The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Hearts of Stone |OT| Heroes of Gwent

First boss seems fucking impossible. Like it was designed for Bloodborne combat, not this game.

Eh, I got him on my first try, though it was touch-and-go for a minute. The magic-trap sign seemed to slow him down for a few seconds if I could get him to walk into it. Other than that, I ran toward him and pre-emptively dodge-rolled when his cheeks puffed out so the tongue would miss me, then I could land a hit or two if I was lucky.

Long and drawn-out fight, though. With no real clear weaknesses to exploit.
 
Only put in about an hour so far, got my ass kicked by pretty much everything since I haven't played it in months. I am definitely excited to hear how difficult the first boss is though after the difficulty plateaued out in the main campaign.
 
good lord I forgot how to combat in this game lmao

cant even kill some level 34 nekkers

maybe I should just go with the pre made geralt

Oh god. I was fighting some nekkers near a monster nest trying to start the main quest. They were level 34, while I'm 32. Wasn't really paying attention to the damage and I thought the bottom bar (which is yellow and red) was the HP so I kept wacking at them and was really, really confused why their HP kept regening.

Turns out I was using a steel sword and it was doing no damage, so I didn't even see the top health bar go down.

:smh
 
Eh, I got him on my first try, though it was touch-and-go for a minute. The magic-trap sign seemed to slow him down for a few seconds if I could get him to walk into it. Other than that, I ran toward him and pre-emptively dodge-rolled when his cheeks puffed out so the tongue would miss me, then I could land a hit or two if I was lucky.

Long and drawn-out fight, though. With no real clear weaknesses to exploit.

Yeah, it took me several tries to beat him, but in the end I managed to do it. I thought the design was cool, but his attack pattern was really terrible. I did exactly the same thing as you in the end, just dodge-rolling in for a quick attack and then dodge-rolling out immediately. Northern Wind is very useful against him as it freezes him long enough for you to get around back and get a few hits off. He just has way too many hit points though, basically just a damage sponge.

Oh god. I was fighting some nekkers near a monster nest trying to start the main quest. They were level 34, while I'm 32. Wasn't really paying attention to the damage and I thought the bottom bar (which is yellow and red) was the HP so I kept wacking at them and was really, really confused why their HP kept regening.

Turns out I was using a steel sword and it was doing no damage, so I didn't even see the top health bar go down.

:smh

Meh, it's more because they make them into damage sponge's rather than them offering any interesting combat mechanics. You can really see the problems with the combat when facing enemies like that, especially when they are in groups, and swarming you.

First boss tip: Hack, dodge, hack, dodge, it usually jumps as soon as you've dealt damage, so beware. Attack from side or back, front is risky because it'll just push you away with its tongue(can't dodge that when you're so close), and keep distance when it's shooting out poison.

Can't stress this enough, one slash at a time, don't get greedy.

As I said above, use Northern Wind if you have it. It helps a little, at least at the beginning before you run out of bombs.
 
First boss tip: Hack, dodge, hack, dodge, it usually jumps as soon as you've dealt damage, so beware. Attack from side or back, front is risky because it'll just push you away with its tongue(can't dodge that when you're so close), and keep distance when it's shooting out poison.

Can't stress this enough, one slash at a time, don't get greedy.
 
This is the second fucking time I've had plot spoilers from a Gwent card image/description. The first time was my fault and a bit funny I suppose.

[Spoilers for The Sword of Destiny book] I was right in the middle of The Limits of Possibility while playing through TW3. I got a new Gwent card which happened to be Villentretenmerth. Naturally, I looked at the description of this dragon card and ironically learned that
it was none other than Borch, who had yet to be revealed as the dragon in the story
.

[Possible late Hearts of Stone spoilers] Anyway, I bought three Gwent cards from the merchant near the rune/glyph guy. One was called
"Gaunter O'Dim - Darkness"
, so I took a closer look at it. The image was of a
shadowy foglet kind of creature
. Of course, we know that
Gaunter is the Man of Glass and plays a significant role in HoS
. I'm so pissed off at the moment though that a reveal such as this has been spoiled by the game itself hours before it should be.
 
Decided I'd give it this a go on Death March and my goodness was that a mistake. Actually killed the first boss (eventually)
igni helps!!
.

However, shortly thereafter when you get to the next mini boss
the Mage from the boat
for me he was basically impossible. I couldn't ever really get to him to do significant damage. I wiped about 10x and said fuck it. Blood and Broken Bones it is.
 
So... Any new monsters? 'sides the
giant froggy
that was teased earlier.

I got started on this earlier this evening, got sidetracked by the secondary quest involving the
fallen Knights of the Order of the Flaming Rose
, and decided to call it quits for today.
 
I've played for almost 3 hours and still haven't met Shani or encountered the first boss. As soon as I was instructed to go to the sewers, I went off and started doing sidequests.

In relation to a certain sidequest, I have a question.

