Fist Fighting (A Witcher's Achilles Heel)

[Wasbunny]

Fist Fighting (A Witcher's Achilles Heel)

My Geralt is now level 18, a trained and seasoned Witcher that has bested all manner of beasts and men; from griffons and golems to The Wild Hunt itself but he just had his ass handed to him (repeated) by the most fearsome boss he's yet to encounter.

What could so thoroughly pound our Witcher into the ground? What herculean monster could keep Geralt forever from finding Ciri and put an end to his tale once and for all? I will tell you.

Two unarmed flea-infested, malnourished untrained petty thieves in a small house in Novigrad. For with all his training and experience Geralt proved to be no match against these peasant gods of hand to hand combat.

In spite of all his knowledge and training, at the sight of these wretched foes our poor Geralt forgot how to cast his simplest of signs. Forgot how to drink potions or even eat food. One glancing blow from the toothless 80 year old urchin took away half his health and left him stunned for the other wiry anemic assailant to finish him off with his deadly limp fisted coup de grace.

Ok so maybe that sounded a bit dramatic but the short of it is the hardest boss fight I've found in the game so far is these two petty thieves wanting a fist fight in Novigrad. I'm playing on Death March and haven't had nearly as hard of a time slaying monsters 0-5 levels higher than myself. With these two I'm going to have to either 'head canon' Garalt as missing all the days when he was trained in hand to hand combat at Kaer Morhen and swallow the loss (and pride) or slide the difficulty level down to Easy just for this fight.

It's a bit ridiculous and lore breaking either way. It feels like suddenly I'm playing Dark Souls with no weapons or abilities.

Alright...I needed to vent. After fighting those same two peasants 10 times and getting schooled each time I needed a break to rant.

tl;dr Non 'fight club' or tournament fist fighting needs re-balancing.

 

[JonTheHuman]

This is the play mission where you're trying to find the poster/flyer maker right? Circle around until they're single file and lead them up the stairs so only one can attack you at a time and remember countering is your best friend during fist fights. There's another mission in Novigrad where 3 bums fight you in a very open space and I found that much harder, but again you need to circle a lot, use your environment to cut them off and counter like crazy.

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

Never had a problem with the fist-fighting, win most fights without taking a single hit. Here's how to do it: Only attack after you've countered! If there are multiple enemies, only attack once you've countered both of them. Never attack more than 3 times in a row, they will counter you. If you use parries and counters a lot during normal fights it should be pretty easy, although if you normally rely 100% on dodging I can see how it might be an odd change of pace.

Remember, they don't have any way (as far as I know) of breaking your guard, so just keep your guard up until they try to do a heavy attack, these have a pretty long wind up, and the timing should be easy, the fast jabs are hard to counter, but just keep your guard up for those.

 

[Medy89]

haha they beat me up too on death march the first time... the second time I went up rhe stairs to force 1on1 fight... 2v1 in such a narrow space with the handicap they gave you is as you said very ridiculus xD..... Try fighting te vilkarl at the coronation ... quiite tge ordeal too xD

 

[Scaena]

Never had a problem with the fist-fighting, win most fights without taking a single hit. Here's how to do it: Only attack after you've countered! If there are multiple enemies, only attack once you've countered both of them. Never attack more than 3 times in a row, they will counter you. If you use parries and counters a lot during normal fights it should be pretty easy, although if you normally rely 100% on dodging I can see how it might be an odd change of pace.

Remember, they don't have any way (as far as I know) of breaking your guard, so just keep your guard up until they try to do a heavy attack, these have a pretty long wind up, and the timing should be easy, the fast jabs are hard to counter, but just keep your guard up for those.

Pretty much this.

