The goal of this build is to make good use of the Euphoria mutation, which basically increases your sword damage and sign intensity by 75% of your current Toxicity. Toxicity is a stat that raises when you drink potions and decoctions. When you reach a certain threshold, you start taking damage, and you can't drink any potion if it makes you exceed your max Toxicity.

So, the plan is simple. Increase max Toxicity, then drink potions and decoctions to increase damage. Even better, we can get a really nice combo going with some lifesteal and big damage bonuses when at max health.

This build usually makes use of the Cat School Armor, which gives you immense attack power. However, during my recent testing I came upon a really nice variation using bombs and the Manticore School Armor.

Basically, where the Cat School Armor gives you even more attack power and lets you focus on swords, the Manticore School Armor increases your maximum Toxicity and buffs your bombs. This enables us to remove the Toxicity passive we'd use with the Cat School Armor, and get even more buffs for bombs instead.

At the end of the day, both variations are super good. If you just want to go for maximum sword damage, play the Cat School variation. If you want to mess around with ridiculously strong bombs, go for the Mantichore School variation instead.

To use this build, you will need to have:

• A full Cat School Armor or a full Manticore School Armor set. Since the armor set perks are not restricted to the Grandmaster version of the armor anymore, any iteration of the set will do, even the first one.
  
• Mutations unlocked, specifically Euphoria. You want to have all mutations researched, the 4 mutation-related skill slots are extremely valuable.
  
• Enchantments level 3 unlocked.
  
• The following potions and decoctions: Tawny Owl, Swallow, Water Hag Decoction and Ekkimara Decoction Leshen.
  
• 3 Greater Red Mutagens.
  
• 1 Greater Blue Mutagen.
  
• 2 Greater Devana, Zoria and Perun runestones.
  
• The required Glyphs for the Eruption (Igni, Quen, Reinforcement) or Levity (Aard, Mending, Reinforcement) if you're playing with the Manticore School Armor.

The build looks like this:





Euphoria as described before. It will raise attack power and sign intensity by 75% of our current toxicity.


We're going to have at least six combat skills, but you can go for nine if you so choose. Here are the most important:

Muscle Memory (3/3)
Precise Blows (3/3)
Strength Training (3/3)
Crushing Blows (3/3)

Nothing major about these four, they're just here to passively increase our damage, critical damage, and critical chance. Then, we have a not-so-OP-anymore skill:

Rend (3/3)

This used to be pretty much the most ridiculous combat skill of the game with Whirl. While Whirl allowed you (and still does, in fact) to destroy a group of enemies without using your brain, Rend would allow you to crush any single opponent of your choice with an almost unblockable attack that would deal a ton of damage.

It is a bit less OP now because of the lessened critical chance, but still a very good skill. It just destroys bosses and shield bearers so easily, it wouldn't make much sense not to use it.

Crippling Strikes (3/3)

I chose to go for a bit of bleeding for my last combat skill. This is an open choice. If you want to go for more combat skills, you can remove some (or all) sign skills. Here are some candidates :

• Whirl. Let's be honest, it's still a broken dumb skill, which is why I don't like it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use it if you want to. Keep in mind, however, that bombs do the same job (handling groups of enemies), so it's not a very useful skill if you're playing the Manticore variation.
  
• Razor Focus. Adrenaline points buff your sword damage, so it's always a decent boost.
  
• Deadly Precision if you want to one-shot some enemies.
  
• Counter Attack is especially good to handle human enemies more easily
  
• Sunder Armor is self explanatory.

As this build focuses on sword damage, we're going to use 0 to 3 sign skills. You can always take them out to put in more combat (or alchemy) skills. I use the following three:

Delusion (3/3) for dialogs.
Exploding shield (3/3) for some crowd control.
Shockwave (3/3) to make Aard a powerhouse. This skill used to be one of the worst in the base game, but now its damage scales with enemy level and takes away a percentage of their current health. Because of this, the first Aard you cast on an enemy will do a ton of damage.
You can also use Pyromaniac which is now a big help to ensure Igni actually ignites your foes.


