Things I Wish I Knew Earlier In The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (Tips & Tricks) 

💬 Join my Discord! discord.gg/dq7eVyCUQp News ► Updates ► Guides ► Help ► Talk & Hang Out

The thing I wish knew was that you could use Axii on that stupid goat and I spent 20 mins using the bell

A few extra tips and tricks: - Constantly pressing your jump button while falling will allow Geralt to perform a roll as soon as he hits the ground. This will allow you to fall from bigger heights without dying, so if you ever accidentally fall, mash your jump button as it can save you from dying. - You can insta-kill any cyclops in the game by shooting them in the eye with a crossbow. Cyclops are generally some-what tough to fight, but shooting them in the eye with a crossbow insta-kills them. To make this easier, use northern wind to freeze the cyclops, then just line up the shot with their eye and they'll die instantly. - Foglets are also annoying enemies as they constantly go in and out of invisibility.. While you can use the Yrden sign to counter this, if you simply cast Aard in the general direction of a foglet as soon as it turns invisible, the foglets get knocked down to the ground and you can insta-kill it. -Crossbow works great in water so keep that in mind! Enjoy the game! EDIT: It seems the cyclops tip only works for cyclops bosses.

Dodge, don’t roll. You are virtually invincible when dodging, and it doesn’t cost stamina.

NEVER sell your Witcher equipment, you'll need it to craft the next level. Learned that the hard way

heres a quick bit of information for anyone new to the game, when it comes to the potion, oils and bomb system once you craft them you have them forever, its not like skyrim where its kind of a waste of time and effort because you have to be constantly brewing new potions, all you have to do is make sure you have alcohol in your inventory and meditate once you run out of charges to re-charge them, before i knew this i wasnt bothering with them, after i found this out i was using them all the damn time, a potion system done right if you ask me

Biggest tip you can have is to learn about alchemy and invest in alchemy skills like heightened tolerance, acquired tolerance and protective coating. Also invest 3 points into axii to get the extra dialogue options which helps you avoid a bunch of conflict situations and gives extra xp. You can swap this in and out for a combat ability as required.

The fact that there are still Witcher 3 tips videos coming out shows how perfect this game is.

The first tip cannot be stressed enough. You will need food and drinks to replenish your health, loot every box, cupboard, etc. Also dead enemies drop their weapons, loot it and sell it. Weapon smiths pay more for weapons and armor smiths pay more for armor. I have heard many people complain that they never seem to have enough money to buy that weapon or armor they want. This is usually because they are not selling defeat foes weapons/armor and relying only on payment for contracts.

Worth a mention; if you're diving for any treasure (like the moon blade) don't be put off by drowners, equip the crossbow you get at the Griffin fight and use it underwater, regardless of damage drowners only take one shot while swimming and geralt will auto aim if you don't hold the fire button

Obviously the Netflix series , has reawakened this AWESOME game once again. By far the best RPG I've ever played. ( beat it 3 times to make sure I got the best ending)

In both Skyrim and Witcher 3 I can't resist the urge to pick herbs even though I never use potions

For me No1: Should not have banged both Triss and Yennifer

you can basically one shot drowners underwater with the crossbow.

1. Always double tap for automatic cantering to follow the roads. 2. Use Witcher sense when running overland or riding Roach. You find a ton of random encounters and loot. 3. Make sure to read your quest journal after you complete one - esp. sidequests. There are some...uhhh...unintended consequences to many of your actions. Wish I knew those my first playthrough

A million new Witcher 3:Wild Hunt videos appear on youtube again. me: MUST. WATCH. THEM. ALL.

Just recently learned that Geralt aims the crossbow by himself if you just click it once instead of holding it. Underwater siren fights in Skellige got a lot easier.

When you go into a cave and see highlighted stalagmites or tall pointy rocks USE THE AARD SPELL to break them to see what's inside I just found that out yesterday and there's no telling how much loot I missed out on

There’s too much to do in this game. I’m overwhelmed. Help Edit: all good. Platinumed the game

I wish I’d known that components break down into other components.. spent ages looking for a certain ingredient just to find out I had essentially hundreds of it in another ingredient 🙄 also for newer players when you get to roam free in white orchard, go round and discover everything! Its a lot of stuff that you won’t regret going and finding early on.

