The Witcher 3 Grandmaster Gear Guide: Scavenger Hunts and Crafting Costs

Grandmaster gear sits at the very top of The Witcher 3's equipment pile. It's Blood and Wine content, it only comes from Toussaint, and every one of the five witcher schools has a full kit waiting: chest armor, gauntlets, boots, trousers, and both swords. The catch is that none of it drops anywhere. You track down the diagrams yourself, hand them to the one smith in the game who can read them, and then pay a small fortune in materials. Do that and you get set bonuses at three and six pieces, which nothing else in the game offers.

Starting the Toussaint Hunts

Everything starts with one man: Lazare Lafargue. His workshop sits in Hauteville, the fancy part of Beauclair, just east of Dupont & Sons. Grabbing the notice called Contract: Grandmaster Armorer off the Beauclair notice board will mark him for you, but you can skip that and walk straight in.

Talk to him about the contract and he'll lay out the deal. Scattered around Toussaint are the lost diagrams for five grandmaster sets, one per school: Cat, Bear, Griffin, Wolf, and Manticore. To get the hunts going, ask him about each of the five vanished witchers. Every one of those conversations unlocks that school's treasure hunt, and all five quests are rated level 40.

The catch

Here's the part people miss. Lafargue can't craft at grandmaster level yet. Handing him one complete set of diagrams, all six pieces from a single school, is what finishes the quest Master Master Master Master!. He ranks up, you pocket 150 XP and 500 crowns, and grandmaster crafting finally shows up in his menu. Until that first set is in his hands, nothing top-tier is orderable.

So the flow is simple: pick a school, grab its six diagrams, come back, then shop. You never need all five schools. Plenty of players collect one set, get it made, and leave the other hunts for later. The Wolven hunt is the only one you can also start on site, by finding the archaeologists' journal out at the Termes Palace Ruins, but starting from Lafargue keeps the quest log tidy.

Finding School Diagrams

Each hunt is a short chain of locations, and every stop hands you a note or journal that points at the next one. Six diagrams per school: steel sword, silver sword, armor, gauntlets, boots, and trousers. Fair warning, two of these trails run straight through Hanse bases, the big bandit camps tied to Knight for Hire.

Feline (Cat)

Start at Villa Vedette, one of the northernmost points on the map. The front door's locked, so climb the scaffolding on the right and drop into the courtyard, where bandits are holding a merchant captive. Free him, then check the small red house on the north side of the courtyard and interact with the painting there for the armor diagram. His letter sends you to the Arthach Palace Ruins, a Hanse base holding 15 to 20 bandits plus dogs. Take out the fire runner before he lights the signal, or you can end up fighting the better part of 40 once reinforcements pour in. The chest near the signal fire holds the boots and trousers. The last stop is the Pits of Brume, a guarded cave northwest of the Trading Post where two archespores like to corner you. Look for the campfire nook in the dark corner: both swords and the gauntlets are in the container beside it.

Griffin

Fort Ussar Ruins first. On the eastern side of the ruins, under a set of stairs, there's a half-hidden crate with the steel sword, gauntlets, and boots inside, plus Captain Augustus Fierabras' report. The report points to Mont Crane Castle, another Hanse base with roughly 20 bandits. Same trick here: freezing the fire runner with a Northern Wind bomb is the easy answer. Inside the castle you'll need the Eye of Nehaleni to dispel an illusion, then grab the power crystal in the hidden workshop, hit the button the wall conceals, slot the crystal by the portal, and charge it with Aard. A golem jumps you the moment you step through. Past that, the trousers are in a sack on a chair, the armor's in a tiny box on a shelf near the stove, and the silver sword is on a table.

Ursine (Bear)

Head for the half-collapsed house sitting between Flovive and the Tufo Vineyard. Blast the rubble off the hole in the backyard with Aard, and the chest just inside on the right holds the silver sword, armor, and gauntlets. The journal found there points north to the Owl Eye Grottos. That cave system has giant centipedes, a rock wall you can blow open, and painted marks on the stone to follow the rest of the way. The skeleton in the final room carries the trousers, steel sword, and boots. Handy overlap: it's the same cave you crawl through for Contract: The Tufo Monster, so doing both in one trip saves a ride.