Here's a summary:
1 - Keep your distance. Normally I use dodge to gain distance.
2- Try to stay in a position where only one enemy is in front of you. To move around use dodge and always keep your guard up.
3- When you have some distance, the enemy will try to attack you using a heavy attack, if you are close and he caughts you offguard he will use fast attack and daze you, this can be deadly (fast attacks are very hard to counter, but possible).
4- When you have some distance prepare for the heavy attack and counter it (lower your guard first and concentrate on his attack). If you are not good at countering, you are going to have a hard time. If he doesn't advance, move towards him (slowly) to see if he takes the bite.
5- As Percival noted, after the counter only attack 3 times and dodge back.
6- When fighting more than one enemy and they are very close to each other, you can be attacked when you go for the first punch after the counter. To remedy this, just dodge back after the counter. This can add to your advantage because the countered enemy will be stunned and you can gain some distance and isolate a bit better the other one. Also, if they are not that close try to fit in just one or two punches max.
7- When 1v1 you have plenty of time to do an Heavy Attack followed by two fast attacks after the counter.

Regarding that two guys in the house, like others already mentioned, use the stairs to keep the fight as close to 1v1 as possible.

Good luck, and sorry for my bad english!

 

[berti145]

Haha, i feel with you. I was the reigning Master of fists in Novigrad and got beat up by those two guys. Well, just shook the dirt off and went on.

 

[Wasbunny]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. Most of the techniques I was already using (go up stairs to choke point 1v1s, try to maintain distance and only attack 2-3 times etc.)
I think I was relying on dodge too much and not using block to counter. Ultimately I cranked the difficulty down a couple notches and finally won (barely).

That said my point still stands. It makes absolutely no sense that a Witcher would have this level of difficulty winning a fist fight against unskilled opponents. At the time of the fight these were two level 11 peasants, I'm level 18. On Death March fighting 6 level 20 drowners is challenging but not even close to this level of difficulty.

This fight shouldn't be a faceroll of course, but it should at least make some sense with Geralt's skill and strength relative to other monsters. I actually had to Youtube that quest to see if maybe I wasn't supposed to beat them at all, maybe they're some disguised generals of The Wild Hunt or something. Nope, just common thugs.

Anyway thanks again for all the tips!
(Still needs major rebalancing...grumble grumble.....)

 

[Scaena]

And I agree with you Wasbunny. Is that felling that you should be overpowered against two simple robers that frustrates me.
The hell with the RP, I just reload the damn save until I beat them and then I can say: "See boys? I'm a witcher. You picked the wrong guy to mess up with."
(Seems like I finished the fight against Gargoyles in DS...)

 

[Wasbunny]

And I agree with you Wasbunny. Is that felling that you should be overpowered against two simple robers that frustrates me.
The hell with the RP, I just reload the damn save until I beat them and then I can say: "See boys? I'm a witcher. You picked the wrong guy to mess up with."
(Seems like I finished the fight against Gargoyles in DS...)

Right?! That's pretty much what I did. I normally don't 'cheat' but in this case dropping the difficulty down for that one fight was the only way that made sense to me. I just couldn't stand seeing the look of shame and embarrassment on Geralt's face one more time after getting pummeled by those weak lowlifes.

 

[thelostdunmer]

Geralt is a wuss every time in this sidequest. Level 21 gets humiliated by two burglars. haha

 

[foxyrick]

I have similar feelings to the OP about the fist fighting. Yeah, I've sussed out how to do it as above, but it still irritates the hell out of me and if I blink at the wrong moment I get my arse kicked.

Yesterday, at around level 21 to 23, I defeated two level 30 earth elementals, one of which was a tripple tag team with a pair of 17 level gargoyles (which are tough on their own even at a lower level), then a level 30 iffrit. I'm doing similar today. The fights can last 30 minutes (one exactly used up all my decoction by the kill). All on DM of course.

In all of that, I died and had to reload once, and I was gutted about it.

...and here comes a fist fight with a flea-bitten guttersnipe who can knock me out (or actually kill me!) if I blink and miss a block or two.

I know some people find it easy and enjoy it, so I wouldn't say to take it out or anything, but it does seem a little ridiculous at times.

