Don’t fight like a Witcher... Unless you are a genetically modified killing machine Witcher, in which case, fight how you want you’ll kill everything anyway.
@GiRayne I think in a lot of ways it'd be more difficult to fight an animal than a human geralt style. A lot of animals fight close range and immediately try to get that range by sprinting in, they do a lot of wrestling as well.
@GiRayne Geralt is even more ludicrous in the books. You can`t translate someone fighting faster than normal human reflexes can deal with to the game. It would be unplayable. I have my own wishes about gameplay, mainly that there is no difficulty setting that went balls deep into gathering knowledge about monsters and preparations being much bigger part than what they are, but it is what it is. There are more monsters in the game than in the books, but it`s a gaming thing. The worlds in any game are not representative of the lore and story 1 for 1. On the other hand, there are quite a few of them. The reason why Witchers are unneeded is not that there`s very little of monsters left, but that humans grew so much in power and numbers that they can deal with them without Witchers and humans became rather phobic about everyone different like elves, dwarves, mages, sorcerers, and mutants. There is an actual sword style similar to Geralt`s. It was meant only for duels and for weaker agile fighters that use momentum to generate force.
@GiRayne "Then again nothing about Witcher's world makes sense... at least not in the games (I gather the books are far more coherent). The conceit that the games trade off is that Geralt is scorned and shunned for being a freak, halfway between human and monster. 'Cept the worlds are positively teeming with monsters... In 3 you can't go out for a stroll as a farmer without being harassed by a frikkin' wraith in your fields. Pop down the main road towards another village, and boom, you're running the gauntlet past nekkers and insectoids." GAMEPLAY THING. You dont know that in the most games(GTA, RDR, Witcher, assassin creed, The elder scrolls) Gameplay is not canon for the most part? There are alot of monsters in witcher 3, because without them world would be empty. Also you seems like you didnt pay much attention to lore, because everything in games has really good connection. Cutscenes, dialogues are canon. "Witcher's game world just doesn't cohere to its own presented lore. The gameplay says one thing, the world and lore pretends something else. The humans tend to behave more realistically, hence all the misery-porn. Yet if there is any nod to realism of psychology and world building, then it follows that witchers would either be absolute godsends, practically worshiped and feted across the lands for being the only people who can carve up a pack of drowners without breaking a sweat, or they'd become " People are affraid of them because they are diffrend. Like in real world people are affraid of gay people, diffrend skin colour. It's not far from real life. Also, you clearly doesn't know a game Lore. There ARE regular humans learning witcher sings, or combat, but they are not as effective in combat as witchers, guess why? Because they arent mutants with "superpowers". And again, you clearly didn't play much of the witcher, or you didn't pay attention to lore. "Also, Geralt's a rather shit swordsman... His footwork is dreadful even in some of the actual proper guard positions he temporarily adopts, and the animation for Rend suggests he has a 'peasant's blow' appreciation of how to generate power with a sword cut." Do you even realise that Geralt combat in books/games is strongly connected to magical signs? It's easier for witchers to be glued to the ground, so they can use signs instantly, yes he is making spins or rolls, but other than tah he has that stiff foots for the most part so he can use sings instantly. Also, footwork helps HUMANS to get momentum, or be ready to "dodge" an attack. Witchers have inhuman reaction time, strenght and perception, they doesnt need to have flawless footwork, because it wont help them at all but it will ruin thier magical capabilities. Just watch shadiversity and what he thinks about Geralt combat. He said that "witcher combat" is impractical for HUMANS but witchers are SUPERHUMANS so it works for them really good. I agree that Geralt should have diffrend animations for fighting with humans and diffrend for monsters, but that's it. You really should pay more attention to lore, instead of splitting shit like this. " and the disconnect between how witchers are treated due to the lore and how demonstrably and objectively valuable they are is frustrating." - btw. That's a thing from the books. Just like magicans were treaten in books, or warriors in RL, or people that are diffrend than most of the society in RL. Just sain
@@DarkThagan Right. In books he was able to kill 5 people in 1 second with 5 diffrend swings. Also in books witchers "combat" is meant only for monsters. They doesnt learn about how to deal with humans, because thier purpose is to kill monsters, not humans. But after people were manipulated by mages to hate witchers, things goes rough. Witchers are using "Monsters" combat moves against humans. " The worlds in any game are not representative of the lore and story 1 for 1" That's true. Gameplay isn't canon as i said before. In GTA isn't canon that you killed 5000 people, stole 5000 cars etc. Story, dialogues betwen characters, some events are canon. GiRayne has some troubles with understanding game and books lore. "The reason why Witchers are unneeded is not that there`s very little of monsters left, but that humans grew so much in power and numbers that they can deal with them without Witchers and humans became rather phobic about everyone different like elves, dwarves, mages, sorcerers, and mutants. " That's it. As i said before, people in real life are affraid of "diffrend" skin colour, sexuality, religion. Witcher books and games has tons of exmaples of "dumb" people being phobic. It's pretty realistic tho.
