Well, I haven't read all the posts, but here's my two cents. Instead of 2 points on magical vigor (+2 vigor) and one point in sign damage (considering you are choosing this instead of the other two), why not add 2 points in sign damage (+1 vigor and X sign damage, sorry forgot how much), and only one point in magic vigor, that way you get +2 vigor and extra sign damage instead of just +2 vigor.

I think to beat the game 2nd time on insane without queen, it is too strong

QTEs are the horrible button prompt, hand-eye coordination minigames. Uncheck Difficult QTEs in the gameplay options menu if you detest these...

I also want to mention that I've picked up dagger throwing on both my playthroughs and I found the talent to be very useful. Daggers stagger most opponents - like Aard - and do ok damage. I rocked Letho with some daggers on hard - interupting his animation and closing in for a few hits is Super Effective.

And throwing daggers is cool... -______-

I have found the magic tree to be the way to go. I wanted to make a pure swordsman so badly, but after trying to make it happen it's obvious CDP doesn't want us to have that option:

Using riposte while fighting a group allows enemies to deal damage to you while you are performing the riposte, in which case you might as well just kill yourself.

The skill to deal damage to multiple attackers doesn't interrupt them from attacking you the way it interrupts your targeted enemy's attacks.

One of my Swordsman builds is almost exactly like that. It worked extremely well. I stacked Critical mutagens though.