I'm having the worst trouble with combat in this game. The last one was easy enough, sure if I got swarmed by echinops they might kill me, but I hardly ever died. I was playing on easy though. Heck, I'm still playing on easy now! But it seems like everything can kill me pretty easy! I'm still on the first chapter but I can't seem to win in any combat situation. A group of neckers will kill me with no problem, the same with just two wraiths! Any advice for being able to fight monsters more easily?

1. Dodge
- Probably the silver bullet in this game, at least for me.
- It doesn't require vigor, and it gets you out of tight spots.
- Dodging distance can be increase via "Feet work" skill under Swordsmanship tree.

2. Quen
- Can absorb damage, but your vigor won't regenerate when Quen is active.

3. You can use bombs
- Made through Alchemy screen.
- Excellent for crowd control. At the very least, they can stagger your enemies, giving you time to roll away.
- e.g. Red Haze can confuse enemies (causing them to fight each other), Zerrikanian Sun / Samum stuns.

4. Drink potions
- Swallow can regenerate vitality.
- White Raffard can give you +50% health at the cost of significantly reduced damage.

5. Avoid engaging large groups of enemies.
- Enemies like nekkers, drowners, wraiths have a simpler attack animation, so they typically attack faster than you (no thanks to Geralt's complex animations that are pleasing to the eye but not pleasing to your vitality).
- Don't attack when you can see a few other enemies are standing right beside your target. You might get stun locked by numerous hits.

6. Single out enemies.
- For example, you can run around obstacles (e.g. a rock) to split up a group of enemy. When one of them sticks out from the group, attack that one.

7. Float like a butterfly sting like a bee.
- When you get a few hits, either you will get blocked / retaliate or others in the group will catch up. Don't get too obsessed with finishing off the single enemy, dodge and retreat.

8. Get "Position"
- This reduces the damage you receive from backstabbing from 200% to 150% (Level 1) then to 100% (Level 2).

9. Be aware of where auto-aiming is targetting
- Sometimes it can get you into trouble, e.g. in a split second, you go from attacking the enemy right in front of you to the enemy a few meters away, thus getting hit in the process.
- "Alt" to lock onto target, causing it to stop jumping around.
- Or, use RMB (strong attack) when your enemy is right in front of you. With strong attack you always attack at the spot, whereas fast attack will cause you to leap towards your enemy is he is far away. RMB is sometimes slower, but if you get the timing right, it helps with the auto-aiming issue esp. when fighting groups of enemies.

10. There might be delays between 2 actions.
- I posted some videos under this thread.
- Basically:
a) After casting signs, running (WASD) is delayed.
b) After hitting an enemy, running is delayed.
c) After blocking an attack, running is delayed.
d) After dodging, sign-casting is delayed.
e) After your attack gets blocked, blocking is safer. Doing anything else poses a greater chance to get hit by the enemy.
e) After getting hit by an enemy, running and blocking are delayed.

Don't play this just with your sword, use your head. Try to occupy every tool you have to win, and plan accordingly.

If you are gonna face nekkers, bring bombs, if you are gonna fight wraiths, use potions before hand, etc.

This is what this game is about.

To elaborate 1.: you basically hit once or twice, roll away. Rinse and repeat until enemy dead. Don't try to finish off an enemy in one go, they will hit you back and in the beginning, you don't need a lot of hits to die.

8. If you know you'll encounter two wraiths for example, put down lots of those snare traps that you can collect in the forest. And maybe one conflagration, if you have one.

9. In the nekker caves, stay in the entrance area and lure them to you, use bombs when they are numerous and roll away to safety (they don't follow the last bit towards the entrance)

10. Learn from your journal about the weaknesses of your enmies and accordingly use fire (igni) or traps (yrden) etc.

And don't worry - you will become a combat god soon enough, taking down swarms of Nekkers and laughing at wraiths...

Try Axii when you're facing a group of mobs. I found it makes a huge difference and was especially helpful with wraiths.

