In this guide, we will explain how to create a powerful Quen tank build in the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. The main theme of this build is to make Geralt almost immortal while reflecting damage back at enemies. However the build is also quite flexible and able to dish out good damage from other sources, most particularly the Igni sign.
This is a pretty late-game build – you’ll need to be at least level 32 to equip everything you need for the build, however you can use elements of it at lower levels. You certainly don’t need to exactly replicate everything here to get the same results. This build is also great for a new game plus, where you’ll then be able to make use of it from the beginning of a new playthrough, as long as you make the build before activating new game plus.
We will now explain how this Witcher 3 build works, and how you can create it for yourself.
Table of Contents:
How to play this Witcher 3 Quen Build
This Witcher 3 Quen Tank build focuses on buffing up the Quen sign to some pretty insane levels, allowing you to heal and deflect loads of damage. When you channel the alternate version of Quen, Geralt will be surrounded by a magic shield that reflects damage back at the attacker, and heals Geralt. The greater an enemy’s attack power is, the more value you’ll get out of this effect.
Some enemies just don’t do that much damage or have rapid health regeneration, so for those enemies it’s not really viable to fight them in this way. For those cases, you can instead use the Igni Sign to dish out lots of damage.
Also, there are some enemy encounters in the game that counter this build quite severely, one example that I encountered was a group of three Gargoyles. These guys hit really hard, and they have a powerful stun attack that partially bypasses the Quen sign, leaving Geralt dazed for a couple of seconds. So in those fights you also need to switch up the approach a little bit, falling back on either the Igni Sign or normal sword attacks.
Thanks to our Griffin Armour, we can buff the effectiveness of both Quen and Igni quite significantly by placing down an Yrden Sign and standing inside it. This also grants us stamina regeneration and sign intensity. This is optional though, the build still works quite well if you don’t always do this.
Armour and Weapons for the Witcher 3 Quen Build
For this Witcher 3 Quen Tank build we will be wearing a full set of the Griffin Armour, including the Griffin Silver and Steel Swords. The Griffin Armour begins to unlock its true potential once it is upgraded to Mastercrafted and Grandmaster levels, as it then gains additional set bonuses which you can activate by wearing all pieces of the set. Here is a guide that explains how to get the Griffin Armour.
This will let you cast a sign for free each time you cast a sign in Standard mode, and it makes your Yrden sign more powerful, increasing its radius and causing it to buff Geralt’s Sign Intensity, Stamina Regeneration and damage resistance.
In terms of enhancements for the gear, we are using the following:
Chest Armour enhancements:
For the chest armour, we’re using the Retribution rune from the Runewright. This comes with the caveat of being very expensive – you need to purchase all three of the upgrades for the Runewright, which will cost a total of 30,000 gold. This also requires the Hearts of Stone DLC.
You can find the Runewright in the far north east of the Novigrad and Oxenfurt region, near the Upper Mill Signpost, east of Brunwich village.
In my testing of this rune, it seems to behave in a rather inconsistent way. Against some enemies, most notably human bandits and the like, it is able to reflect damage that’s already reflected by the Quen shield, resulting in a double reflection with really good damage output. But against many other enemy types it does not do this, and only reflects damage that we take to our health bar.
While this inconsistency holds back how good this enchantment could potentially be, this option is still the best fit for this build overall. If you’d rather go for something more consistent instead of spending so much gold on an effect that won’t come into play in some fights, then you could instead use Glyphs of Quen or Igni on the chest armour – the build will still work fine if you do that.
Other Armour enhancements:
Here you have two options, you can basically run this build in a defensive or offensive mode depending on your playstyle. If you prefer to focus more on reflecting damage to enemies, then it’s recommended to put Greater Glyphs of Quen in all remaining armour slots (besides the chest armour).
However, if you want a more versatile approach, you can instead use Greater Glyphs of Igni to buff the damage of your Igni sign. Whichever of these options you pick, the build has enough baseline Sign intensity to make both signs powerful regardless of which one you choose to focus on the most.
You can find these Glyphs by looting them from enemies or loot containers in the world, or by purchasing them from vendors who specialise in armour crafting or magical items.
Sword enhancements:
On our swords, we got the Invigoration rune from the runewright. This turns any Vitality regeneration (healing) that Geralt received while at max vitality into a damage buff on his next attack. An effect like this synergizes really nicely with our build, since you’ll be getting lots of healing from the Alternate Quen sign.
Geralt’s hands will glow red when Invigoration is active, so make sure to attack when you see that effect and dish out some extra damage.
Skills and Perks for the Witcher 3 Quen Build:
In the Character menu, we have slotted three Greater Blue Mutagens and one Greater Red Mutagen. You can obtain these by defeating powerful monsters, or craft them by combining three smaller mutagens of the same colour in the Alchemy menu.
We then have the following perks activated, all upgraded to the maximum tier possible:
- Exploding Shield (Blue)
- Delusion (Blue)
- Active Shield (Blue)
- Quen Discharge (Blue)
- Quen Intensity (Blue)
- Melt Armor (Blue)
- Pyromaniac (Blue)
- Firestream (Blue)
- Igni Intensity (Blue)
- Muscle Memory (Red)
- Strength Training (Red)
- Griffin School Techniques (Yellow)
Make sure to slot the blue and red perks next to a mutagen with a matching colour, for an additional bonus to Sign Intensity and Attack Power. To fully unlock and upgrade all of these perks, you’ll need 34 Skill Points. You can get more skill points by levelling up and by interacting with a newly discovered Place of Power for the first time.
The idea behind the skills we’ve chosen is to buff up the Quen and Igni signs as much as possible, since these will be our main protective and damaging abilities for this build. The red perks are there to give us some extra damage on our normal sword attacks, just in case you encounter an enemy that’s very resistant to your signs.
Mutation for the Witcher 3 Quen Build:
For this Witcher 3 Quen Tank build, we’re using the Magical Sensibilities Mutation. Using the Mutations system requires the Blood and Wine DLC, and you need to complete the quest Turn and Face the Strange in order to unlock it.
Magic Sensibilities is the first mutation available in the blue line, so it’s really easy to get. You just need an additional 3 Greater Blue Mutagens and 3 spare skill points to unlock it, and then you can activate it.
Magic Sensibilities allows damage dealt by your Signs to deal critical hits. The chance and damage of crits is dictated by your Sign Intensity – we’ve put quite a lot of resources into increasing Sign Intensity with this build, so these should scale up quite nicely. For example we have a 54% chance to deal an additional 344% damage on our signs, without any additional buffs from potions or other sources.
One other detail is that opponents killed by critical hits from your signs will explode, which adds a bit of extra fun to the build.
Potions for the Witcher 3 Quen Build
Since we’re going to spend a lot of our time at maximum vitality due to the crazy healing we get with this build, the Water Hag Decoction is a good fit for us. This just gives us a damage buff when we’re at maximum health.
If you don’t want to use a decoction, then the Tawny Owl Potion is good for increasing our stamina regeneration, Petri’s Philter is can be used to buff Sign Intensity, and the Swallow and White Raffard Potions can be used in case you need extra healing, but most of the time all your healing needs are covered by the alternate Quen sign.
Gameplay Video of the Quen Build
Below is a gameplay video of this Witcher 3 Quen Build. You can see the build’s self-healing ability and how it can be used to dish out reflective damage, while knocking enemies back and really messing around with them.
