Elfgore said:
When do you hear of this in the story? I've played through the first act twice and have no memory of ever hearing that anywhere. Also, to clarify, is Loredo the fat mayor/constable of Floatsm?
Though sadly I don't see myself ever beating the Witcher 2, unless I buy a controller for my PC. The fast pace combat just doesn't work on a keyboard. I don't have the reaction time needed to dodge, parry, and attack all at the same time. I've been stuck on that damn harpy contract in the dwarf town for like 5 months now. Seriously, FUCK HARPIES!
Loredo and the pregnant elf are disclosed if you help Roche, I think. I gave the sword back to Iorveth and a bit later chose to go with Iorveth so the elf wasn't in my story. From what I read at http://witcher.wikia.com, it's just Loredo's bed toy/slave, nothing else.
To Elfgore, don't use blocking in fight. Just activate Quen, use fast blows to jump to the enemy quickly, maybe fast and strong sequence then roll away, if you in a group fight. Re-cast Quen, fast attack someone near you, then jump away when blows take your Quen away. Some enemies do not like fast attacks in real quick sequence (wraiths come to my mind and also harpies, lol, though the higher species of harpies are quite armoured so it's always wise to use fast blow then strong and use this interchanging sequence till the moment her colleagues take your Quen away, then jump away to re-cast). I found the fight confusing at first but if you learn how to roll away in fight AND not troubling with blocking, because THAT requires quick reflexes - and it's not that hard to dodge by jumping away, even if playing on keyboard which I did all the time - and if you realize many enemies can't be as quick as you making those rolls in sequence (sometimes even making an L-shaped escape), you can almost always find a quiet spot - even run away beyond the zone the enemies will pursue you (I remember I killed golems and bruxas when with Cyntia in the chapter 3, from beyond the entrance door, just making one step inside a room, lashing them with Igni, retreating outside to regenerate Vigor). Also, on later levels, your Quen will be pretty strong, if you invest in it, so the only trouble with fight for me was the Kayran fight and that was only because I didn't know what to do and when I found out I didn't know how to use Yrden).
I used to fight harpies by groups but once I descended all the way down to the mine and they all attacked me at once. I survived the fight, barely, but didn't need to reload. I only cared for Quen at that moment because Igni or Aard were still to weak (and even later they wouldn't fry dozen harpies or more anyway). So with Quen, I fast attacked any harpy and while using more fast blows (and this way pushing her physically few steps every one or two blows) I only kept eye on my Quen and if I wasn't getting too deep into a group of harpies. Not only because they could attack me from back but also because rolling away - dodging - would be impossible if surrounded. If I rolled away, usually two or three jumps at time - and the bottom of mine HAS some space - I noticed it took harpies (and usually every other enemy in the game) some time to re-group or just simply to turn to my new position and start advancing again.
If you fight only a group of harpies, attack furiosly one and when that one is down, retreat. Others will follow you, but you have time to re-cast Quen and if you got Quen update to vent damage to 2 or 3 enemies, you basically safe from normal group of 3 or 4 harpies. I remember harpies in Loc Muinne, they always attacked in one spot, I think 3 of them and they were just nuisance or source of money, but not source of worry. (Maybe I should explain, but with harpies I almost always used fast blows, the strong one only to finish off the harpy and that only if her sisters weren't pressing me too much at the same time. Fast sword attacks always push enemy back and you follow your enemy pretty nimbly and usually the other harpies in a pack have some trouble following you, if you fast attack one harpy so you move away from the pack. In the end they will try to get behind your back but in the last chapter it takes them so long that you easily kill the harpy you fight with even with fast blows, so then you just swing around and with a bit of luck push another harpy away from the group with fast blows - if not, you can always weaken one or both, roll away, recast Quen and fast attack any harpy remaining - fast, because if you stand away, you first auto-roll towards it and then strike the blow. I never needed to recast Quen more than once with these Loc Muinne sisterhood of feather lol)
For the fight with the queen of harpies, just prepare some Yrden traps on the ground into the tunnel, together with some traps, then take the Letho's dream from the projector, quickly retreat into the tunnel, behind the Yrden, and fry approaching or stunned harpies with all your Vigor save the last one, which you can use for Quen and finally attack with sword. Don't forget to use entrance to tunnel as a chokepoint, so it's always only one or two harpies or queen at you, and not using fast attacks that much, because they push enemy back so you step inside an open arena after two, three fast blows and can get yourself surrounded.
All in all, fight in Witcher 2 - and I only used blocking with sword when I played that ghost who couldn't use witchers specialties - is easy enough, just hit opponent and if your Quen is gone or you're getting surrounded, roll away, sometimes even several times and in various directions. Almost no enemy is that quick to be following you immediately. Perhaps only Endrega Queens are like an express train but then, you can Aard them to stun them for a second before you roll away. And with Quen any damage you take you give back (50% to 3 additional enemies, I think 100% to the one causing damage? - if you invested in Quen skill).
To sum up - I didn't feel so god-like fighting, like I did in the last chapter of Witcher 1 (fighting grandmaster or King of the Hunt was tough, but not nerve-wrecking, and anyway was fun because I killed lots of additional wraiths or enemies just like some bugs getting in a way). But in the last chapter of Witcher 2 the part of the old confidence got back, not that much that I could think I was unstoppable, but after Operator and re-arranging skills* I remember killing a platoon of Nilfgaardians with Iorveth pretty easily and nothing like stress I experienced when hunting Endrega Queen in the Chapter 1, lol.
*(I invested in both Mage and Swordplay till the highest skill so I basically got two chains of skills to the top, but could have been ok only to get up to Whirl in Swords and maybe upgrade more other Magical skills - but I wanted adrenaline for sword hits and various other bonuses as well and frankly, not all Mage's skills were essential, not even Yrden levelled-up, and Axii seemed to never work for me, too).
P.S.: In Witcher 2, for bigger enemies than you, Draugirs, Draug, Golems, etc, use Yrden to freeze them on the spot (I never understood how Yrden works lol and some enemies do not get trapped or stop only for second), then just hit them with hard sword attack till you see they move again. This is the time to roll away, run to some safe distance where you can recast Quen and place another Yrden on the ground and stand there to lure the enemy into it (before you roll away in the last moment). In the last fight with Dragon (the second one, actually, on the roof), just jump around often, there are moments when you can approach and hit it few times hard but it needs some skill to spot the moments and in the meantime he - actually SHE, lol - will hit you with claws or tail (even these didn't matter much since Quen was damaging Dragon in exchange and with some decent Vitality combat regeneration, it was pretty undamaging - in all honesty, I didn't use any potions beforehand so only Vitality regeneration and top Quen could get me through alone). Still, I fought and managed to end it in one go, without need to reload. Maybe it helped I had 6-7 Vigor so I could Aard the dragon when I saw it was active and about to hit me. I don't know why but the highest level Aard (that frozen kind you get as an ability outside Loc Muinne) were pretty useful to fight dragon. I was just surprised, I'd never expect Aard to function well with massive Dragon, especially when Draug didn't seem to notice it, lol (but then it was at the chapter 2 and Aard wasn't that Freezing variety at that time, too).
P.S.2: Yes, for blocking, I usually forgot to block the arrows too. But even without bothering to block arrows, Quen can help even in the first chapter. The only time it gave me trouble was at the very beginning, during the assault on the castle but at that time I struggled with fight mechanism anyway...
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