There's a autosave option in the settings which will autosave every 3 minutes instead of the usual 15 minutes... which can be useful if you often forget to save yourselves.

Good combat tip is when dodging (not rolling) dodge towards your enemy as they are attacking and you should end up behind them which gives you more time to attack and a bigger damage bonus when attacking from behind

When you know the game like the back of your hand but gotta watch anyway cos its witcher❤️👌

Only thing i didn't know is the edge of the world fast travel tip. I have 100% of the Witcher 3 trophies, but i didn't know this lol

Loot everything and play gwent are my recommendations , coming from a hardcore Witcher fan

i'm 20 hours in and have never meditated. THANK YOU

rolling relic gear - save before the loot, save manually when you get better option and reload quick save as many times as you want to roll good weapon or gear. Especially in early game difference on silver sword damage could be over 30% (e.g. the same moonblade you can get with 122dmg or 160dmg - this makes massive difference).

If you are planning on gathering all gwent cards, play with all npc's on a new area before completing quests. Some NPC's with unique cards can die and so you wont be able to complete your collection.

CD Projekt New Agreement with Witcher Books Author Andrzej - The Witcher 4 is Coming (News Update) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CV88S24l23k.html Place of Power Locations witcherhour.com/place-of-power-locations/ Saddlebags Locations www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/witcher-3-horse/

Can’t understand how he’s so powerful yet a 5 ft fall does him in”😖

I had to Google your pronunciation of Bestiary. I had always, mistakenly, called it the Beastiary. Thank you.

1 tip: explore Skellige as soon as you get there. The game does such an injustice to Skellige. There's so much to explore but you barely have time to do it if you do the main quest. You literally do 2 missions for the main quest and you're out of there, and everytime you get back to Skellige for the main quest there's a sense of urgency to it. So my tip is as soon as you get to Skellige and meet up with Yennefer, do the one mission where you have to go the Castle and meet Crach, then just explore the living shit out of Skellige. Skellige is a gorgeous place teeming with undiscovered locations and is a pleasure to explore, which is why it baffles me even more how Skellige is basically a footnote in the main story when you spend so much time in Velen and Novigrad doing glorified fetch quests, and Skellige compared to those two places is MASSIVE, yet the main quest lets you stay only for a few hours and that's it.

I remember when I played skyrim and I was so overwhelmed by all the quests, spells, builds, different weapons and shit. I just started playing the witcher 3 and Jesus Christ it's like that all over again but X10

Thanks for not spoiling anything, and giving advice that, after the white orchard business and opening up the larger world, is very relevant to an untrained eye on the game, first play through on hard for me... And I'm already willing to devote a good portion of my life to this game.

I thought loot everything was a rule of thumb for any game

You can cast Igni on beehives to get honeycomb. You'll get atleast 2 and atmost 4. I had more than 60 before leaving white ochard. It's rare in Velen but you'll mostly find them in villages or swamps.

Things I wish I knew earlier: The Alchemy skill tree is amazing. Specifically the Refreshment, Acquired Tolerance, and Heightened Tolerance skills. Maxing out Refreshment makes any potion you drink also instantly heal you for 25% of your total HP, and maxing the two Tolerance skills will allow you to have at least 3 decoctions active at once with enough of your toxicity bar left over to chug a potion or two. If you have Blood & Wine, Alchemy gets even more ridiculous with the Mutation system that expansion added. There is one Mutation that increases your sword damage and sign intensity by %0.75 for every 1 point of toxicity you have. And with some skill investments you can get quite a high maximum toxicity. When I was running my version of this build, I was getting somewhere around a %170 damage increase, and my build wasn't even that optimal for it. That was the build I beat Death March with.

