We all know that once you reach level 21 and have 20 talent points to spend the game is pretty easy even on hard/insane mode. yes you still have a battle or two to be careful about but most monsters and mobs die super fast.

So I'm putting this as a question. What is the best build till that point and what sequence should you do it in. Some of the things to keep in mind are the fact that you fight the Kayran about level 10 or 11. That means you have 6 talents for training and 3 or 4 for the 'real' trees. And then around level 14 you fight Letho in the room next to the bath. You should finish up chapter one around level 17 and the first few quests in chapter 2 take you to level 21 or so.

Try to be specific in your reccomendation and give reasons why you picked that talent. As for giving credit for the solution I'm going to lean toward those that don't rush for quen level 2 but won't rule them out if justified. Also, if possible some ideas on your strategy would help. Are you the cast quen lvl 2, rush in, beat on mobs roll away, refresh quen type of player or the run in circles throwing bombs with alchy level 2 type?

You can list the first 6 training talents as a group. If you can then switch to picking them in order that would be great. But you can also list something like; talents 7 & 8 get both levels in footwork.

Please keep in mind that the goal is to have the best spec for the Kayran, Lotho and other fights in chapter 1 and early chapter 2 while playing on hard or insane.

I see no one has given their opinion so I'll try to start it off. For training there are two possible choices based on if using Quen or not. If using quen I would go for:

Vigor regenration level 2, parry level 1, arrow reflection level 1 and vigor level 2. I do this to get 2 mutegen slots. I think you can easily skip daggers and don't really need the second parry slot. Because quen doesn't regen vigor I went with level two for the slight bonus to it during combat.

But if you don't plan on using quen I would pick the following instead:
hardiness level 1, parry level 2, arrow reflection level 1 and vigor level 2 for +1. This gives you the 2 mutegens a little more vitality and helps parry which you will need since you aren't using quen.

After these 6 if going the quen route I would pick destructive magic level 1 and quen level 2 for my next three picks. This gets you quen buffed up by character level 10 wich is the earliest possible. Strategy here is to fight with sword while quen is up and dodge to refresh it. This should be one of the better build to survive the Kayran fight as quen lets you take two hits before dying. So you pop quen and roll to first trap. Place it and cut off arm. Roll to feet of statue and stay till all vigor is refreshed. Put up quen and repeat process.

If not using quen path the Kayran fight will be harder and you have to have perfect timing to roll away from the arm hits as many times a single hit can kill you on hard mode.

i didn't play Insane to be honest so far (i mean i did , but i died ... ) , but in hard i would go like this :


- 1) either you want a character that is easy to play from the beggining to the end
- 2) either you want the strongest build possible in the end (but it means it won't be easy at the beggining )

If you choose option 1 then in my humble opinion :

- in Training tree : invest points so that you get the 2 mutagens slots and 2/2 parrying
- In Magic tree : get the +1 vigor and improved Quen
- In alchemy tree : put 2 points in bombs (100% bomb and trap dmg)
- All the other points into swordmanship ( especially riposte+vigor regen+whirl , 2/2 in invincible and combat acumen )

Also it's optional , but armwrestle Big Max a lot in chapter 1 (grab 3-5 levels with him so that you finish act1 not far from level 20 ) and always make sure you craft the best gear as possible . As for mutagens , apply all the greater criticals if you go mainly sword like this

In my opinion , such a build is the easiest to play



If you choose option 2 (most powerful build ) , then you need to invest in alchemy tree and only keep 8-10 points for swords .

In the game there is 34 talent points , of which 6 are in training tree necessarily , so basically , you have 28 points to put after unlocking the trees at Level 7

i 'd advise to put 10 points in swords , 2 in magic (improved quen for bosses ) , 16 in alchemy (to get all mutagens and double their effect , improved potions and mutant /amplification) . Although i have to say , in my game i put 18 in alchemy and 10 in swords , but even though i beat the game , with hindsight maybe an improved Quen would have helped me even more , but i wanted to play without using Quen much in that playthrough

This build is great because some of the bonuses in the alchemy tree are the same as those on swordmanship , so they stack , and you get 10 mutagens slot for double effect , your potions are much more powerful and you can drink 4 of them with 25 toxicity (boosted swallow+ rook +wolf +golden oriole ) or two very powerful ones with no side effects ( thunderbolt + gadwall etc )

But the main point of this build is that not only your raw attributes are strongly boosted by mutagens , but you are also stacking the adrenaline gains from alchemy and sword tree , as well as the damage bonuses , meaning you hit Very hard and your adrenaline bar is Very quickly filled (cause every sword blow + the toxicity increase your adrenaline , the bar gets charged after a few seconds of fight ) , and that is really awesome , you spend your time group finishing enemies , and with 8 to 10 points in swordsmanship , you won't have a major weakness .

Your real weakness lies in magic , but as we said , with improved Quen , who needs magic anyway , basic Aard works against anyone without investing a single point , same for Yrden , i never really use Axii that much except in the Prologue and Ignii is only worth to use when you have a high level witcher mage ,as for such an alchemy-sword build , throwing a cheap dagger or grapeshot is more efficient without the loss of vigor

Now there is one build i did not try yet : Mage-Alchemy build , so i'd be interested to hear the experience of players who went that route

Just to point out that the kayran battle is entirely execution based, and what talents you invested in makes hardly any difference.

