The Witcher 3 best builds: the four best builds and mutations explained

What are the best builds in The Witcher 3? With the release of the next-gen upgrade and The Witcher: Blood Origin, some people are finally picking up The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for the first time, and even more are jumping back in after a spell away. Whether it's your first playthrough of this modern classic RPG or your umpteenth time stepping into the shoes of the Butcher of Blaviken, you're likely putting some thought into how you want to build your Geralt this time around. Luckily, this game has never really waned in popularity, so the playerbase has had plenty of time to really hone its knowledge of how to put together a great build.

Our selection of The Witcher 3 builds has been carefully crafted and curated to show you exactly how you can turn Geralt into the most powerful monster hunter who ever lived. Whether you prefer to use magic, alchemy, pure combat, or (like a true Witcher) a mix of all three, we've got a top-tier build to cater to your needs.

The Witcher 3 best builds

Below you can peruse four top-tier The Witcher 3 builds, each of which take Geralt in a markedly different direction. After that we'll provide you with a few tips and tidbits of wisdom when it comes to putting together your own builds.

• Euphoria build (arguably the most powerful; emphasises alchemy and swordplay)
• Full Combat build (emphasises pure physical damage; a glass cannon build)
• Versatile Tank build - (a mixture of leanings with an emphasis on survivability)
• Signs and Magic build - (focuses on extreme sign intensity and prolific magic use)
• Tips for creating your own The Witcher 3 builds

Note: each of these builds uses the mutation mechanic added in the Blood and Wine DLC, but you can easily adapt them to suit your needs if you lack the required expansion.

The Witcher 3: Euphoria build

Mutation: Euphoria

Skills:

• Muscle Memory lvl 5
• Precise Blows lvl 5
• Whirl lvl 5
• Rend lvl 5
• Sunder Armor lvl 5
• Resolve lvl 5
• Hunter Instinct lvl 5
• Synergy lvl 5
• Heightened Tolerance lvl 5
• Refreshment lvl 5
• Delayed Recovery lvl 3
• Adaptation lvl 5
• Killing Spree lvl 5
• Acquired Tolerance lvl 3
• Tissue Transmutation lvl 5
• Cat School Techniques lvl 1

Kicking our builds guide off with a bang, there's really nothing better than the Euphoria build, so named for the central (and ridiculously overpowered) mutation Euphoria, which dramatically increases your sword damage and sign intensity as your Toxicity increases.

This build splits itself between swordplay and alchemy. The top half of the tree focuses on dramatically increasing the damage of both Fast and Strong attacks, and provides a great buff to overall attack power with mutagen synergies. But the bottom half of the tree is what makes this build so potent, with numerous alchemy skills allowing you to chug multiple decoctions and potions throughout a fight, keeping your toxicity as high as possible so your damage per hit becomes just disgustingly powerful in a short space of time.

The Witcher 3: Full Combat build

Mutation: Bloodbath

Skills:

• Muscle Memory lvl 5
• Precise Blows lvl 5
• Whirl lvl 5
• Crippling Strikes lvl 5
• Strength Training lvl 5
• Crushing Blows lvl 5
• Resolve lvl 5
• Undying lvl 5
• Rend lvl 5
• Sunder Armor lvl 5
• Counterattack lvl 3
• Razor Focus lvl 5
• Deadly Precision lvl 2
• Synergy lvl 5
• Cat School Techniques lvl 1

Here's a fun little build. The caveat is that it requires a real expert to fully utilise, because it's what you'd call a "glass cannon" build - tremendous damage potential, but easily killed. So you need to be very good at avoiding damage. This is definitely a build that requires liberal use of Quen to succeed.

This build takes skills almost exclusively from the combat tree, but it also delves just far enough into alchemy to unlock the fantastic Synergy skill, which dramatically increases the attack power that this build provides (from 140% to 210%!). And topping it all off is the magnificently powerful Bloodbath mutation, which - like the build itself - rewards evading damage with mountains of attack power.

