I'm nearing the end of chapter 1 and already chose my allegience by siding with the squirrels. Anyway I need to fight the kingslayer 1 on one and I am really wondering if it's even possible at all. I mean yeah I do hit him... when he loses his guard from an aard attack from me.
But god this boss is HARD. He's like a tank! I wonder what kind of tactics I should use on him. I let myself die the 2nd time, thinking it might be part of the plot but apparantly not.

Well, obviously spoilers.

Do you use traps? Yrden, so when he stuns you with his Aard, he'll hopefully get stunned as well when he approaches?

There wasn't really a set strategy I used. Pots, traps, and Yrden. Running around to regenerate Vigor like a little girl. :p Quen.

I remember being kind of pissed at "kicking his ass", only for the game to reverse the narrative. ;p

Yeah I tried using the Yrden trap once, only for it to result in him getting stuck for half a second. It's probably like the Queen monsters in the forest?

Yea, don't know what to say. Like most boss fights, I tended to do a lot of in and out hits to slowly whittle his hp down as I ran like a little girl for my vigor to return once Quen would wear off, and being a tad braver during the very short duration when Quen would absorb some damage where I'd get in a few multi hit combos.

I'll try it when I wake up. The story's great by the way. I know I might replay the game actually once I've beaten it. I think I dispelled his quen once with an aard spell though.

If you want to be cheap about it, make a bunch of bombs and then right at the start just start mashing R. Otherwise, I found that staying close works really well. If you stay close he uses his sword more, and he tends not to put that damn shield up. So wait for him to attack, dodge out of the way, strike at him once or twice, and repeat. If you can get into a rhythm with this he'll actually go down pretty fast. The only kink is that every once in a while he'll push you back. If that happens, avoid the bomb he'll inevitably throw and get up to him before he casts his shield.

In addition, if you don't go to the fight right away, but rather meet the elf there, you'll pass the place of power that helps your health. If you're quick about it, you can keep about 3 or 4 minutes on that for when the fight with the kingslayer starts, which is enough time to defeat him.

as soon as the fight starts hit with 2 strong attacks. or until he blocks. Parry, then strong attacks until he blocks. Repeat until out of vigor. Roll away charge vigor and repeat pattern. Run in and parry, counter parry counter roll. When hes got quen up dont charge in as everything you do will just bounce. Just circle strafe him and hit him with a few aards till the shield drops. Then Open with an AArd , 2x strong, aard 2x strong.. etc. I didnt use quen much for this fight.

The thread title is a spoiler...

Spoilers!

Ok! The easiest way I found was, as soon as Kingslayer drops his shield, spam him with throwing daggars! That will bring him down a good chunk of health, so whack him a few times and the fight will endd when he's at half health.

Good idea I threw 5 grenades and 3 knives at him. Just cause I can.

--- Spoilers ---

Here are steps to defeat at end of chapter 1:

SHIELDED:
1) put on your running shoes
2) cast quen when it's down AFTER he does an attack so you don't get hit while casting
3) run in circles around him (not too close or you'll get hit by wide arc of his blade)

UNSHIELDED:
1) roll from his attacks
2a) if you rolled from a melee attack, strong attack him ONCE in the back
2b) if you rolled from any other kind of attack, wait for a melee attack
3) after strong attacking him once, roll away and go back to step 1

NOTES:
1) his whirl attack is 4 rotations
2) you only have to get him to half health

^ I did this after dieing many times.
Cheap maybe, but effective.

I just did dodge-aard-3 strong attacks again and again,and he barely got anything off at me. That said, it took a half an hour for me to figure that out.

I was VERY pissed about that! If this is a fight that I'm scripted to lose, then do it all in a cutscene -- don't let me win the fight for real, then override that with your #$@% script.

Come to think of it, they did the same thing at the end of Chapter 2 in TW1 -- when you're winning against the Professor and Azar Javed, the Professor throws that bomb, and you lose. That didn't feel as bad, though, maybe because there were two of them or maybe because the bomb was something it made sense for my Geralt not to be able to counter.

Anyway, I'm starting to see a pattern in CDPR's work. Someday we'll be able to make a table like the one somebody made for Bioware. :-) Hard boss fight after a cutscene at the end of Chapter 1, boss fight that you're winning until the script takes it away from you at the end of Chapter 2.... :-)

Maybe a talented modder could script this to go straight to the cutscene perhaps? Now where would we find one of those....

Oh, hai there Corylea ;)