Witcher Gear Comparison

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Witcher Armor

	Weight Category	Level Requirements	Armor Rate	Monster Resistance%	Human* Resistance%	Special Characteristics
Feline	Light	47/53/59/64	762	50%	50% / 40% / 0% / 80%	+75% Attack Power
Griffin	Medium	41/48/56/64	762	65%	59% / 48% / 27% / 65%	+75% Sign Intensity
Ursine	Heavy	50/55/60/64	762	80%	70% / 55% / 40% / 50%	+75% Adrenaline Gain
Wolven	Medium	44/51/59/64	762	65%	59% / 39% / 27% / 65%	+30% of all above
Viper	Medium	67	828	60%	50% / 50% / 0% / 60%	+100% Poison Resistance

*Human damage resistance is divided to 4 categories:
slashing / piercing / bludgeoning / elemental

Note: The values are NG+ Mastercrafted Legendary gear stats. They are slightly lower in first playthrough, but the scaling is same.

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How does armor damage work in Witcher 3?

In reality, the calculation is a bit more complicated, but simplified Damage calculation is:
(BaseDamage – Armor) x (1 – Damage Resistance) = Dealt Damage

For example, if some monster attacks you and that attack has 1000 BaseDamage…

• Feline: (1000-762) x 0,50 = 119 damage
• Griffin: (1000-762) x 0,35 = 83,3 damage
• Ursine: (1000-762) x 0,20 = 47,6 damage
• Wolven: (1000-762) x 0,35 = 83,3 damage
• Viper: (1000-828) x 0,40 = 68,8 damage

From this simple example we can draw few conclusions:

• Both the armor and damage resistance are needed for best protection
• Damage resistance outweighs armor rate

I’m not going to go to big lengths explaining the mathematics here, just google it if you’re interested to know more! At any rate, this is all that matters damage wise.

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Witcher Swords

Gear & Level Requirement	Steel Damage	Critical Buffs	Other Traits	Silver Damage	Critical Buffs	Other Traits
Feline Lvl 64	500-612	+15%chance	+15%Bleeding	679-829	+15% chance	+35%Aard +15%Bleeding +10%Dismember
Griffin Lvl 64	500-612	+10%chance +50%damage	+25%Sign Intensity	679-829	+10%chance +50%damage	+25%Sign Intensity +10%Dismember
Ursine Lvl 64	500-612	+100%damage	+25%Adrenaline	679-829	+5%chance +100%damage	+25%Adrenaline +14%Dismember
Wolven Lvl 64	500-612	+15%chance	+15%Bleeding +15%Sign Intensity +15%Adrenaline	679-829	+15%chance	+15%Bleeding +15%Sign Intensity +15%Adrenaline
Venomous Viper* Lvl 69	544-664	+10%chance +75%damage	+15%Poison +25%Aard	???	+10%chance +75%damage	+15%Poison +25%Aard

*Venomous Viper Silver Sword is glitched at the moment, and you can only get the level 39 variant with lower damage.

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How does sword damage work in Witcher 3?

Sword damage calculation isn’t as easy as armor damage. There are more factors influencing the damage output, but this is my attempt to show it as clearly as possible.

SwordDamage = (BaseDamage + WeaponDamage) x (1 + Bonus) x AttackTypeFactor

• BaseDamage is small base number tied to character level
• WeaponDamage is either…
  • Slashing damage for swords
  • Piercing damage for bolts
• • Bludgeoning damage for clubs and hammers
  • Combined with possible elemental damage (fire & frost)
• Bonus is the sum of all Attack Power improvements
  • Meaning: skills, armor, mutagens, grindstone, potions, decoctions, blade oils, runestones, adrenaline, critical hit…
• AttackTypeFactor is the difference between fast and strong attacks
  • Value is 1 for fast attacks
  • Value is 1,83 for strong attacks

Because the mathematics is quite hard, I’m trying to simplify this with this example…

• Let’s simplify that BaseDamage is zero
• The sword deals 1000 fast attack damage
  • Without any bonuses the damage (before damage reduction) is 1000
• Now we equip/activate some possible bonuses…
  • Muscle Memory: +25%
  • Feline gear: +75%
  • Cat School Techniques: +20%
  • Grindstone: +20%
  • 3 Greater Red Mutagens, all linked to 3 combat skills: 3 x 40% = +120%
  • Superior Blade Oil: +50%
  • Thunderbolt potion: +35%
  • Total: 345% damage bonus
• After this, the damage will be 4450!!!

Note: This is extremely simplified version explaining the sword damage. There are some random and unknown factors which are yet to be discovered.

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Character builds and Witcher Gear

Before the Hearts of Stone DLC, the options when using Witcher gear with character builds were quite self-explanatory. Roughly it was:

• Fast Attack -build -> Use Feline gear with Cat School Techniques -skill
• Sign -build -> Use Griffin gear with Griffin School Techniques -skill
• Strong Attack -build -> Use Ursine gear with Bear School Techniques -skill

Of course there was some variation and options besides these, but they often lacked the usefulness. The choice between swords was also a bit scarce.

But the aforementioned DLC brought us the Runewright, which was a real game-changer!

Glyphwords: Levity / Balance / Heft

These glyphwords allowed us to change the gear to different weight class (light, medium or heavy). This opened many new possibilities, like combining Ursine gear to Cat School Techniques buffs when enchanting the armor with Levity.

Luckily I’m going to create some of these possible builds soon and add them to this site!

See:

• NG+ Builds
• DLC Builds
• Runewords and Glyphwords -guide

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Runewords and Glyphwords – How this new mechanic changes gameplay?