The Witcher 3: Versatile Tank build

Mutation: Second Life

Skills:

• Strength Training lvl 5
• Sunder Armor lvl 5
• Rend lvl 5
• Muscle Memory lvl 5
• Crushing Blows lvl 5
• Whirl lvl 5
• Resolve lvl 5
• Fleet Footed lvl 5
• Heightened Tolerance lvl 5
• Refreshment lvl 5
• Acquired Tolerance lvl 3
• Active Shield lvl 3
• Exploding Shield lvl 3
• Tissue Transmutation lvl 5
• Synergy lvl 5
• Cat School Techniques lvl 1

One of my favourite builds to use, and probably the build I'd recommend for a first playthrough, the Versatile Tank build is best friends with the formidable Ursine Witcher Gear (for more info check out our The Witcher 3 armor and gear guide!), and together they will make Geralt practically invulnerable.

A decent mix of all three major skill trees (combat, alchemy, and signs) gives you the flexibility that many other builds lack. Potions and decoctions will dramatically increase your survivability, and a light emphasis on Quen will help to keep your Vitality high. But there's also a healthy dose of combat skills and attack power boosting in this build, so you'll be able to hit just as hard as any enemy you come across.

And of course, there's the Second Life mutation at the centre of this build, which is what really pushes you into the realms of near-invulnerability.

The Witcher 3: Signs and Magic build

Mutation: Conductors of Magic

Skills:

• Melt Armor lvl 5
• Firestream lvl 3
• Igni Intensity lvl 5
• Sustained Glyphs lvl 2
• Magic Trap lvl 3
• Yrden Intensity lvl 5
• Strength Training lvl 5
• Crushing Blows lvl 5
• Exploding Shield lvl 3
• Active Shield lvl 3
• Quen Intensity lvl 5
• Rend lvl 5
• Sunder Armor lvl 5
• Refreshment lvl 5
• Synergy lvl 5
• Griffin School Techniques lvl 1

This build is a result of my attempts to make a viable end-game sign-oriented build, and it ended up extremely similar to a build already explained in great depth on Reddit by a user named "Sujiren". So I'll just let you read their thoughts here.

Their build pushes Sign Intensity to the absolute max, while I've sacrificed the very tip of this magical spear for a little more survivability, which I think is the main downside to this build. You'll see I've deviated from Sujiren's build by adding the Refreshment skill and a green mutagen to the bottom-right. In my experience this gives you just a little more tankiness, while still giving you the potential to make your signs hit like an absolute truck.

Tips for creating your own builds in The Witcher 3

Alright, that's all four top-tier Witcher 3 builds out of the way. I'm going to just end with a few brief tips for those who are interested in planning out and creating their own builds in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:

• Remember you can reset your skills at any time! All you need to do to respec your entire character is buy a Potion of Clearance. There are a select few vendors that sell these rare potions, but your best bet is to talk to Keira Metz after finishing the Magic Lamp quest, or head to Hierarch Square in Novigrad and talk to the merchant in the plaza there.
• Use the right skills for your stage in the game. Because of the availability of Potions of Clearance, you shouldn't feel constrained to any of these late-game builds. Your top priority should always be choosing the skills that you need at your current stage of the game. Many new players , for example, would greatly benefit from picking up skills like Survival Instinct or Gourmet.
• Swap out skills as needed. I nearly always have the Strong Back and Delusion skills on standby in case I need them. Don't keep them in your build the whole time, because it's a waste of a slot. But if you find yourself overencumbered, tag in Strong Back. Or if you're about to do a lot of talking/manipulating, tag in Delusion. Adapt to your current circumstances.
• Make use of the console. Once you enable the console, you'll be able to hop into a new game and use cheats to freely test out entire builds in-game on the fly. For full details on how to use cheats, check out our Witcher 3 console commands and cheats guide. The exact commands you should use for testing out builds are as follows:

1. cleardevelop
2. setlevel(100)
3. addskillpoints(30)
4. enablemutations(1)
5. additem('Greater mutagen red', 30)
6. additem('Greater mutagen green', 30)
7. additem('Greater mutagen blue', 30)

And that's pretty much everything you need in order to start creating some truly killer Witcher 3 builds! But if your thirst for Witcher-related knowledge is not yet sated, be sure to check out our Witcher 3 romance guide. Or, if you want a more focused primer on defeating monsters and other enemies, check out our page of Witcher 3 combat tips.