Anyone else find strong attacks almost useless?

[DRK29WTF]

Anyone else find strong attacks almost useless?

I've found myself almost never using strong attacks because they're slower, enemies will almost always dodge them and the damage difference is ridiculous.
If you invest in fast attack abilities, it makes more sense to keep getting more advanced abilities rather than upgrading your strong attack too.

When you get the fast spin attack (I call it the blender..because Geralt becomes a fuckin blender) with enough Adrenaline gain you can keep the attack up almost indefinitely and most foes simply can't do anything against it.

I almost never used strong attacks because of this, the ONLY reason I upgraded my strong attacks was because the Cat Armor is UGLY AS SIN and I wanted to wear the Ursine armor instead. And even then I made sure I kept my fast spinning attack and rarely used strong attacks.

The only thing that seems to make strong attacks useful is the decoction that makes your strong attacks take 10% of the enemy's health on top of the regular damage calculation.

I play on hardest difficulty, already finished the game once and I never found much use for the whole "ignore armor" thing. Then again I haven't explored 100% everywhere and I'm playing again cause I'm planning to get a different ending...

In TW1, if you used the wrong style, you couldn't hit your enemy at all.
In TW2 the damage difference between fast and strong attacks actually made it worth it to use strong attacks sometimes
In TW3 it seems like you can just upgrade your fast attack and leave strong attacks alone, even though the game tries to promote using different styles plus potions bombs etc...

This is also somewhat confirmed by the default controls that downgraded the strong attack from right mouse to shift+left mouse if you ask me.

 

[SpacemanCometh]

Have to say I agree that the heavy attacks should be a bit stronger, or the fast attacks a little weaker. Either way the trade-off damage wise between fast and heavy attacks isn´t enough to justify the loss in speed the majority of the time.

Although I have found heavy attacks to be rather useful against certain lumbering enemies like golems so maybe I´m not thinking outside the box enough.

 

[drona.667]

If you upgrade enough points in strong attack skill, you could do one hit kill to an enemy. this will be far more effective with applying stunned/immobilize effect on enemy/enemies with signs or bombs

 

[mikshe]

So you upgraded fast attack fully (at least close to it since you mention spin attack) and are surprised that its better than default strong one?

 

[VahnXIII]

I used the strong attack once outside of the tutorial. Never again. I saw a pack of wolves and thought I would take the first one quickly with a stong attack. Nope. Attack missed and immediately was jumped by 5+ wolves. Sticking with the quick attack seems best for most situations.

 

[Clonazepam]

I use strong attack almost exclusively, though not by itself. I haven't even upgraded fast attack yet. Strong 5/5. If you try to do 3 strong attack combos, they will dodge the 2nd or 3rd, so its usually strong, strong, fast, or strong, fast, fast. Before all that, there's usually a dodge to get an opening, or a sign to stagger.

 

[DRK29WTF]

So you upgraded fast attack fully (at least close to it since you mention spin attack) and are surprised that its better than default strong one?

Read my first post carefully.

 

[moonknightgog]

A fix to this porblem could be to add the necessity to strike a monster with fast attack and that can dodge a strong attack...while other monsters are immune to the fast attack.
Like it was in TW1.

 

[the_eternal_fire]

they are useful against npcs

 

[Maydawn]

I haven't used strong attack except 2 situations: A Golem, and the tutorial. Playing on Death March with medium armor, I can't sacrifice the speed cause I'd just die

 

[Giralus]

if you upgrade strong attack all the way in the first 3 skill tree and and use it correctly ( when a target is Stunned / Slowed and especially if you hit the from the back it does great damage )

I would recommend getting the Witcher Bear (Ursine) Sword's ( both swords Master crafted lvl 30 each do 75% critical hit damage bonus)

equip them with Stun, Stagger or Confuse Rune stones

You will have :

both swords = 75% critical hit damage bonus (silver sword 14% chance to dismember )

skill tree Maxed :

1 ) strong attack damage Inc 25 %
2 ) crit hit chance inc 10% and crit hit dammage by 75%
3 ) deals adition damage vs stamina consumed , Ignores enemy Defenses and increases crit hit chance by 50 % / adrenaline points increase total damage by ; 100%

Put all in same tree with a Greater Red Mutagen for +40 attack power

lvl 35 in all master lvl Bear gear with mastter crafted swords and rune stones with all points in fast and strong attack tree's , i can cut through waves of mobs , and don't even bother with Oiling my sword for monsters as i slice through them like butter

once you get a good attack down and know when to time Heavy attack ( its like learning to Parry ) you will love heavy attack as you will see some sweet crit numbers flying off the enemy as their bodies become target practice for you.