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Hearts of Stone -expansion introduced us to new game mechanic with the addition of Runewright, who can add powerful Runewords to your swords and handy Glyphwords to your armor. This addition brings new possibilities for enhanced builds!

Basic information:

• The cost is extremely high!
  • Runes+Glyphs are required for crafting
  • Tiers will be unlocked after 5000 -> 10000 -> 15000 crown investments…
• Requires 3 free rune/glyph slots on equipment and after placing runeword/glyphword, those 3 slots will be destroyed
  • Additional slots can be crafted, but it’s costly
  • Only armor and swords can have 3 slots, meaning you can have maximum of 2 runewords and 1 glyphword active at the same time!
• But in the end, they provide astounding benefits!

This guide will firstly provide “Hall of Fame” -categories for those runewords/glyphwords which I’m anticipating to be most useful for builds. Then lastly all the runewords/glyphwords will be listed down below with befitting tiers.

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Hall of Fame

Heft – Balance – Levity

These three glyphwords are probably the most game-changing of them all! Placing this glyphword to armor will make every piece of your gear counted as heavy, medium or light armor. This brings countless new possibilities to the table for new builds! Mixing one or two or all pieces of armor from different weight class and different stats/buffs increases variability greatly.

Severance

This runeword deserves its own section. After testing this out, you will find little to no reason to use anything else with your combat build using Whirl and Rend! This turns Geralt into a very frightening beast letting no enemy to get even near him!

Prolongation

This enchantment is tremendous on Whirl builds! This keeps your potion duration going on until the battle ends! Combine this with White Raffard’s decoction and Superior Blizzard and be ready to wreak havoc! This tip was taken from this youtube video.

Ignitation – Rotation – Eruption

Boosting the strongest damaging sign with these glyphwords could totally be worth it! It will be interesting to see how they’ll work and will they really work as imagined… At least they’ll nonetheless look beautiful and powerful!

Usurpation – Beguilement – Possession

Breathing new life to Axii sign – these glyphwords can prove to be essential to every sign build focusing on Axii. Letting your mind-control to spread and set fear on your opponents sounds to be totally worth it!

“Convenience”: Preservation, Deflection, Protection

These are meant for those kind of builds which really won’t benefit much from any other possibility OR just to get rid off few nuisances in the standard play. Getting bored to always search Armorer’s Table and Grindstone before battle? Getting annoyed of those archers disrupting your killing-spree? Tired of always forgetting cast Quen before battle? Look no further – you’ve found your solution.

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Those were all the categories I have at the moment. Just remember: even I listed just a few, that doesn’t mean I find rest of the runewords/glyphwords useless! I just wanted to especially point up those which have most potential to be significant with builds in mind.

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Here’s the list of every one of them. Besides of the basic information, I’ve shared my opinion of its usefulness ranging from 1 to 5 stars!

Runewords – Tier I

Name: Preservation ★★★
Effect: Armorer’s table and grindstone bonuses never expire

Name: Dumplings ★
Effect: Consumed food restores 100% more vitality

Name: Placation ★★
Effect: Once Adrenaline points max, they slowly decline. During this time Vitality, stamina and toxicity will regenerate faster

Runewords – Tier II

Name: Rejuvenation ★★
Effect: Each fatal blow dealt restores 25% of your Stamina

Name: Elation ★★
Effect: Each Fatal blow dealt with your sword give 0.1 to 0.25 Adrenaline points

Name: Severance ★★★★★
Effect: Increases the range of Whirl by 1.1 yards and Rend by 1.9 yards

Runewords – Tier III

Name: Replenishment ★★★★
Effect: After you cast a Sign, an Adrenaline Point is consumed and your next sword attack is charged with the power of that sign

Name: Invigoration ★★★
Effect: When at maximum Vitality, any Vitality regeneration turns into added damage (up to 50%) on your next strike

Name: Prolongation ★★★★★
Effect: Each unblocked blow increases potion duration time by 0.5s

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Glyphwords – Tier I

Name: Deflection ★★
Effect: Armor deflects all arrows

Name: Heft ★★★★★
Effect: All equipped armor is treated as heavy.

Name: Depletion ★★★
Effect: Hitting enemies with Aard reduces their Stamina by 50%.

Name: Usurpation ★★★
Effect: When an enemy affected by Axii dies, the effect transfers to another.

Name: Ignitation ★★★
Effect: Enemies set alight by Igni have 25% to set other enemies on fire within 2 yards.

Glyphwords – Tier II

Name: Rotation ★★
Effect: Igni’s basic attacks strikes all opponents in 360-degree radius butt no longer applies the Burning Effect

Name: Entanglement ★★★★
Effect: When a trap set by Yrden hits an enemy, a Yrden glyph is placed at that position

Name: Beguilement ★★★★
Effect: Enemies affected by Axii will be affected for 2s longer for each blow they land

Name: Protection ★★★
Effect: When you enter combat, there’s a 100% chance you will automatically get a Quen shield without using any Stamina

Name: Balance ★★★★★
Effect: All equipped armor items are treated as Medium armor

Glyphwords – Tier III

Name: Retribution ★★★
Effect: Gives a 30% chance of returning a portion of damage received to the attacker

Name: Levity ★★★★★
Effect: All equipped items are treated as Light armor

Name: Possession ★★★★★
Effect: When an opponent influenced by axii dies, the effect transfers to a nearby target. The effect’s duration increases by 2 seconds for each blow the affected target lands

Name: Eruption ★★★★★
Effect: Foes set alight by igni explode when they die and ignite nearby foes

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