It's a problem with Quen being too powerful, but it's unfair for sword builds to deal damage with it up without spending vigor, while dealing magic damage with it up compromises you much more as you can't do much when your vigor is empty and you can't regen it. You're also pretty fragile without quen up, compared to a sword+quen build which will have more damage reductions and vitality.

Quen currently serves sword damage based builds better than it does magic damage builds, basically. In the previous game it was more valuable to magic builds due to having charge ups on spells, and dissipating upon attacking.

My first playthrough i did almost entirely alchemy + swordfighting up to multiple enemies hit with one swing

Alchemy is pure pwnage except for the parts like Draug where you cannot use potions...those parts are difficult.

Other than that, stay intoxicated on the potions and you can basically berserk at any time during fights with enough points into alchemy

I'm doing a spellcasting/sword run through on hard now

Yeah, I recently got up to the yrden linking talent as well as the multiple axii one, neither are worth using most of the time due to Quen.

Generally it's almost always better to be ready to apply another Quen than to have used other spells while your first Quen was active. Quen's prevention of vigor regen is especially annoying because you cannot even cancel Quen when you're in a safe position and don't need it. Vigor regen is almost not worth getting much of, it's better to simply get +1 vigor talents alone because if you have Quen up as you almost always should, you gain almost nothing from vigor regen unless a fight lasts longer than 6 Quen's worth of damage taken.

I really think Quen simply needs an overhaul, having it absorb a % of damage taken up to a max of a certain amount of total damage absorbed(with talents improving % and/or it's damage absorb cap before it breaks) instead of completely absorbing, but allowing vigor regen, would be much better.

Has anyone found Sudden Death effective? I have 2% and I've thrown hundreds of swings against various soldiers, harpies, and the like... but no insta-kills.

Geeze. Even in a build where I only had 1%, and that was from some piece of gear I think, I've had it go off. :p

If you've really never had it work, then you're the unluckiest person ever I think. Because, it definitely does work.

I just finished a spell casting run with up to hitting multiple enemies. I owned just about everyone except the Operator. Fools were getting slaughtered left and right but it also helped being my second full playthrough so I have a good grasp of the mechanics. Next, I'm going to Alchemy plus a little swordsmanship. Should be fun with all the bombs and I'll actually use traps this time.

It's true, I am pretty unlucky... I used to pause NWN to add up the average dice rolls and I'd always average somewhere between 8.5 and 9.5. I had four critical misses and a 2 in five straight rolls once... :)

if you are playing without mods, alchemist is the hardest imo. like someone already said, cut scenes eat through the timers :( if you play with the 30 min mod, then it is a very fun tree.

This has been my experience as well in 2 playthroughs. People tend to overlook the fact that swordsman provides quite a few passives, especially when it comes to the end talents. With a ton of vitality and damage reduction and some decent gear you are practically just as invinsible as using upgraded Quen. Acumen is pretty bad though, it cannot even begin to compare with Heliotrope. As for Alchemy, most of what I'd say has already been mentioned. Its bonuses are generally underwhelming, the time extension on potions and oils does not alleviate the fundamental problem with potions (you NEED to drink them beforehand during meditation, which implies some amount of metagaming to say the least). The only redeeming quality of alchemy is impregnation and that's for a specialized mutagenic build. Imho it's not worth it, you will spent many points in worthless talents on the first few levels (where the game is still semi challenging) to even get that far, while witholding using mutagens because the bonus isn't applied retroactively. I'd normally save the pain, allocate the 2 points in bombs/traps that are 100% worth it and call it a day.

I don't know, most of the thing I want to do can be done within 10 minute (or 11 since I had a minor upgrade) with or without the cutscene in between. Except for one boss fight because I was too lazy to refresh the potion effect when I had the chance.

I finished my first playthrough as Alchemist, and I think it is an excellent spec.

The talent that increases bonuses and drastically decreases the side-effects of potions is absolutely excellent, and will be part of all my builds.

Otherwise, I think the later talents that boost you when poisoned are also excellent, including the capstone one that boosts adrenaline generation by 50% and damage and protection by 15%.

In particular, I loved how the Vigour regeneration bonuses worked. I basically had +50% vigour regen when poisoned, and when coupled with the +40% from swordmanship it meant I never needed to boost my vigour regen with the potions themselves. This means I was free to focus on other effects.

So, for example, I could get Thunderbolt and Rook and Swallow. The potions would give me some health regen (more than offsetting Thunderbold), and +49% damage. Then my "poisoned" buffs would give me an ADDITIONAL +30% damage, +15% protection, AND +50% vigour regen.

The end result is the mere act of taking a potion turned me in a killing machine.

That said, I do not think you should only use Alchemy. Mix it up with some Swordmanship (for risposte and twirl, and the vigour regen), I also went with maxed out Aard. Ended up with a monstruous build. :)

Now, it IS true that in a couple of instance (yes, just 2) you will be forced to fight without potions. It does suck. Namely it is the mist battles at the end of Act 2, and POTENTIALLY the final fight if you spend too much time chatting (which really, you should, the plot info is worth it).

But overall, I think the alchemist build is the most fun, as you need to utilize this most unique and original feature of The Witcher games regularly in order to benefit, and it really is the most fun, IMO.

Thank you.

Itkovian

Does the counter run when you are chatting with the you-know-who on the tower?

The only time it is not running is when you hit escape, inventory or vendor.