The only real cheat I've done is in fist fighting when I just couldn't be arsed - I opened the console and typed 'god' for the duration. I hate cheating, but I hate fist fighting even more. (this from a once very keen karate competitor, lol)

 

[Cronstintein]

I agree with OP. I think it has to due with DM scaling up enemy healths & damage and this being applied to the fist fighting. It certainly seems weird that Geralt will go down in 2-3 punches and these random peasants take 12+ hits...

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

Would just like to mention a funny thing that happened with fist-fighting once. In the quest where you help Zoltan "procure" a few rare Gwent cards, there is a point where you suddenly get attacked by three dwarves wielding two-handed axes. There is a bug in this section that causes Geralt to not automatically draw his sword, and instead goes into fist-fighting mode, which makes it so the dwarves will not react to your attacks by blocking and instead will be stunned every time you hit them, and you will also deal quite significant damage with just your fists in this particular instance. So basically, under these specific circumstances I ended up killing the three dwarves easier by using just my fists.

Actually thought it was intentional to "not kill them" by using fists at first, until Zoltan remarked how the blood splattered all the way to the ceiling.

 

[FriendlySkeleton]

I always wait for them to throw a punch then attack. Geralt's reflexes insure that he hits them mid punch every single time.

 

[Zoolock]

I found the Fist fight Quests really easy compared to the random street fist fights as all you have to do is keep your guard up then repeatedly hit triangle as every 3 or 4 hits the NPC lets their guard down. Unfortunately this does not work against Gorgeous George in the Golden sturgeon & the last two Skellage Island fighters but to beat them just wait for them to throw a punch then hit square two or three times as Geralt always lands his hits first then immediately back away before they can counter. It may take some time as you don't knock off much energy but you win even against overpowered fighters many levels above you.

 

[mirkogradski]

I ended up going up the stair as well. 1v1 made it a lot easier and there were less chances of the other guy coming at me with a cheap shot.

 

[paladinshiva]

Guys wth. They even going to change movement mode, and I thought it was perfect, very close to what first Prince of Persia was and that is still considered one of the most realistic ever. Are you serious. I posted about how to beat WHOLE fight quest line at lvl 10. On a DM. Seriously fights are like the easiest thing when you just have to understand mechanics. It's a lot of fun too. Like serious why ppl here so negative all the freaking time. Dude if you having problems read my guide or I'll be glad to answer questions....

---------- Updated at 02:55 PM ----------

And for the fact, Gerald fights naked, in the damn underwear..... He as as vulnerable as your next person. Doesn't matter the level lol. Nothing of that exist in the fight.

 

[Gerudon]

Fist fights are garbage in the game. Enemies make far too much damage (often more than with actual weapons) and the rules are inconsistent: Sometimes you can even draw a weapon, sometimes you can't even take a potion.

Now I can understand, that you can't use a weapon or signs during the fist fight tournaments (not that you would need to...), but in a lot of other cases the "rules" feel just very arbitrary.

 

[paladinshiva]

Fist fights are garbage in the game. Enemies make far too much damage (often more than with actual weapons) and the rules are inconsistent: Sometimes you can even draw a weapon, sometimes you can't even take a potion.

Now I can understand, that you can't use a weapon or signs during the fist fight tournaments (not that you would need to...), but in a lot of other cases the "rules" feel just very arbitrary.

Oh so they should eliminate instakill and drowned damage underwater too. No man. Fights are perfect, a little unpredictable and totally depend on your skill.

 

[Wasbunny]

@paladinshiva: I might have been unclear about what I was pointing out (I was trying to avoid spoilers). We're not talking about tournament fights, those are fine. We're discussing the relative imbalance of fist fights that happen during quests.

The key word being 'relative'. A fist fight in a back alley against untrained thugs shouldn't exceed the difficulty of taking down a Leshen for example. Either ramp up the difficulty of everything else considerably (which I'm all for btw) or take the non-tournament fist fights down a few notches.

Also, no one's being negative here really. Just pointing out one of the very few flaws in an otherwise flawless gem of a game.