This is embarrassing.

I have tried everything to kill this guy - I killed all of his henchman first and I am knocking him down with the Aard. I then hit him with strong attacks over and over carefully watching for the flame icon - and he just keeps on getting up. My last attempt I spent 25 minutes trying to kill him and keep on dying myself ultimately.

I hate the combat - despise it would be a better description, and I just do not get how to kill this guy. I am playing on easy too by the way, which makes asking for help that much more humiliating.

What in the world am I not understanding here? I have taken all of the potions, killed the henchmen first, and knock him down with the Aard power, and then proceed to strong attck him - but he will NOT die.

Help me understand this game please, because right now I do not have a clue as to why this game has gotten the reviews that it has.

I am utterly at a loss here.

Keep hitting him and pray that the Aard or your swings stun him and allow you to one hit kill him. I hate that fight more for the fact that he constantly damages you with no way of avoiding it via area of effect lightning the moment you close in and start hitting him.

Appreciate the feedback, but could you elaborate on this. I still do not know what the game want's me to do to kill this guy - and this is part of the tutorial - I wish the game would spell it out for me because he simply will not die. What are the win conditions here?

Yikes, I am downloading the Witcher 2 as I type - please tell me that they drastically improved the combat and that it is nowhere similar to the Witcher 1.

Pretty please? :)

Literally, that's it. Hit the mage with strong style over and over again, hit him with the Aard to occasionally knock him down to give yourself some more time to hit him. This *will* take forever, but as far as I can tell, that's the intent. The only quick way to resolve things is hope and wish for Savolla to get stunned, allowing you to kill him in one hit. I have heard combat in the Witcher 2 is improved,, but given all the problems I had with the first game, I wasn't feeling masochistic enough to play Russian Roulette on the sequel. Combat in TW1 is pretty awful, though, as you are generally getting hit by attacks that you can't avoid either because you can't counter or evade them (see the bullshit area of effect lightning that Savolla does) or attacks that you *would* be able to dodge if the dodge functions didn't require double-tapping the movement keys (which delays dodging long enough for you to get hit). Making things worse are crowds; even when using the Aard to knock people down, there's always at least one or two people that keep nickle and diming me from all angles, no matter how many times I try to jump and pirouette to safety.

Are you sure you're hitting him? Try fast style if you're not getting the flaming sword icon indicating it's time for the next attack.

TW2 combat is nothing like that in TW1. Whether it's better or not, people don't always agree. Judging by your comments you will probably find it better.

I've heard elsewhere that using fast style on him until he's down to about 66% health and then using strong style can work. Also, consider using a Swallow potion if you're taking too much damage.

To be honest, I don't remember what I did for this fight, but I don't remember it being a huge challenge. Maybe I just used fast style the whole time?

Part of it is, unless you get the "knockdown" (or "stun") indicator from the Aard, you can't hit someone while he's down. (If you do, then get him, dammit; that's an insta-kill.)

Another part of it is he likes to teleport right after you hit him, which is a combo breaker right there. Don't try too hard to chase him. Once he's settled on a spot, THAT is when you nail him with Aard and attack. You Aard him, and he'll at least be nice enough to let you finish a 3-hit combo before he zaps and teleports again. Aside from the teleporting, he is not fast enough to evade the strong style.

(Worked for me in over-the-shoulder mode, didn't try isometric.)

But yeah, I didn't really find Savolla that hard at all.

EDIT: Again, the moment Savolla stops hopping around, Aard him. If I recall correctly, that stops him from actually attacking.

"If those were just 'magic lights', I'd hate to face a really powerful sorcerer."

I just fought him- I believe the actual trick is to keep changing up the attack styles. I was only able to finally kill him using the group style of all things.

I managed to kill him on my first try. One thing that might be important is to make sure you still have thunderbolt (the first potion) active.

I started by immediately killing the henchmen as fast as possible using strong attacks. Then I switched to fast attacks with sevola. The key for me was to run up and hit him as fast as possible. If you watch the floor, veins of fire gather at the location he is about to appear. Start running that direction and swing as soon as he appears. I switched to heavy stance about 2/3 of the way through the fight and then finished him off. The key for me was I always hit him first after he reappeared.

One thing that may also help is to know the combat system is pretty finicky and is really more of an auto attack system. You click once to attack your target, ANY input (movement with wasd OR clicking again) will cancel the attack. So run up, stop moving, then click ONCE and wait patiently for the flaming sword to appear, click once it does, rince and repeat. Despite all the flourishing, each attack only hits once per click, so if you don't see a blood spurt or them stagger, you didn't actually hit them and need to restart the attack sequence.

PS. No Ard is needed, I actually forgot about it

May be, but it can be extremely useful. Not for nothing does Triss recommend Geralt to consume a bottle of Tawny Owl shortly before the fight. Since the witcher can only use one sign at this point, this is a subtle reference to "Aard". If all goes well, the battle is over quickly:

https://youtu.be/4EIGxPuoqPM

(DL "hard", Vanilla)