Wolven (Wolf)

The whole trail lives in the Termes Palace Ruins over in the Caroberta Woods. A casket at the archeologists' camp near the signpost holds Isabelle Duchamp's journal and starts the chase. Heading north through the ruins you'll pick up a purple ruby and a letter sitting outside the entrance; the ruby drops the barrier blocking the way in. Past that it's wraiths and barghests, a couple of Aard-shaped holes in walls, and a giant centipede. Three diagrams sit on a dead witcher's remains in a dead-end room, and the other three are in his bag one room over, next to the old elven key that lets you out the front door.

Manticore

This one's a five-stop pilgrimage following a witcher named Merten as he found religion. Bastoy Prison Ruins first: climb the standing tower, loot the loose brick near the entryway, and pocket the steel sword. Second is the cave southeast of Gélenser Farm, with a panther usually lurking outside; Merten's prayer note on the far wall carries the armor diagram. Third is Lebioda's temple near the Prophet Lebioda Statue, where an Aard to the back wall reveals a hidden room, a specter called the Great Beggar's Ghost, and the trousers and boots. Fourth is Murky Delve, a swim-in cave with hallucination mist, optional bruxae, kikimore workers, and five beggar apparitions who each want 10 crowns of alms (there's loose coin in the cave if you're short). The silver sword waits near the praying figure at the end. Last, swim out to the middle of the Lake of Cleansing, just off the pier, and fish up the gauntlets.

Mastercrafted Gear Prerequisites

Here's the gotcha that catches almost everyone on a first playthrough. A grandmaster piece doesn't just need fancy materials; it literally lists the mastercrafted version of that piece as a crafting component. Grandmaster Feline armor, for example, takes one Mastercrafted Feline armor as an ingredient, and the swords work the same way. Since each mastercrafted piece needs the superior one, and so on down the ladder, you really need a school's entire diagram chain, base set through mastercrafted, before the top tier is possible.

The good news is the smith handles the nesting for you. Carry all the diagrams in the chain plus the raw materials, and Lafargue builds the lower tiers as steps inside the same order. You don't have to pre-craft four rounds of gear by hand. The bad news is all those tiers add their own materials and fees, which is a big chunk of why a finished set stings so much.

If you'd rather do the mastercrafted step back in the base game, Yoana in Oxenfurt (after Master Armorers) covers armor and Hattori in Novigrad (after Of Swords and Dumplings) covers swords. Master rank is all the lower tiers ask for, so either one works.

The Manticore exception

Manticore gear is the odd one out. It has no lower tiers at all, no base or mastercrafted anything, so those six diagrams are all you need. The set doesn't even carry the word grandmaster in its item names, even though it's grandmaster level in every way that counts.

Level and New Game Plus

Every grandmaster piece asks for level 40 to equip, swords and armor alike. The chest pieces all list 240 base armor on the wiki, whether they're light (Feline), medium (Griffin, Wolven, Manticore), or heavy (Ursine). What actually separates them is the resistance spread, the weight, and the set bonus. In New Game Plus, each school gets a legendary grandmaster version with the same look, bigger numbers, and the same set bonuses.

Materials and Grandmaster Smith

Once he ranks up, Lafargue is the only grandmaster armorer and blacksmith in the game, and one shop window handles both your weapons and your armor. He stocks crafting materials and armor but no swords, so bring your own steel if you want something to compare against.

What a set eats

For any of the four classic schools, the headline materials are identical:

| Material | Amount per full set | |---|---| | Infused slyzard hide | 5 | | Enriched dimeritium plate | 4 | | Enriched dimeritium ingot | 5 | | Enriched dimeritium ore (if crafting from scratch) | 26 |

That 26 breaks down cleanly. Each plate costs two ingots and each ingot costs two ore, so four plates plus five loose ingots works out to 26 ore. On top of the big three you'll burn leather scraps, a gem or two (sapphires for Feline, rubies for Wolven), and a spread of monster parts like hearts, livers, brains, and saliva that varies by school.

What it costs

The wallet damage depends almost entirely on how you source those headline materials. Buy them ready-made at Lafargue's prices and the materials alone run about 34,000 crowns per set. Craft them from components instead and the community wiki's own tip page puts the bill at roughly 10,000 to 15,000. That's around a 20,000 crown swing for some menu work, easily worth it.