[SPOILERS for Herbalist sidequest]
I'm pretty sure the implication here is that the old couple are cannibals and ate the herbalist's apprentice, right? At least, the game hints pretty heavily at this with his trail vanishing in front of the abandoned village, the woman chopping meat when you meet her, their insistence that wolves must have devoured him and left no trace, and the camera focus on the blood on the herbalist's table at the end of the quest. However, I couldn't find any evidence of cannibalism so just took the bad news back to the herbalist.

Did I fuck up, or is the quest just cleverly written like this, in that Geralt clearly suspects the truth, but can't do anything about it?

I felt that way too, so after going back to the herbalist and seeing that just completes the quest, I reloaded a save and tried looking around some more. Maybe you should try checking around the back of their hut >_>
 
I felt that way too, so after going back to the herbalist and seeing that just completes the quest, I reloaded a save and tried looking around some more. Maybe you should try checking around the back of their hut >_>

Shit, I've played a few hours past it and don't have an older save. What happens?
 
So I'm about 4 hours in, and I'm going with Shani to
chill with the immortal dude's dead brother.
And... IDK how I feel about this expansion right now. The jump in difficulty is welcome but I don't like that it just feels like everything has a shit ton of health and does a shit ton of damage. Like instead of creating some challenging situations, CDPR just tweaked some sliders so everyone's a damage sponge and does massive damage. The story also hasn't grabbed me yet the way that most quests in the main game did. I need to play some more before I render my verdict, but so far I'm a little disappointed honestly. I had pretty high expectations though. The base game will prob end up being my GOTY.
 
I think I got deleveled by a patch or something. Geralt is wearing equipment with a level cap higher than his. ...Annnd I'm also not level 30 yet.

My regret is eternal.
 
Finally got past that idiotic boss fight. Once you figure out the pattern it becomes more tedious than difficult, and it's just a poorly thought out fight that doesn't fit with the speed of the combat. It's the first encounter I've felt is legitimately bad in the entire game. Just awful and a horrible slog. Why they thought a boss that can stunlock and poison you to death was a good idea is beyond me. The quick dodge is simply not precise enough to stop from getting hit by that tongue attack that locks you into a series of stuns. He has too many movies that take away your control and lock you into a series of attacks that can kill you super quickly. And he has way too much health that makes taking the slow approach to killing him a tedious and monotonous effort.

Definitely not the best first impression for this DLC. If more encounters like this one are in this I'm gonna hate it.
 
Shit, I've played a few hours past it and don't have an older save. What happens?

You find a cellar with a bunch of... unsavory looking things scattered around. A bloody cage half open. On a table there's the dismembered remains/half a body of the halfling, but there's no sure way to determine the cause of death. When you confront the couple they admit to cannibalism but claim they didn't kill him, nor the other people they've eaten, they just collect the victims of the wolves. Claim that they're too old to work a field/acquire food any other way and this is what they have to do. You can either let them be and have them vow to never eat people again, saying you'll come back to check on them, or just kill them. When turning the quest in you can tell the herbalist what really happened or just say the guy was killed by monsters.
 
I have been playing the game for the last three days and actually finished it yesterday, and I am not actually feeling the difficulty spike in the enemies at all other than them being around my level. The peak in difficulty for me was at level 6-8 fighting wraiths.

again, having potions that null pretty much any effect the game throws at you at this point just makes it all the more easier than when you only had a handful and were running around Velen.
 
downloaded on gog but the game does not start anymore when I press play, just nothing happens

Have you used mods/SweetFX/Reshade in the past? Happened to me, and instead of figuring out what I had to do I just deleted the bin folder/folder with SweetFX/Reshade and verified. Loaded right up.
 
For me Yrden, Northern Wind, and Golden Oriole were the keys to the toad fight. Could also use Quen against the poison clouds and spit to regen health, but have to keep an eye out because nothing blocks the tongue.
 
I haven't played in months and this feels weird as fuck.

I played through on NG+ starting a couple weeks ago because I knew if I jumped right in to the expansion it'd feel super awkward. Glad I did too, took me a bit to remember how to play. I'm tempted to swap to a more sign oriented build, been using this Alchemy build for a long while now and it is stupidly strong, even when I screw up and take a bunch of hits I don't really take damage on Death March.

Enjoying the expansion so far. Not sure how much more I have to go but I'm likely going to take my time and finish it tomorrow.

For me Yrden, Northern Wind, and Golden Oriole were the keys to the toad fight. Could also use Quen against the poison clouds and spit to regen health, but have to keep an eye out because nothing blocks the tongue.

Dancing Star bombs did some work on it for me. Kept him staggered a bunch due to the ignite.
 
Shit, I've played a few hours past it and don't have an older save. What happens?

Typical crazy people butcher room. Of course, the halfling's body is so mangled that you can't determine a cause of death, and the old folks insist the wolves killed him and they collected the body to avoid starving.

But really, a halfling that was badly wounded by wolves suddenly ran back out when he was being offered shelter? Not only is there no evidence that he left, halflings just... aren't that brave. Also, the old lady screamed something about oysters or pearls or something as she attacked me, which sounds like a Hannibal reference.
 
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