These skills are actually the most important of the build. Without them, it simply wouldn't work. What's more, since Euphoria is an Alchemy mutation, you can put all your alchemy skills in the middle and free up other slots to bond with mutagens.

The following three are absolutely mandatory:

Heightened Tolerance (3/3) lets you drink more potions before you start losing health due to overdose.
Acquired Tolerance (3/3) to increase maximum toxicity.
Synergy (3/3) to increase the effectiveness of mutagens.

The rest is optional. For the Manticore variation, you want to boost bombs with the following skills:

Efficiency (3/3) to raise bomb capacity.
Cluster bombs (3/3) does exactly what you think and is super funny to use.

If you're playing the Cat variation, you can use the likes of Fixative or Adaptation.


No matter what armor you use, it's going to end up being a light armor (either naturally or with enchantments). So, we're going to use Cat School Techniques to increase our sword damage even more.

With the Manticore variation, we're going to use Heavy Artillery to triple bomb damage. Our previous skill choices ensure we still have a good number of bombs.

With the Cat variation, we're going to use Metabolism Control to gain some more max Toxicity.

For the Manticore variation, use the two Manticore swords as you want the full set bonus.

For the Cat variation, the full set bonus is kind of trash, so you can use whatever you like. I like to use Iris from Hearts of Stone with Aerondight from Blood and Wine.


This is where we start getting into some optimisation. As you will notice below, our decoctions will give us health regeneration. And it just so happens that the Invigoraiton enchantment, when you're at full health, turns any health regeneration into attack power.


We're going to use the following four:

• Swallow for healing. Usually our decoctions will suffice but sometimes you need a quick boost. You could also use White Raffard's Decoction for the same effect.
  
• Tawny Owl for stamina regeneration.
  
• Water Hag Decoction to gain 50% attack power when you're at full health. Coupled with your swords enchantments, your attack power will skyrocket when at full health.
  
• Ekkimara Decoction to turn 10% of damage dealt into health regeneration. As you deal a lot of damage with any sword blow with this build, you will get back to full health in no time. Even an opponent lit up by Igni or a Dancing Star will get your health bar back up pretty quickly.

If you're playing the Mainticore variation and want to use bombs, the most powerful of them is probably Dancing Star. Not only does it deal a ton of damage, it also tends to stun enemies in place because they keep staying in the fire ignited by the bomb. It is great for both crowd control and damage.

Grapeshot deals a good amount of damage as well with this build, even on Death March!. Devil's puffball is a bit underwhelming compared to Dancing Star (no stun and less damage) but is also a good option.

And of course, Northern wind is an amazing crowd control utility.

Once again... there isn't too much to it.

You want to pop both your decoctions (and possibly a Tawny Owl if you're using signs) as soon as you get in combat, and then, well, like Geralt says, swish-a-swash-a-swunk them.

Remember, to use Rend, you don't need (and don't want) to charge the attack using your entire stamina bar. Instead, press the button just long enough to trigger the skill and release it. You'll get a short animation, and the benefits of the skill (increased critical chance and bypasses shields).

Aard and Igni are your signs of choice. Both will deal a lot of damage (remember Aard will take a big portion of health from any enemy you haven't hit yet) and help control crowds. Quen is here as an extra insurance but you can play without it if you feel like it.

If you're playing with bombs feel free to use them, you'll be surprised at how hard they hit. And remember to rest at Corvio Bianco to get your extra bomb every time.

The best advice I can give you with this build is: don't get greedy. With how hard you hit it is tempting to just start mashing the attacks. But you're still vulnerable to stuns, counters, and are not super tanky. Use a good combination of fast, strong attacks, dodges, rolls and parries and you should be fine!

That's pretty much it for this build.

Thank you for reading the guide, and feel free to give me feedback or suggestions in the comments below!