First playthrough this, on hard. Figured what the hell, why not?

Been going the Magic route, beefing up my signs all the way with only a few stray points in Swordsmanship (like the 200% roll). The thing is it seems to me that in many of the major boss fights my signs either don't do shit or not enough by a long shot. Leaving me to rely on Quen and my inferior swordfighting skills.

Now, regular cannon fodder enemies die reasonably confy but as soon as I stumble upon enemies like the Draug, Golem in chp II or the dragon - where I'm currently stuck - it feels like I spent the last 23 or so levels dumping points into a talent tree that makes just about zero difference. Save for gear and some extra vitality I could just as well be lv 8 Geralt fighting a dragon.

Am I doing it wrong? Or is this what I get for thinking the Sign spec was a good idea?

I found Quen to be ridiculously overpowered, with that none of the other talents made a difference.

Better swords with better rune stones made the difference against the tougher opponents, even the Dragon at the end went down very quickly with the strong attack using the silver sword which dealt between 40-60 points of damage and I put very little into the swordsmanship talent tree.

Bombs, oils and potions really helped out a lot as well with the tougher opponents.

I should've mentioned that perhaps but yeah, relying on the Quen sign is just about all I do. My beef is that the rest of the tree offers just about nothing in these kinds of fights. Forcing you to rely on your trusty sword. I'd hoped that fights would leave room for different tactics depending on your choosen specialisation.

Heliotrope* slowed down some bosses for me, but you really have to be damn well equipped, the Cadern* sword for someone like Letho & Adden Deith (Found in a magic room chest that must be unlocked with memorizing sign orders from buying books, I'm pretty sure) once those two are powered up your lacking Swordsman skills will not be as big a deal.

*Not certain of spelling of those two, one slows ALL enemies down when powered up. The other has to be crafted by the guy in Chap 3 I'm pretty sure it's close to the end of the chapter though, I barely got both before they were of the best use but man did they all help with a solid mage build.

Until then I have to say building up them all can still have good advantages. Smacking with Aard just as they come at you, locking them in place with Yrden when they come forward from that (& make sure to put points in the damage add on from it), Quen goes up as soon as they land the first hit &/or I roll away, the only one that won't help on bosses we know to not waste points on. For large groups you've got to have all your Yrden traps link together with one of the last in the chain, but trust me it's worth it, & is much easier to keep the tempo unstopped once Helio is up.

It may not be the easiest path but, well thought out use in strategical application can be just as deadly if not more so when used so effectively.

I wouldn't say that signs are crap per se, it's just that due to the nature of encounters, there are far more situational than sword usage, Quen nonwithstanding. The real reason someone would want to go down the magic path, is actually Heliotrope. After all, you can always craft the best weapons and armor almost right off the bat, if you keep mats around and don't mind spending some time grinding for orens.

Hmm well, at least I got a few things to think about though I think the only thing I can do about the dragon is to load an earlier save and go find a bigger sword.

I rolled mage first time and it certainly made life more difficult than swords. (I spent a few too many in swords on that run, in retrospect, too.)

You make a very good point versus big baddies. The tend to have high health and resist. However, except for one, they are all partially susceptible to one or two signs, provided you have powered up enough. Just one point in Throwing Daggers makes some of them much easier too. Daggers do an almost unfair amount damage to even the toughest hides. (They are like a missile finding soft spots. And even the low level ones to minimum 30dmg.) Yeah, the dragon is the immune one. :-P

Personally, I had a lot of fun playing it on the magic path.
Midway act 2 and onward - could really do most fights with just signs.
Took down the dragon with just ignis pretty fast as well (kinda funny that it worked - killing a dragon with fire).
How is your gear tho? I presume you did get all the gear/mutagens/trophy that adds sign damage/vigor?

Igni is quite something especially when combined with Dragon Dreams & it's been powered up with the AOE effect + incineration bonuses.

One more thing, to "disgustling" make sure you have something around Draug armor fully beefed up with Diamond enhancements/Dwarven & if at all possible Magic Wraps! There is even a better armor called "Ys" (Probably a fan pat from the game series) which I found around the end of Chapter 3, all this will help tremendously.

Thank you for disabusing me of that misconception! I didn't have much trouble with it, but I never even cast Igni at it. LOL.

Kill it with fire eh? Well it's a standard solution to just about every problem. I'll have to try that!

You complain? I put my skill points in alchemy, and I can't use potion before Draug fight. That means no buff from potions, no adrenaline. All my skillpoints seams to be just wasted.
And who's brilliant idea was not to auto/quick save before this fight. Now I do incredebly annoying fight being stuck in guy who cannot dodge, use signs and bombs, can block 2 blows but fights 3 and 4 guys at once over and over again. Cuz Draug puts me down in like 2 blows.

I feel you on that one, don't know how many times I had to run through that shit to get to the Draug. At least I had a decent Quen sign in that fight (not that any of the other signs seemed to do much). Getting Quen maxed out seems almost mandatory no matter what specialisation you're choosing. In the end I ended up using only Quen and dodge roll hacky hacky.

No save prior to the Draug ranks quite high on the list of bullshit in tW2, that's for sure.

Do that.

The sword tree doesn't actually improve your sword damage by a drastic amount. If you aren't dealing any real damage to the dragon, you need a better sword (ie: the fact that you went heavy signs shouldn't stop you here).

My first time fighting the dragon, I hadn't upgraded my sword and it was a 25 damage silver sword. Let's just say that the only time I dealt any damage was when I crit with that piece of junk. :p It was a really, really, long fight.

buy better swords. Max out yardin and quen. Also attack golem from the back. When it rushes at you, dodge and then attach his back