Weapons
A witcher carries two swords and a crossbow, and every fight in The Witcher 3 starts with choosing between them. Steel is for people, nonhumans and beasts, silver for monsters, and the crossbow for whatever flies or swims. Below: the weapon classes side by side, the rarity tiers, and the runestones and runewords that finish a sword.
Builds
A build in The Witcher 3 is skills, a mutation and a set of gear working together, and the swords are the half of the set that hits. Each of the six witcher schools makes a matching steel and silver sword, and each leans one way:
- Signs. Griffin swords add sign intensity, in a medium armour set built around Yrden.
- Fast attacks. Feline swords add critical chance and bleeding, in a light armour set.
- Adrenaline and Quen. Ursine swords add adrenaline gain and critical damage, in a heavy armour set.
- Hybrid. Wolven swords spread their bonus across signs, adrenaline, criticals and bleeding.
- Alchemy and bombs. Manticore swords add armour piercing, in the set that gives every alchemy item an extra charge.
The set bonuses are on the Witcher Gear page.
Remastered rebuilt the skill trees and reset every skill point, and published builds from before 29 September 2026 use the old tree. The patch notes name skills rather than gear, so the gear figures here are the last published ones.
All Weapon Categories
The Classes
| Class | Weapons | Versions | Used On | Slots |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Swords | 153 | 234 | People, nonhumans and beasts | Up to 3 |
| Silver Swords | 104 | 149 | Monsters and magical creatures | Up to 3 |
| Crossbows | 11 | 19 | Flying monsters, and anything underwater | - |
| Bolts | 8 | 14 | Loaded into the crossbow | - |
A version is one way a weapon exists: the same name can be a crafted sword, a quest relic and loot copies at lower rarities, each with its own figures.
Rarity
| Rarity | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Common | Base stats only |
| Master | One random bonus |
| Magic | Two random bonuses |
| Relic | Fixed, named bonuses, and usually 3 slots |
| Witcher Gear | An item class of its own rather than a rarity, shown in green: fixed stats, upgraded tier by tier, and part of a school set |
Witcher gear is upgraded from Basic through Enhanced, Superior and Mastercrafted to Grandmaster, the last tier added by Blood and Wine. Each step needs its own diagram, usually found on a scavenger hunt, and a smith good enough to make it: a journeyman up to Superior, a master for Mastercrafted, a grandmaster for the last.
Upgrades
A blacksmith sockets runestones into a sword's slots. Each comes as Lesser, standard and Greater.
| Runestone | Effect |
|---|---|
| Chernobog | Attack power |
| Veles | Sign intensity |
| Perun | Adrenaline gain |
| Svarog | Armour piercing |
| Dazhbog | Chance to burn |
| Stribog | Chance to stagger |
| Triglav | Chance to stun |
| Morana | Chance to poison |
| Zoria | Chance to freeze |
| Devana | Chance to bleed |
Removing a runestone destroys it; dismantling the sword gives it back.
Runewords came with Hearts of Stone. The Ofieri Runewright at Upper Mill, near Oxenfurt, enchants a sword with all three slots, replacing the runestones with one stronger effect. A sword holds one runeword, and upgrading a witcher sword to its next tier loses it.
All Categories
Subcategories
This category has the following 12 subcategories, out of 12 total.
Pages in category "Weapons"
The following 2 pages are in this category, out of 2 total.
