The Witcher 3 - Death March is too Easy! Part #20: Nithral

This is our first real confrontation with the main antagonist. After defending Keira who's closing some portals we're fighting Nithral, a powerful member of the Wild Hunt. === About the Playthrough === This is a whole playthrough of "The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt" on ps4 starting with the arrival of Geralt and Vesemir in White Orchard and ending with the Credits after the final quest "Something ends, something begins". The playthrough is divided into 116 videos each one immediately following the previous one. In between the videos I saved the game but I never saved the game or loaded another game in any of the videos so they more or less display the whole campaign in a continuous flow. === About the Difficulty === This playthrough is done on the highest possible difficulty that I dared to try. For this I chose the following restrictions: difficulty is permanently set to Death March no armor may be equipped, in fact Geralt only wears underwear no saddles, trophies etc. may be equipped on Roach no looting unless required to progress main story no side quests, contracts, events, nothing outside the main story no mutagens, alchemy, crafting, potions, bombs or oils no places of power, no other boni (like the weapon/armor boni at blacksmiths) no fast travel, no meditation no usage of signs to avoid confrontation In addition to the previous rule, Geralt attempts to be as rude as possible always choosing confrontations in dialogues === About Exceptions to the Rules === There are exceptions to the rules, some intentional and probably some non-intentional too. Notable Facts: purchase of new swords at level 3 (before botchling quest) botchling turned into lubberkin instead of attacked two contracts done before Skellige to get 1000 gold one contract target killed with Igni sign because swords did not do any damage at all from quest Ugly Baby on Geralt is permanently under leveled (skull icon on almost all main quests) avoided fighting three trolls at once at Troll Mountain / Kaer Morhen purchased second pair of new swords at level 15 (equipped during stay at Isle of Mists) there are a few inevitable exceptions to the rule (fast travel between "worlds", a potion must be brewed at Kaer Morhen) === Final Notes === Using Quen often and getting Sun and Stars (skill) as soon as possible were the key aspects to surviving this nightmare. As Geralt got hardly any money and almost no items from the main quests the biggest problem was to stay up to date with the swords. During Ugly Baby Geralt got 2000 gold coins from the emperor which resolved the money problem for the rest of the game. In hindsight the hardest fight was Fugas, the gatekeeper at Bald Mountain, because I had to avoid getting hit by any of his fire attacks at all cost. One hit and a fire attack or two successful fire attacks and I was done for so I had to interrupt each of his attempts to launch one of his (extremely precise) fire attacks. The longest fight was the guardian golem at Avallac'hs secret lair which took about 15 minutes and thus slightly longer than Eredin. The most irritating fight was Caranthir because hacking his health away was terrible slow and the combat controls were constantly working against my strategy (more about that in the respective video). The easiest parts of the game by far were when I was in control of Ciri since she hits very hard, regenerates health quickly and can quickly move around the battlefield. The hardest opponents were the skull iconed non boss opponents. The health pools in this game are different from most other rpgs in the sense that a skull icon apparently quadruples enemy health. This was very apparent for me in the final quests in Novigrad. When I first attempted the journey through time and space I met the sand crabs as skull iconed monsters and did hardly any damage to them or well, I did the same damage as I did later but it hardly reduced their health bars. One level later the skull icon was gone, (I think I was level 19 first, the crabs are level 25, and later I was level 20) I did about the same amount of damage but each hit removed at least one tenth of their health.