Items

Geralt loses his silver sword in the prologue, and how you get one back tells you everything about how equipment works in this game. There is no shop that sells it. You either craft it, import a save from the first Witcher, or go without against every wraith and gargoyle in the north.

That is the division running through all nine item pages on our wiki. A few of the best things are craft-only, a few are find-only, and a surprisingly large middle group is simply for sale if you know which merchant in which chapter has it. Sorted that way, the shopping list for a playthrough becomes obvious.

Craft only: the things no merchant carries

Three of the game's most powerful items exist only as diagrams, and two of them are the swords at the top of our rankings.

The Wight is the highest-damage silver sword in the game at 52 to 57, and our silver swords guide flags a caveat that matters more than the number: its diagram is an extremely rare random drop in Chapter 1 only, and if the act ends without it appearing there is no second chance. Worse, on the PC Enhanced Edition it was removed along with the other random-drop overpowered weapons, so the diagram only genuinely exists in the unpatched Xbox 360 version.

That leaves the Weeper as the practical best, at 50 to 55 with a 30 percent poison chance that stacks on every hit and a 3 percent chance of killing outright. It is part of the Kinslayer's Outfit, which means Dark Mode and a visit to the smith east of the Loc Muinne notice board in the final act. Draug's Confession sits below both and takes no effort at all: its diagram is added to your inventory automatically once Chapter 2 ends, and 50 percent extra damage against wraiths makes it the sword to have for the middle of the game.

The third craft-only item is the endgame armour. Vran armour cannot be bought at any price because one of its components is the Armor of Ysgith, which you have to give up to make it. Our best armor guide lays out that trade honestly: Ysgith carries 50 percent magic damage reduction against Vran's 20, so the upgrade is a downgrade if you fight mages, but Vran wins on everything else with +40 vitality, 30 armour and 70 percent resistance to burn, bleed and poison. Both come out of the sewers under Loc Muinne, at the end of the Mystic River chain.

Find only: loot, corpses and one quest reward

The Hunter's armor is the best chest piece available in Chapter 1 and it is not for sale. Return the troll's mate's head during Troll Trouble and he gives you the diagram, which then wants 14 cloth, 16 leather and 6 twine. What makes it worth the trouble is three rune slots, more than any other armour in the chapter apart from the Kayran set.

Several more pieces sit on corpses or in chests rather than in stock. The Superb Nilfgaardian leather trousers are looted from a dead bounty hunter north of the Temerian sector in Loc Muinne. The Mage's gloves are on a dead soldier in a dry stream south of the Kaedweni camp, guarded by an arachas that turns up as you approach. The Kaedweni jackboots are in a chest or cave in the Kaedweni camp after the golem fight, and the Temerian jackboots are statistically identical if you cannot find them.

The Elven Gauntlets are the clearest path-locked item on the page, available only on Iorveth's route, either from Philippa after Royal Blood or through Thorak. Everyone can craft the Kaedweni falconer's gauntlets instead, which our guide rates as the best in the game, from a formula Falas sells in Loc Muinne.

One find is not equipment at all. The Rose of Remembrance grows in a hidden elven garden past the Flotsam gates, and it exists to bring Geralt's memories back rather than to raise a statistic. You can walk there with Triss or go alone, and that choice has consequences our Triss guide follows up.

Buy it: the merchant economy

Most of the game is purchasable, and our crafting diagrams page is the index for that, listing where every schematic in the game is sold or looted. A handful of names appear so often it is worth memorising them by chapter: Sendler and Cedric in Lobinden and Fioravanti and Berthold Candeleria in Flotsam for Chapter 1, Lasota, Master Myron and Sambor in the Kaedweni camp and Mael, Haggard and Thorak in Vergen for Chapter 2, and Bras of Ban Ard, Falas, Earso and the Incredible Lockhart in Loc Muinne for Chapter 3.

One purchasable component becomes a bottleneck. Silver Ore is the base of every silver sword, and the number of merchants carrying it shrinks as the game goes on. In Chapter 1 Berthold Candeleria in the Flotsam dwarven quarter keeps four or five in stock. In Chapter 2 it is Mael on Rhundurin Square, and if he is not there, meditating until dawn spawns him. In Chapter 3 it is Bras of Ban Ard alone, east of the notice board in his red hat, with three to five at a time. It costs 45 Orens, or 36 if you haggle, and sells back for three, so buying it to resell is not a business.

Every one of these merchants restocks. Head out of the settlement, sleep through a day or so, and their shelves refill.

The three consumable systems

Beyond gear, three item families decide how fights go, and all three are made rather than bought.

Oils

Eight oils, applied to a sword by wielding it and double-clicking, or by dragging and dropping if that fails. They last five minutes, with Falka's Blood the sole exception at three. The important split is between the specialists at +20 percent against one enemy family and the two generalists that work on everything.

Falka's Blood and Whirl are the interesting pair. Falka's promises double the damage bonus but does not deliver on every hit, while Whirl's smaller number is stable. Our guide's read is that Falka's is worth it against a single heavily armoured target and Whirl is worth it everywhere else.

Bombs

Nine bombs, all craftable yourself in the alchemy panel during meditation without needing a craftsman. Select one from your pocket slots before pressing R, otherwise Geralt lays a trap instead, which is the single most common complaint about the system.

Grapeshot is the one with a quest attached, since it is what destroys the nests in The Nekker Contract, and Cedric in Lobinden sells the recipe. Beyond that the useful ones are Dancing Star for a fiery explosion at 10 to 40 damage, Samum to stun and immobilise everything in range, and Devil's Puffball for poison gas. Red Haze costs a single Oren and sends enemies into disarray, which makes it the cheapest crowd control in the game.

Runes

Five runes, slotted into a silver sword by dragging them onto it, and permanent once fitted. Removing one means destroying either the rune or the sword, so the decision to fit is the decision. Every one of them is crafted from an Essence of Water, an Elemental Stone and one bulk ingredient.

The Ysgith rune is the rarest and the strongest, sold directly by Haggard in Vergen or craftable from a diagram Berthold Candeleria and the Incredible Lockhart both carry. One oddity worth knowing: runes can be broken down into meteorite ore, and the Moon rune converts into any of the three colours, though the runes are usually worth more than the ore.

The one potion with a quest

Most potions are covered on our alchemy page, but the Gadwall potion gets its own entry because the story stops without it. Hanmarvyn's Blue Dream kills any ordinary human who tries it, so the sorcerer needs Geralt, and Geralt needs Gadwall before he will last the ritual either.

Master Myron sleeps outside the hospital tent at the Kaedweni Camp and sells the formula for 138 Orens, along with everything it needs: Rebis as Celandine, Vermilion as Wolfsbane, Caelum as Bryonia, Sol as Verbena and Aether as Troll Tongue. It speeds up how fast Geralt heals, and it charges him for that in vigor and in the damage he deals. Ten minutes of duration and a toxicity of 40 make it one of the heavier drinks in the game.

A shopping order

If you want one sequence to follow: craft the Hunter's armor in Chapter 1 from the troll, keep buying silver ore from whoever still has it, take Draug's Confession for free when Chapter 2 ends, and spend Chapter 3 on the Vran armour and either the Addan Deith or a Dark Mode set.

Our best weapons roundup ranks the steel swords alongside the silver ones, including the Caerme at 50 to 58 from An Encrypted Manuscript and the Dancer at 55 to 62 on Roche's path, and the crafting guide explains how the schematic, ingredient and craftsman parts of the system fit together.