, i.e. if you go with Citzal's Spirit Lance "route"/build, pick that one. You can always respec in any case and you must take some wizard. abilities, but favour passives as rapid casting, and elmental talents. Use mandatory ability points of wizard for "shared" passives like improved Critical, styles and so on, so you can have more monk exclusive abilties to put points on. Other spells you can pick: self buffs as fleet fleet, DAoM, Merciless Gaze, Infuse of Vital Essence. Low level spells which are effective also at last levels. About equipment, above all Mortification Bindings.

I bet it doesn't work, probably you need a mod for that. Boeroer, what do you think about a Bloodmage/Chanter with self healing to gain health for Blood Sacrifice?

The normal values of the axes will scale with level no problem. But I guess the lash will stay low because it only scales with the Priest's dispositions - if those are in line with their god's dispositions. I suspect that wouldn't work with a non-priest. But I haven't tried. Maybe it works if you character adheres to Rymrgand's dispositions - I mean you can accumulate disposition points as non-priest as well. Just don't know if that gets translated to the axes then. Worth a try I guess. Draining Touch is the most powerful one handed weapon in the game (besides stuff like Scordeo's Edge+Salvation of Time or Wall of Draining or Grave Calling with skeletons and such things)... if you can keep it with the Grimoire switching trick. Not much comes close imo. The very high base damage, combined with some damage bonuses, leads to hefty dmg per hit, the health draining and the weakening as well as the targeting of Will make it more powerful. There's a reason why you are supposed to only get one proper hit or crit with it. In combo with a club+modal it's even better. It's also very good on a Wizard/Monk. You don't need Enervating Blows anymore, the draining is nice to stay healthy (even makes Helwalker less scary) and Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming in combination with Merciless Gaze and the ultra low Will of the enemy from club strikes and spells means that additional attacks will proc frequently. Or improve the dmg per hit with Lightning Strikes, both options are great. Turning Wheel is also nice in combination with that high dmg per hit. Hylea's Talons add a lash, Baby Boar does so, too. Wizard can pick Spirit of Decay which grants +1 PEN with the Draining Touch weapon. Add Monk's Thunderous Blows and you are at +3. --- Another nice combo with Wizard and Draining Touch is Steel Garrote. Steel Garrote drains health if you attack afflicted enemies. Draining Touch put weakened on enemies: nice synergy. You drain twice from the same attack which is great for using Blood Sacrifices, you can achieve enormous defense and AR numbers. You will have nice synergy between Eternal Devotion and your spells, too (+15% burning lash to spells, Eternal Devotion works like that). Eternal Devotion's accuracy can get buffed by 10 points with the Ring of Focused Flames. That means that not only do you drop enemies' Will via club and spells but also raise your accuracy by +20 (FoD+10, Ring +10). If you don't like Steel Garrote then Kind Wayfarer also works nicely. Instead of draining twice you will heal in an AoE with white flames and drain health with Draining Touch. Also nice for Blood Sacrifice. Rest is the same as Steel Garrote or any other Paladin/Bloodmage: Lay on Hands with Wall of Draining etc. --- A brutal combo can be Soulblade/Bloodmage. Citzal's Spirit Lance is awesome with focus gain and Soul Annihilation. --- Bloodmage/Unbroken is also very good: Mob Stance, Kapana Tanga club with +2 engagement, Hold the Line, Draining Touch and Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage as well as an Essential Phantom. Enemies will get terrified and disengage, you and the phantom will deal incredible disengagement attacks with Draining Touch (remember: diseng. attacks get +100% dmg). Mob Stance cleaves are likely to kill enemies on the spot, leading to potential chain-cleaving and so on. --- Bloodmage/Furyshaper: combine Draining Touch with Barbaric Smash, Bloodlust, Bloody Slaughter and most importantly Blood Thirst. Also Carnage profits from the high base damage. Summon a Fear Ward so you don't need to cast Ryngrim's spells. Do similar things like with the Unbroken but at higher speeds but less potent disengagement attacks. Instead of cleaving you will have higher speed and 0 recovery after a kill. Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter does enormous damage if you use it as finisher against near death enemies - and costs nothing if it kills. Bloodmage/Berserker also works but is very tricky.

And Adratic Glow in Luminous Bathouse (+1 guile). Anyway Wiz/Monk can be a mighty combo, I'm thinking about an already powerful monk with wizard self buffs.

I shot you a PM!

Wow, awesome.

Kind of funny that it's the AI bubble popping* after Trump's big 500bn AI announcement for sure. That's actually slightly less than the value of nVidia dropped in a day. Terrible news for kitchen supply and animal skin based clothing retailers everywhere. Though I guess Jensen can always ask his niece for a job at Team Red if things really go pear shaped. (I don't think anyone believes that Deepseek actually runs on $6m of hardware rather than a lot more but there's quite a lot of lols to be had watching people scramble over its performance. Also some rather off messaging about whether they 'really' have 50,000 A100 or 50,000 H100 running it- which probably shows how off guard they were caught if 'experts' are citing A/H100, and H800 as well- but even if it were true that's in the order of 0.1% of Trump's big funding announcement; and I'm not overly inclined to believe 50k of either without some actual evidence) *if only

Heh, my first car was a '79 Trans-Am.

Also, on a lighter note - it's not an actual song/music, but it did make me smile.

Kind of. Gambit is (unnecessarily) complex: The max refund of Guile is 4. You cannot generate more Guile than you spend. So the best case is that Gambit costs you nothing. The described refund of 2 can happen twice if you dual wield, bc. you have two weapon strikes. It doesn't matter how often you crit during those strikes (for example with an AoE weapon like a rod or mortar - or a multihit-weapon like a blunderbuss or Sun & Moon). If only one of the rolls during that strike is a crit you will get a refund of 2 for that strike. If you do 2 strikes (bc. two weapons) and both of them contain at least one crit you get 4 Guile back. Best case. Gambit shows 100% crit conversion with 10 Guile - but the 4 points of Guile you pay for Gambit itself get subtracted before the conversion applies during striking. So during the execution of Gambit your Guile is 4 less and thus the conversion drops accordingly (-10% per missing Guile). Therefore it is recommended to raise your max. Guile well over 10. Check out Devil of Caroc Breastplate for 2 extra Guile (=+20% crot conversion). You want that big chance to crit with every Gambit roll. This then means free Gambit executions as long as you don't graze or miss (or get interrupted or spend lots of Guile for something else first). A hidden gem: Internally, while Gambit is excutedand the game is calculating stuff, the Guile refund is NOT limited. It only gets cut down to max +2 per strike at the end. But while you are striking and doing crits the "internal" Guile counter can go through the roof. Since the crit damage bonus of Gambit (+20% dmg per point of Guile) relies on the Guile you currently have l, this can mean that you can achieve huge dmg bonus numbers during the execution of Gambit. For example with Hand Mortar+Blinding Smoke and Fire in the Hole+Chain Shot you can roll a ton of crits with every strike/shot and your internal Guile refund will skyrocket, giving you +200% dmg bonus and more for subsequent attack rolls during that shot. Only after Gambit is done it is all cut back to +4 Guile (max).