The chains are short:

• Infused slyzard hide comes from cured draconid leather plus an infused crystal
• Enriched dimeritium ore comes from dimeritium ore plus orichalcum ore plus acid extract
• Ingots and plates stack up from the ore in twos

Players who've priced his shop out report roughly 782 crowns to buy an infused hide versus about 132 in parts, and around 4,573 for an enriched plate versus about 448 crafted. The ore route is where the real savings live. For acid extract, dismantle kikimore discharge or giant centipede bits, which you'll be swimming in after the Ursine and Wolven hunts anyway. Orichalcum traces back to green gold, which itself crafts from gold, silver, and copper ores.

There's labor on top. With every material already in your pockets, community-measured crafting fees land somewhere around 8,000 to 11,000 for a classic set. Worst case, buying literally everything at his prices, one set can push into the mid-40,000s. Manticore gets a pass again: no mastercrafted chain, regular dimeritium plates instead of enriched ones, roughly 4,500 in fees, and a fraction of the material cost.

Short on coin? The Hanse bases you're already clearing for the Feline and Griffin diagrams are the same camps that pay out big in Knight for Hire. Clear them properly while you're standing there.

Choosing a Set for Your Build

Each school's bonus kicks in at three pieces and again at six, and those bonuses are the real reason to commit to a full kit. Here's the current spread, patched as of the 4.x updates:

| School | 3-piece bonus | 6-piece bonus | |---|---|---| | Feline | Strong attacks boost fast attack damage 10% per piece for 5 seconds | Rear attacks deal 50% more damage and stun, for 1 Adrenaline Point | | Griffin | After any Stamina sign cast, the next sign within 3 seconds is free | Yrden traps grow 40%; inside them you get +5/s stamina regen, +100% sign intensity, and 20% less damage taken | | Ursine | A shattered Quen shield may recast for free, +5% chance per piece | Quen ability damage goes up 200% | | Wolven | Each bleeding effect on an enemy raises sword damage 1% per piece | Each Adrenaline Point lets you stack more bleed effects on one enemy | | Manticore | Crit chance and crit damage also apply to bombs, and bombs throw with no delay | Every alchemy item gets one extra charge |

Feline

Light armor for the fast-attack crowd. The three-piece bonus rewards weaving strong attacks into your light combos, and the six-piece turns backstabs into stuns, which is quietly brutal once you get in the habit of rolling behind things. If you run Cat School Techniques and a crit-heavy melee build, this is your endpoint.

Griffin

The sign user's set. Free chained casts means you can spam standard-mode signs without watching the stamina bar, and the six-piece turns a big Yrden into your personal fortress: doubled sign intensity, faster stamina, and a damage cut just for standing in it. Aard and Igni builds love this thing.

Ursine

Heavy armor, heavy hits, heavy protection. The three-piece keeps a fresh Quen coming when the old one pops, and the six-piece cranks Quen ability damage by 200%, which makes traits like the exploding shield hit like a truck. If you like facetanking and trading hits, the Bear kit is built for exactly that.

Wolven

The generalist's medium armor that became a bleed machine. Older guides will tell you the three-piece bonus lets you stack three oils on one sword; that was swapped out in patch 4.0 for the bleeding damage bonus you see now, so trust the in-game text over anything pre-next-gen. Good middle ground if you split your time between swords and signs, and the strongest pick if your build already leans on rend and bleed.

Manticore

Alchemy's answer to endgame armor. Bombs inheriting your crit stats plus one extra charge on every potion and bomb is a lot of extra output for a toxicity build, and the armor itself adds maximum toxicity. It's also the cheapest set to make by a mile. If you're hoarding crowns for vineyard renovations, start here.

So which one first? Whatever matches your build, since the first complete set is what unlocks Lafargue anyway and the other hunts keep. You can also split the difference: three pieces from one school and three from another triggers both three-piece bonuses, at the cost of either six-piece. That hybrid route is common for sign-melee builds that want Griffin casting plus Feline damage.

One last nudge toward doing the math before you order. At Lafargue's shelf prices a single enriched dimeritium plate runs about 4,500 crowns, and a classic set needs four of them. Build the ore chain yourself and the whole project stops being scary.