New Info On The Witcher III Skills & Armor

CD Projekt RED clarified some elements regarding the new The Witcher III skills and the way armor works in the game. Here’s what they had to say (from the official forum):

Activated skills determine tactics. You choose (activate) some of them and you have resources to manage (stamina and adrenaline), so behaviour in combat depends on skill choices. In other words, to use your build properly, you cast signs, parry, dodge and hit with you sword more or less frequently. Some skills grant additional signs modes or special blows.

There are 3 types of armor elements: light, medium and heavy. Protection they grant is less important than synergy with combat tactics they are designed for. For example heavy armor favors agressive swordfighting. But you can mix armor elements to balance bonuses they offer.

If you like to tweak and customize, you’ll find it attractive, I think.

This particular comment sparked an entirely new topic with more questions by fans, and Community Manager Marcin Mormot just explained in even greater detail the new The Witcher III skills system:

Here’s the way the skill development works.

There are 4 groups of skills. Swordsmanship, Alchemy, Signs and Miscellaneous. The fifth group some folks were talking about is Mutagens.

As you level up the character, you unlock various skills. You can then assign them to one of the slots. Assigning a skill to a slot makes it active - you can activate and deactivate skills at will making custom builds to suit your current needs best. There are up to 12 slots (+ 4 for mutagens) which are being unlocked as you progress - mutagens modify skills making the skills stronger. To make mutagens even more effective, it’s best to use the same type of mutagen and skills in one combination.

It sounds like a fairly deep system which hopefully will enhance gameplay. It’s not long now before the release of The Witcher III, scheduled in three months for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One; this is one of the games that made our Top 15 for ’15, and quite easily. Are you excited yet?