I don't think the staff is used for any quest, but it does make for an amusing weapon. It has a pretty good chance at freezing enemies. I used it until I got the final steel sword, Camere (spelling? It's the one that the mage/smith makes for you). It's fun, but you can't dance around with it like a sword. Still, you can manage to hit multiple enemies with it if you use strong attacks

Yeah, I know, shame about that. I relied on hit-and-run tactics for combat so it felt a bit awkward, but I did have fun setting enemies on fire every 2-3 swings.

Playing as pure swordsman this fight is damn near impossible. Aard knocks him down but he can still summon gargoyles from the floor, which is silly. The furthest I ever got was ignoring the gargoyles and just attacking and Aarding the operator, but I still died.

Seeing he only gives dragon scales, which you can get from that sorceress' house anyway, and a steel sword not as good as other steel swords, I suddenly lack the interest to beat him.

I died on the last set of gargoyle adds and got furious. Opened up geralt_basic.xml and gave him +500% damage vs gargoyles :P

His weapon, and some other things I can't remember.

The sword (staff, actually, but used like a sword) is pretty hardcore. Totally worth it.

When he summons the gargoyles, run from corner to corner using the pillars as protection against his staff (which seems to bypass incineration and magic resistance). Only engage the gargoyles if they approach from the same side of the pillar, that way you can take them 1-on-1 or damage them together if you have Whirl.

Red Haze buys you some time against the gargoyles too.

After dealing with a pair of gargoyles, if you're low on health then just run between corners until you regenerate. From what I can tell, O summons the gargoyles based on his health, so if you're not hitting him then no gargoyles.

It took me a LOT of reloads to figure out a working strategy. Then the stupid portal opened next to Geralt and I accidentally walked into it BEFORE looting O. I was not happy. Then I beat him a second time only to find that I couldn't afford to craft the armor.

LOL. Man, I almost did that too. My heart skipped a beat. At least you got a chance to prove you mastered it! :P

Okay so, I just beat this guy on hard as a spell caster. It was NOT easy, but once I found a good strategy it became far easier, although still challenging.

Don't worry about swallow, if the gargoyles hit you from behind (as you roll away) they will hit for almost 500 damage and 1 shot you. Use tawny owl, virga and lapwing. Red Haze bombs were helpful but I didn't even use any on my kill attempt.

Put up Quen and let him keep hitting you with fireballs while you re-apply quen until you have max adrenaline, then nuke him down until he becomes invulnerable and summons his pets. Instantly use your time warp ability and make sure the operator is inside so his fireballs are casted slower. At this point you can dive in and hit the gargoyles, let your shield get hit and discharge onto them, then run out. 80% of your damage will be your improved Quen shield.

Once the pets are dead, make sure you charge up your adrenaline before forcing his next set of pets out. Rinse repeat.
He summons pets 3 times in all. He also heals, but don't worry - he is limited to 3 summons.

Hope this helps :)

I know this may have been posted somewhere. Did you know there is an exploit in which you can get the respec and the drops from the Operator. You must know the throw dagger skill, and bring a lot of daggers (around 50 to be safe). You enter the room where the boss is, but don't go down the stairs, and start throwing daggers at him, use quen or retreat up the stairs when he starts fire-balling you. You will need a little luck, as he may heal and stuff, but its doable. You can kill him before initializing dialogue, and then go down the stairs. The dialogue for respecing will trigger and you get the drop from his dead twin. You can actually kill him twice and get two drops, but I don't see why you would want to do that.

Exploits aside, I found Aard to be very very effective against Gargoyles in general. There is a fairly high chance that you can stun and one-hit them (I played on Hard). So there you go.

p/s: Remember to dodge/Quen or whatever though since they hurt like a bitch.
p/s: I almost broke down in tears of joy when I found this out.

I missed this quest on my first run (Magic), but did on Swordsman. I built up adrenaline, but nothing happened when burnt it off with the finisher button.

Same thing on very last fight of the game. Not to be spoilerish, the human you can choose to fight at the end, rather than the creature you have to fight. Actuallly, it wasn't quite the same. The adrenaline bar didn't even show up for that one. And, come to think of it, I don't think it was there for the pentultimate fight either.

I clearly recall it being available and working on Ch. II boss, though. There wasn't an animation, but it did big damage and ended the fight. Might have been coincidental with a blow that would have been fatal anyway, though.

Boy, now I gotta make a post polling peeps about this. :p

Exploit, for that amazing looking staff & a respec? Hmm... That fight was insanely hard, but it might be worth it now, at least until the Berserk glitch is fixed...

I tried this for a while, but the controls themselves glitch out here. Like, after the gargoyles summon I can't switch to my silver sword, and I can't throw bombs for a LONG while. It's really unacceptable to have such a glaring glitch on this hard of a fight. This is my second playthrough (alchemy run). I feel he'd be cake with my sign-focused character once helio was up, but eh.

It's one thing to have a difficult encounter. I enjoy those. But a glitchy, cheesy, one-hit-you're-done encounter? Nah, fuck that.

It might have been because I was full alchemist (level 2 of most abilities) plus I drank thunderbolt, rook and vigra + falka's blood oil I absolutely obliterated him and his gargoyles. With berserk mode I had well over +150% damage. He went down in 4 heavy hits, the gargoyles in 3.

Load up on buffs and hit him with a few heavy hits to start off with. He'll put up his shield, switch to your silver sword and put up a quen, go after the gargoyles immediately you can take one down while the quen protects you from the other. Take down the other and pull out your steel sword and hit him a couple more times and repeat.

The gargoyles are your main concern, they're a bitch to fight in such a cramped space.