The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine Expansion

[Anthedon]

Spoiler question about the Blood and Wine finale:

Spoiler

How does one save the duchess? I found the fifth note and told everyone and their mother that Syanna still wants to kill Anna. The guard captain even mentions posting additional men and keeping a close eye on Syanna during the following audience.

Spoiler

There's no way to save her at that point, she won't believe you if you warn her and the guard captain simply fails to protect her.
You had to read all the entries in the diary of the babysitter(derp) and then talk to syanna about her sister and their childhood when you confront her about the 5th victim (doing those makes her forgive Anna, kind of)

Spoiler question about the Blood and Wine finale:

Spoiler

How does one save the duchess? I found the fifth note and told everyone and their mother that Syanna still wants to kill Anna. The guard captain even mentions posting additional men and keeping a close eye on Syanna during the following audience.

Spoiler

There's no way to save her at that point, she won't believe you if you warn her and the guard captain simply fails to protect her.
You had to read all the entries in the diary of the babysitter(derp) and then talk to syanna about her sister and their childhood when you confront her about the 5th victim (doing those makes her forgive Anna, kind of)

It's even more derp than that

Spoiler

When you're in the fairy tale book you have to ask her about Henrietta and their past, without this you will not have the option available when you talk to her in the tower.

Spoiler

I did read the diary entries but did not talk to her in the fairy tale world about their past. Oh well. In the next playthrough then.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Why is GOG downloading 11 GB right now?
And that after Blood and Whine is already installed?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Steam patch size is around 600mb...

 

[NotAGolfer]

Oh I see, so it's fucking GOG being incompetent lazy shits again.
Great.

 

[Anthedon]

Download the manual installer for the patch from GoG, it includes the files for DLC updates and is only 2.2GB. The client downloads the complete updated installers (I guess).

 

[typical user]

Spoiler question about the Blood and Wine finale:

Spoiler

How does one save the duchess? I found the fifth note and told everyone and their mother that Syanna still wants to kill Anna. The guard captain even mentions posting additional men and keeping a close eye on Syanna during the following audience.

Spoiler

There's no way to save her at that point, she won't believe you if you warn her and the guard captain simply fails to protect her.
You had to read all the entries in the diary of the babysitter(derp) and then talk to syanna about her sister and their childhood when you confront her about the 5th victim (doing those makes her forgive Anna, kind of)

Spoiler question about the Blood and Wine finale:

Spoiler

How does one save the duchess? I found the fifth note and told everyone and their mother that Syanna still wants to kill Anna. The guard captain even mentions posting additional men and keeping a close eye on Syanna during the following audience.

Spoiler

There's no way to save her at that point, she won't believe you if you warn her and the guard captain simply fails to protect her.
You had to read all the entries in the diary of the babysitter(derp) and then talk to syanna about her sister and their childhood when you confront her about the 5th victim (doing those makes her forgive Anna, kind of)

It's even more derp than that

Spoiler

When you're in the fairy tale book you have to ask her about Henrietta and their past, without this you will not have the option available when you talk to her in the tower.

Spoiler

I did read the diary entries but did not talk to her in the fairy tale world about their past. Oh well. In the next playthrough then.

Spoiler

I've read all diary entries because why not? I will get more flavor and have better understanding how to judge each character during their climax. First option to ask about her past appears after defeating witch, next she should push the subject by herself and you should ask her to tell more about her life. After that in the tower she will ask you what do you think was her motive - she tells at least twice in fairy land IIRC that she hates dutchess because she has forgotten her and never looked for her. Then you need to tell her to let it go and to ask her sister why she acted like she did. After that don't tell anyone about fifth assassination and they should reconcile.

 

[Perkel]

Spoiler

heh this becomes second my ciri died what did i do wrong !?

In my playtrough i only read journal, didn't talk with her in fantasy land and told both captain of guard and Anna that sister wanted to kill her. I talked first with Siena though and there was option that she should forgive her.

Damn shame about Dedlaw though. I thought we might be able to fix him but alas game seems to be way to linear in that sense especially with those "3 days"

Finally finished B&W.

Yes like people said HoS main story is waaaay better, though i disagree that it is bad. Yes there are things i didn't like (like linearity) but overall there were ton of fun things about main quest this time. I was a bit scared they would not do Regis justice but my fears were unfounded.
Didn't do much sidequests as i focused on main story
Especially loved spoon quest. Didn't like much fantasy land though. Felt more like a chore at that point and didn't fit well with what was happening at that time.