Play Bard - Saviour of Queens, I believe its auto play feature is well implemented :)

Bombs in particular can make combat almost too easy. stock up on em.

When you have a chance to prepare a battlefield, set traps. You can collect a lot of Snares in Act I: they slow enemies down, they do a lot of damage, and you can pick them up and reuse them. (Other traps are one-time-only.)

Coelocanth is right: Axii is brilliant against multiple enemies, especially wraiths. Target the most dangerous enemy.

Do easy quests 1st to get xp points and level up. Don't forget to level up. :) Press C and use your earned talents.

Avoid getting surrounded, in the beginning you take double damage when hit from behind but you can fix this on swordsman path.

Use signs, Quen is your best friend most of the time but other signs can be very useful too in specific situations like others already said.

Get/craft better swords/armor and upgrade them with runes and enhancements.

Use trophies to enhance you vitality, armor and damage.

Don't go clicking on tough enemies, especially those with shields, wait for them to open up when they attack and hit them with a fast blow than follow up with fast/heavy blows. If they recover from your attack, wait for them to open up again or evade if needed. This tactic works very well even on a strong boss like the Draug. If you like, you can also use parry but this is limited by vigor.

use the silver sword against monsters ;)

Divide and conquer.

That pretty much translates to "roll around like a crazy person until you can get a few cheap shots in at an angle no one can hit you from." It's not glamorous, but it works. Combat is just as much about avoiding damage as dealing it.

wow -- sorry if you are having trouble on easy, you should just stop playing and go enjoy the movies or pick up non realtime games. I tried it on easy once and i litterally stood there for a full minute of getting beat up on, my health barely nudge downward. I did it again on the dragon fight near the end, same thing. Health bar doesnt move much. They should just call easy mode as GOD MODE. Its quite close.

I agree heavily with this. I am sick and tired of seeing posts all over the internet in regards to this game where people are either mocking someone having a hard time with the game, insulting them, or making passive agressive assumptions about their "skillz".

You can not take on huge mobs in the same way you did in the first game. When confronted with a group of nekkers create some distance by either running or rolling, whichever is better for your current environmental situation. Then you have several options:

1.) If you want to be a swordsman you pretty much have to do hit and run, and this is true for the whole game as I just got done finding out last night as I finished a pure swordsman run. No matter how much you fill the swordsman tree, you can not allow enemies to surround you, becaues they do not synchronize their attacks. They stagger them so that no matter when you let go of the block button to finally attack you WILL get hit by something. So roll away and let them come to you, get in one or two hits on the opponent that reaches you first, then roll away. As you level up the swordsmanship tree and your weapons this will become a less time consuming task, but it will always be necessary if you want to be a pure swordsman.

2.) Throw bombs at them to whittle them down. Then either finish them off with sword strikes, signs, or more bombs.

3.) Invest in some traps and lay them down as you run. Even human opponents are not smart enough to realize that you just laid down a trap and run right into it.

4.) Chip away at them one at a time with signs. When running away from a mob, lay a Yrden to at least take one of them out of the equation for awhile. Chip away at the others with signs like Igni and Aard. The mind control sign, Axii, can be useful but ONLY if there is enough distance between you and your opponents, because it takes several seconds to fully cast the spell. Only use it against slower moving enemies, definetly NOT against nekkers.

5.) Diversify your skill-tree points. Spread them around all 3 of the trees to make all of your weapons equally formidable.

I know it's hard to get used to at first considering the market is flooded with games that put weapons-play at the forefront. But this game was built from the ground up to make you use the "jack of all trades, master of none" philosophy and to make you "throw everything including the kitchen sink" at your foes.

And finally, it's all about knowing your enemy and what strategies work for them. This involves doing research. Reading books available from vendors in town that sell them, that describe the weaknesses of various creatures, and then most importantly, remembering where such monsters are typically found so that you will know in advance just by looking at the sewer or old building that you are about to enter that you should drink some potions before heading in.