How to Use Adrenaline in The Witcher 3:

The Witcher’s, Geralt of Rivia, is a skilled fighter. However, when you’re in the game’s early stages, he barely has any skills and abilities, making simple combat challenging. Some of the powers you should focus on unlocking are the ones that utilize Adrenaline Points. Not only are they fantastic to have, but they can also give you an edge in tough fights.

With Adrenaline, you can deal a lot more damage than before, and it’s even possible to cheat death. Along with spending points on Adrenaline-based skills, you should also learn the best ways to get Adrenaline. Don’t worry; we’ll cover all these things in this article so you can bring out Geralt’s best on the battlefield.

What Does Adrenaline do in The Witcher 3?

Adrenaline is a battle resource that can turn the tide in combat. In Witcher 3, you build up Geralt’s Adrenaline levels when in situations that increase his heart rate. When he’s in combat, filling up the Adrenaline bar before spending it can get him, and you, out of challenging situations.

The Adrenaline bar is located at the top-left corner of the screen. It’s blood-red, below Geralt’s HP bar. When you fill-up the bar, it slowly traces a quarter circle.

One of the most challenging parts of adding Adrenaline to your battle strategy is getting it and keeping it topped off. To get Adrenaline, you need to hit enemies. When you’re not hitting any foes, the Adrenaline bar will slowly deplete. To regain the Adrenaline lost, you have to find more enemies to battle.

You spend some Adrenaline on specific abilities, while other abilities help you gain more in battle. In addition, having Adrenaline increases the chance of you instantly slaying an opponent.

Battle Trance is a core ability that stays active in battle. When you’re in combat, the more Adrenaline points you amass, the more damage you can dole out. For every Adrenaline Point, you get an additional 10% damage.

Every time you kill a foe, time slows down for you. If you have at least three Adrenaline Points during this short period, your actions won’t deplete stamina. If not, you won’t be able to take advantage of this bonus.

As the skills you use in battle differ from skill tree perks, you may have to “respec” or reset your skill trees to gain access to all skills.

Now that you know what Adrenaline is, you can proceed to learn how to use it.

The Witcher 3: How to Use Adrenaline?

There isn’t a single way to use Adrenaline since many skills consume it upon using them. Because of this, we’ll list out the essential abilities that require Adrenaline to use. Most of these abilities are Combat abilities, but some General abilities and Signs are related to Adrenaline use.

Here are the abilities that require Adrenaline to cast or activate:

• Whirl

Whirl is a continuous spinning attack that hits enemies within range. It’s excellent for crowd control as it can hit multiple targets simultaneously. After spending 20 Ability Points, you can unlock it.

To maintain a continuous Whirl, you have to spend both stamina and Adrenaline. Using Whirl also grants you a 1% Adrenaline Point gain increase.

• Rend

This two-handed sword chop requires both stamina and Adrenaline. The more Adrenaline Points you have, the more damage Rend deals. By holding down both heavy attack buttons, you can activate this particular attack.

Rend ignores all enemy defenses and increases your critical hit chance by 10%. Every Adrenaline Point will increase total damage by 33%.

• Deadly Precision

Deadly Precision is the skill we mentioned earlier that increases your chances of triggering an instant kill. Every Adrenaline Point you gain increases the probability by 1%. The skill also grants you a 1% Adrenaline Point gain increase.

• Battle Trance

Battle Trance is a core ability that lets you gain Adrenaline in the first place. It’s always active, and for every Adrenaline Point, you get a 10% weapon damage boost.

• Undying

If your Vitality, or health, is completely depleted, you’ll instantly come back to life if you have at least one Adrenaline Point. Contrary to its description, having no points means no health restoration, as the developers either forgot to update it or the ability is bugged.

The more Adrenaline Points you have, the more Vitality you get back. It’s more useful when Undying is the only Adrenaline-consuming ability active. However, having other abilities doesn’t mean Undying is made useless.

Once Undying triggers, you need to wait for 30 seconds before you can use it again. While it’s cooling down, not even a full Adrenaline bar can save you from fatal damage.

Unlocking Undying will also increase your Adrenaline Point gain by 1%.

• Flood of Anger

Flood of Anger is a unique ability that allows you to spend Adrenaline Points to cast signs. If you have at least three Adrenaline Points, the Sign you choose to cast will be stronger than usual. The Adrenaline Points unlock all the Sign’s bonuses and increase the intensity by 25%.

You get a 1% boost in Adrenaline Point gain while fighting if you unlock this ability.

