Witcher The big fight in CH. 1 everyone complains about

[Acleacius]

Seriously? Now, that's very cool, thanks KazikluBey and Dez.

It's good to know something good happens and maybe one day I will be able to make it to chapter 5, hehe.

 

[Shrapnel]

Use group on the beast, all the minions will get shredded.
Now that it's you and him, tank him while the witch heals.
I did this the first time (beginner's luck). Then when I restarted I was here for like 10 mins. There are many ways to drop the beast, using him as your 'anchor' in group combos was mine

 

[Jabberwocky]

Well, it's 1am and I've tried 5 times and have gotten my butt handed to me every time. I'm a couple of dots short of graduating from "Novitiate Witcher" and I've put a couple of skill levels into group and fast combat. I'm loaded up on Swallow, Tawny Owl, and Blizzard; my blade's loaded up on Specter Oil...... and I still get my butt handed to me.

The witch goes under and then I'm finished as soon as the Beast gets a second stun-lock on me. I managed to get away a couple of times and run around trying to heal, but for some reason I'm not healing at all unless the witch does it. I'm starting to wonder what Swallow is good for in this particular instance. Can someone tell me what the deal is with that? I mean, usually it works fine.

Going to bed now very frustrated and will try again tomorrow.

 

[magerette]

Swallow allows for regeneration of hit points over time, but my guess would be you are probably losing too many too fast. Maybe the minions are sniping at you? Using the Aard sign will buy you some time and maybe even give you a few one hit kills on the barghests. I also used Igni a lot to get hit points down all around. Spectral oil on the silver sword should eventually start doing major damage to the Beast--don't give up hope! This is really the hardest fight in the game in many ways, and once you manage to get through it, the best parts of the game will begin.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Spectral oil on the silver sword should eventually start doing major damage to the Beast--don't give up hope! This is really the hardest fight in the game in many ways, and once you manage to get through it, the best parts of the game will begin.

Magey, either you mis-typed or I missed something very important in Chapter 1 - You said "silver" sword?? But I only have the steel one, and have presumed Chapter 1 doesn't contain a way to get a silver one. Please clarify, as now I'm really frustrated if I missed out on getting a silver one!

 

[magerette]

Sorry Jabberwocky--you're correct--it's really scary sometimes how disfunctional my memory is. You have only one sword in Act 1 and it is steel.

I need to replay this and get the details straight!

 

[Jabberwocky]

Okay thanks! I was just making sure.

Well I'll give it another try (or ten) tonight... I am playing the game on 'hard', but so far I haven't had any trouble with combat once I got the timing down. Even the crypt boss went down with two Aard signs and a coup-de-grace. To be having so much trouble here is annoying.

 

[Acleacius]

Blizzard, is your friend.
You could take it before you walk up to the beast and skip the cutscene iirc, that way it's already in effect, then hit Aard asap, well unless you consider it cheating or something, but in it's current state you could say the developers are cheating the way the cutscenes are working, either way Blizzard first, then Aard, well imo.
Oh and 1 Blizzard is not enough, the fun doesn't stop with fido, well in my game.
If this is your first time through and you didn't get a bunch of stock of plants in your Inn inventory then I would go back a Save, especially in Hard, I would say a stack of 50 of each of the available in Outskirts, or at least as much as you can get without going crazy collecting.
Oh and don't sell all your Bargaret Skulls, save at least one for a special quest in chapter 2-4.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Ok thanks 'Cius, I actually beat this part before I saw your post, but the Barghest skull tidbit will come in handy!

Yes, on the NINTH overall try, I finally managed to defeat the Beast! Whew... but just when I jumped outta my chair to do a victory dance here comes Reverend Horton Heat and his groupies. "YOu gotta be kidding me!" I thought. I was already seeing gray from the Beast encounter and barely made it out alive. Fortunately, dispite my trouble fighting creatures of the supernatural kind, I seem to be a Jedi at vs. human combat, and quickly dispatched of the good minister and the rest without another single injury.

I gotta say, this has become my single biggest dissappointment over an otherwise excellent game - the cutscenes before a crazy difficult battle, and the fact that even good players may have to reload NINE times or more to beat it. I would expect, and even almost want, that sort of thing on the final boss battle, but not in chapter 1.

 

[magerette]

Yeah--it wasn't the best design decision ever made for sure. Rest easy though, it doesn't happen again. The rest of the game is scaled pretty well for difficulty--in fact, sometimes it gets almost too easy. Congrats on the final thumping.

 

[Corwin]

er... the battle at the end of Ch 2 can be a challenge and it has 2 cut scenes!!

 

[magerette]

I don't remember it being a big surprise like The Beast though, or being thrown into it, but then, there's a lot I don't remember.

 

[Corwin]

No, you could prepare a little while inside the tower, but I'd just fought a few beasties on my way there and wasn't yet at full health. You exit the tower, and it's cut scene, battle, cut scene, battle!!

 

[Acleacius]

I usually go in to get the Sign, the head to the campfire near by at the rebel base, then once I am all upgraded I return and get the book.

An amusing bit is to set a trap where you know they will be before you go inside the tower and quite funny to see them setting it off while in the cutscene. I sort of think of it as revenge against the developers for using the cheat method of forcing us into a cutscene right before battle and letting the mobs attack our companions while we chat away!

 

[xSamhainx]

I waited til I finished chap 1 to read this post, and I have to say that the beast fight wasnt really a big deal. Like most boss w/ tons of minions fights, you just bolt right up to the boss and hit him w/ the kitchen sink, he falls and all his minions poof. I just made sure I was sign'd up, ritual of magic'd, whetstone'd, swallow'd, etc. I was assuming the hideout was going to be harder than it was. I did do the Blizzard tho, it was annoying.

I purrsonally do not like the Blizzard effect, I'd rather just pause the game a lot.

 

[Acleacius]

Blizzard gives you very good dodge and parry which you can't get from pausing, you might be able to turn off the effect in you options or if you are experienced at editing cfg files witcher.ini in yoiur system folder.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Does that mean you are in the sewers now Sammy? Oh it is so cool..

 

[magerette]

I agree totally on the Blizzard effect. I used it once in the game--too much blurry double vision going on brings on motion sickness for me in games--plus I had all the double vision I'll ever need back in the seventies.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I agree the blizzard effect should have been designed differently. It should have made everything around Geralt slow-motion, perhaps with some blurring, but Geralt himself should be allowed normal speed, which would make him seem much faster. OR they could have kept gameworld same speed and make Geralt faster, which would have been tricky for the player to keep combat timing. But making everything slow down is not very cool.

I do still use the potion however, as I feel the benefits are definitely tangible.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Ugh! Man, that really was a killer. I came here after maybe the 8th try for some advice, and based on what I read here, then loaded an earlier save to get some ghost oil from Abigail. That certainly helped, together with swallow and fast steel / group steel I finally made it. But I still needed three more tries to get there. That pain lock is err... really a pain. I found there is actually some dialogue from Abigail about the ghost oil, but I had completely missed it the first time. Thats because you get thrown out of conversations so often in the witcher, even when dialogue is not exhausted. That too is a bit of a questionable design decision. But still, what a game!