The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

- If you read the bestiary entry it tells you they can go insubstantial, yrden forces them into the real world so you can do damage to them. the bestiary is really good, many monsters are built around a gimmick; attack from the back, use this one spell that is really effective, that sort of thing. Spectres and ghost-like beings get a teleport and huge damage reduction when they aren't attacking you.

- As for skills, there's a respec potion for 1000 so don't worry too much about gimping your character. You have to drag stuff to the right to 'use' it, so don't spread your points around. I leveled the weak attack and put points into the mind spell for extra dialog and the stun. You have a chance to autokill creatures (even skulls) when they are stunned so I really like it. The 2nd tier conversion is a trap since it takes too long to cast. I've heard the ingni flamethrower is pretty good but haven't tried it myself. I got the armor melt but i haven't noticed much difference. By far the most useful I've found is the active shield, they hit you, you regain life. It's mandatory on the harder difficulties.

- I can also see buffing potions/oils, and 'general' skills are very strong since they are 1 point each. About midgame you'll get the decoctions which give 100 toxicity and if you want to use any other potions with them you're going to need to put points there. Oils are just free damage if you can be bothered to open the inventoy screen so the skill that makes them poison too is just ace.

- Don't worry about running out of alcohol to refill potions/bombs every time you rest, even casually looting random boxes will give you more you can use.

- As far as general tips, every merchant you can play cards with will give you a free card when you win, most innkeepers have cards in their inventory. If you go through the first area and part of the second you'll build up enough of a decent deck to slam pretty much anyone. You won't be able to beat the guy in the palace when you first meet him, but go back and take that bastard's card when you think you're ready.

- Don't get too burned out going to every ? because there are too many in the map and by the 2nd map it'll suck all the enjoyment of the game out of you. You can "clear" the first map and I recommend doing it because there are a lot of places of power in the first map, but in the second map if you wander off the trail you'll get murdered by skulls and I've only found two places of power on the second map.

- OH one more important thing, side-mission experience scales based on your level versus the level of the main quest, so the game strives to keep you at a reasonable level as you progress through the main quest no matter how many side missions you do. If you do all of them, they won't give much XP. It's mathematically impossible to significantly outlevel the main quests, so just do stuff at your own pace and do anything that interests you along the way.

- I'm not saying it's the wrong way to play, but if you go into the second map with the 'must uncover and do every single ? and quest' completionist-style than you're going to get very burned out and annoyed because almost everything off the paths are 10 levels higher than you are and you run through high-level areas to complete lower-level quests a lot.

- You craft a potion once, you get a potion item with a certain # of charges (I think the charges are affected by your skills). When you meditate, any potions refill their charges if you have alcohol in your inventory, one per potion that needs to be refilled. You still need ingredients later because most potions have multiple upgrades that require the base potion as an ingredient, but you don't need to hoard flowers obsessively.

- Dodge rolling is not effective for avoiding blows at melee range, the animation has a bit of a windup and you frequently take damage mid roll. The shorter dodge dash/jump/pirouette is better for up close fighting and can be upgraded in the sword tree to negate damage for hits that connect during your dodge. The roll is still great for putting distance between you and enemies but you'll be dashing to their sides and behind them dark souls style more often.

- Getting surrounded will get you killed. Control fights and stay at the edges of them. Two rolls back is a great distance to throw a bomb from, replenish a sign, reload your crossbow. When rolling around the edges of a fight and whittling away at a pack of stronger enemies keep an eye on the minimap or you might roll into another group or get flanked. Much like the Witcher 2 with humans prioritize archers and leave shield bearers for last.

- You're a Witcher. Much like the previous two games if you ignore your signs, bombs, and oils you'll have a hard time. While these start out as small buffs the Enhanced (T2) and Superior (T3) versions of some bombs, potions, and oils are extremely powerful. Do you want to spend five minutes dodging and parrying an entire bandit camp or do you want to throw out two grapeshot bombs, stab the leader, and grab the loot? For bombs as well each upgrade lets you carry more of them per meditation, potions last longer. Superior potions tend to have a cool perk such as Superior Tawny Owl never expiring at night and Superior Blizzard making actions that would normally cost stamina be completely free if you have full adrenaline (this includes signs!)

- Unfortunately it's not obvious where to get all of this stuff. There's more than one way to skin this cat but I suggest finding the herbalist/alchemist to the very close north east of Oxenfurt (the smaller city in the Pontar river) as soon as you have around a k to spend. He has some great recipes and can tell you where to find a master. Between him and the master he recommends you should be all set.

- The talent that gives you health back each time you swig a potion is probably mandatory for no Quen runs. Quen is amazing though and unlike in TW2 it doesn't block your stamina, the only reason not to use it is for artificial difficulty. Th e alchemy tree also gets stupid good in the late game where every potion is healing you for a quarter health on top of its usual effects, activating other potions for free, and lasting for ages. Plus carrying nine of each bomb type that all deal damage regardless of original effect and splitting into clusters. The first tier talent that makes all oils poisonous on top of their original effect also won some tough fights for me. It's a good tree.