Some good Gwent tips; -Spy cards are your best friend -If you're playing against Nilfgaard, bring all your Decoys since Nilfgaard is the most Spy heavy deck -Monster deck is easily defeated by the Biting Frost + any type of Scorch card, preferrably Villentretenmerth -Try to bring a mix bag in your deck, don't load too many cards on a single row -If you happen to draw 2 of the same type of Muster cards, throw one away at start to free up a card slot for something else. -Never throw away Medic cards because they can turn the table in a single move, and if you have more than one Medic card, feel free to keep slapping cards down to bait your opponent into draining their card pool. You can always revive used cards in the last round with Medic cards. -Try not to bring more than 2 weather cards -Don't bring out your big cards immediately, especially late game when the AI typically has at least 1 Scorch card, sometimes 2. -Get Mysterious Elf ASAP. It's the best card in the game. It's a Spy card and it's also a Hero card which means it can't be Decoyed or Scorched, plus it's worth 0 points so you don't add anything to your opponent's score. -Finally, if you want to practice Gwent without losing money - consider enabling the dev console and type in "secretGwint" to immediately initiate a Gwent match against AI whenever and wherever you are, free of charge. This only works for PC though

After nearly 1000 hours in this game I just today accidentally found out that if you don Geralt's Nilfgaardian armor set (purchased from the Quartermaster in upper Crow's Perch (the merchant right by Joanna the Blacksmith, and Fergus,))you can gain entry into the House of Respite that sits just northwest of the Nilfgaardian war camp (which, itself, sits in the far southeast corner of Velen.) Turn to the right after you enter the building and you'll find a unique winged Nilfgaardian helm, like the ones the soldiers wear! Super cool. You equip it like a mask. It looks weird on Geralt, but almost nobody has it.

Spam the dodge button(idk the actual name but it's the one where do you a short hop in a direction), do not spam roll or parry. The dodge move will give you invulnerability for around .5 seconds. I died to every mob until i learn that while parry is fun, dodging is just way better as even if the attack hits you but you dodge, it will not deal damage any to you. Rolling away will make you lose tempo and reset your lock on which is annoying. So dodging is more optimal than parrying or rolling.

One thing I wish I knew was that I could dismantle monster items to get specific items for crafting Witcher equipment.

If you use a sign while on horseback it will cast axii on roach and decrease his fear level.

Things I wish I knew earlier: start a new game plus at least at level 50 because I reached level 100 which is the level cap on new game plus but I started at about 48 or so, therefore my grandmaster armour and weapons can only reach level 98 or so..

Having the strong back skill is a good thing specially grinding quest in velen and novigrad where tons of sword, armor and sellable stuff are lootable, having strong back makes you horde more sellable items specially when armorers and smiths are out of gold, you can hold on stuff longer while waiting for them to stocking up some crowns so you can sell to them again Edit: also it only cost 1 point getting this skill for lvl 6 or 7 would defenetly help, btw i recently played Witcher 3 again and gained 18k crown while still level 14 grinding stuff at velen and novigrad ALSO check the vendors coz not all of them pays the same amount, some pays more some pay less, swords usually valued more if you sell them to blacksmiths and armor to armorers

I’ve played maybe 4 hours of this game when it came out and hated it. Last week I found out they did an update on it to run 60fps on series x. After 2-3 hours I actually feel in love with this game. Can’t believe the difference 60fps makes in input lag. It felt great. I’m level 47 and on my ng+ now being a dick in the dialogue lol

I’m so glad you covered the moon blade. Because I did have it early on top around level 5 or so and I kept using it till about 14 and constantly switching out my steel sword with other loots throughout the game... except for the moonblade. Now I’m glad you said it’s such a great weapon because no matter what weapon I got that was orange quality, I just couldn’t give up this level 3 sword. Now I don’t feel like such a noob.. thanks yo

Just got this game after watching the show, and I love it holy balls. It’s just so overwhelming

Ain’t gone lie I’m always down for a round of gwent 😂

5:00 or just get the Viper swords from White Orchard, both come with pretty good stats and both have an inherent 15% chance to poison which is extremely strong early game.

I had to get to skellige three separate times before I finally got into this game. It happened the same each time, I'd play through Velen and Novigrad, be slightly intrigued, get on the boat, get overwhelmed and put it down for just long enough to only kind of remember how to play. It didn't help that my primary experience with open worlds was Skyrim and Fallout. But by the fourth time things started to feel more natural and when I got to the boat I just kept going and didn't notice. I'm now close to finishing the main story and kind of excited for the DLCs. If for no other reason than that sweet red armor.