Overall i think it is fitting end for TW3 and that last scene with Regis definitely drove it home.
Either way it is must buy for anyone wondering. Just more TW3 with awesome stuff in it.
Also they didn't joke about Tousaint being big. It is fucking massive which is craze because it could be as well its own game with that size and complexity.

edit:

My timer is at 200 hours which includes speedplay through original TW3 till ending which took me this time 15 hours thanks to non req level mod. Overall cutting off that 15 hours for second TW3 playtrough and few bits it took me about 150-160 hours to beat TW3 and its expansions without delving much into sidequests and those loot stashes and whatever. Didn't do also any witcher gear quest nor did i make any part of them.

Now i will probably will leisure and do those sidequests i missed or have in journal. Almost whole Skellige, almost whole Novigrad about half of Velen and most of Touisant. So that is imo another almost 100h.

Overall i feel like to do "everything" aside from bullshit it should take about 250 hours. Hell i am surprised that something modern reached BG2 numbers.

 

[Perkel]

forgot to add:

this tune rocks

 

[cvv]

Guise what's the point of Abandoned Sites in B&W? There isn't an XP reward for clearing them anymore and you can rarely find merchants or persons in interest in them.

 

[Pope Amole II]

There is a global quest that pays for each liberation. And it's supposed to give something extra once you find them all (hadn't finished it myself, though).

 

[Perkel]

There is a global quest that pays for each liberation. And it's supposed to give something extra once you find them all (hadn't finished it myself, though).

? Never noticed that there was some quest like that nor those bandit camps.

 

[Pope Amole II]

? Never noticed that there was some quest like that nor those bandit camps.

https://www.vg247.com/2016/05/02/the-witcher-3-blood-and-wine-knight-for-hire/

 

[Duellist_D]

I think the Knight that you can save as one of the requirements for Aerondight is also among these questmarkers.

Clearing out the Hanse Headquarters is a pretty good source for coin.
You usually get a Blacksmith with tons of Crowns stationed there and can sell him all the Weapons the bandits drop.
Bonusloot if you willingly let them ignite the Emergency-Pyre that allerts nearby troops.

Was pretty usefull because upgrading to Grandmaster Gear costs a fuckton of Crowns.

Seems all of you played the Wonderland.
I actually stuck to my original choice and went with the Unseen Elder Ending to import into NewGame+

 

[Perkel]

Seems all of you played the Wonderland.
I actually stuck to my original choice and went with the Unseen Elder Ending to import into NewGame+

If i would know that i would go through that wonderland i would change to other path.

 

[Duellist_D]

If you haven't seen the other path, go back to an older save game and try it out.
Its not as long as the Wonderland, gives excellent unique loot and a few nice insights into the Lore of Higher Vampires.

 

[Carrion]

Spoiler

Damn shame about Dedlaw though. I thought we might be able to fix him but alas game seems to be way to linear in that sense especially with those "3 days"

Spoiler

I was afraid they'd give you an option to make him redeem himself at the end, but I'm glad they didn't. Dettlaff was clearly broken beyond repair, a super-powerful, dangerously impulsive creature that clearly had no place in that world anymore. A happy ending for him just wouldn't have been plausible, regardless of what Regis thought about his friend. The "a few days later" part indeed sucked in a major way, and not much would've been lost had they just skipped the vampire attack altogether (or better yet, included an actual timer for it, making the attack happen only if you screwed around too long without doing the main quest) — your goal for all that time was to find Dettlaff in one way or another, and the attack didn't change it in any way, just raised the stakes a bit.

I don't really get some the complaints about the endings, especially about Syanna (not referring to Perkel here). The C&C regarding Ciri in the main game was questionable in many ways and displayed some rather shoddy logic in a couple of places, but from what I gathered from my B&W playthrough, the Syanna thing followed a very clear logic — she's a person with little more than contempt for everyone around her, and in order to make her listen to you, you need to win her over, show her that you understand her motives and reasoning. Fail that, and bad things happen. It's a much better way of doing it than making it all come down to just a couple of choices at the very end.

Bonusloot if you willingly let them ignite the Emergency-Pyre that allerts nearby troops.

You can also do it yourself with Igni.

Was pretty usefull because upgrading to Grandmaster Gear costs a fuckton of Crowns.