@@majorbombas ffs... people are not afraid of gay people. Who told you that? They think it is unnatural mostly. You know one male and one female to procreate not 2 males or females... thats just biology. Wether it is actual unnatural is a whole other story. But no.... most people who are against gay stuff and a-z folks are not afraid of them but are afraid of the(nowadays forcefully pushed) idiology it comes with.
uhhhh , just a small correction: Guards are only 6 lvls higher than you at all times. This is done so that the guards are good enough to be able to punish you for doing lore-unfriendly thing, such as stealing and scaring citizens - things a witcher (especially Geralt) wouldn't do. After all this isn't fallout or skyrim, this is The Witcher, you are playing a specific character who is actually based on a book, who can be played (story-wise) in a few different ways. The reason they've made them 6 lvl's higher is because of the way the leveling system works. Everything that is up to 5 lvl's higher or lower than you will give you XP and will be appropriatelly difficult. Everything 6 lvl's lower than you will give you (almost) no XP and everythin higher than 6 LVL's will be a MAJOR challenge to kill (but it can still be done if you've got a good perk build and good equipment). Personally i'm pretty decent at the game and at late game i can usually kill guards with a bit more focus and care.
Polearms are rarely in video games because they're *TOO* good. Developers don't know how to properly balance them. They work in Dark Souls because the combat is so weird with exaggerated telegraphing, but most games don't give you obvious cues and instead just make the damage more forgiving. My best example of a standard game with balanced polearms is Chivalry, and things like Dark Souls fit into their own weird little category
"because they're TOO good." - "The Frank thrust him with the spear, but the Turk warded off the point of the spear with his shield and, notwithstanding the spear, advanced towards the Frank... ...The Turk dealt him a number of blows..." - Usama ibn Munqidh
For high ranked people, polearms (as well as the two-handers) in Chivalry are still too strong lol. Long reach in this game is still a very big advantage. With a polearm or zweihander, vanguards can easily control the pace of the fight, or quickly disengage from a feint no matter it's 1 vs 1 duel or team fights.
While that may be a large part of it (I have a friend who designed his own tabletop RPG, was a pain to balance the polearms against close-range weapons), I still think it falls under "Rule of Cool" logic. Polearms to us (read, the average first-worlder) feel kind of like cheating, hitting the enemy before they're even in range. There's not a lot of satisfaction in it, and it's not as fancy as sword-to-sword combat. In sword fights, you can have blows and parries, fast-paced swings, face-to-face with your enemy, risking death and overcoming it, etc. Just look at Star Wars, it's rife with sword-fighting cliches. Because video games tend to be "hero"-focused, constantly risking death feels more satisfying and heroic compared to the smart, "easy" way to fight, i.e. polearms.
In star wars there is indeed a polearm equipped squad of elite guard and in older the elder scrolls {i mean from I to IV} this weapon is real good and it is as say above even to good in hand of experience player so its possible that the developer know the new player simply can defeat opponent with greater reach and non telegraphic move set.