The best tip I know is the invincible decoction mix: Ekimmara,Ekhidna,Archgriffin combo will make u invincible with strong attacks and you just need 10 levels to open all of the abilities for increasing toxicity.

I've played the witcher a number of times since release so I was expecting to know all of these. I cant believe I didnt figure out the map edge fast travel thing...

Haven't been gaming for 10 years and decided to pick up a game. I've never seen such beautiful graphics lol. Pretty amazing, and I've only just started playing witcher 3

The dismemberment effects in this game had me addicted. Often i put it on the easiest setting cuz it makes the effects far more realistic. I mean most if not all people would be done after a full force strike from a 4ft razor blade. Cut in half by 2 strikes or dismembered by 1 has really made it even more addicting to play. lol, riding by on a horse having a single swipe take a head off is just f****** awesome..

Currently on my first playthrough and I would have guessed some of these anyways but I find it really good that you put the links in the description, really helpful, especially as I am struggling with item weight and don't really feel like dropping "quality" swords.

If you want to farm red mutagen early , head to Toderas and kill the alghoul. You can respawn the enemies by fast travel to White Orchid or other region and back.

You forgot to mention that rolling prevents you from breaking your neck - unless the drop is too big. Also Axii unlocks new dialogue options in some conversations - these are not the droids you are looking for :)

Loved your Jedi Fallen Order vids and now this video just got recommended to me right as I started my first Witcher 3 playthrough. Thx bro🔥

I see this helping someone that has just started and has never played it before. Nice job.

Ģwint trick 17 : Spys win the game

I just redownloaded this game after I beat it years ago. Can’t wait to play it again!

Always go for Witcher weapons and lighter/medium amour, and always make sure to use you higher mutagens that have the same colour as your attack ( *mutagens* blue=sign boost, red=attack boost, green=potion/poison/vitality boost, yellow= yellow perks boost!). Witcher weapons and certain trophies help you level up faster throughout the game. Lighter/medium amour help you dodge/roll without spending too much of your stamina/adrenaline which in turn makes you use your signs a lot faster, if you have heavier armour that will drain you stamina/adrenaline a lot faster and it will slow down the process of rebuilding it faster, but the defence is impeccable.

If you upgrade all of Axii it is the most over powers thing in the game, you can turn enemies into allies and they can kill with one hit and be killed with one hit

Meditate infront of loot from nests to respawn it

For me the best discovery was Temerian Armor on New Game + ( all your old gear from previous game will be obsolete at lvl 55 give or take.) Buy it at White Orchard Merchant that you rescued from the Griffin in cut scene. 2) Buy the Nilfgaardian Armor at Crow's Perch if you want Medium Armor build (optional) 3) Definitely buy the Skellige Armor set when you get there. (Heavy) These Armor sets will give you a cushion to upgrade your Witcher Gear for later boss fights. Another tip is to jamb as much crap into one of the storage chests before NG+. It becomes a nice reference for what NG+ gear does. & you can sell it after Blood & Wine. (Witcher IRA) I wore Temerian Armor w/Assassins Gloves & old GM Manticore boots (for the toxicity) For a huge part of the new game+. Shame Ves didn't notice.

Another tip: underwater you can use your crossbow to get rid of monsters attacking you

I got the second (lower level) aerondight from the chest (found behind an illusion) after wandering in the dark with Keira Metz! I don’t know if it’s a rare drop or guaranteed to the chest, but it’s better than the moon blade I had at the time! So probably the best early game sword that nobody seems to reference

lmao i just found the quen sign’s usefulness today. been spamming that bad boy ever since

The fast travel at border of map is really helpful

Before taking the Moonblade you should save, but mostly to ensure that you get a good blade for your level. Otherwise you might get lower level Moonblade, that's already weaker than your regular silver sword

Really good tips, some of the Witcher 3 guides are really dated and basic and this covered a few things I didn't know, just come back to the Witcher 3 after watching the Netflix series and proper falling in love again!

