Does vitality regeneration stack?

Question

Regenerating health on "Death March" difficulty can take a while if you have a rather big health pool and no perk to regenerate health (e.g. using Quen).

Apart from potions I use food to regenerate health. However, it can take quite a long time if I have to eat Dried Fruit And Nuts 5 times. I eat one, wait 5 seconds, open the inventory again (or use the quick slot) and wait 5 more seconds.

Therefore I'd like to know if vitality regeneration stacks by eating multiple foods.

For example (numbers not accurate):

• I eat 1 "Dried Fruit and Nuts"
  • 100 vitality restored over 5 seconds.
• I eat 2 "Dried Fruit and Nuts" then leave the inventory screen. What is the outcome?
  1. Regenerate 100 vitality over 5 seconds.
  2. Regenerate 200 vitality over 5 seconds.

Which way does it work? Assuming it works like 1. I would have to keep opening the menu, eating 1 piece of food, opening the menu again and eat the next. I don't like placing food in my two quick slots because I usually save those slots for my most important potions.

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Edit 1:

After having a look at the question to which this question is flagged as a duplicate I concluded that there are contradictions on how the stacking works.

Two theories that need proof (proven in Edit 2):

1. Vitality regeneration does stack, no matter what you eat/drink.
2. Vitality regeneration only stacks if the foods consumed are not of the same type (e.g. 2 x Nuts do not stack, but 1 x cow milk + 1 x nuts will stack).

I will test this when I get home looking at the numbers (vitality information on the inventory screen).

Right now, everything points to theory 2 since theory 1 would make you invincible for a short time if you stuff 20 roasted chickens down Geralt's throat.

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Edit 2:

I can confirm theory 2.

Eating one raw meat regenerated 508 hp over 5 seconds.

Eating one raw meat and one cow's milk added two regeneration indicators to the UI and regenerating 1432 hp over 30 seconds. The timer for raw meat ran 5 seconds while the cow's milk timer ran 30 seconds.

This also confirms that different foods have different intensities of regeneration. While raw meat regenerates 508 hp over 5 seconds, cow's milk regenerated 924 hp over 30 seconds.

Oddly, drinking cow's milk without eating at the same time regenerated 931 hp.

• Raw meat: 508 hp
• Cow's milk: 931 hp
• 1 x raw meat + 1 x cow's milk: 1432 hp (instead of predicted 508 + 931 = 1439 hp)

I did the tests at level 30.

Answer 1

Well, Yes and No.

There are 3 different types of "food": Eatable, Drinkable and Potion. These stack with each other. So you can drink Cow Milk and eat Nuts and these effects will stack. If you eat 1 Nut and then 1 raw meat, the remaining healing effect of the nut will vanish. Otherwise it would be way to easy since you could eat 20 Nuts and were unkillable for 5 seconds.