I have a video on youtube where I defeated the kayran without having invested a single talent point up till then.

Yes i agree with you , beating the Kayran doesn't require any particular talent point , you just have to use the trap then cut the 2 tentacles remaining with yrden , being level 20 or level 2 doesnt really matter indeed , it just helps to have more hp

I can't imagine anything being better than a Swordsman main with lots of damage reduction and improved Quen with Crit and damage mutagens pimped out with the +35% bonus from Alchemy, especially on insane. It just seems so safe to take have a strong Quen and even if it's down have massive damage reduction all the while maintaining plenty of offensive output.

Magic > Swordsmanship

To put it simply, damage reduction is irrelevant if everybody acts at the speed of snails.

I went magic my first play-through and found Heliotrope does not charge nearly as fast as Combat Acumen.

Not to mention, especially early on in insane, you won't be using Heliotrope often anyway. Magic is far less safe when Wraiths and other things can 2-3 shot you in insane.

Igni is your friend.
I can often charge heliotrope with 3 Ignis.
That's less than 5 seconds into a fight.

You are correct and I pointed out that if you have perfect timing it doesn't matter. But honestly I think the majority won't have that perfect timing and a improved quen keeps you alive for that one mistake that most of us make in that fight. Only problem is you don't have that for the two big fights in chapter 1. Kayran and Letho. My original post was looking for best solution to get through chapter 1 especially these two fights.

And to everyone. Yes with perfect execution you can win all the fights. But I'm looking for the best talents for when you aren't perfect.

Well, like I said, talents are largely irrelevant vs. Kayran.
Edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T-2ZIR-C4Y
See, basic quen will soak all damage from any hit. That's more than enough ftw.

However, vs. Letho, talents make the world of difference.
If, for instance, you're aiming for the igni-spam-heliotrope build, you'll almost certainly have Quen level 2 for the Letho fight.

It's just a matter of using Quen, and (heavy) swinging your sword at the same time as he swings his.
The shock will stagger him, and you'll land 2 heavy hits.
Using that, you can pretty much pwn him.

Personally, I like to get him with a Yrden, and do a massive combo from behind that ends the fight immediately.
But that's the "all execution" method for when I don't spend any talent points whatsoever.
(Yes, you can dish out that much damage in 1 combo without having any talents, potions, oils, or mutagens that boost damage .. I had a Jagged blade + 2 Ysgith runes)

In most RPG , i agree , but in the Witcher 2 almost every point in swordmanship makes you a lot stronger , whereas half your magic signs are never used , without putting a single point into Magic , you already have all the signs working against any enemy

Speaking about adrenalin , going pure magic is the worst way to recharge your adrenalin as fast as you can , if you want to group kill enemy every few seconds , you need to stack the alchemy tree and sword tree adrenalin talents .

I did not remember from my pure mage playthrough that it's possible to charge you adrenalin bar with only 3 ignii (with a pure mage with only points in magic ) unless you use mutagens of adrenalin , but in any case , that can happen only very late in game , whereas going alchemy-sword , at that point of the game , you have the equivalent of 20 mutagens since you have ten slots with doubled effects , so i can only imagine what would happen if you put 10 boosted adrenalin mutagen with that build , since even without putting adrenalin mutagen , your adrenalin bar is almost constantly full anyway thanks to mutant+berserker+amplification+whirlwind

Also Magic alone is quite weak compared to Sword alone , the way i see it , Magic and alchemy are support trees for the Sword tree , after all Witchers are sword master mutants , they're not powerful sorcerers

Heliotrope is powerful , but IMHO it's a luxury and less powerful than group finishing (the "i win " button ) mobs every 5 seconds

Personally i think hitting really hard with a lot of damage and bleeding everybody to death with critical effects thanks to alchemy and sword tree talents stacking , being tough as a stone and the fastest adrenalin charging build , having overpowered potions and oils and having your raw attributes overboosted by the equivalent of 20 mutagens while still being able to cast signs like aard , yrden against anyone is really superior in my eyes to one build that can use a lot of powerful signs , but is a wimp when caught out of vigor , but that is also why it is interesting to play a mage witcher with its strength and weaknesses of course

...
And that would explain why you're wrong.

Pure mage build still deals ridiculous damage with swords.

Take a look and see .. at that point in the game, I have not used any mutagens.
Nor do I have any talents that boost sword damage.
All runes in my sword are moon runes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufN8NnnXwfc

See, the reason Igni is godlike is because
It staggers your foes, which interrupts all attacks nearby.
A lot of foes panic while they're on fire, and this applies to most foes that parry your attacks, allowing you to kill faster WITH A SWORD than just using signs.
You don't even need quen, because with Igni, nobody gets a swing in.

ooops... posted in the wrong place

Danceofmasks harpies probably the worst choice to prove a point about igni, since they are incredible easy to set on fire even with a standar fire rune or level 1 igni (them being all feathery). xD

That ofcourse dosnt mean igni isnt good, it really is, especially upgraded.

I myself prefer swords tho, and a quen here and there. And i dont really need more then 3 vigor as a sword master. =)