Today we’ll be looking at another powerful Witcher 3 Build, this time focused on huge melee damage and making use of the Whirl ability to quickly decimate enemies, whether individual enemies or groups. This build is designed for Death March difficulty, and will therefore work just as well on lower difficulties, too.
To fully replicate the build, you’ll need to be fairly late in the game and own the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine DLCs. However you can work your way towards the build over the course of a playthrough and still get pretty good results along the way. This build is also perfect for a New Game Plus, where you’ll be able to make use of it at its full potential from the beginning of a new playthrough.
We’ll now look at how this build works, and how you can make it for yourself.
Table of Contents:
How to use this Witcher 3 Whirl Build
This Witcher 3 Whirl Build is focused on high attack power and critical damage, making use of a mixture of red and green perks. We’ll be utilizing some alchemical decoctions to maximize the build’s potential and play around the Euphoria mutation (we’ll explain that more later in the guide).
We’re using the Feline Armour to increase our combat prowess, but we are not using the Feline Swords. For your Silver Sword, the best option is Aerondight, a special magical sword that becomes more powerful as you level up.
We’re making use of three Decoctions to enhance the build’s capability, and you should generally have these active whenever you are in combat. These decoctions are Water Hag Decoction, Ekimmara Decoction and Wyvern Decoction. We’ll explain those more later.
You can also make use of Blade Oils to improve Geralt’s prowess against a particular type of enemy.
When using the build in combat, we primarily make use of the Whirl ability to unleash a devastating flurry of sword attacks in a 360 degree radius around Geralt. Maintaining the attack requires Stamina and Adrenaline.
Due to the way this build is set up, this means that Geralt can maintain the Whirl attack as long as we keep hitting enemies, but if you keep whirling without hitting anything then you can quickly drain all of your stamina and adrenaline, so it takes a little bit of practise to time it correctly.
We’ll now look at the armour and weapons that we’re using for this build.
Armour and Weapons for the Witcher 3 Whirl Build
For our Witcher 3 Whirl Build, we’re using the Feline Armour. This is a light armour set of Witcher gear which you need to find the diagrams for and craft, and it can be upgraded as you level up. To unlock the full benefits of the Feline Armour (where you get additional set bonuses for wearing a certain amount of pieces of the set) it needs to be upgraded to at least Mastercrafted tier. However these set bonuses are not really important for this build. We’re much more interested in the Attack Power granted by each piece of the armour.
To learn how to obtain the Feline Armour, you can check out our Feline Armour Guide.
On the Chest Armour, we’re using the Deflection rune from the Runewright. This enchantment causes our armour to deflect arrows shot at us by enemies. This is not super important, but it helps us to keep our Whirl animation going even if we’re shot.
You can access the Runewright’s services by visiting him near the Upper Mill Signpost in the north-east of the Novigrad and Oxenfurt region. This is a level 1 enchantment, meaning you only need to give the Runewright his first upgrade in order to access it, which costs 5,000 gold.
For the other armour pieces, you can choose whatever Glyphs you want to put on the armour – they do not impact the performance of the build in any meaningful way.
For our weapons, we have Aerondight for our Silver Sword. This is a unique sword that requires the Blood and Wine DLC. To obtain the sword, you need to complete the quest called “There Can Only Be One”, which you should be able to obtain by checking Notice Boards around Toussaint.
This is a special sword which becomes more powerful over the course of a fight, and can permanently increase its damage to scale with your character level.
For the Steel Sword, you should essentially use the best Silver Sword you have at your disposal. You could use the Feline Steel Sword to match the armour, too.
On both swords, we’re using the Severance enchantment from the Runewright. This increases the range of Whirl by 1.1 Yards, which makes it much easier to sustain the Whirl attack for this build, without being hit and interrupted by enemies.
Skills and Perks for the Witcher 3 Whirl Build
To begin with, in our Mutagen slots, we’ve slotted three Greater Red Mutagens and one Greater Green Mutagen. You could instead just have four Greater Red Mutagens if you want to maximize the melee damage as much as possible, but we have more than enough and this way we make greater use of the synergy bonus.
You can obtain these Mutagens by defeating powerful monsters, or by combining three mutagens of a lower quality in the Alchemy menu.
For our Perks, we’ve slotted the following skills, all upgraded to the maximum tier possible:
- Muscle Memory (red)
- Strength Training (red)
- Resolve (red)
- Precise Blows (red)
- Whirl (red)
- Razor Focus (red)
- Deadly Precision (red)
- Cat School Techniques (yellow)
- Metabolic Control (yellow)
- Heightened Tolerance (green)
- Acquired Tolerance (green)
- Tissue Transmutation (green)
- Synergy (green)
- Protective Coating (green)
Remember to slot the Perks next to a mutagen of the same colour where possible, for an extra bonus to your Attack Power and Vitality.
We need 37 Skill Points to unlock and fully upgrade all of these skills. If you need more skill points, you can get more by leveling up or by interacting with a newly discovered Place of Power for the first time.
If you don’t have enough Skill Points or have only unlocked one of the extra Perk slots and need to ditch a perk for the time being, then I recommend getting rid of Protective Coating, as it’s by far the least important of the listed Perks.
Mutation for the Witcher 3 Whirl Build
For this Witcher 3 Whirl Build, we’re making use of the Euphoria Mutation. This is probably the most overpowered mutation in the game, giving us a flat percentage damage boost to all of our sword and sign attacks based on our Toxicity level.
This synergises with our build really well since we purchased quite a few green Perks to increase our Toxicity limit. The best way to maintain a high toxicity level for a long time is by consuming several Decoctions, as the toxicity from these does not decay until the potion duration expires.
Euphoria is the second mutation on the Green line, so in total you’ll need 6 spare skill points and 6 spare Greater Green Mutagens to access it. To unlock the Mutation system in the Witcher 3, you need to complete the quest called Turn and Face the Strange, which is part of the Blood and Wine DLC.
Potions for the Witcher 3 Whirl Build
For this Witcher 3 Whirl Build, we generally want to keep our Toxicity level high all of the time to make use of the Euphoria mutation. Therefore we’ve selected three decoctions which we basically always have active. These are:
- Wyvern Decoction – Each blow landed increases attack power until damage is taken. You can find the recipe randomly in loot.
- Ekimmara Decoction – Each blow landed regenerates Vitality. Found in a chest on the riverbank south of the Ransacked Village in White Orchard.
- Water Hag Decoction – Damage dealt is increased when Vitality is at maximum. You can find the recipe randomly in loot, or purchase it from Herbalist merchants.
Having these decoctions active at all times gives us a large boost to our damage thanks to the Euphoria mutation, and allows us to gain some extra damage bonuses from the potions themselves, as well as healing us passively whenever we dish out damage to enemies.
You can also add other potions to the mix if you want, such as Swallow for healing, Thunderbolt for an even larger temporary damage boost, or Tawny Owl for increased stamina regeneration. Be careful not to push your Toxicity too high though, or you will take damage over time until the extra toxicity decays.
Gameplay Video
Here is a gameplay video of the Witcher 3 Whirl Build. You can see the very overpowered damage potential that this build has against a variety of different targets, as well as how you can passively heal during combat thanks to the Decoctions used in this build.
