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Initially it seemed like a good idea to have all of the base mutagens provide their effects when equipped, but after initial testing, it felt awkward when decoctions already provide their effects and decoctions also last so long when Geralt is at a significantly high progress point.

I think it would be better to add some new ones so they do not conflict and/or limit the usefulness of pre-existing decoctions.

The white wolf multiplier, while awesome to have at the level right before damage is sent to be mitigated by the enemy, causes obscenely high numbers and makes it difficult to keep the game from being too easy by the time you have a phase 3 or 4 Aerondight (monster HP, armor and resistances will continue to have to grow and grow, and I really don't feel like right now having to deal with the prospect of having even more bonus level ranges). I found the damage is still respectable with the multiplier at the power mod level and gives more room for skill and other bonuses.

One of the main goals of this mod is to have all of the skills be more similar to Witcher 1/2 where each level provides something interesting/extra. In addition, similar to Witcher 1, each skill should only have 3 levels (not 5).

Currently most of the skills I have cut back to 1 point to start with a base line.

Ultimate Yrden has an unfortunate side effect where the game crashes during conversations and/or other movies. I suspect it causes some kind of memory leak and/or other nasty exception because CD:PR never intended for Yrden to be following Geralt around outside of combat.

The other problem with Ultimate Yrden is that it limits the usefulness of the Yrden upgrade that adds more traps. As far as I can tell, you can only have one trap deployed at a time when this mod is in use. I'd rather tweak the base Yrden than try to work around and/or debug Ultimate Yrden.

Since Geralt's damage can go a lot higher with this mod, a damage cap needs to be added.

Some background on this:

The game uses floating point numbers which go into scientific notation when they exceed roughly 1,000,000 for all of the combat logs and numbers that appear when an enemy is hit. This not only looks strange, but it reeks of a bug in the internal implementation of how the game processes the floats sent into it by the scripts.

While I suspect it may be possible to come up with a hack/work-around to get the numbers to display correctly, I don't think it's going to solve the ultimate problem where we'll keep having to increase monster damage, life, resistances, etc to keep up with Geralt's damage output. I'd rather just cap it at 999,999 and be done with it, so that way we have a limit to work with as far as what feels like too long of a fight or too short of a fight at level 100 in end game DM NGP.

I have already implemented a "Yrden Sword" effect for Rend (only works while Geralt is in White Wolf mode). I took this from the excellent Magic Spells For Signs and Weapons mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3346/).

I will look into adding additional effects to the other signs, most likely as part of their slot bonuses and/or effects granted by unique mutagens or other skills.

Currently Aerondight in the mod is vastly improved and provides a number of effects that do not exist in the base game. It would make more sense to me to have these acquired via upgrading the sword instead of getting all of them out of the gate.

After a specific change and/or experimentation was made, I have noticed that Geralt is obtaining armor from some unknown source. Running ClearDevelop with logging shows that his armor is 0 until the ability manager is rebuilt, afterwords it jumps back up.

I have also tried hex editing the game while it is running to reset his armor, but something keeps changing it back. I do not see any stuck abilities and/or buffs that may be causing him to have this armor.

This effect seems to occur reloading old saves from before I started working on the mod, so I am under the impression something in the mod itself is causing this phenomenon.

One of the bigger aspects of this mod is the addition of the White Wolf ability. It is a new ability that replaces Flood of Anger. It is similar to Dante/Nero's Devil Trigger ability from Devil May Cry. Aside from adding a more useful ability, it also provides for some more (hopefully) interesting build possibilities for Geralt and also is part of the new bonuses on the Wolf School set.

How It Works

To activate it, Geralt has to have full adrenaline (like with Flood of Anger) and it triggers when he uses a sign. (see notes below)

The duration of it is based off the ability level. By default, it is 10 seconds but can be improved to 20 via ability points. It can be further increased by equipping parts of the Wolf School gear. (see notes below)

While it is active, Geralt enjoys the following benefits:

• 25% increased damage (note: this is applied before power mods and other effects, not after. This is to avoid having his damage skyrocket) (see notes below).
• On being triggered, White Wolf cleanses Geralt of all status debuffs (I.E. Poison, Bleed, etc.)
  -5 initial seconds of invincibility (this is because the effect gets triggered when the Immortal or Undying effects are used now. The duration of the invincibility can be increased to 10 seconds by equipping the Infatigable Mutagen.)
• 5% life regeneration per second (this stacks on top of any other life regen Geralt has in effect).
• Immunity to stagger, knockback, poison, bleed, hypnosis and any other types of debuff effects.
• When slotted, White Wolf also provides Geralt with unlimited Adrenaline. However all Adrenaline is consumed when the effect wears off.
• Once the effect wears off, Geralt is inflicted with a debuff that prevents him from reusing White Wolf again for the duration of the debuff. The debuff's duration is set at 50 seconds. It can be lowered though by equipping enough parts of the Wolf School set. (see notes below)

