The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

You are probably only going for this achievement if you are a completionist. So while it is doable on the first playthrough I suggest 'New Game Plus' to make it fast and not painful especially if you didn't play the game so far. Pick easy or normal for the first time and enjoy the game and the quests.

NG+ starts from the level you finished the game BUT you'll keep all your skills, potions, food and equipment. The "Blood and Wine" dlc has an achievement "Dressed to kill" which basically asks you to craft a grandmaster witcher gear. This gear was more than enough for me to breeze through the entire game on death march. You don't have to search for armors and weapons or grind quests. Just reset your skills and buy everything related to damage, upgrade quen and axii a little and you are set. I only had to repair my armor after a handful of quests and nothing stood in my way. Blood and Wine also gives you a few additional slots for little work. Don't forget he most important skill in the game: Gourmet (every food heals you for 20 MINUTES) - if you don't die in one hit, you are unkillable for 3 foods per hour. Here are my Gear, Weapons and skills. I finished the game on lvl 53 and only had to do maybe 3 side quests at the beginning of Novigrad, otherwise the Main Quests gave enough XP to keep up with the level reqs.

focus: damage, fast ability reset (this way you can apply quen, slash and dodge the enemy until it comes off then instantly reapply in 99% of the gameplay)

Grandmaster Feline set (lvl40): +10% fast attack damage after every strong attack, rear attacks do 50% more damage and has a good chance to stun
Armor with Retribution mastercraft rune from Hearts of Stone - if you get hit 30% chance to deal back most of the damage to the attacker (even in fistfights where you can't heal!)
Gauntlets 2x +10% Quen rune
Boots 2x +10% Axii rune
Trousers - 2x +3 health regenaration rune (don't remember the name)
Steel Sword with Replenishment mastercraft rune from Hearts of Stone (the last sign you cast is imbued into your next hit)
Silver Sword with Invigoration mastercraft rune from Hearts of Stone (if your heart is full but you have a healing effect, it turns into extra damage - very useful everywhere since you will rarely get hit with quen equipped all the time)

Feline crossbow (lvl29) didn't use except for shooting down flying enemies or underwater fights

Here are my skills. You need 60 points to build this character which is easily doable if you don't rush the story and do the dlc as well. The additional two mutagen slots need too much large red mutagen which is very rare in the game and not worth to grind dozens of hours after you did everything. Every skills is on its max level.


https://ibb.co/mPBosk
First group: Muscle Memory(R), Precise Blows(R), Whirl(R) connected with a Great Red Mutagen (+40% attack)
Second Group: Crippling Strikes(R), Strength Training(R), Crushing Blows(R) + Great Red Mutagen
Third Group: Exploding Shield(B), Delusion(B), Puppet(B) + Great Blue Mutagen
Fourth Group: Gourmet(Y), Cat School Techniques(Y), Focus(Y) + Great Red Mutagen
Mutagen +2 slots: Rend(R), Sunder Armor(R) + Bloodbath as the focused mutated skill (bought Bloodbath, Deadly Counter, Magic Sensibilities and Toxic Blood for the extra slots)

This build deals insane damage even at the end of NG+ (around lvl 80). When you face many enemies: quen, dodge in, deal damage, dodge out, quen again is the safest way to kill everything without a problem. Works for bosses as well but you have to dodge a lot more. Since you are dying in one hit against most of the high level enemies always have quen up and always have gourmet healing up (you get extra damage against monsters that way anyway). Axii - Puppet skill was a bit wonky, sometimes the traitor killed all his friends in seconds, but many times just stood there or ran around never hitting anyone.

(spoilers I guess)

As for the Ciri parts it is usually teleport in, mash damage and teleport out. Her special attack is very risky (I regularly ended up getting hit mid animation) and doesn't do that much damage. The Crones were especially painful at the end, I ended up dashing around for minutes to heal back their damage since you get hit by their crows all the time and it stops regeneration. In the end I dashed in one of them, hit her two times with a fast attack, dashed THROUGH her and hit her two times again, then dashed away. Any more and you risk getting stunlocked and killed in 3 hits.

There are four bosses I had some trouble with and had to do other than just mash:

- Imlerith: Put up quen, have some distance between you and him and start to walk in face to face. When he starts to attack dodge on his right (shield) behind him. Don't worry if you get hit, just do a strong attack, if you didn't get hit you can land two. Do this until he drops his shield. Dodge dodge dodge until his weapons get stuck, REAPPLY quen then hit him with a strong attack from behind if you can.

- Philippas fire elemental: his natural burning skin destroys quen instantly and burns you to death. Even with the feline armor you can't reapply quen fast enough to not burn to death. So you have to risk dying and AARD him ASAP (kills the flames for a while) then dodge behind him and mash away (dodge if turns around). He dies very fast that way. If the fight doesn't end in half a minute you will probably die.

- Caranthir: Annoying as hell since running after him depletes your ability meter and you can't cast quen. The solution is to apply quen all the time of course and ROLL (A) after him. It doesn't hold back your meter that much. Do not care about the elementals he summons. You can hit him 2-3 times with a fast attack.

- Eredin: he isn't that bad but you have to hit him a lot since your equipment barely deals 900+ damage now. Dodge a lot and while he visibly mashes the air away from you you can do a strong attack each time he misses. Elemental Oil gives you a bit of extra damage. Always have quen up and don't risk anything, if he stuns you you are dead.

