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Even half a decade after its release, Witcher 3, along with the two DLCs, is still one of the best story-driven RPG packages of all time.
With the rich, deep lore and excellent passive storytelling, great combat system, to the little things such as the navigation and difference in quest design, there is no other RPG that comes close to this level of dynamism in all areas and aspects of game design.
Now, if you have decided to pick up the Witcher 3 after seeing it on sale on Steam, you will want a strategy guide telling you exactly where to find some of the strongest armor and items in the game.
We scoured far and wide to present you with the three definitively best armor sets in Witcher 3, leading you from early game to the completion of the DLCs.
So strap in, get your map and your torches out. This is going to be long and there’s a lot You need to uncover.
The Three Best Armor Sets in Witcher 3
1. Best Griffin Armor
Best Early Game and Best Overall for Signs
The Griffin Armor is one of the best sets in the game and can be acquired extremely early in your playthrough.
The Griffin Armor provides you with a myriad of benefits when the whole set is completed. Along with resistance to slashing damage, resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, damage from monsters, and elemental damage are increased.
Plus, resistance to Poisoning and Bleeding Status Effects are also added to the mix.
If you have any 3 items from the set, you start to see the benefits of the Griffin Armor.
It allows you to forego the Stamina meter when casting Signs after you cast one, for 3 seconds.
After you acquire the full set, however, things change drastically, as your Yrden trap size is increased by 40%, allowing you to regen Stamina at +5/s and getting a 100% Sign Intensity while you are inside your own trap, and damage reduction of 20%.
Griffin Armor Locations
Griffin Silver Sword
The first piece of your loadout, the Griffin Sword can be found West of the Hanged Man’s Tree Outpost, at a lighthouse known as Lohnruk.
The secret entrance to this lighthouse is underwater, which can be accessed by going right and down below from the entrance to Lohnruk, diving underwater, and going beneath the lighthouse.
Once you see space to climb up, you’ll have hit the surface, and close by there is a ladder for you to climb up and access the rest of the lighthouse.
Carry on upstairs until you hit an exposed step ladder past a door, from where you can see the bright blue sea for miles ahead.
Stop, turn, and there will be a ladder right at the door to take you to another floor. On that floor, you’ll find the diagram to craft the Griffin Silver Sword.
Griffin Steel Sword
Using the Hanged Man’s Tree as a compass again, we’re going up North this time until we reach the Outpost called Hindhold.
Upon reaching, defeat any monsters that you see and get inside the little demolished fort and towards the right as soon as you enter. You’re going to find yourself in the dark, so carry a torch.
As you go downstairs and then upstairs through the cobwebbed archways, you’ll eventually get to the top of the building, where you’ll have to deal with a monster’s nest.
Deal with them, then go to the door that’s right behind where you came up to the rooftop.
Inside the room, you’ll find a corpse sitting beside a chest. Looting this corpse will get you the diagram of the Griffin Steel Sword.
The Armor Set
Now we come to the actual armor set. Start off by going to the Dragonslayer’s Grotto, South of Hanged Man’s Tree, and West of Reardon Manor.
Once you reach the Grotto, hidden in the trees, you’ll see a dropdown. Drop-in, go into the first entrance you see.
You’ll immediately be greeted with Wraiths and other monsters, so make sure your kit is enough to get through.
Head deeper inside the catacomb-like structure, dealing with the Wraiths on the way.
After that, you are going to come across the first wall that you need to bypass.
The next corridor that you come across will have poison gases surrounding the entire area, so your best bet is to either use a potion to ignore that status effect or use Aard and Igni alternatively to kill Wraiths and run through the poison barrier.
After you reach some rocks and pass-through using Aard, you’re going to face an Ekimmara.
Take it out fast, it can regenerate its health, look around and loot all of the chests that you find.
One of them will contain the blueprints to all of the Griffin armor.
Crafting
To actually craft this armor after finding the blueprints, you will have to find a special craftsman.
The best possibility of that during the early game will be to visit Novigrad, and the armorer and blacksmith in the city.
They will craft you your entire armor set and your swords, and you are ready with your Sign-heavy build!
