answer to spoiler: i could pick up both mine and his swords AND his bombs after the fight. just search the room carefully.

This fight is shitting me to tears, and the combat system is a bit bullshit to be honest.

Firstly, he gets a free hit at the start of the round. If I'm lucky, it will be Aard, and it will only take a fraction of my health. If I'm not, it will be Igni, and there's half my health gone before the fight's even started.

I have my dodge skill maxed out. He can hit me mid-roll while I'm rolling from one side of the room to the other, with either a sign or a sword swing. Sword swings seem to have a 50% chance of causing bleeding, taking a quarter of my health. He throws up Quen fast and often, so I have to roll around hoping he won't throw out a sign and hit me mid-roll.

Blocking? Don't worry about it. Blocking will stagger him, but half the time he will block before Geralt's grandpa arms get his sword up. Going for strong hits? Nope. He'll hit me before it lands. There doesn't seem to be any way to choose which sword swing you'll throw, unlike the Jedi Knight series or Mount and Blade, so it's the luck of the draw if it's a fast one or a slow one. Even hitting attack mid roll is a crap shoot of whether you get the rolling stab or a standard attack.

Then there's blocking. With full vidor, sometimes Geralt won't even block. If I hold it, he'll stand there. if I mash it, he'll stand there. I've maxed out my riposte skill but it doesn't do jack? Max damage? Nope. Standard "fast" (and I use the term loosely) damage. No chance of a one-hit kill since he's a boss man, so it's pretty useless in that regard.

Throwing out Samum? Doesn't stun him at all. Dragon's Breath? I'm lucky if it takes a pixel's worth of health off him. I haven't dealt him any status effects that I've noticed (and I've been watching the combat ticker in the bottom corner), but this fight is just bullshit. To top it off, the guy has practically no hit-stun. You're lucky for a two hit combo, but if he hits you, he can juggle you all fucking day with signs and bombs. One time I had him hit me with an Aard, which threw me to the ground, he threw a bomb which exploded in my face and staggered me, then he hit me mid-stagger with a fucking Igni and polished me off. Three hits, two of them unavoidable, the other which hit me mid-roll (when I'm at my fastest and most avoidable) and I'm dead. Bee. Ess.

Geralt's movement in combat is slow, sometimes completely unresponsive, the attacks you throw are random, so it's luck if you get a nice fast slash instead of a cartwheel of flailing idiocy or a rolling thunder of dumbass wonder, Lotho's immune to pretty much everything, even when he doesn't have Quen up and about, he gets a free hit when the quick save loads, and this is on *NORMAL*.

I thought the Kayran was bad, when I would get hit by tentacles that weren't even near me, dragged in to the electrical field by tentacle that I had chopped off as it swept back after its little hissy fit, and then hit with a single rock that left me in hit-stun so bad I didn't have a chance of dodging the rest. This is before I figured I had to climb the bit of rock to get to the monster (no not the other two bits of rock, the bits you can't climb on, the one bit of rock you can climb on but no one will tell you there's a difference). At first I thought I had to hit the Kayran's soft underbelly where it was all glowy and shit, just like I'd been hitting the other glowy bits all this fight, but nope, going up there got me yet again caught in a hit-stun wonderfuck of electric boogaloo.

It's a great game. The best game out this year, but dear god it has some issues. One chick in town had a name of "name Proper Name". it actually said "name" above her head before her real name was displayed, a placeholder left in. There are grammatical errors all through the subtitles, strange bugs (like Zoltan not goddamn moving from the inn after getting him to lead me to Ioverth, I had to load a previous save and pray that this time he would move his short hairy ass). I know CDPR will fix it, but I'm just venting because, quite clearly, this is bullshit. I'm playing the AU version too, no idea if I've missed any content yet due to censorship (didn't even know I was buying a censored version because there was no notice on the GOG site, thanks guys) and I'm praying to Meliteli that the beefcake fuck-knuckle with the V shaped noggin' will die a horrible, horrifying death due to spontaneous combustion because he quite clearly won't perish from Geralt's efforts alone.

Rant over.

Just make sure to pick up the sword before you leave! Ridiculous that Geralt doesn't do it in the cutscene and you could be left without your primary weapon...

And yeah, that fight was ridiculously hard. Dropped it down to easy to win.

But still, the previous boss fight required no skill and this was beyond frustrating and cheap at times. This game is NOT Demon's Souls yet it feels like it's trying to be...

Really not sure whether or not I like the fighting system yet. It's interesting but the inability to deal damage to multiple enemies until much later in the game seems broken when I'm encountering groups of 6 elves, 20 Nekkers and the like. With no splash damage on spells and only 3 blocks of vigor, crowd control is almost impossible unless you face them at a choke point.
You pretty much summed up my issues entirely - well put.

