I use Gadwall, Swallow, Wolf, and Rook. The toxicity bar turns red, but it lets me take all four of them. Maybe it's a bug? I was surprised that it let me do it when I tried the first time, but it's never stopped me.

As far as critical effects go, I usually stack my swords with Fire Runes that I find in game or buy from the Mysterious Merchant. I was using a poisoned Steel Sword for a while too, and the combination of poison/incineration with critical effects bonuses was pretty deadly. A lot of Silver Swords also have a base incineration bonus on them, and the runes stack on top of it.

I see i see. I'm going to try the combination myself to see if it works. I tried using 4 but the "drink" button disappears when my toxicity >100.

Come on kids, say no to drugs :)

If it doesn't work for you, I'll post a screenshot as proof (with all 4 potion timers at the top of the screen). I always add Swallow as the last one, mostly because I add them from bottom to top and Swallow is the highest of the four on the list. One thing I've noticed is that sometimes I get a green effects overlay around the edges of my screen, but it seems to only appear when I have all 4 potions active and I activate Berserk mode. It reminds me of the effects that would show in TW1 whenever your toxicity was high.

You always get the green effect overlay after you use Berserk regardless of the number of potions you imbibe. It only goes away when your potions run out (and not when Berserk runs out) though.

Edit: You are right! I can drink 4 potions no problem. Although the "Drink" button disappears, if you press Enter Geralt drinks all the potions anyway. Incidentally I found out that toxicity is actually not enforced in the game, i.e. you can have >100 toxicity no problem. For one, Geralt downed Tiara + Lapwing + Swallow (combined toxicity of 105) and all 3 went active.

I do not like the new alchemy design either mostly because i lost the second extract on an item. In TWEE white myrtle petals had to extracts vitriol and albedo and i could use either in the creation of a potion, Even cooler is that i could collect plants and parts which by ensureing that the second extract was albedo i could reduce the toxicity of the potion. Rebis, or reubedo where you could use a cat potions and get a vita;ity regen just by usning specifice extracts. This is all gone now converted into what at first glance has attached all of this to a talent tree now, boring.

Part of the enjoyment was gathering just the right components to make the special potions with the base effect and the secondary effect from the secondary extract. Also having to meditate to drink potions and then couple that with the extensive overuse of QTEs which places the player essentially on rails, also boring.

Alot of the changes to TW2 were not improvements, and as i play more and more the second time around it shows. There seems to be less reasons to spend time in TW2 doing odd ball stuff like ingredient collection, where the game seems to like a busy cafe where they want you to drink your coffee eat your danish and hurry the fuck up about it. Getem in getem out, new butts in the seats is the money, for a cafe this might be acceptable but a video game not so much.

Asai

I wonder if that means drinkings potions to get >100% toxicity is a bug then...which makes me feel kind of like I've been cheating this whole playthrough. If they patch it later, I hope they also make the green overlay for advanced toxicity rather than Berserk mode. It would make more sense, especially given that it disappears after the potions run out rather than when Berserk runs out.

I think the way it is supposed to work is a) you can't exceed 100%; b) potion toxicity decreases when you get the taster skill (otherwise the skill has very limited usefulness).

I have mixed feeling about your suggestion about the green overlay because if you drink potions a lot you will have to play half the game with a blurry screen...

It's a bug in their user interface. They only hide the button when the toxicity is exceeded, but don't check when accepting keyboard or controller input. It's an easy fix... I could do it for one of my mods even, but I'm half afraid that'd just annoy somebody who liked abusing it to no end, especially with enough people already miffed you can't drink potions during combat... If CDPR learns about it, it seems like one of those things they'd hopefully fix themselves.

But maybe with a controller the easiest way to use that panel would be to "cheat" without realising it. Actually, I could just fix it myself anyway come to think of it. Shouldn't have to be included with anything else.

I have expected so. But the extra potion slot in Taster skill would be not very useful given that only 5 potions (excluding Cat and Mongoose) have 25 toxicity. Then again, probably an intended design.

Well, if you ever feel like punishing yourself, I uploaded a fix here
http://witchernexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=136

I think Alchemy is mostly fine. I just find the Adrenaline option terribly underwhelming. Just more passive bonuses? I mean, Heliotrope or the sword tree Finisher really make a difference. E.g. if you are down to the last bit of health and the adrenaline comes on, they can really save you.
But berserker mode? Basically nothing happens. If you were in a bad position before, you are still in a bad position after. If you were in a good position before, it gets a little bit better, but not much.

Maybe if Berserker mode gave some plus to vitality, or healed Geralt by something like 25-50% it would be at least somewhat satisfying. But the way it is... Meh.


BtW: Even easier way to kill Draug: Cast Aard. Three strong attacks. Cast Aard. Three strong attacks. Cast Aard. Three strong attacks.
If vigor is depleted and the Draug not already dead (which means your build sucks), go away and recharge vigor. Do it again and enjoy the cheap win.

Alchemy itself is fine. It's the layout of the User Interface that is horrible. Consolized UI is not very friendly to PC gamers.