Question about the Skill on the combat skill tree, Whirl, it sucks

[CEO of La Responsabilité]

I have just fully upgraded the skill Whirl, and it feels useless for me, so I wanna to say if anyone know how to use it properly or is that the skill just sucks

Whenever I face a group of monsters, like drowners, pack of wolfs, the skill is just entirely useless, since you are not just spinning but more like dancing, those monsters can get you easily eventhough you are using the skill, you are very vulnerable when you use the skill

Beside, it is better to play normally with dodge and slash with those fast-pace enemies since you will very easily get hit when you use Whirl, and for slow-pace enemies, the damage for the skill is just not enough

I only find the skill useful when I fight with humans, I can break their block without getting hit meanwhile, but apart from this, it is entirely useless

So I am using it wrongly? or is the skill sucks?

[hedop]

Nope you are using it right. Same goes for rend... try using that against quick enemies and they swarm you. The idea is to know who to fight how. Big and slow guys like Elementals and the likes will give you enough time to use rend and massively damage them in one stroke. Quicker enemies like Foglets etc. are easier to damage with whirlwind because it stops them from attacking you and hiding in the fog again, but those are attacks for single targets mainly. You shouldn't use them on enemies who attack in packs.

[CEO of La Responsabilité]

Originally posted by hedop:

Nope you are using it right. Same goes for rend... try using that against quick enemies and they swarm you. The idea is to know who to fight how. Big and slow guys like Elementals and the likes will give you enough time to use rend and massively damage them in one stroke. Quicker enemies like Foglets etc. are easier to damage with whirlwind because it stops them from attacking you and hiding in the fog again, but those are attacks for single targets mainly. You shouldn't use them on enemies who attack in packs.

oh, that makes sense, but I thought the purpose of the skill is attacking all enemies in the surrounding area as the description said, so that means to use them against pack of enemies, seems like it is a bit wrong in real fight

[hedop]

Well yeah you can attack several people but you shouldn't use it against enemies that attack as a pack... not a pack of enemies. Meaning... they surround you and keep you from actually moving or attacking like drowners and wolves tend to do... humans do not tend to behave like that. Nekkers will do that too. This skill is actually more useful against vaguele scattered enemies or as I said single quick enemies that would otherwise counter too often. Every sword fighting skill will allow you to hit several opponents at once even if you only tap the button and not hold it. Rend for example will transform you hard hits into hits that can kill two or even three enemies at once. Same goes for whirlwind but they do that for the general attack not the sworddance Geralt performs, by his movements it should be fairly clear that he is attacking on target with this attack not several.

[kurosect]

I also found whirl useless for groups of enemies, though it looks cool. When I'm 1vs1 against some bandit I just whirl him to death landing faster strikes since most of them get parried anyway.

[studmuffin]

Originally posted by I HAVE NO IDEA!:

I have just fully upgraded the skill Whirl, and it feels useless for me, so I wanna to say if anyone know how to use it properly or is that the skill just sucks

Whenever I face a group of monsters, like drowners, pack of wolfs, the skill is just entirely useless, since you are not just spinning but more like dancing, those monsters can get you easily eventhough you are using the skill, you are very vulnerable when you use the skill

Beside, it is better to play normally with dodge and slash with those fast-pace enemies since you will very easily get hit when you use Whirl, and for slow-pace enemies, the damage for the skill is just not enough

I only find the skill useful when I fight with humans, I can break their block without getting hit meanwhile, but apart from this, it is entirely useless

So I am using it wrongly? or is the skill sucks?

Yeah combat has changed somewhat since the first witcher game.There u used to have steel sword with strong attack for tough enemies,group attack,fast attack for a small mob,something like that and those applied to silver sword enemies as well.Just remember big enemies strong attack ,literally everything else fast attack with either silver or steel sword+ whatever signs your equipped with.

[Mr. Tastix]

Whirl is primarily a defensive skill from my point of view, it's not bad but it's nowhere near as offensive as the tree makes it out to be.

