Critical damage build - one hit kills! - Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

This post will cover the best Crit Build in Witcher 3. As you can guess, we will be trying to optimize critical chance and critical damage to create a DPS monster

Critical damage Build

This is the build for those that want to maximize their Critical hit damage and overall DPS. We will do this by choosing appropriate skills and gear with critical chance and critical damage stats. Moreover, this will be supplemented by alchemy skills, potions, and decoctions. The last two are extremely important as you will need to use only a few specific ones.

With everything maxed out, you will be able to take out guards with a single hit. This is the scariest build that you can get. Of course, the big caveat is that you will die from two hits. So, something like Quen is mandatory.

If you are ready to take the risk and want to challenge yourself with the Critical damage build, please continue. Otherwise, I check other witcher 3 builds for safer options

The Build is tested on New Game+ and Deathmarch difficulty.

Skills allocation

This section covers skills for the Critical damage build. Be sure to reset skills to be able to allocate skill points as suggested

Combat Skills

Name	Description
Strength Training	As the strong attack is one of the core damage types for this build 30% damage increase from this skill is mandatory
Crushing Blows	Improves strong attacks' critical damage and chance.
Fleet Footed	This skill will increase damage via mutagen bonuses and provide improvements to dodging. This ability will make dodging the most effective way to avoid enemy attacks.
Muscle Memory	Improves fast attack damage, as they are one of the two primary ways the Crit build deals damage
Precise Blows	Improves fast attack critical damage and critical chance
Resolve (optional)	Although I take this skill, it is optional. It decreases any adrenaline loss from taking hits. Of course, with this build, you should be avoiding any hits, but sometimes stuff happens
Razor Focus	Will instantly grant 1 adrenaline point at the start of the combat increasing Geralt's damage. Moreover, it improves the adrenaline generation rate
Rend	Alternative mode for Strong attacks. Use generated adrenaline points and stamina pool to release a single powerful hit. With it, you can reach some crazy high numbers. However, you are exposed to enemy damage while charging so be careful
Sunder Armor	This skill will encourage starting combat with enemy by using a Strong attack to reduce their damage resistance.
Whirl	Alternative to Fast attack mode. I personally do not prefer it for this build as you are easily exposed to enemy hits and specifically archers. However, I still take it, to get damage bonus from mutagens

Alchemy Skills

Name	Description
Acquired Tolerance	A crucial skill for Critical damage build. It ensures that for each alchemy recipe you unlock, Geralt's toxicity increases by 0.5
Heightened Tolerance	Although I generally do not take this one, for Crit build it is important. Heightened Tolerance will allow using two decoctions and two potions without activating Toxicity negative effects. This way we can get bonus damage from increased health regeneration.
Synergy	A very powerful ability that increases mutagen effectiveness by 50%. This is essential to maximize the attack power of the Crit build
Hunter Instinct	Increases Critical damage by 100% once adrenaline reaches 3 points. This will greatly contribute to the build's damage output. However, it may take some time to accumulate these points in combat, which could make it sometimes redundant
Killing Spree	Generally, with Katakan Decoction you should already have a 40%+ critical chance. To reach one hundred, you will need to kill 2 enemies in the encounter for this skill to activate and get an additional 60%.

General Skills

Name	Description
Cat School Techniques	Increases fast attack damage and critical damage by 25% for each light piece of armor. It will come in especially handy once you activate Levity runeword

Mutations

Name	Description
Euphoria	The main mutation of this build. It plays an important role as it provides an instant damage boost compared to other mutations. For example, Bloodbath requires hitting multiple times for the bonus to activate. Metamorphosis also, moreover, there are more decoctions to use that would provide extremely high damage boost, that we will not be using.

Detailed Skill Progression

This covers detailed progression for the build as many players will not be high level to have 50+ skill points. So follow the abilities as you progress for maximum effectiveness.

If you are below level 11, I suggest following early game build guides

Order	Skill	Description
1	Muscle Memory	First, let's unlock combat skills that will be extremely helpful throughout the game. Taking them early will make fights a bit easier.
2	Resolve
3	Strength Training
4	Precise Blows
5	Rend
6	Razor Focus
7	Acquired Tolerance	The first alchemy skill. It will help with increased toxicity.
8	Cat School Techniques	These abilities will help in combat. Cat School Techniques is best used with light armor, for this, equip Feline armor.
9	Crushing Blows
10	Fleet Footed
11	Heightened Tolerance	By improving the alchemy tree further you will be able to increase attack power from mutagens and take more potions before toxicity hits.
12	spend 6 skill points in alchemy
13	Synergy

At this point, I recommend having all of the places of power collected. You will need a lot of skill points to progress through the build and unlock other skill slots fully.

Order	Skill	Description
14	Toxic Blood	By unlocking Euphoria you will get bonus damage from having toxicity. Toxic blood is only taken for progression, otherwise, it is useless in our case.
15	Euphoria
16	Sunder Armor	Now we unlock the last skills for the build. If you do not use Whirl, take Killing Spree and Hunter Instinct earlier. They will provide a large boost to overall DPS.
17	2 mutations
18	Whirl
19	4 mutations
20	Killing Spree
21	4 mutations
22	Hunter Instinct

Tactics

In this section, I would like to share some tips on how to best play Critical damage build in Witcher 3

Potion and decoction management

To best utilize the Crit build there are some specific caveats, specifically Toxicity. Your goal is to have Toxicity at 60-80%, as close to the top.