Something I did for infinite money is meditate where mordvarg spawns and keep killing him. You can collect the stuff infinitely and sell it for infinite money. It’s a long process, but I used it whenever I needed coin. (This is during the “In wolf’s clothing” side quest.)

Just started my 7th playthrough of the game, and there are only a few tad bits I could suggest. If you have all the free dlc, you can buy a lvl 4 temerian light armour from the guy Geralt and Vesemir save from the Griffin. After meeting Emhyr the first time, I was lvl 2 at the time and used the potion you start the game with to equip the set. I didn't find any armour better till the Griffin witcher gear. Another point, lay out your character build before spending skill points, sure you can respec, but I found it very helpful planning out which skills I need first in the playthrough. (Alchemy tree under rated). I never bothered with alchemy skill tree and I feel dumb af now. 3 Skills I use in every character build because they just make your time much easier. Refreshment heals you 25% health upon any potion use, also increases potion duration by 25%. Undying, uses your adrenaline points when you die to revive you. And feet footed, you don't take damage when you dodge. Igni and quen are cool and all, but aard, axii and yrden are also very cool and valuable signs especially when you combo them with different witcher gear. Current playthrough I have aard sweep and piercing cold with aard sign intensity 90%. I freeze big groups of enemies and throw a bunch of bombs down such as grapeshot and dancing dragon. You can recreate the same thing with the northern wind bomb.

Sad to say people but I just started playing this game yesterday and as much as I love it so far I'm already overwhelmed. I'm more used to a Diablo type of game

One tip from me is don’t feel obligated to use oils, potions, and decoctions. I played all the way through new game+ on death march without touching any of them. A good build (use quen), grandmaster armor and enchanted weapons are all you really need.

I just got this game it's amazing

Hate to even call this a game, seems to do the experience injustice, more like a timeless journey. Definitely good argument for RPG of the decade. Glad to see it making a strong comeback, of course the hardcores never stopped playing it ; )

You can loot chests more than once! When you've looted a chest and when you return later after you saved and loaded a game, you'll notice that when you use your "senses" that the chest lights up. When you walk (or swim) to the "empty" chest with the senses on then the lighting disappears. You probably didn't noticed that the "open chest" icon appears for just a spilt second. Whenever you've looted a chest and it appears highlighted in your senses you need to run towards the chest with you senses on and hit the button like a madman. Most of the time it will have some new loot. (i even had 3 of the special Undvik tools needed for the Armorer in Velen)

really like the Leshen Decoction it makes your normal sword act like the caretaker's spade.

Guys, one tip: if you dont want to keep eating to replenish vitality, get the gourmet skill under General in Character. It means that once you consume one piece of food or drink, your health will regenerate for a solid 20 mins.

a bit late but heres a tip: you can change your autosave interval to as low as every 3 minutes, found it the hard way after completing a major quest only to die afterwards the default is 15 mins

Crossbows are only really useful to bring down a flying enemy, or one shot underwater enemies.

