Caretaker is WAAAAAAAAY unbalanced

[mecha_fish]

For the caretaker, I discovered that if I kept close to him physically, he didn't summon ghosts. All I had to do was quickly step back, let him prep for his attack and then Whirl at him, preferably from behind him. He seemed too focused on getting me away from him with his attacks than with restoring his hit points.

For Iris' Worst Nightmare, I found that battling the nightmare's one on one was crucial to defeating them. My initial mistakes involved defeating them all one by one and then accidentally bumping into the last two and then getting my shit wrecked. Dodging and ensuring you have a solid method of healing going on is important -- quen was great and all, but I had to focus more on getting behind and striking. Watching him prepare for his attacks and learning what he was going to do was essential in working out where to be positioned near him -- he actually moves pretty slow and watching for Rend is pretty easy. My only concern was when he'd parry my attacks and then strike me while I was making moves to get behind him.

To be honest, it made sense to me why witcher's meagre magic didn't work in the painting -- the whole world was a vision, an illusion, a dream. I can understand why nightmares and literal demons from other dimensions wouldn't be affected. As for the other bosses -- I think CDPR did really well with them. In the original game everything was so predictable and reliable and easy that the challenges I faced in HoS were so much more interesting and I would prefer replaying HoS for combat than Wild Hunt any day.

 

[MasterDassJennir]

One of the best boss fights in all the witchers games... :smiling2:

 

[Aussieviking2]

I think I got a bugged version of him, not only does he one shot me even on weak swings but I cant even do more than a slither of damage to him even when hitting a crit.

 

[Abjatha]

Caretaker is such an amazing boss fight, finally something that punishes face tanking. He should even life leech more on deathmarch and off Quen as well.

 

[kubs]

These are the best boss fights in the entire game. I was sick and tired of just face rolling bosses in vanilla while playing on Death March. You actually have to come up with a strategy, learn the boss, exploit its weaknesses. I dunno how they are on lower difficulties, but on DM Olgierd ghosts would 1 shot me with the strong attack, so any mistakes made were painful.

It would be a shit design if you couldn't avoid their attacks or if their attack pattern was completely random. If it's to hard for you just lower the difficulty.

 

[WolvenGear]

I beat caretaker on the first try 2 days ago on deathmarch, but I died 6 times trying to beat olgeirds nightmare. I had a really broken sword and armor and though Id do the whole mansion without any repair-kits lol.

The trick with caretaker is to kill the people he spawn before he does (cause it will heal him) and dont let him hit you (cause it will heal him). If you have a hard time just put on archgriffin-decotion.

 

[Meretrelle]

OP you shouldn't be surprised. CD Projekt has been destroying sign based builds for a while now. Lots of useless upgrades, nerfed to oblivion yrden etc..

I guess they listened to morons who were screaming "signs OP! nerf!" whereas the most OP damage builds out there all revolve around swords + alchemy. The damage output you can dish out with swords build is just pure insanity (it was and it is still ) however I don't see anyone complaining.

W1 had better balance for sign users.

And don't even get started "You are a witcher and supposed to have a sword based build with some supporting signs".

 

[kubs]

As a matter of fact, majority of sets revolve around sign intensity and, if I'm not mistaken, Feline set is the only one that directly supports sword build.

 

[Meretrelle]

I'm not talking about sets.I'm talking about signs build.that almost non viable in expansion when you fight bosses.I'm talking about useless literally useless sign upgrades. I'm talking about signs scaling. etc etc..And when you meet these bosses all you are left to do is roll roll roll and do a really crappy damage with your swords for 20 or something minutes coz your build doesn't deal with swords.

Signs can't even come close to 2+K damage (normal sword hits). Add to that special attacks like whirlwind or whatever it is called and it gets really silly..Add some decotions like Archgriffins or others and it gets OP as hell.
My ignoi does atm 460-480 damage at close to 300 intensity lol the only good thing about it is the burning effect but bosses immune to it and sometimes immune (or extremely resistant) to normal igni hits as well. Alternate yrden does OK damage for a turret but doesnt scale well with intensity. and does extremely bad damage against bosses.

 

[WolvenGear]

I think I got a bugged version of him, not only does he one shot me even on weak swings but I cant even do more than a slither of damage to him even when hitting a crit.

Archgriffin decotion man. 10% ever time you use a hard strike and if you mix in a few potions to boost your stamina you can pretty much beat him in 30 seconds.

 

[Sigma_Primaris]

I must admit, these boss fights made me realize something : I'm a real casual player. I'm always playing games on easy/normal because I prefer immersion over challenge blah blah... And. Wow. These boss fights nearly made me cry. Even on normal difficulty I died five times against Olgierd ghosts just for missing one parry (because this guy isn't joking when you make a mistake).

The Caretaker in particular made me realize one other thing : I absolutely hate being hit and stunned just after a dodge because ennemies have an incredible attack range (And a homing shovel). This guy is even more dreadful than a pack of over-leveled drowners in a corridor.

 

[ImprovizoR]

He was incredibly difficult to beat. I LOVED IT. It took me about 17 minutes with my alchemy/sign build. 17 minutes was a single fight. I'm not counting the few times I died. But in the end, I took care of the caretaker.

It would have been a longer fight but I figured that he was a relic. With my alchemy build I also had the 25% resistance to his attacks when I apply the oil. On the other hand I had no problems with the ghosts at all. They were pretty straightforward. Even easier than Imlerith.

 

[dimonicus92]

I died one time from him.You need to spam quen so he doesnt heal when he attacks you.