True AoE doesn't really work well in this game. Aard Sweep and Yrden are probably the best you'll get but a big issue with these is they don't scale well from Sign intensity, not to mention there's this weird bug where you don't do full damage with crossbows or Signs unless your weapon is sheathed (this might not be a bug but if you ever get attacked you will pull out a weapon making this incredibly tedious).

It's the same problem with abilities like Rend and the bleed Fast Attacks get. They sound great on paper but near the end of the game I'm dealing around 2000/1300 dps with my swords. That extra 125 bleed I get is pretty pitiful in comparison.

[Probot]

I'm really late to the party but I just want to pop in and say practicing moving around with Whirl and when to start it safely will make it extremely useful against packs of quick enemies. It's true you don't spin around, but Geralt does swing behind him, so if you time your movements, you can guard yourself from whichever directions are most threatened, while advancing on your primary target. Just note that if your main target gets away from you, stop your Whirl and immediately dodge far away. Practice makes perfect.

As for large enemies, Whirl is completely broken. Put 3 Greater Stribog Runestones on your swords and watch as you hold down a single button and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ your way through the game. 3 G. Stribog gives 15 % chance to stagger per hit, as soon as you hit your first stagger, if you can make each consecutive hit land on your enemy without missing, you can keep the permanently stunlocked, as you only need 1 stagger proc, and then they'll be staggered on each hit after that without requiring a Stribog proc. As soon as you miss though, you'll need a new proc or get away because the enemy will be able to counterattack. This allows you to kill Golems that are many levels above you in 10-50 seconds depending on how well you do. Build 3 adrenaline points, then go in with Attack Power decoctions (Water Hag, Succubus and/or Wyvern) as well as a Thunderbolt.

I play on Death March btw, above strategies are tried and true.

[Alex]

Whirl is usefull against a lot of enemies but you have to time it right and use it in the right moment so all of the hits will strike enemies and that makes you able to do a lot of damage to a lot of enemies in some seconds

[meep_meep]

Originally posted by MrTastix:

Whirl is primarily a defensive skill from my point of view, it's not bad but it's nowhere near as offensive as the tree makes it out to be.

True AoE doesn't really work well in this game. Aard Sweep and Yrden are probably the best you'll get but a big issue with these is they don't scale well from Sign intensity, not to mention there's this weird bug where you don't do full damage with crossbows or Signs unless your weapon is sheathed (this might not be a bug but if you ever get attacked you will pull out a weapon making this incredibly tedious).

It's the same problem with abilities like Rend and the bleed Fast Attacks get. They sound great on paper but near the end of the game I'm dealing around 2000/1300 dps with my swords. That extra 125 bleed I get is pretty pitiful in comparison.

I've found that bleed/Crippling Blows is actually pretty useful against enemies that are hard to hit or can dodge/block your attacks, like bruxae and shaelmaars. Since they're only hittable under certain conditions (i.e., when the shaelmaar is flipped) being able to bleed them will shorten the fight.

[Deadbubble]

Originally posted by Samantha Traynor:

Originally posted by MrTastix:

Whirl is primarily a defensive skill from my point of view, it's not bad but it's nowhere near as offensive as the tree makes it out to be.

True AoE doesn't really work well in this game. Aard Sweep and Yrden are probably the best you'll get but a big issue with these is they don't scale well from Sign intensity, not to mention there's this weird bug where you don't do full damage with crossbows or Signs unless your weapon is sheathed (this might not be a bug but if you ever get attacked you will pull out a weapon making this incredibly tedious).

It's the same problem with abilities like Rend and the bleed Fast Attacks get. They sound great on paper but near the end of the game I'm dealing around 2000/1300 dps with my swords. That extra 125 bleed I get is pretty pitiful in comparison.

I've found that bleed/Crippling Blows is actually pretty useful against enemies that are hard to hit or can dodge/block your attacks, like bruxae and shaelmaars. Since they're only hittable under certain conditions (i.e., when the shaelmaar is flipped) being able to bleed them will shorten the fight.

You're still better off going with regular bleed. The damage from Crippling Blows is pathetic, and scales extremely poorly.