The Witcher 2 Catch-All

Blind_Evil wrote:

Quen or not, Queen Endregas would two shot me. It wears off if you're hit hard enough once, right?

I started using the paralysis trap rune and getting behind them, that did the trick.

Yup. Traps are the key to those guys' demise. It's still tough to roll out of the way when they recover but not impossible. That's the nice thing about this game. It might seem impossible, but there's usually a tricky way to easily kill something.

The "tricky" way that works on nearly everything (it's a specific item that you may want to figure out for yourself because it makes almost all the hard combat way easier):

Spoiler:

Build 20 or 30 grapeshot bombs and spam those when you get into a tough situation.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Spoiler:

Build 20 or 30 grapeshot bombs and spam those when you get into a tough situation.

Or you can not do that, and DODGE LIKE A MAN

Hyetal wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Spoiler:

Build 20 or 30 grapeshot bombs and spam those when you get into a tough situation.

Or you can not do that, and DODGE LIKE A MAN

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

The easiest combat style is to always use Quen. That beginning is brutal if you don't use it because you haven't leveled up hardly anything. That can get you through just about anything.

This man speaks truth. Abuse the hell out of quen and the game instantly becomes EZ mode. On my first play through i died something like 50 times in that courtyard alone on medium, maybe easy, difficulty (they didn't tell me i could change spells from igni) second playthrough i didn't die once in the entire first chapter while on hard. Quen and then Yrden (once i'd whitled things down to just the knight and the shield bearer) was the difference.

Also dodge don't parry, parrying uses vigor and you sorely need that, it also takes some life away. And frankly, baring specialized monsters, i've never seen the need to use heavy attack. And if you're very new at this just remember that by far the most important thing in any battle is to prepare for it. Any time it looks like a cut scene or a mission is approaching take some swallow, some wolf and some whirlwind (i think thats the right combination) and tear sh*t up like you're the goddamn Butcher of Blaviken.

Pick up a load of snare traps from the forest and put them in a pile in the arena you fight in before you summon the queen. Being a successful witcher is about preparation.

Scratched wrote:

Pick up a load of snare traps from the forest and put them in a pile in the arena you fight in before you summon the queen. Being a successful witcher is about preparation.

Tried that, didn't work out very well. She charged over them, and while it did damage, trying to dodge and then herd her over them was more hassle than it was worth. The paralysis sign did much better for me.

Do you ever get a shield? I played the hell out of Dark Souls and would feel much more secure if I could somewhat emulate my strategy from that game.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Do you ever get a shield? I played the hell out of Dark Souls and would feel much more secure if I could somewhat emulate my strategy from that game.

Na, there isn't a shield. Quen is basically a super magic shield, though, because you can still attack while it's activated. Once you level it up a bit, it can even stun and damage enemies that land a blow on you. It can be worth beefing that up a bit when you have some points to spend if you want to go that route.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Do you ever get a shield? I played the hell out of Dark Souls and would feel much more secure if I could somewhat emulate my strategy from that game.

To further Scratched's attempt at lorefying this thread: Sadly, no. A witcher is all about super agile sword fighting, something a shield would probably hinder.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Na, there isn't a shield. Quen is basically a super magic shield, though, because you can still attack while it's activated. Once you level it up a bit, it can even stun and damage enemies that land a blow on you. It can be worth beefing that up a bit when you have some points to spend if you want to go that route.

It's worth noting that they seriously nerfed Quen with the 360 release/EE patch. It's still useful, but nowhere near as awesome it was before.

Hyetal wrote:

It's worth noting that they seriously nerfed Quen with the 360 release/EE patch. It's still useful, but nowhere near as awesome it was before.

I was wondering... I haven't seen it do half the work tuffalo has advertised.

Agile swordplay, though, yeah. Light attacks and plenty of dodging seem to do the trick if I can get human enemies separated enough.

Damn. My current magic build (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 through) really relied on Quen. Maybe they boosted some of the other magic stuff.

I just watched GameTrailer's review and they said that you can't access the new Chapter 3 content with an old save. Anyone know if that's true? I was almost done with Chapter 1 on my dark mode playthrough from pre-patch :X

kyrieee wrote:

I just watched GameTrailer's review and they said that you can't access the new Chapter 3 content with an old save. Anyone know if that's true? I was almost done with Chapter 1 on my dark mode playthrough from pre-patch :X

Eeek! I'm going to have to look into that. I will definitely be starting over if that is the case.

Hyetal wrote:

It's worth noting that they seriously nerfed Quen with the 360 release/EE patch. It's still useful, but nowhere near as awesome it was before.

Goddamn it.

To be honest it really shouldn't matter too much. Quen is a precaution, you dodge to keep yourself alive and get into position, if you rely on Quen to just tank any attack your screwed anyway. With Quen and good timing you basically have infinite life.

The Bloody Nine wrote:
Hyetal wrote:

It's worth noting that they seriously nerfed Quen with the 360 release/EE patch. It's still useful, but nowhere near as awesome it was before.

Goddamn it.

To be honest it really shouldn't matter too much. Quen is a precaution, you dodge to keep yourself alive and get into position, if you rely on Quen to just tank any attack your screwed anyway. With Quen and good timing you basically have infinite life.