• Metabolism Boosts

With this ability, you can spend Adrenaline Points to reduce Toxicity levels after drinking potions. Every Point reduces Toxicity by 33%. The ability doesn’t affect mutagen decoctions, however.

• Hunter Instinct

Hunter Instinct is a Sign, which grants you a 20% boost in critical damage against any targeted enemy type. The prerequisite is that you have to fill up the entire Adrenaline bar. It doesn’t consume Adrenaline to activate but is a bonus and incentive for getting more Adrenaline.

• Battle Frenzy

This ability replaces Battle Trance. With Battle Frenzy, every Adrenaline Point increases your critical hit chance by 8%. You don’t consume any Adrenaline for Battle Frenzy to take effect, as it’s a passive ability.

These skills are highly beneficial for Geralt when fighting, so we recommend that you unlock them as soon as possible. Some are unlocked by default, and those you won’t have to worry about acquiring.

How to Get More Adrenaline in Battle

All Combat Abilities grant you a boost in Adrenaline Point gain. As you may have noticed in the section above, some of the abilities give you a 1% boost. However, there are a few more abilities that offer better rates.

The abilities that give you higher Adrenaline Point gain rates are:

• Muscle Memory

Muscle Memory increases Fast Attack’s damage output by 25% when upgraded to Level Five. For every level you upgrade, your Adrenaline Boost also increases by 1%. When maxed out, you get a 5% Adrenaline gain boost.

• Precise Blows

Similar to Muscle Memory, Precise Blows also improves upon Fast Attack. However, it boosts critical hit chance and critical damage by 10% and 75%, respectively. When you upgrade it to Level Five, the boost will rise to 5%.

• Strength Training

This Combat Ability gives Strong Attacks 25% more damage when upgraded to Level Five. The maximum Adrenaline Point boost rate is 5%.

• Crushing Blows

Crushing Blows is the equivalent of Precise Blows for Strong Attacks. It gives the same amount of boosts in both critical hit chance and critical damage. The boost is also 5% when raised to Level Five.

• Fleet Footed

When you dodge hits, you can completely negate all incoming damage, but only when you get Fleet Footed to Level Five. Before it, you only get reduced damage. The Adrenaline Point gain becomes 5% after maxing out the Ability.

• Lightning Reflexes

When aiming down the sights with a crossbow, time slows down by 45% more after Lightning Reflexes reach Level Three. The boost is therefore only 3%, as this ability only has three levels.

• Attack is the Best Defense

By unlocking this ability, defensive actions generate Adrenaline Points. Parries give you 0.1 Points, Counterattacks generate 0.4, dodging attacks 0.3, and rolling away from danger will provide you with 0.2 points. This ability can only activate once every five seconds, even if you perform multiple maneuvers during this time.

• Advanced Pyrotechnics

When a bomb explodes and hits, you get 0.1 Adrenaline Points.

Items That Give You More Adrenaline

There are many items in The Witcher 3 that give you Adrenaline Point boosts as well, but you’ll have to equip these items for their bonuses to take effect. These items can be weapons, clothing, or armor.

Equipping special items can help you regenerate Adrenaline faster, but sometimes it’s a trade-off. The Adrenaline-boosting items may not be the strongest in your inventory.

There are too many items to list here, but you can find a complete list on the official wiki page.

Additional FAQs

How does adrenaline work in The Witcher 3?

Adrenaline works as a battle currency you exchange for greater damage, higher critical hit chance, and even resurrection from death, among many other effects. You have to deal damage with your attacks to earn Adrenaline Points. Unlocking abilities can provide exponential boosts to the amount of Adrenaline you earn per attack.

Just remember when you’re not in combat, the Adrenaline bar slowly depletes. The only way to maintain the bar is to keep fighting.

What abilities use adrenaline in The Witcher 3?

The abilities that require you to expend Adrenaline Points are:

• Whirl

• Rend

• Undying

• Flood of Anger

• Metabolism Boosts

Battle Frenzy, Hunter Instinct, Deadly Precision, and Battle Trance require Adrenaline to activate but don’t consume any Adrenaline Points.

Whip Up a Killing Frenzy

Geralt of Rivia already boasts impressive fighting abilities, but with the help of Adrenaline Points and the powers that use them, he becomes terrifying. Gaining Adrenaline is as simple as getting into a fight. The more you fight, the more you can spend. These abilities are so powerful that they can enable insta-kills or resurrection – if you spec him properly.

How many abilities have you unlocked for Geralt? What do you think about the Adrenaline system? Let us know in the comments section below.