Synergy Effects

IN ADDITION, certain other abilities provide enhancements to White Wolf if they are slotted and/or gain synergies from White Wolf:

Sinister (Replaces Precise Blows): Adds a 5 second, 20% slowdown debuff to all of Geralt's fast style attacks.

Whirl: If White Wolf is active and Whirl is slotted, Geralt consumes 25% stamina while using Whirl.
Crippling Strikes: If slotted, White Wolf's damage multiplier gets applied to any DOT effects that Geralt inflicts on enemies.

Rend: If slotted, Rend unleashes a Yrden wave effect. This inflicts damge of its own, causes knockdown similar to Aard and also inflicts Yrden's slowdown effect.

Violence (Replaces Sunder Armor): If slotted, Geralt's sword attack speed is increased by 10% while White Wolf is active.

Counterattack: If slotted, Geralt doesn't consume stamina when performing a counter attack while in White Wolf mode.

Resolve: If slotted, increases Geralt's damage reduction by 10% while White Wolf is active.

Notes:

1. Ability Trigger/Button: I am considering adding a custom hot key/button mapping for White Wolf so that it can be used without casting a sign, but at this point I am uncertain as to if this is necessary and/or a good idea since I would want to have it be something that can be done with a controller. The game already makes full usage of the Xbox/PS4 controller buttons, so it would probably have to be a two button press of some sort. However, I think it may also be possible to get away with using it on the Witcher Senses button since it has no use in combat.

2. Duration Boosting: The tier 1 bonus of the Wolf School gear increases the duration of White Wolf by 2.5 seconds per item equipped. Tier 2

3. Debuff/Cooldown Boosting/Damage Bonus: The tier 2 bonus of the Wolf School gear reduces the duration of the debuff/cooldown for White Wolf. It also increases the damage bonus. I currently have it set to an additional 25% (50% total) but I may lower it. From testing various damage bonuses in the game, adding bonuses that are outside the norm of power mod/crit damage boost can cause large jumps in Geralt's damage.

Current To-Do's

• Add a couple more slot bonus/synergies, possibly one more each for Whirl and Rend.
• Look into the possibility of adding a custom effect entity (possibly red variation of the Gryphon effect) to play while the skill is active.
• Look into possibility of adding custom spell FX to fire when White Wolf triggers (currently it plays Exploding Quen).
• Look into possibility of adding button mapping for White Wolf so it doesn't require casting a sign (this way it could be used when Geralt is stunned, similar to how you can use Devil Triggers to break stuns in Devil May Cry).
• Ensure that the attack speed boost is not buggy (from limited testing/debugging I am not entirely convinced it works 100% of the time).

The base game does not do the best job scaling monsters to appropriate levels.

The fake levels that they gain through ability additions do not make them all that much stronger, and as many people have noted, the game can become trivial, even on NGP Deathmarch thanks to the fact that Geralt can obtain very high amounts of damage reduction and damage output (I.E. Bear Set + Euphoria build, etc.)

Since this mod makes Geralt stronger through being able to use all skills at once (which IMO was a bad design choice on CD:PR's part since he did not have that limitation in W1 and W2), I have been going back and trying different things to make monsters stronger so that the game doesn't become even more trivial on Death March.

Changes already implemented:

• Slightly increased the final damage multipliers that monsters / enemies receive on the higher difficulties.

• Applied various bug fixes that FCR3 identified as well as capping the damage output of bleed, poison and burn. While in a lot of cases this does make certain monsters more powerful (I.E. Leshens actually hurt Geralt now), it also fixes problems where certain monsters attacks were doing a flat percentage of Geralt's life regardless of his DR/Vitality/Level (I.E. Gargoyles stone throw ability).

• Added additional level bonuses for monsters starting at level 40 and above. By the time Geralt reaches the end game levels, monsters will have substantially increased vitality/essence, damage, armor, some vitality/essence regen (nothing too high) and stamina (to increase their aggression).

Other Changes That Should Be Considered:

• Add exclusive bonuses for bosses
• Fine tune monster stats (may not do)
• Cap damage reduction lower if necessary
• Nerf Euphoria