Witcher 3 - 1st play through questions

What a treat for you. This is one of the games I wish I could do all over again.

As far as build, you have to pretty much specialize in one and then dabble in the other two out of Signs, Combat, and Alchemy. Any one of them is completely viable and they play wildly different. I've done them all. The limitation is going to the skills you can equip and of course the skills you can acquire as you need so many points in each to get the best skills.

If you get into an Alchemy build, the potions matter a lot. If you go Combat or Signs a bit less because more than one decoction at a time will kill you quickly.

You'll pick up practically every ingredient for Alchemy along the way, but there are a handful that require you to make yourself through alchemy, and you have to get the recipe for one first. The game doesn't make that abundantly clear and it held me up for a while.

Pick up all the food and drink you can, it's useful for recovering HP. If you're getting beat up a lot the Gourmet skill extends the buff to 20 minutes.

I can't remember where these happen but when you start getting treasure hunt quests those will guide you to the various upgrades of Witcher gear. They will be the best armor and weapons for the game. Gets insanely expensive as you get into Wild Hunt.

I can't help you with the questions, but I am interested in the topic.

I decided (against a heavy weight, but not outright consensus of advice) to play them in order (as I got them on sale as a bundle). I played the early part of 1 and I was like, "Whoa. I don't understand this combat system at all." I did get on the learning curve for the mechanics, then I hit an early "puzzle" combat encounter.

Then I realized it was just a flat out different sort of game (which my son tried to warn me). I know the skills don't directly translate game to game, but I believe that the concepts, language and lore will, so I am going to go back with fresh eyes and get through 1 and 2 in order to play 3 "as intended", at least if I had played from the beginning.

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How much does my build affect things later on? I haven't really had a plan when putting my points in but improving what I use. How important are potions? I've really just started using them. Are they a huge part of fights in late game?

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Both of these depends on difficulty. You can play on normal and get by just fine never using potions or oils.

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Should I stick with Witcher gear? Or is there other gear that is better?

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For the main game, yes. There is some better gear in Blood and Wine.

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Then I realized it was just a flat out different sort of game (which my son tried to warn me). I know the skills don't directly translate game to game, but I believe that the concepts, language and lore will, so I am going to go back with fresh eyes and get through 1 and 2 in order to play 3 "as intended", at least if I had played from the beginning.

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TW3 is turns from being a good game to a great game if you’re steeped in the lore, from the old games to the books.

As others have said I'm extremely jealous you get that initial experience. I didn't appreciate it at the time and just finished another playthrough without interruption. Was sad to finish it again but was happy with how I played it, if that makes sense. I haven't done NG+ with the latest update so I may jump back in around the holidays and start that up. I haven't hit level 100.

As far as your questions I would say go with whatever build interests you and go with your gut. Each sign makes contributions so go with your preferred play style and have fun. My first play through I leaned heavy into igni and combat upgrades. Oils and potions are important and their importance scales up as you increase the difficulty. Not all alchemy merchants sell the same things.

As far as the gear goes, you'll kind of piecemeal your gear for a while until you start leveling and progressing the story. You'll start getting witcher school gear sets by finding the diagrams and then you have to craft those at blacksmiths but only certain blacksmiths can make higher tier gear. Following the quests/side quests will unlock those vendors. I always preferred the ursine gear set, it's also one of the strongest, but it also looks great IMO.

It really is a masterpiece of a game you're in for a ride.

Man, such an amazing game.

You can buy a potion that resets all your stuff and gives all your points back so you can redistribute them if you'd like. I wouldn't worry about that though. What difficulty are you on? Alchemy gets a little OP late in the game if I remember right, but you kinda need it on the higher difficulties.

I always upgraded quen and axi and didn't really use signs much otherwise. Everything in the game is really good once upgraded and used appropriately though.

I appreciate all the feedback. It helps. I will try to keep everyone updated. I've been busy the last couple of days but hopefully this weekend I can sink some hours in.

I just spent like 45 minutes on the Red Miasmal. Didn't know I needed to Yrden then Ard. But after like 4 deaths, Geralt tells himself what to do.

I was just trying to explore and that fight came out of nowhere. It was exactly like that meme where the dude is laid back in his chair relaxing then at the boss fight I was at the edge of my seat locked in.

I'm on the standard difficulty. I think my gear is good enough to go tougher. I'm lvl 15 killing some low 20s beast. I might do that at some point.

I usually run a sign build around griffin armor, so I rarely use potions (except for meta-ing specific enemies (like black blood against vampires) or bombs. Oils are essential, however, and I am constantly applying oils before every non-trash mob fight.

Aard gets super broken late game when you can pair it with an ice ability that turns it into a wall of death. It can level huge mobs in seconds and makes a lot of non-boss fights completely trivial.

Axii is useful for conversations (sorta like a jedi mind trick), but i didn’t find it as helpful in combat despite being potentially super useful.

Quen is extremely useful as you progress, especially on higher difficulties, as essentially an exploding damage shield.

Igni is used frequently by me for fighting heavily armored humans since there’s an ability you can unlock called “armor melting”, and the fact that folks tend to drop their shields when they’re on fire.

Yrden is supposed to be broken in a dps build, but I only really use it against certain ghost enemies and those super annoying plant monsters and centipedes in Blood and Wine.

My main piece of advice is to explore EVERY checkmark except the sea caches in Skellige. Only do those if you’re desperate for money.

Checking back on this thread periodically to see which romance option he goes with. For me it's Yen every day and twice on Sunday.

Signs build is op absolutely love it.