I haven't headed to next-gen Skellige yet but might do so when I next jump into the game.It kinda feels like the perfect time of year to visit an Ice-clad Irish/Viking land of snow and trolls.

I did the quest for Hattori the Elven swordsmith to open up his merchant shop and get some better blades than the lv 30 ones the game gives you when you start Hearts of Stone.I was happy to see the steel blade has 3 runestone slots and the damage scales with the player's level.

I was curious if all loot scales to your current level so I took the lv 25 Witcher contract to kill the Leshen near the lumberyard.It reward a lv 27 Steel sword which is still pretty useful at lv 32.

This makes me think heading out to Skillige for exp ,loot and alchemy resources might be a good idea before taking on the full Hearts of Stone questline which is still totally new to me.