Witcher 3

Well that escalated quickly.
Finished the main story and started Heart of Stone. Finished that too by now (it's fairly short but ok for a DLC I guess).
Starting BaW tonight. Lvl 39 for the record.

Awesome game, I should have played this years ago. Damn.

I started playing this again after not finishing it at release. I actually took the time to learn Gwent so I am really enjoying that part of the game this time through. Playing on death march. I started playing a sign (Axii/Quen/Yrden)/medium armor build but ended up respecting around level 10 because it felt awful. Both times I’ve played this game I felt shoehorned into going light armor, fast attack, combat build into alchemy later. No other build seems to come close. I am rolling with the first Axii skill for dialog options. Other than that complaint still a beautiful game and I can’t wait to do the expansions.

Julian The Apostate said:

I started playing this again after not finishing it at release. I actually took the time to learn Gwent so I am really enjoying that part of the game this time through. Playing on death march. I started playing a sign (Axii/Quen/Yrden)/medium armor build but ended up respecting around level 10 because it felt awful. Both times I’ve played this game I felt shoehorned into going light armor, fast attack, combat build into alchemy later. No other build seems to come close. I am rolling with the first Axii skill for dialog options. Other than that complaint still a beautiful game and I can’t wait to do the expansions.

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If you wanted to try signs again and intend to go through all the dlc, the beginning of Blood and Wine is a great time to respec signs as you can unlock a mutation that makes aard basically instagib anything that isn't a named. By that point you'll also be getting access to that expansion's griffin armor which imo has the best set bonus of any of them and with all the talent points you'll have on account of 40+ levels and a few dozen places of power you can have enough sign skill investment to regenerate your mana very quickly. Can still reserve a dozen or so skill points for those early melee skills which really are insane value.

It's not as insane as a crit alchemy build but it's still enough to trivialize what remains of a death march playthrough.

What's the recommended first DLC to play through?

Story-wise, Heart of Stone can really be played anytime during or after the main story. Blood and Wine is meant to be sort of the capstone on Geralt's story, so it should be left as the very last thing.

Beat HoS, that was a really incredible story line. I then started B&W and the second boss is so annoying that I have no desire to keep playing, wouldn't be that bad if the NPC fighting with me wouldn't stop dying.

Finally beat that motherfucker with the NPC alive, not sure why kept running into that unblockable/unattackable meatgrinder.

Yeah, HoS is probably my favorite quest story line in any game I've played...it's like a perfect distillation of the Witcher setting. Just thinking about it, I had to go and listen to the main antagonist theme from the OST...oh it's so good. Saying that, it's amazing to consider that B&W is the better expansion...but there's so much good content and Toussaint is such an incredible region to experience.

Kanglor said:

Yeah, HoS is probably my favorite quest story line in any game I've played...it's like a perfect distillation of the Witcher setting. Just thinking about it, I had to go and listen to the main antagonist theme from the OST...oh it's so good. Saying that, it's amazing to consider that B&W is the better expansion...but there's so much good content and Toussaint is such an incredible region to experience.

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I can't imagine B&W topping the story, writing, plot and events in HoS. I'm in purse disbelief that it's even possible.

Hekotat said:

I can't imagine B&W topping the story, writing, plot and events in HoS. I'm in purse disbelief that it's even possible.

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Taking it as a whole Blood and wine is better. Villain from HoS is much better though.

Hekotat said:

I can't imagine B&W topping the story, writing, plot and events in HoS. I'm in purse disbelief that it's even possible.

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Comparing only main story, then it's HoS all the way for me, even though B&W is not that far behind it imo. B&W is just much larger in scope, and there's a good variety of interesting things to do. Regis and Anna are also very well written characters...even the main threat I thought was well done, but as Vimesah said, he's not nearly as remarkable as HoS villain.

B&W is bigger than most standalone games. It's just a really great DLC. I agree the story in HoS is better but the new systems, player housing, new items and more gwent make B&W the better DLC.

Kanglor said:

Comparing only main story, then it's HoS all the way for me, even though B&W is not that far behind it imo. B&W is just much larger in scope, and there's a good variety of interesting things to do. Regis and Anna are also very well written characters...even the main threat I thought was well done, but as Vimesah said, he's not nearly as remarkable as HoS villain.

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I'm also a sucker for Arthurian societies so B&W just hit me in all the right ways.

Hm, so I downloaded the HD texture pack and installed it precisely as instructed. Seeing no real graphical difference, though...

I could tell a big difference after playing without it.

Just stumbled across the quest in B&W that references the villianin HoS, I have a boner.