I was checking all the patch notes to figure out what they did. Looks like you can only take a couple hits now. It does look like they made significant changes to the combat. I'm going to have to see how it feels now. Parry looks to be changed and possibly improved. Targeting should be improved a bit. Apparently the controls are supposed to be a bit more responsive, too.

I'm amazed at people saying they didn't die much. Even with Quen:

Spoiler:

I found Letho to be pretty much impossible on hard no matter what I did when you first encounter him

Apologies if this came up earlier. According to this thread and CD Projekt, it looks like any saves from chapter 3 are not compatible with the EE patch. Also, they say earlier saves might work but are not guaranteed to work. It's a little fuzzy, but they recommend starting over.

I guess I'll just start over. I don't really mind all that much.

Someone help: I can't decide if the child's repetitive screech of "Get Iorveth! Death to the Squirrels!" is adorable or maddening.

Ugh
Grinding for that dark mode gear again won't be fun

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

I'm amazed at people saying they didn't die much. Even with Quen:

Spoiler:

I found Letho to be pretty much impossible on hard no matter what I did when you first encounter him

Super spoiler (don't read if you haven't beaten the game)

Spoiler:

That's where my 20 grapeshot bomb technique comes into play. Yeah, I couldn't beat him without spamming those because I had no throwing knife unlocks. Took me forever to figure out the grapeshot bomb technique, but it sure does work.

Another very difficult spot is the conclusion of Melitele's Heart where you have to fight all those stinking wraiths.

kyrieee wrote:

Ugh
Grinding for that dark mode gear again won't be fun

I don't think I was playing dark mode, so I'll have to try it.

On my last playthrough I found the key was

Spoiler:

Using a knife to quickly take down his quen. Any old knife will do as I think it's per-attack, not sum total of damage absorbed that will dissipate the shield

I think that

Spoiler:

If you stand really close to him (like a few meters max) and dodge around, he won't use signs or bombs.

The useless map is driving me a bit mental. I must be missing a big chunk of Flotsam forest, because I spent 4 hours wandering around, completed some quests, but can't find the nekker hives. I found 2 really early on, nothing since then.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

I'm amazed at people saying they didn't die much. Even with Quen:

Spoiler:

I found -edited- to be pretty much impossible on hard no matter what I did when you first encounter him

I can't use spoiler tags so don't read if you don't want to learn the best way to deal with a certain enemy in the game.

The trick with this one is timing. You have to time your attacks when his shields are down, like scratched said maybe help them along with knives but i didn't like that so much. I knifed or bombed or aarded the second his shields went down to break his guard got three blows (always the magic number) in and tried to roll out, sometimes mistimed it and got blasted for my troubles but my Quen took it so it wasn't ever a problem.

Untill that time comes though NEVER STAND STILL. Always dodge round the edges. He can hurt you from anywhere on the ring and if you traps you in a corner thats a quarter of your life instantly gone. Keep dodging untill he actually starts moving towards you because he's unlikely to do a long-ranger, this is also the best time to recharge your Quen. Using this technique on the second play-through I had something like 75% of my health left at the end of the fight ; first time through though i died at 10 times at the very very least. It's probably the hardest legit (as opposed to just not being told how to play the game) fight in the game.

spider_j wrote:

The useless map is driving me a bit mental. I must be missing a big chunk of Flotsam forest, because I spent 4 hours wandering around, completed some quests, but can't find the nekker hives. I found 2 really early on, nothing since then.

Had the same issue, went to the wiki. (edit: took out the map, made it a normal link, in case people feel that is some sort of spoiler)

spider_j wrote:

The useless map is driving me a bit mental. I must be missing a big chunk of Flotsam forest, because I spent 4 hours wandering around, completed some quests, but can't find the nekker hives. I found 2 really early on, nothing since then.

I know the feeling. It clicked for me when i realised you have to go towards the pond, maybe you have to go the other direct ? Don't actually go into the water but head in that direction.

spider_j wrote:

The useless map is driving me a bit mental. I must be missing a big chunk of Flotsam forest, because I spent 4 hours wandering around, completed some quests, but can't find the nekker hives. I found 2 really early on, nothing since then.

Yeah, the map is worthless. You just have to roam around and get familiar with everything.

The Bloody Nine, you might want to delete the spoiler content you quoted. EDIT - you already got it.

Rallick wrote:
Vector wrote:

How are people tweaking their settings in the advanced options? I have never been able to get it to run as smooth as it should considering I have a beefy rig*.

*ASUS gaming laptop

Are there any gameplay changes in the EE? I thought I read something about dodging and blocking being reworked but I don't remember the details.

Try this handy guide, Vector. It has graphs showing how much each option costs you in terms of framerate, and an explanation of exactly what each option does, with screenshots.

Holy crap! Thanks! I'll have to fiddle around with that tonight.

Yay, reviews!

IMAGE(http://www.pixelhunt.com.au/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/cons.jpg)

I like to pretend that isn't simply an error, but rather the boiling point of stupidity in PC elitism

In other news... I really have nothing of value to add here >_<

Eh, maybe they just put the wrong icon in front of it