Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Death March Walkthrough, White Orchard. Includes Skills and Gameplay tips!

Hello and welcome!  I've mostly been focusing on builds and game mechanics in my videos to date, but I've covered a lot of the aspects and important findings that I wanted to illustrate how to this point. I still see lots of people asking about how to start the game, what approach to take with the goal of ending up with one of my builds, how to make money, and how to play Gwent. To that end I've started this series.  This is part 1 of my Witcher 3 strategies, which will show how I like to play the game and what skills I look for.  There will be separate videos for how to get ahead in Early-game Gwent, and how to make money when starting out in the game as well. When playing Death March, White Orchard is arguably one of the most difficult and important phases of the game.  How do you survive? What skills set you up well for the early portion of the game? How do you know what items to get, and how to heal? This video covers my thoughts on that.  Here are the key points: Explore White Orchard before doing anything, and kill 5 cows (no more!) and as many geese and chickens as you can.  The raw meat and Chicken legs are a great source of healing early on. Complete 'A Frying Pan, Spick and Span’ for more healing items. Get your first Place of Power.  The first PoP shown is unguarded.  This grants an ability point to get you off to a good start. Choose your first upgrade.  My choice is Griffin School Techniques for the increased stamina regeneration and Sign Intensity.  Gourmet is a good choice too, and makes recovery of Vitality much easier. Upgrade your starting armour by completing the 'Twisted Firestarter’ quest by speaking to the dwarf in the main village.  Finishing this unlocks the dwarf as an armourer, and you can upgrade your armour to the 'Warrior's Leather Jacket’. Either progress the main quest a bit, or get the Viper Serpentine sword diagrams, as shown in the video.  As long as you do this before you leave White Orchard and craft both swords, it doesn't really matter. Complete all ? Marks (Undiscovered Locations) before finishing the Griffin quest. You should complete White Orchard with all missions and side quests completed and every ‘?’ Cleared.  Healing shouldn't be a problem with the extra food and the Swallow potion. IMPORTANT:  Two skills not mentioned in the video are 'Exploding Shield' and 'Delusion’.  Either one is a fine choice, as blue skills boost stamina regeneration and make it easier to keep Quen up during combat! Mt recommendation for skills would be Griffin School Techniques, 3 points in Delusion and then either Poisoned Blades or Muscle Memory.  The options are covered in the video. Let me know your thoughts in the comments and please like & subscribe!  Part 2 to follow next week!