2. Bear Armor/ Ursine Armor
Best Heavy Armor. Best Witcher 3 Armor Overall
Hands down, the Ursine Armor is the best Heavy and overall armor in the game. It gives you excellent base damage and D/s options and comes with the same host of benefits that Griffin Armor does, possibly more.
The Ursine Armor relies on labored, heavy attacks to deal tons of damage, as well as great armor stats for an added tankiness while you deal your slow but high damage.
The armor comes with Resistances attached to slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, monster, and elemental damage, as well as Resistance to status effects such as Poisoning and Bleeding.
Once you start collecting all the pieces of the Ursine armor, you’ll notice that the Quen shield has a 5% bonus to each set piece, and it stacks up!
At 6 pieces or the complete set of armor, Ursine armor allows you to magnify your damage dealt via abilities involving the Quen sign by 200%, practically tripling it.
This not only makes you absolutely impossible to take down, but it also ensures that you stack damage on top of the damage, scaling up considerably at higher difficulties.
Ursine Armor Locations
Witcher’s Crossbow
The pursuit of this set requires you to go to Skellige. After you arrive at Kaer Trolde, grab a boat and set sail to the Old Watchtower Outpost on an island northwest of Kaer Trolde.
Once you reach the outpost, go south until you reach a cave on the shores of the island.
When you reach the cave system, go inside and to the right, where you will find a couple of ledges leading upwards.
After reaching another ledge and making the jump across, you will find a corpse, which upon looting will give you the Ursine crossbow diagram.
Ursine Steel Sword
Amongst the loot of that corpse, you will also find a letter mentioning an inn; the location of that inn is at the Ruined Inn Outpost, south of Fyresdal.
Take care of some Harpies along the way, and as you enter the rundown inn, you’ll find stairs leading to the bottom.
Enter the inn and deal with the Wraiths inside. You will find the Ursine Sword blueprint inside one of the chests in the room to the left below the stairs.
You will also find a letter called the Innkeeper’s notes and another letter, this time, an arrest warrant.
This is important because the warrant is for another Witcher, who is also mentioned in the notes, who was found at the inn, which likely led to the ruin of that inn.
Ursine Silver Sword
For this, you’re going to travel all the way up north and east of Kaer Trolde, to another old ruin.
This place is guarded by Golems, but you can bypass them by going towards the right, jumping a barrier, and looting another corpse to get the blueprint for the Silver Sword, with more context about the story.
Ursine Armor
Keep traveling towards the northeast, and eventually, you will reach Urialla Harbor.
Upon reaching, go towards the north until you come across a village by a mountain pass, and you see a tower in the distance.
Take the winding road to the right from the village towards the ruined tower/castle, and along the route, you will have to find an alternate route to the tower as the main one will be blocked.
Go along this path, jumping over ledges straight ahead and to the right, kill any enemies you encounter here, and move on.
Carry on around the steep path which will have you more or less climb the mountain, and eventually, you will slide down some rocks to get to the main path and enter the castle.
Defeat the Wraiths at the entrance and go inside the door to the right. Once you are actually indoors, go to the left until you reach the bottom of the spiral staircase that you will find.
After you reach the end, go to the right and straight down the hallway, killing the Wraith that spawns there.
Nearby, you will find a lever that opens the gate further into the castle, where you need to kill more Wraiths.
Access one of the cell doors that you just opened, and you will drop down to another cave system.
Go straight in, and then right up some stairs and then some ledges.
When you come across the wall blocking access to the rest of your route, use Aard to demolish them and access the Throne Room.
The chest that you need will be to the left of the Throne, and you finally access the Ursine Armor blueprints, as well as more letters for context.
Crafting
Crafting is a pretty straightforward process from here on out.
You find the nearest armorer and blacksmith, and they will craft you your gear. Congratulations, your effort has rewarded you with the best armor in Witcher 3!
3. Feline Armor
The Lightest Armor Set, Best for Crits
Now, not only is the Feline Armor set one of the best looking in the game as far as aesthetics and presentation are concerned, but it is also statistically the best light armor in the entire game and is capable of leveling up.