 

[CastorKrieg]

I have an opposite experience - I much more prefer to side-step and hit with a heavy attack. Drowners will almost always dodge the second fast attack, while strong attack has a chance to 1KO them. On Death March using Quen gives you a lot of room for error.

 

[Madoga]

Strong attack is useful in fistfights.

 

[grasida]

I agree that quick attacks are better, but I still find strong attacks useful sometimes. It seems at mid distances, where Geralt will pirouette and jump towards the enemy, strong attacks are not much slower than fast attacks. So they can sometimes be good after an enemy has made short dodge. They're also good if you have good timing so you hit an enemy with them right after they miss you. What's more they seem to stagger for a longer time than quick attacks, so a mix of quick and strong attacks lets you deal more damage than just quick. Finally, strong attacks tear through enemy stamina really quickly, so you can easily overpower a enemy that's trying to block you.

Whirl might be overpowered and break all of that, though. I am playing a heavy armor build that uses adrenaline for signs, so I can't afford either stamina or adrenaline on rend and whirl. I tried them out briefly, though, just to see what they're like, and while rend seems like it's hard to use effectively, but might sometimes be good to kill something in one hit with a monster crit, whirl seems like it's "hold down the button to win".

 

[CastorKrieg]

whirl seems like it's "hold down the button to win".

Except it leaves you open to attacks, which is 2-hit KO on Death March.

 

[Lieste]

Strong attack is essential against shielded defenders in the early game. Using it you can drive them back and force them to drop the shield.

Basic strong attacks are roughly twice the fast ones, and seem to be at 2/3 the tempo. They also ignore blocks (not 100% sure if they ignore armour or just overwhelm it?)... this makes them very, very useful at least occasionally within a fight.
You'll want to keep your distance more, take a single attack then dodge. Fast attack does permit a little more persistence in close combat... but then it does need to, because you'll be fighting for longer.

I'm also specialised into fast attacks, which are averaging more than my strong (normal damage is lower, but critical damage is higher and more frequent). Do still see a huge advantage in adding an occasional strong attack into the mix (and use strong overwhelmingly during fist fights).
I have rebound controls (block = "Shift", Fast = LMB, Strong = RMB), and use double tap dodge most often, very rarely use rolls... and feel I should more often (which shows most with the Ciri sections as she can only 'Blink' using roll action.

I'm sticking with fast for now, but may re-spec into strong later to see the difference. One-shotting mobs is much better than having all of them still standing after the first flurry of blows... done well you'll take no damage at all and will just engage in a series of single attack one v one fights. This *almost* works with fast attack, but would be much more common with (upgraded) strong as the opening attack.

 

[exboomer]

I prefer fast attacks over strong ones and I am upgrading that skill as fast as I can.

 

[zeypheruk]

People really need to try rend, it is absolutely brilliant at ruining an enemy's day. Rend has 50% higher crit chance than a normal strong attack, its animation is faster as well and it cannot be blocked.

 

[Giralus]

Testing = ( no potions and no oils , just weapon dmg )

on bandits lvl 18 ( i think , forgot to write it down)

crit on fast attack is doing between 900 to 1000

crit on strong attack is doing 1600 to 1700

on lvl 4 drowners

crit on fast 1600 to 1700

crit on strong 2400 to 2600

lvl 27 earth elemental

normal 139
normal 273
crit 260
crit 500

lvl 30 Cyclops

crit fast 1019

crit strong 2039

 

[Kinglionsfox]

I use strong attacks to get through blocks and shields. Of course there are others ways to deal with those enemies that are harder to hit. But, I did use mostly light attacks and dodges in my play-through. I have wondered if a combo system with the two different attacks would be better or not.