The Witcher 3 best swords: the very best weapons for early game and late game

What are the best swords in The Witcher 3? Blades in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are divided into two categories: steel, for dealing with human enemies; and silver, for slaughtering supernatural beasts and monsters. There's an awful lot of different swords scattered about the gigantic world of The Witcher 3, so it helps to know which names to keep an eye out for when they appear in your quest list or your inventory.

Below we'll help you reach the heavenly euphoric heights of destruction that befit the Butcher of Blaviken himself. With our cherry-picked list of the best steel and silver swords on offer in The Witcher 3, you'll know exactly where to go and what to do to get your hands on the best swords on the Continent.

The Witcher 3 best swords

These are the best Witcher 3 swords:

• Aerondight (Silver)
• Iris/Olgierd's Sword (Steel)
• Viper swords (Steel and Silver)
• Feline swords (Steel and Silver)
• Manticore swords (Steel and Silver)
• Toussaint Sword (Steel)
• Belhaven Blade (Steel)
• Bloodsword (Silver)
• Gesheft (Silver)

Below we'll walk you through the very best swords in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But a quick word before we jump right in: because of how weapons and gear in The Witcher 3 works, you can't just go after the very best sword in the game from day one. Even if you manage to find or craft it, you'll be nowhere near the level required to wield it. So as well as listing the most potent blades Geralt can ever hope to equip during his odyssey, I've also laid out one or two early-game options for those who are wondering how best to step up their swordplay.

Aerondight (Silver)

Probably the name that gets thrown around the most when people start talking about the best Witcher 3 weapons, the Aerondight is a best-in-class silver sword available exclusively with - yes, you guessed it - Blood and Wine. Much like Olgierd's Sword, Aerondight has the ability to charge up during a fight with successive blows. Each successful blow increases your damage by 10%, and once your charge caps out you'll crit on every single hit. Oh, and killing an enemy with a full charge will permanently increase the weapon's damage.

If that sounds like some absolutely crazy damage potential, you're absolutely right. If you're salivating after reading that description, just know that the quest you seek is called "There Can Be Only One", and it's based in Toussaint. Off you go.

Iris/Olgierd's Sword (Steel)

A Relic-tier sword available only with the Hearts of Stone DLC, Iris is solidly at the top of most Witcher 3 players' best steel swords tier lists. As well as just being a really, really powerful weapon, Iris has the unique effect of building up a charge which, when expended, delivers a massively powerful strike with a knockdown effect even stronger than Aard - but at the cost of a portion of the player's health.

To get Geralt's mitts on this legendary sword, you'll need to work your way through the "Whatsoever a Man Soweth..." quest, and (SPOILER ALERT) save Olgierd von Everec's soul at the end. This sword will be given as a reward - and what a reward it is.

Viper swords (Steel and Silver)

The very best starter swords on offer, and the first gear set that you will actually be able to unlock, the Viper swords can be very quickly found and crafted without ever leaving White Orchard. Just head to the Cemetery to the north of the Mill signpost for the silver blueprint, and the Castle Ruins to the west of the Ransacked Village signpost for the steel blueprint.

These two swords boast higher stats across the board than most weapons you'll be able to find this early on, and they also both provide a decent chance to poison enemies with each hit. You won't find anything better until you head into Velen and Novigrad.

Feline swords (Steel and Silver)

An extremely solid gear set (as you'll know if you've read our Witcher 3 armor and gear guide), the Feline witcher gear features an array of extremely powerful swords with a focus on high damage, critical hit chance, and bleed chance. It also doesn't hurt that if you were to equip all Feline gear, you'll also benefit from some very potent damage boosts as well.

The Feline swords make for an excellent recommendation whether you're in the early-game or the late-game. Once you hit Level 17, the basic Feline swords will almost certainly be your best possible choice of weaponry - and even with the other legendary blades in this list, the Mastercrafted and Grandmaster Feline swords are strong contenders for the overall deadliest weapons out there.

Manticore swords (Steel and Silver)

In much the same vein as the Feline swords, the blades of the Manticore witcher gear set (only available with the Blood and Wine DLC) are strong contenders for the deadliest weapons out there - but unlike their Feline companions, the Manticore swords are only available in their Grandmaster form - which means they certainly aren't an early-game option.

But once you're up to Level 40, you'll be hard pushed to find better than these two fantastically armor-piercing blades, which - alongside a huge boost to critical hit damage - can deliver some of the most punishing blows in the entire game.

Toussaint Sword (Steel)

Another unbelievably strong steel blade only available with the Blood and Wine DLC, the Toussaint Sword combines the bleed effect of the Feline swords with the armor-piercing of the Manticore swords. The thing to bear in mind here is that you'll need to craft the Relic-level variant of this sword to unleash its full potential, as the lower-rarity Magic variant isn't quite as powerful.

The blueprint for the craftable Relic variant of the Toussaint Sword can be found by following/completing the quest "The Last Exploits of Selina's Gang" in Toussaint.

Belhaven Blade (Steel)

The Belhaven Blade is another steel wunderkind on our list - a Blood and Wine-exclusive powerhouse with a staggering +100% bonus to critical hit damage, alongside boosts to crit chance, poison chance, and Aard intensity.

The diagram can be found as part of some hidden treasure in Toussaint, deep in the Sansretour River that cuts through the centre of the map.

Bloodsword (Silver)

Bloodsword certainly won't live up to the standard already set by Aerondight, but for a mid-game option it's still a bloody good weapon (see what I did there?). Following a similar path to the Feline gear, the Bloodsword focuses on direct physical damage before anything else, providing significant boosts to critical hit chance and damage, bleed chance, and dismemberment chance.

Unusually, there are actually two Scavenger Hunt quests which will result in the Bloodsword diagram: the first is "Inheritance", in Skellige (suggested level is 14); and the second is "Battlefield Loot" in Velen (suggested level is 20).

Gesheft (Silver)

Finally, we come to Gesheft - perhaps the only Silver Sword to give the Aerondight a run for its money. And yes, before you ask, it is indeed part of the Blood and Wine DLC. Look, is it my fault that the two paid DLCs gave us the best weapons in the game?

Curiously, Gesheft comes in two variants: there's the unique loot drop variant, which you get from the "Beyond Hill and Dale..." quest and which provides a flat boost to the intensity of all five Signs; and there's the craftable variant, which provides almost exactly the same array of traits and bonuses as the Belhaven Blade.

And that's pretty much everything we have to offer on the topic of the best weapons in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But that's not all we have to offer on the game as a whole! To supplement your equipment with the best possible set of skills for Geralt, check out our list of the best Witcher 3 builds. Or, if your own skill is a little lacking, you can learn how to fell any beast by perusing our Witcher 3 combat guide.