The Caretaker...sign build...harder or easier than combat build? Some spoilers?

[tigerpoetry]

So.

The reason for asking is that I've always tried to defeat this b***er with combat skills...and I've always hated it.

Today, just because I wanted to go back to Velen and blast the bandits off high scaffolds in the 'Devil's Pit', I used a potion of clearance and reset all my skills towards signs.*

As a result, I went to the Caretaker with Griffin armour, all except my 'green' skill, to get 3 decoctions at once, everything in the skill tree was blue. +140% signs! Griffin mastercrafted gear! My signs were going to be awesome!

I was on deathmarch but I was confident...

Yrden didn't do a thing...he wiped out the yrden marks with his shovel! How can he do that? Ouch! Just because I'm mesmerised by your shovel dexterity doesn't mean that you can hit me! Axii didn't touch him, nor did aard or igni...oh sh*t!...I'd got no combat skills!

...I was a lot less confident.

I was left with quen...my health went down, but largely because I was trying all the signs on him instead of fighting.

Actually, when I realised that he wasn't harming me anything near how he'd done in the past, it was really simple.

He couldn't touch me, so long as I dodged reasonably well...then I chipped away at him with my feeble attack power...dead in no time.

I'm darned sure that this was easier than all the times I've stormed in with more attacking gear.

My build was heavily sign oriented this time but it seemed so simple. whether it was quen, my armour, my decoction choice or what, he was a big fairy. Admittedly I had to kill him with the sword but I could have used a toothpick.

Caretaker...signs or sword?

What do you make of this fight?

* to get the humpty dumpty achievement.

[Simple Man]

Hes near immune to every offensive sign, needs to be swords that kill him. Either Rend or Whirl, for when he slams the shovel and sits there exposed trying to get it out.

And Wolf is arguably better than Griffin for that too, as it offers sign intensity but also attack power for when the enemy cares not for your signs, is medium armor just like griffin (so you can keep / use the griffin school brown skill), plus it doesn't make Geralt look like hes put on 20 pounds.

[Doc Holiday]

I was level 53 with a maxed out Aerondight when I fought him. He went out easily, in fact every boss on that expansion went down easily, that was the problem of me clearing the Blood and Wine pack first

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by kodiak.pw:

Hes near immune to every offensive sign, needs to be swords that kill him. Either Rend or Whirl, for when he slams the shovel and sits there exposed trying to get it out.

And Wolf is arguably better than Griffin for that too, as it offers sign intensity but also attack power for when the enemy cares not for your signs, is medium armor just like griffin (so you can keep / use the griffin school brown skill), plus it doesn't make Geralt look like hes put on 20 pounds.

Ha!

so it's quicker and more stylish?

I certainly agree that Griffin gear looks like it was built for a couch potato.

Is this the only enemy in the game that is totally invulnerable to any witcher sign, or have I just not noticed it before?

[Simple Man]

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

Is this the only enemy in the game that is totally invulnerable to any witcher sign, or have I just not noticed it before?

Olgierd also cares nothing for signs, killing all 6 of them at once was a bloody nightmare, but a welcome challenge. Theres a few other enemies that don't care for signs, that i can think of.

Elementals dont pay much attention to what we're casting, Gargoyles don't either, the wild hunt doesn't seem phased by them, only thing i can ignite is the hounds, aard doesn't floor any of their units, while yrden does little more than slow and/or stagger with magic traps. Of questionable usage outside spectres.

Swords work everywhere, but signs complete the build when the enemies do ignite, or can be knocked down. All out signs might be a build that you're forced out of, sooner rather than later.

[Shalashaska]

Most bosses don't give a crap about signs, so it's better to do a sign/sword build instead of a pure sign one.

[max.strauss]

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

What do you make of this fight?

In my eyes a witcher is neither a mage nor a druggist - so I have no choice. But I'm curious if there's any non-swordsman-build which allows you to solve the caretaker-fight more quickly (41 seconds without armor, death march).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyam_a8wArQ