I can't speak to the Elder Scrolls (only played Skyrim), other than yes, polearms do exist in games. They're just EXTREMELY rare compared to swords, knives, and bows. As for the royal guards, they're showpieces. They're there to look scary (which they do), but you never see them fight. Eventually you do get Maul in I and the Magna Guards (or whatever they're called) in III, who technically have polearms, but they're used exclusively like swords. Because flashy! xD
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that Geralt is nearly 100 years old and have been using a sword to stay alive since he was in his early teens. He is also a mutant with enourmous strength, speed, stamina and agility, his sword technique might be a result of him being ridiculously skilled and just throwing off his enemies with lots of unorthodox movement, kind of like feinting in boxing.
+SODEMO2007 Or his sword technique is the result of incompetent writers who don't understand swordsmanship. Geralt's lucky he didn't grow in this world or he'd have died in his teens against the first unarmed opponent he fought unless they were sleeping.
+7dayspking Dude you are such a fucking witcher 3 hater. Goddamn, it's like every comment on the witcher 3 you try to refute their points. 1. The witcher games don't even reflect the canon fucking story of the books, why do you think they should portray every single part of the books? Him not having incredible strength or speed that is faster than enemy reflexes is because it's a game. It would be quite trivial if you could kill any human opponent in the game faster than they could blink. 2. Pirouettes are actually useful to speed up an attack and thus, momentum. Yes, in a real fight where one is doing it quite slowly, it would get you killed. However, even in the games, Geralt moves very quickly in his 'ridiculous twirls' often being able to move along with them. How would that not be useful? 3. "Slicing through plate armor" This is easily explained by Geralt having enhanced reflexes and aiming for weak points. How the fuck would you show this in a game? How about you go watch a guy called The Sword's Path do some of the moves that Geralt does. Now imagine them being around 3x faster. As a normal, plain old humie, you would get sliced apart. Especially considering many humans in the Witcher series don't wear helmets, though I don't know why. Now stop bitching and eat that shit sandwich :)
+ThePalo48 I wouldn't have purchased or finished TW3 if I hated it. You are correct though, I certainly respond to comments I disagree with. 1. Correct the games are their own continuity, you of course then ask me a loaded question one I'm not answering. 2. sword moves fastest when activated from the wrist lever, the arms move faster than the body. While performing a Geralt styled pirouette the blade's speed is limited by the body's...the difference here is well more than 3 x faster, Geralt would need to be dozens of times faster to justify what he's doing. The issues are inferior momentum, terrible cutting motion and failure to retain edge alignment and not threatening your opponent with the weapon while also being open. 3. NPC's can also slice through armour. You can show this ability by actually making animations. The blows landed wouldn't penetrate far enough to slice much of anything. The time it takes to perform a Pirouette is well more than 3 x how long it takes to perform a conventional strike.
A factor that I have almost never seen considered when talking about either witchers, jedis or things like that are augmented senses and physique. If you have augmented reflexes, speed, strength and agility, you can perform moves that regular humans couldn't without leaving themselves exposed. And this moves could be used either to give more power to your blows, confuse the enemy or opening new angles of attack.
Jedi do those spin against other jedi that are also faster beeing so that is still insanely stupid, even more considering that no mater how weak is your strike with a light saber it will be enough.
Absolute bullshit. In the games he is not superhuman...in the latest game his movements are *mocapped* and finally having enhanced speed does not mean you're not left open....that's like suggesting a bullet will always hit a target because of it moves faster.
of course it doesn't mean you are not left open, but the time you are left open would be considerably reduced, and opponents who don't have equal speed and reflexes would have a really hard time trying to take advantage of that opening
Marcello Emiliani I don't mean to be that guy but couldn't he just find that out by looking at it? Or is this sarcasm? Or is it a hallucination and part of the slow but inevitable journey into madness to which we are all destined?
David W Thank you :) And hey, I was just voicing my opinion and reassuring that I am safe from thrown/flying pommels as I live in a different world from theirs. Still, I don't mean to be a jerkass. If I came across as one, then I am sorry.