Indeed one of the most difficult battles of the game

 

[shanersimms]

I have mastercrafted full griffin gear, sign intensity 195%, level 35, use a lot of quen, beat imlerith on the second try, beat the toad prince on the first try, cannot beat the caretaker. His health just regenerates constantly (bug?). Then he summons dead souls or something and his health just regenerates even more. Impossible. Waaaaaaaay unbalanced.

You nerfed igni so I can't burn him down, he un-summons yrden, aard doesn't work on him, axii doesn't work on him. WHAT THE FUCK CDPR???

You want everyone to use swords and have 300% attack power just do away with magic and the magic signs and just give us a sword and nothing else.

Sigh.... sometimes when he hits me he gets like a 1000 green healing points. How is that not a bug?

If he hits you while you have Quen up it doesn't leech life away. All about figuring out the subtleties of the fight. I wish all boss encounters would have been like this one. My favorite fight by far.

 

[Dubya75]

Ok, I beat the F*****R. But it took me like 10 times and I normally steamroll through the game.

I don't have a high DPS build so it was very tricky, he pretty much only takes damage from the silver sword and it went from 95% to 47% repair status in one 20 minute sitting!!! Lol.

This was litterally the hardest fight of the entire game for me, 10x harder than Imlerith. Dark souls hard. Don't get hit, time your blows, dodge, kill the dead spawn.... took me 20 minutes.

Also CPDR.... A spade that heals 10%???? Really? You made a SPADE the single best weapon in the entire game? What the F**K. I have mastercrafter griffin swords...but this spade is better because is heals 10%. Really? What the actual F.

You should really take a chill pill there, friend.
Your playstyle of "steamrolling" is your downfall here, nothing else.

 

[ShinGnosis]

Right. So I beat the 5 ghosts as well. Took me about 10 tries and the winning fight lasted about 15 minutes. But it's just not a balanced fight. Signs have been nerfed the nether realms of the mines of moria. He drops me quen is one strike, he kills me in 1-3 strikes. Axii doesn't work, agni doesn't work, yrden doesn't work...

I'll say what I said before. I don't think it's good game design, right now there is only one viable build. Go for armor and maximum attack power. Everything else is just useless right now. Why even have signs? Why did you nerf signs in a single player rpg? Sigh...

The only real way to beat the 5 ghosts is quen --> riposte --> three fast strikes --> roll away --> repeat. And then when he gets more serious (third ghost?) basically just roll like crazy. Roll, roll, roll and roll again. My mastercrafted griffin armor and 195% sign intensity does exactly jack all. Why CDPR??? WHY??

It's like I'm playing dark souls, learn the bosses cheap moves and then win. I don't feel like I'm playing an RPG anymore.

 

[Extreme96PL]

Caretaker is one of the best boss in whole game i play on deatch march it was hard but as it should be in boss fight all boss in normal game was too easy except Imlerith so i am happy that expansion give me the more harder enemy

 

[MoleWitcher]

I found him to be the easiest boss on the game personally( meaning HoS), although it was a really fun boss to fight regardless.

 

[whiplash27]

Spoiler

If you think that was hard wait till you face the 5 ghosts of Olgierd

Hardest battle in the entire game.

---------- Updated at 06:06 PM ----------

Right. So I beat the 5 ghosts as well. Took me about 10 tries and the winning fight lasted about 15 minutes. But it's just not a balanced fight. Signs have been nerfed the nether realms of the mines of moria. He drops me quen is one strike, he kills me in 1-3 strikes. Axii doesn't work, agni doesn't work, yrden doesn't work...

I'll say what I said before. I don't think it's good game design, right now there is only one viable build. Go for armor and maximum attack power. Everything else is just useless right now. Why even have signs? Why did you nerf signs in a single player rpg? Sigh...

The only real way to beat the 5 ghosts is quen --> riposte --> three fast strikes --> roll away --> repeat. And then when he gets more serious (third ghost?) basically just roll like crazy. Roll, roll, roll and roll again. My mastercrafted griffin armor and 195% sign intensity does exactly jack all. Why CDPR??? WHY??

It's like I'm playing dark souls, learn the bosses cheap moves and then win. I don't feel like I'm playing an RPG anymore.

Sure, signs are pretty useless against him (although I didn't use any second tier signs), but it's not a terrible fight. I don't think it's necessary to have every fight require the use of signs. Did you try bombs (not sure I did)? It makes for more variety when certain techniques are less useful against certain enemies. Sometimes a certain build won't be so good for a fight, that's what should happen. There should, however, be more fights where signs are more necessary to win vs. using your sword. Either way, Geralt's main form of killing stuff is with his swords, not magic.

The first three ghosts are pretty simple to beat. Just keep fast attacking and they'll go down fast. After that, it requires more strategy. The only time you really have to roll is when he would do his charged attack. His regular attacks can be blocked. It's pretty necessary in order to counter him and get a few hits in. I couldn't figure out any other way to get hits on him later in the fight since he'd block everything.

 

[scotlandii]

I literally beat him on my first try in Death March NG+. Granted I was level 70 with mastercrafted Wolven gear, but still. It was very difficult to beat him I'll give you that, but once you learn the mechanics it gets easier. I beat him by using the whirl attack whenever he was stuck, which took off 8-10k damage each time. Then I did my best to make sure I'd never get hit (usually using Quen) and took out the things he summoned. Learn to play the game before you go calling stuff unbalanced, it's a good thing that a boss is challenging for once... (Even though I beat first try like i said)

---------- Updated at 06:15 PM ----------


This post was frustrating to read. Not everything is weak to signs. Most are, but it wouldn't be a good game design to have no exceptions at all to it including with bosses... This boss was literally Quen and dodge, use whirl when goes down. Stop crying and accept that you can't rely on signs constantly (even though Quen is massive help)