1. Read what the potions, decoctions, and bombs do and keep all your alchemy items as upgraded as possible. Golden Oriole for example is extremely useful against Endragas, and other enemies like the hybrids that poison you as it turns poison into healing. You can run into a pack of Endrega drones and with golden oriole you will just stay full health as they will keep poisoning you and healing you. Black Blood is also very useful against some enemies. 2. You can use the crossbow while piloting the boats without standing up and it will auto target for you. Very useful in Skellega when dealing with all the hybrids over the water. It also shoots them off when they grab onto the side of the boat. 3. Looting inside homes, and around towns and cities when no guards are watching gives tons of loot. It's weird how you can just rob people in their homes without them noticing. Only can't do it in front of guards. Novigrod and other cities at night has less guards so you can run around looting ridiculous amounts of stuff. 4. Herbalist huts tend to have a lot of herbs planted around them in close proximity so you can net a lot of them quickly this way. Other good areas involve farming fields around the towns where the people plant stuff. Herbs regrow rather quickly too. Running around with the witcher senses on highlights all the stuff you can grab. 5. If you have witcher contract quests speak to the contract giver first as if you run into the contract in the wild before speaking then you miss the opportunity to haggle. Haggling can often grant you a lot more gold. 6. When romancing Yennefer, and Tris you get to choose 1 of them to be with when you get to Kaer Morhen. If you choose both well they will find out and you will end up alone after a funny cut scene. It doesn't matter if you sleep with the various other women that you have opportunities with though. 7. Northern Wind bomb can be very useful to freeze foglets or people so you can get a kill button on them. Probably works on other smaller enemies as well, but I haven't tried it. 8. For flying enemies like hybrids and draconoids you have a variety of ways to knock them out of the air so you can hit them on the ground. Crossbow, Axi, and Aard all do it. 9. Remember to loot monster nests after you destroy them. 10. When doing fist fights as there are a lot of these fights you can enter then just parry there attacks and then use the heavy attack on them a few times as they will be stunned. Rinse repeat and it gets very easy once you get the hang of them. 11. When horse racing it helps to have an upgraded saddle, but there is a ton of rubber banding so run as fast as you can and then just trot till the stamina builds back up while trying to block your opponent from passing you. Hard to know how long the race is so if you refresh your stamina too close to the end and your opponent gets ahead you can't overtake them in time. 12. Check every vendor or NPC you can open a dialogue with to see if they play gwent if you enjoy playing and want to get all the cards. Also see if they sell Gwent cards as some vendors do, particularly innkeepers. Some quests impact a gwent player so you can miss out on opportunities. So keep in mind. For example one quest with trish has a short little tournament you can play that you can only participate during that quest. Also, once defeating a gwent player check their dialogue again to see if the gwent option is still white and not greyed out as you may be able to beat them again for another card. This is usually the case on some of those who you challenge from a quest. 13. Easy to forget that for noonwraiths you need a yrden sign down to reveal them so you can damage them. Keep Specter oil on against them and regular wraiths. 14. When you have too much weight, overburdened you walk and swim slow, but you can still ride your horse, and a boat at full speed. Use the FIend Decoction for an extra 20 of weight you can carry. You can also still fast travel so in most cases being overburdened isn't that big of a deal.

For anyone starting this game; look up what are the options to avoid an ending that will make your dozens of hours in this game feel wasted. It is just a few dialogue options among hundreds that make no sense. It will save you a lot of grief.

Help im looting and I can’t stop.

When you do quest, pay attention to all the optional dialogs and read lore. Many quests is alot deeper, more complex and longer than we first think, and many quests have hidden plot twists. Here is one example: Cardinal Sins. When you hunt the serial killer who hurt Precilla. If you pay attention, read and go through all dialog options you will learn that the preacher isn't the serial killer (It took me until my 5th playthrough, almost 5 years after the games release to realize this)

This is literally one of the best games I’ve ever played. Had it for ps4 years ago. Just recently bought it for pc with all dlc which I haven’t played yet. Frame rate is soooo buttery.

Cheers, thanks for the advice. Gonna try for Moonblade soon & those power stones ! 😃

I loved this game so much. I was having so much fun with the all the interesting characters and questlines and the combat was a blast. Then after maybe like 70 hours of time invested into this game I ran into a glitch and I’m unable to progress. (Possible spoilers below) I got to Kaer Morhen and I had to do three quests. I helped both lambert and eskel and then I only had to help Yennefer with her megascope. Only the quest marker was on top of one of the mountains you can’t get to. I’ve done my best to try to walk all around the mountain and there is no way to get up I just slide down the sides. After watching some gameplay videos I realized that the quest marker was supposed to be in the tower in kaer morhen. I don’t know what to do now. I love this game so much I really don’t wanna just abandon it. I if anyone can give me some advice that would be great.

I use northen wind a lot. Like every time I hit a bandit camp. Comes very handy

Gourmet is the single best single point skill point you can use in the early game.. Later game it's still useful, but once you got some of those nice decot's it's only mildly useful.

Actually good tips lol, I played a long time ago but am looking forward to jumping back into things. Thanks for the vid!