That goddamned enriched dimeritium... I probably spent hours breaking down components, selling almost all of my inventory for some crowns, crafting a fuckton of supplementary stuff like basic dimeritium ore and silver ingots and green gold that I could eventually, after a half-a-dozen different stages or so, turn into actual enriched dimeritium... just to be able to craft four sets of armor and weapons that I'll never use, because the Manticore set is of course the only proper one. I was also about twelve levels above the requirements by the time I got my hands on most of that stuff, so even the random bandits I encountered were carrying better stuff.

 

[RK47]

3 piece gm Griffin is very broken already.

 

[typical user]

Is it? I've read that Ekimmara Potion (spending stamina heals you) combined with Whirl is even more OP. You can also grab two perks from alchemy tree and Manticore set to boost your toxicity threshold to insane levels and drink more potions + grab one of the mutations which increases your damage (at 100% toxicity with all those I've seen you can get around 250% damage increase).

 

[cvv]

Honestly this game doesn't really need absurd min-maxing, just go for some reasonable synergy and you'll blow through most Death March content anyways.

For most of the game I was tinkering with my Combat/Alchemy build to squeeze a little more damage out of it here and there but then realized it's completely pointless, unless you wanna, for some reason, take on mobs many levels above you. So I respecced into a more balanced build with more Signs and less Alchemy. Yeah Signs are laughably weak damage-wise but they're fun, especially Axii and the freezing Aard (the instakill procs very rarely tho, don't expect to mass instagib mobs with it).

 

[Carrion]

Is it? I've read that Ekimmara Potion (spending stamina heals you) combined with Whirl is even more OP. You can also grab two perks from alchemy tree and Manticore set to boost your toxicity threshold to insane levels and drink more potions + grab one of the mutations which increases your damage (at 100% toxicity with all those I've seen you can get around 250% damage increase).

Everything in the game is OP if used properly. I prefer a mix of Alchemy and Signs myself, but a pure swordsman can be turned into an unstoppable force of nature just as easily. There's not much point in powergaming, though, unless you just want to finish the combat as quickly as possible. It's more fun to grab the most interesting skills from every tree and create a combination that allows you to do as many different things as possible.

Whirl + Ekhidna (+ Water Hag) was outright broken at release (gain full health instantly every time you start to whirl, deal tons of damage because of the Water Hag decoction), but I think they toned it down a bit with some patches.

 

[Anthedon]

The Igni runeword that adds a 25% chance that burning enemies set nearby enemies on fire was useful for the larger fights. Otherwise I just stuck to swords/oils with light armor, everything died reasonably quickly on Death March.

 

[Perkel]

My go to is

Tawny potion + decocion that does straight up % of vitality damage regardless of who are you fighting at cost of stamina when you land heavy hit

Igni first stage and bit of igni sign power in armor so everyone is occupied by burning
Then heavy charged strike.

In the end every technique works as by end of the game balance completely goes out of window.

 

[typical user]

It's more fun to grab the most interesting skills from every tree and create a combination that allows you to do as many different things as possible.

Unless playing on Death March. The game makes a point describing enemies "hard as stonewall". It is ridiculous to have bandit with bare chest tank 5 sword hits.

Now if there was a proper mod balancing the game and not broken by any stupid patch changing scripts again.

 

[Carrion]

Unless playing on Death March. The game makes a point describing enemies "hard as stonewall". It is ridiculous to have bandit with bare chest tank 5 sword hits.

Why bother with whacking them into pieces with a sword? My latest build only had one skill from the combat tree (the one that increases fast attack damage) and one red mutagen, and I didn't really have any problems with HP sponges even on Death March. A powergamed build might have insane attack power, a near-invulnerability due to the Quen shield or something like that, but the best way to defeat big groups of enemies is through critical effects, something that is best achieved by having a large set of tools to choose from. If you can stack a bunch of critical effects on the enemies, they'll die very quickly regardless of the amount of their hit points — poison them with oils (use Whirl for maximum effect if you want to), set an entire group of them on fire with a cluster bomb, make them bleed with sword runes, knock a few down with Aard for an instakill, maybe play around with Yrden or Axii just for fun. If a particular enemy is resistant to critical effects and has a large pool of HP (for example elementals), there's always the Archgriffin decoction.

 

[cvv]

One thing that annoys the shit ouf of me in B&W so far is the stupid fucking accent everybody's jabbering with. I guess I'd be fine with it if characters were dubbed by English speaking French actors. But as it stands most of the VO is subpar, surprisingly, AND full of that goofy accent that's not even remotely French, even tho the names and everything else evidently is. Instead it's like a weird crossbread between Dutch and some Scandinavian or some such.