Starting with the benefits, the Feline Armor offers an increase to attack power, as well as resistance to piercing, slashing, monster, and elemental damage.
Along with that, you also get resistance to status effects such as Poisoning and Bleeding.
Wearable at Level 17, the full Feline armor set allows you to boost your attack by 20%, and then use your heavy attacks to boost your fast ones by an additional 70% for 5 seconds.
Also, your Stamina regen is at 100/s in combat and 13/s out of it, so you can simultaneously use your weapons and your Signs to dish out damage.
Feline Armor Locations
Feline Silver Sword
Once you unlock the Hanged Man’s Tree, we are going to use it as a compass. From here, go northeast until you reach the city of Oxenfurt. Then keep going northeast until you reach an Outpost called Est Taiyar.
Once you reach the location, you will see a sort of circular structure. Go inside, and you’ll find a crack in the ground that you can enter, and then use Aard to blow open a secret passage.
Past that, you will find the diagram for crafting the Feline Silver Sword on a corpse.
Feline Steel Sword
Once again using the Hanged Man’s Tree as compass, go north until you reach Drahim’s Castle, just south of Novigrad.
Go inside the abandoned castle, after you’ve dealt with the surrounding enemies of course.
Once in, you’ll find another drop down to your left and then another one to a chest that contains a journal giving some context and the diagram for the Feline Steel Sword.
Feline Crossbow
From this abandoned castle, head west until you reach the shore, and then further west until you reach a little isle.
You can see an abandoned ship over there as you swim up to it. Stop just short of the isle and enter the ship.
Downstairs, you’ll find the chest that contains some more notes and the diagram for the Feline Crossbow.
Feline Armor
For the last time, using Hanged Man’s Tree as a compass, go up north all the way to Novigrad and to the Electors’ Square inside the city, and then up until the coastline.
Go along the pathway to the right that opens up into a coast walk until you reach an archway to a cave system, with the requirement being a quest item, the Eye to unlock a secret passage, which you can get through the main quest in Velen.
After gaining access to this secret passage, enter the pathway that leads into a huge cavern.
When you come across a Golem, go left ignoring it. You’ll find a doorway that you need to enter, and then right, climbing ledges and running down hallways until you go through another doorway.
Here, you will find a puzzle that you need to solve through the various notes that you found, where all of the statues need to face the middle.
After, a secret passage will open up, which is actually a pool full of Drowners. Inside the pool is a key that you need to progress further.
Return to the cavern access where the Golem was, ignore it again, and just go left.
There will be a door that you can now unlock since you got the key from the pool puzzle.
Enter and, you will face a boss, a mad Witcher. Once you kill him, you will receive the diagrams for the Feline Armor, along with a unique relic.
Crafting
Again, pretty straightforward. Go to your favorite blacksmith and armorer and they’ll craft your brand-spanking-new Feline Armor.
Best Armor Witcher 3: Honorable Mentions
1. Wolven Armor
One of the most rounded sets in the game, the aesthetic of the Wolven armor perfectly suits Geralt, as well giving him benefits such as Adrenaline Point gain increase, and resistance to piercing, slashing, bludgeoning, monster, and elemental damage.
Three items enable you to apply more oils to your swords at one time, and all 6 items allow you to throw bombs without delay.
2. Manticore Armor
If you want an Alchemy-focused build, then the Manticore School Armor should be your go-to.
Only available in the Blood and Wine DLC expansion, the Manticore armor also does not have any leveling up options.
But what it does provide is a cap to your Toxicity, resistance to all of the damages listed above, as well as to status effects, and a crit chance bonus.
3 items allow crit chances to proc on bombs, and all 6 will allow you one more charge for each Alchemy item.
Conclusion
Weapons and armor in Witcher 3 are just extensions of your combat style, and there is something for everyone here; whether you like to stay at a distance and cast spells forever, or you like to get up close and personal to dish out damage through your heavy, strong attacks and punchy light attacks.
Craft Geralt as you want but are the best armors in Witcher 3, and the easiest Witcher 3 builds too, without tinkering further.