Keep your best two of each silver and steel swords that way if one is damaged you always have a back up.

If you decide to do a Death March run, do not forget oils or potions. Without them you'll be hating life, and be sure to look for sign or bomb weaknesses in the bestiary.

Saving often is a really hard thing for me. Even a 5 minute auto save can be a lot. At least that’s what it felt like fighting Jenny O the Woods.

Here's some more important tips: Repairing items is actually not as big a deal as many people might think. Items on 0 durability don't actually break, and, while they do receive a small malus to damage/armor value, on weapons it's hardly noticeable unless it makes you kill certain enemies in 1 hit more, and on armor, the %protection values are much more important, as armor substracts from damage first, not after the percentages, so say enemy does 1000 dmg and you had either 200 or 100 armor, and your total resistance to his type of damage was 50%, in case your armor was 200, you would be dealt (1000-800)*50/100 = 400 dmg, and in the other case, (1000-100)*50/100=450 dmg. The damage reduced by percentage protection is far greater, and the more percentage protection you have, the less value you gain from actual armor rating. Repairing items should NEVER be done at smiths, instead, if you loot around, you're bound to find a crapton of repair kits, for both armor and weapons. HOARD those, store any excess in stash and keep 2 aprentice and 2 journeyman kits of each on you just in case. The money you will save from using those instead of paying smiths for repair is no joke, especially on items past level 10, where 15% durability will cost more than 15 crowns to repair, whereas if you just sold your apprentice kits, you'd get 4 crowns at most. Silver weapons and heavier armor cost even more to repair too. Dismantling should ONLY be done at Master level smiths/armorers, as they give 100% of the materials back. This is something very few people know about, but it's actually doable even at level 4 when you first get out of Vizima and into Novigrad. Just bolt straight into novigrad, no need for a pass, swim across the pontar like the true witcher pro you are, and start Hattori's "Of Swords and Dumplings" quest. Don't be intimidated by the level required, all the combat in this quest will resolve itself without you even having to swing your sword. There will be a fist fight with Sukrus at most, but as long as you know the basics of countering when he punches, you'll get it done, the other sections of combat there will ALWAYS be at least 1 immortal character to butcher your enemies if you simply dodge around and quen for the entirety of the fights. You will need to get axii lvl 2 though. lvl 3 will allow you not to pay 200 crowns though. Another tip for early game, take note of what merchants buy what items at what prices. Only good merchants for food items are white orchard and velen inkeeps. Other inkeeps have crappy prices for food, but really good "clutter/junk" buying prices. Do NOT sell stuff to normal "misc" merchants that can buy everything, they'll essentially scam you. Weapons and armor you would ideally store in your storage vault, whatever contains dimeritium/shiny ingots you should keep for dismantling, the rest you will sell in bulk to armorers/weaponsmiths in big cities only, like oxenfurt/novigrad. Peasant smiths give shit prices. Armorers pay more for armor, Blacksmiths more for weapons. Both pay well for horse accessories(saddles,blinders,bags). Alchemists in or near big cities will pay the best coin for your alchemy monster parts, like drowner brains, bloods, etc. and also all the excess alcoholic beverages you'll never use, alchemy paste and powder you'll loot along the way. Also notable is that not all items in a category have the same price modifier everywhere. Certain alchemists in white orchard and velen for instance will pay a premium for honey, at 7 crowns per piece, that's the most money you can get per piece of honey sold, however their food buying prices are subpar.

Learned some things I didnt know before. Well done.

If you need crafting materials like 'monster feathers', you can dismantle harpy feathers, for example, to get these. No need to find specific items. Took me forever to find this out.

Human enemies are very weak to your signs. Set em on fire, slow them with yrden, stun the shield guys and slash their backs, knock them back and OHKO them while they are on the ground. Seriously (and minor spoiler for Blood and Wine), there are several massive human fortresses, and they're supposed to be difficult to beat due to the sheer number of enemies. Not with gryphon armor and signs. Honestly, you don't even need quen. Igni and yrden alone can clear the whole fortress.

I did not know that Gwent is mandatory for the story, I always thought was optional. Thanks for the tip