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 | 39/46/54/59 | 707 | 65% | 59% / 39% / 27% / 65% | +30% of all above |
| Viper | Medium | 39/69 | 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.
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: (1000-707) x 0,35 = 102,55 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.
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 59 |
464-568 | +15%chance | +15%Bleeding +15%Sign Intensity +15%Adrenaline |
634-774 | +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.
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.
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 also:
witcherbuilds 