The main reason is that Euphoria provides a bonus to damage based on Toxicity. However, the question is why not go to 100%?

If you go above 80% Heightened Tolerance stops working and you start incurring health damage. This is a problem because then Water Hag decoction and Replenishment (runeword on your sword) stop working. This will lose some valuable damage that the build needs

Generally, you should be able to use two decoctions and two potions:

• Katakan Decoction
• Water Hag Decoction
• Thunderbolt potion
• Swallow potion

With these, we maximize the build's possible damage. The big caveat is that critical damage build is extremely fragile.

Quen Sign

This is the main survivability action that you will use. Quen is very powerful because it guarantees that any single hit you take does not do any damage. Believe me, with this build, a single hit can be extremely deadly.

The good thing is that Quen does not require any Sign intensity investment for it to be effective. You should ALWAYS use Quen with Crit build in any combat encounter. In case you have problems maintaining it (getting hit often), you can get Fleet Footed early, to improve dodging and avoid more hits

Equipment

Here is my suggested gear for the Crit build in Witcher 3

Weapons

Steel Swords

Item	Description
Toussaint Knight's Steel Sword	This is the most powerful steel sword in the game. Iris may compare to it in terms of damage, however, this has no confusing mechanics and pure high-damage stats
Iris	Critical damage build uses Strong attacks and this sword perfectly complements it. Moreover, the HP drain can be counteracted with Superior Swallow
Viroledan Blade	Provides a +75% critical damage bonus. Unfortunately, armor piercing is not as useful.

Silver Swords

Item	Description
Aerondight	This is the most powerful sword in the game. Each attack raises its charge, resulting in higher damage. However, it requires some grinding for it to be at peak effectiveness. Moreover, to add a rune or runeword to it you will need to add sockets at runewright
Gesheft	A mighty silver sword that gives a +100% Critical hit damage bonus and a +15% Critical hit chance. It is more powerful than Aerondight when it is not charged.
Ami	Gives a 75% critical damage boost. Otherwise, it has normal stats

Weapon upgrades

Upgrade	Description
Invigoration	This upgrade is the most important for this build I think. It will use the bonus HP regeneration from Superior Swallow to further improve DPS.
Severance	Increases the reach of Rend and Whirl. Makes combat much easier, especially with Whirl. However, with this build, you would sacrifice bonus adrenaline generation which is extremely important.
Greater Chernobog Runestone	Increases the base attack power. Use it until you can obtain runewords

Armors

These armor pieces are chosen to maximize Geralt's Critical damage. Both of the suggested armors are good. Manticore armor is a bit better in my opinion.

Item	Effects
Manticore Armor	+5 Maximum Toxicity +19% Resistance to piercing damage +24% Resistance to slashing damage +28% Resistance to damage from monsters +25% Critical hit damage bonus
New Moon Armor	+30% Resistance to bludgeoning damage +35% Resistance to slashing damage +20% Critical hit damage bonus +5% Critical hit chance +10% Bonus gold
Nilfgaardian Guardsman's Gauntlets	+5% Resistance to piercing damage +5% Resistance to bludgeoning damage +5% Resistance to slashing damage +5% Resistance to damage from monsters +50% Critical hit damage bonus
New Moon Trousers	+10% Resistance to bludgeoning damage +15% Resistance to slashing damage +20% Critical hit damage bonus +4% Critical hit chance +5% Bonus gold
Manticore Boots	+5 Toxicity +5% Resistance to piercing damage +6% Resistance to slashing damage +4% Resistance to damage from monsters +25% Critical hit damage bonus

Armor upgrades - there are multiple options here as it depends on your playstyle

Upgrade	Description
Levity	This is the most important upgrade for armor. It will make all pieces count as light ones. This way Cat School Techniques bonus will be applied to provide bonus critical damage.
Greater Glyph of Mending	Provides bonus HP regeneration. This is a decent quality of life improvement. However, the bonus is very low and in reality, works well only outside of combat.
Greater Glyph of Quen	The Glyph will provide a bonus to Quen's duration. Otherwise, there is no real benefit as the shield will still block only 1 hit.

Potions and tonics

I will split this into two categories - primary and optional. The first are the ones that boost damage and help critical damage build. The latter gives some survivability, but you will have to sacrifice DPS.

Primary

Item	Effects
Superior Thunderbolt	This potion is very important for the build. It increases attack power. Moreover, when there is a thunderstorm, the critical rate is 100%. This increases DPS by 30-40%
Superior Swallow	Using it will improve survivability and improve damage. The attack power boost comes from ensuring maximum HP with Water Hag Decoction and Invigoration

Optional

Item	Effects
Superior White Raffard's Decoction	This potion is great to have on hand. It restores HP and provides a few seconds of invulnerability. Just have in mind, that by using it you will probably reach high toxicity and incur an HP regeneration penalty.
Superior Blizzard	Another potion that I recommend having. In case you see that encounter is too difficult switch it with Superior Swallow or Superior Thunderbolt to gain time slowing effect.

Decoctions

Item	Effects
Katakan Decoction	Thanks to this decoction you will raise Geralt's critical hit chance by 10%. This will greatly improve overall DPS.
Water Hag Decoction	Using Superior Swallow you can ensure 100% HP. With it, the damage is greatly boosted while you maintain it.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the post on the best Critical build in Witcher 3. I covered all essential parts to be effective - skills progression, recommended gear, tactics, and general tips.

If you have any questions or suggestions leave a comment below