Patch 4.00 (next-gen update) introduced many changes to the game, notably changes that somehow affects this achievement, such as changes to abilities/witcher armor/mutagens. Thats why I think previous guide is outdated and needs a new one. HOWEVER, YOU STILL HAVE TO CHOOSE DEATH MARCH! DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME AND DONT CHANGE IT AT ALL! Changing difficulty mid game will void this achievement!
Disclaimer: Im not going to mention where or how to get everything needed, only what you need and need to do to make this achievement as easy as possible.

First of all, as previously mentioned in the old guide, while its possible to do this on your first playthrough, I highly recommend doing this achievement after everything else on New Game+. You will enjoy your first playthrough much more on lower difficulty, atleast in my opinion. With this guide, you can breeze through the game without completing anything else than main quests on second playthrough.

Here is what you need from your first playthrough:
-minimum level 40
-atleast 43 ability points reserved for abilities (you can buy "Potion of Clearance" for 1000crowns to reset your already assinged points)
-atleast 4 mutations unlocked, including PIERCING COLD (you can buy "Potion of Restoration" for 1000crowns to reset points already assinged to mutations)
-make sure you unlock every place of power to get maximum ability points.
-every alchemy formula learned
-full grandmaster griffin set
-minimum level 2 runewright

Im going to show you my take on PIERCING COLD build. You can find many variations of this build anywhere on the internet, but this is what worked for me.

ABILITIES,MUTATIONS AND MUTAGENS:
-4x Greater Blue Mutagen (increase sign intensity)
-You need to unlock atleast 4 mutations, so unlock 3 cheapest ones + PIERCING COLD, which you need to activate
-From COMBAT tree you dont want to take anything, because with this build you wont be using swords at all
-From SIGNS tree you want to take everything from AARD SIGN (3points FAR-REACHING AARD, 3points AARD SWEEP, 3points AARD INTENSITY, 3points SHOCK WAVE) and everything from YRDEN SIGN (2points SUSTAINED GLYPHS, 3points MAGIC TRAP, 3points YRDEN INTENSITY, 3points SUPERCHARGED GLYPHS). You also need to unlock 1 random point in first row in this tree in order to unlock next row
-From ALCHEMY tree you want to take 3points ACQUIRED TOLERANCE, 3 random points in the first row, 3points TISSUE TRANSMUTATION, 3points ENDURE PAIN, 3points SYNERGY
-From GENERAL tree you want to take 1point GRIFFIN SCHOOL TECHNIQUES and 1point ADRENALINE BURST
-After assinging every ability make sure you have +150% combined Sign intensity from 4x greater blue mutagens.
-In later game when you unlock all mutations, you might have 2 free slots for sign abilities, you might want to use 3points DELUSION for easier dialogue options. Dont try to use abilities from other trees because you will loose sign intensity bonus from mutagens which is probably worse than any other ability remaining for this build.

POTIONS, OILS, BOMBS AND DECOCTIONS:
-IMPORTANT NOTE: Im actually quite lazy when it comes to consumables, I often forget to use them or dont want to use them, thats why I tried to make this section as simple as possible. So yea, theres probably a much better way to use consumables, however this is definitely suitable for lazy people like me.
-Since you are not going to use swords, you dont need any oils
-You probably wont have time to use bombs
-You will need to have ANCIENT LESHEN DECOCTION, EKHIDNA DECOCTION and TROLL DECOCTION on at all times! With our abilities from alchemy they should stay up for 48minutes. When they are about to expire, simply meditate for them to reset and drink them again.
-Your go to potion should be SUPERIOR PETRIS PHILTER for maximum damage. You can also use SUPERIOR SWALLOW for healing if you want, however I dont think its needed at all

GEAR:
-You need FULL GRANDMASTER GRIFFIN WITCHER GEAR with 6/6 BONUS
-For swords you want 6x GREATER VELES RUNESTONE (+5% Sign intensity)
-For chest you want ENTANGLEMENT runewright (when yrden trap=alternate yrden sign hit an enemy it spawns yrden glyph=normal yrden sign at that position)
-For the rest of your gear you want a combination of 6x GREATER GLYPH OF AARD/YRDEN. I personally went with 4x AARD and 2x YRDEN, but its okay to go even 6x AARD.
-Crossbow doesnt matter, I dont think I even used crossbow on second (death march!) playthrough since aard reach quite far.

ROTATION AND TIPS:
-If you can, put down YRDEN TRAP (yrden alternate) by holding RT, which has about 2 second cast time. Either put down YRDEN GLYPH (yrden normal) by pressing RT or run to one spawned by your entanglement runewright. You are always required to stand in YRDEN GLYPH because of 6/6 bonus from griffin set. After that, switch to AARD and just spam that button, you can use both alternate and normal aard sign.
-Many enemies will just instantly die and shatter from you piercing blood mutation, many will just freeze or get knocked. But even if enemy cant be CCed, you will deal insane damage.
-If enemy is knocked and laying on the ground, just walk up to him and stab him pressing X button, killing him instantly
-While standing in YRDEN GLYPH, you should be immune to projectiles such as arrows
-You should have about 10k+ vitality and heal quite a lot while all decoctions are used, but dont forget, some enemies, especially late bosses on death march hit very hard so dont forget to dodge stuff!
-Speaking of bosses, I think all of them are immune to CC from AARD, however it still deals lots of damage and they should die quite fast, even last boss.
-
-YRDEN also deals quite a lot of damage when enemies stands there so keep that in mind! You will probably knock them out of yrden pretty fast, however its quite useful on bosses

Thats basically it. As for the run, you dont need to do any side quest or unknown locations, you can just speedrun main quest without needing to change gear or level up.
If you have any suggestions please let me know! Good luck!