They definitely need to get around to an Enhanced Edition, just as they did with the previous game because it has so much potential.

my strategy was to lay down a yrden, dodge his ranged attackes to lure him into it and then pray that he gets stunned without having a quen on.
you can then spam him with strong attacks.
2-3 times are enough to down him to 1/2 hp.

Sorry for the guys who seem desperate but... this thread is actually all the tribute you need for the game. Just look at how many ways there are to kill him, and already showing the specialties some chose.

I suspect those who fail much tend to try the same strategy over and over when it does not suit their character, or are going in the fight with strange choices (like spreading their abilities instead of building a specific type of combat, not taking time to brew potions, and so on).

You must find your own way - there's even the bug way :p

Found this fight pretty tough the first time but after many attempts and a night sleeping on it i finally beat him with a heavy attack, heavy attack, arrd push , heavy attack heavy attack and dodge away. worked pretty well but you have to time it right and get out of the way if he blocks also dont stand around if he shields up just roll/run around until shield runs out avoiding bombs and signs and then attack again. its not perfect but worked for me in normal. in hard (2nd play through) i had changed my skill tree choices alot and i had my shield upgraded twice and also had 2 extra vigor bars and found it alot easyer cause i could shield up and just hit him with hard attacks alot. just learn to time your attacks and also how to roll so that you face him again roll back, roll left amd roll forward attack. it takes practice but can be done ( also as per spoiler i fought him with my 2nd best steel sword the 2nd time round) ** also theres a health power point at the bottom of the path that leads up to the rose garden if you activate it and then go into the fight you get 3 mins of extra healing :D

I fought him 5 times to be able to beat him, the first 4 times I was trying to form a strategy for him. When I've beaten him I almost had full health. I didn't throw bombs or use daggers.

I drank 2 potions, 1 would give me +3 regeneration of health during fight, 2nd was something that helps with blocking. Then coated my blade with +10 DMG, one of the other potions gives a negative effect of DMG -40%. I also had the source of power (power up) very close to where this fight starts, watch the scene first time then skipped till I got to fight him, it gives you extra health.

When the fight starts coat the dmg oil and jump away (my jump had 2 skills on it so 200% better than the original roll that we get at the beginning of the game) it works wonders.

general rules:
1- Always use heavy attacks never fast because he won't feel them.
2- When he gets his bubble up, shoot 2 Aard sign at him and wait won't take long to get your Vigor back, when the bubble disappears jump on him but don't hit him, let him hit you and block it after blocking you'll get a chance to hit him up to 5 times with heavy swings, sometimes 2.

(when you get thrown away by his magic, that means he wants to cast his Quenn just stay away, and take Quenn off by your Aard sign) by the time his bubble is gone you'll have your health back to full.

3- Always roll away from him when he gets his bubble up, DO NOT HIT HIM.
4- don't stay idle when he gets his bubble up he will start throwing bombs, and cast spells.
5- Take this fight slow don't rush it.
6- Don't use Quenn because it will mess up this strategy because it depends of Vigor.

Defeated him on normal in less than 3 minutes.

When Iorveth asks you to go confront Letho tell him you need to do something then go straight to where you have to meet him uphill. Before triggering the cutscene meditate and drink a rook and swallow potion. Then put Vaska's blood on your blade. Trigger the cutscene, when leto's fight begins start rolling towards him and try to roll through his attack so you can get on his back, as soon as your roll is finishing start pressing the quick attack so Geralt will jump to connect the strike and then spam mouse 2 (You should get about 3 hits in: 1 fast, 2 strong.) Roll away and repeat

You'll see with Vaska's blood and Rook the damage buff is immense and he will drop very quickly

No, it's just bad design. I'm sorry but difficulty spikes are evil, especially when you don't get the chance to drink potions (yea you can before you fight the monster, but if you take your time in the dialogue they'll wear off)

You don't exactly expect the fight for a potion so I imagine most like myself had a hard time with the boss.

yeah its really tough when you walk into it for the first time with no potions or anything , i cursed alot during it but its not impossable you can do it, like i said after leaving for a night and coming back to it i won fairly easy.

Agreed. The execution of the combat engine and boss design aren't up to snuff. After the kayran and then kingslayer, I'm really questioning whether or not they had any playtesters that weren't part of the dev team. The world design, art direction, and writing are being let down pretty heavily by the cheap, unresponsive combat.

It must be a lot tougher on hard mode because on normal I beat him unbuffed in like 1-2 minutes with well over half health. Just used quen and he fell like butter.