I actually dispute pole-arms making sense for the Witcher (or most of the time, the Elder Scrolls). Geralt of Rivia is very often out in the woods, sneaking around, following scents, fighting in the middle of a heavily wooded area. Going deep into caves that may have tight, enclosed spaces. Travelling for days with only a single horse to carry his things. The problem with a pole-arms in all of these settings is that they are freaking huge. It would be very difficult to use a spear or a dane ax or something like that effectively if you were beset upon by 2 or 3 ghouls in the woods and suddenly had to bring out your weapon and defend yourself from them. It'd be difficult to bring it to bare against them, and while once positioned it'd be easy enough to thrust with a spear, it'd be very difficult to move from one enemy to the other, especially if the trees were thick enough. I wouldn't want to bring a spear into a cave. I wouldn't want to carry a halberd deep into the woods where you don't know what might jump out at you at a moment's notice. Pole-arms are great weapons for many, many purposes, but the sort of adventuring that is done in the Witcher, and indeed in the Elder Scrolls, really doesn't suit them very well (Elder Scrolls is much more amenable to this however, as you can do so much to adjust the way that your character plays, but even if I were a massive, heavy armored tank, I'd still never want to bring a big pole arm into a cave where I have no idea how narrow the passages might end up being that I'd have to take.
a fighting spear could be small say 4 feet but just having them present in universe for the appropriate personnel and having the option to use them would satisfy this.
Mmm but in the elder scrolls there are cities and armies too, they could use polearms, when you think about elder scrolls you have to think about the whole setting, not only the main character as this one can do whatever he wants, roleplaying as anything. That's why in witcher there are polearms but only used by guards and enemies, but in elder scrolls they would let you use them if they were there, because Geralt doesn't use polearms, shields, etc but insertplayername does use everything in elder scrolls.
Johannes "Fountain" Micha you mean the roeful axe? that's the only unique axe i can think of and it isn't really polearm, not as metatron was talking about
I have to disagree on Witcher being high fantasy. It's more in the middle between high and low fantasy. Overwhelming majority of techniques in the world, will definitely be developed to be used against humans. Monsters and magic users are very rare in the world, mainly the later.
High fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy, defined either by its setting in an imaginary world or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, and plot. I believe this would qualify Witcher as high fantasy on both counts. The inclusion of monsters and/or magic isn't a requirement.
aussiebloke609 I have always understood high fantasy as this very fantasy element heavy, extremely epic story like Lotr. The Witcher story is less "epic" than most, the characters are not really as much larger than life as seems to be common in high fantasy. And technically is set in distant future. BTW, would the Game of Thrones then qualify as high fantasy. To be honest I'm only going of the books and the first game, a lot might have changed in the next two.
What defines high fantasy is how otherworldly the stuff that happens actually is. The witcher is in sort of a middle ground. Stardust is high fantasy, as are most Final Fantasy and D&D stuff. Game of Thrones is sort of low fantasy, as is most fantastic realism. Epicnes doesn't really count for how fantastic things are. Iblard Jikan is almost as high fantasy as it gets, and theres absolutely nothing epic about it at all.
Julia Linne That may be how you wish to consider it, but I was going by the actual definition of "high fantasy." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy Other way to define it are that high fantasy takes place in a fantasy world that isn't analogous to our own, and low fantasy takes place in a fantasy world that can be compared to ours - or that high fantasy has fantasy elements as common in the world and low fantasy is like our world but with a dash of fantasy thrown in here and there, rarely.
One could argue that Conan and Star Wars are fantasy settings (Star Wars more towards high fantasy, Conan more towasrds low fantasy) I would say the Witcher series is more on the "lower end" of high fantasy.
You've said that you are making an evaluation of fighting styles in witcher SERIES. But you clearly never played W1 and W2 where Geralt is using half-swording sometimes. 6:11 +Metatron But this is exactly the explanation given by the author of the witcher saga ;) 7:55 Of course they are polearms in witcher games. Actually enemies armed with polearms are among the most dangerous ones.
I have played W2 but I haven't finished it, I think I got to the point when the elf gets killed in the gallows in town, or something like that, it was a while ago.
Geralt did not use half-swording. What de did use, in the first game, was a murder-stroke (grab the blade and hit with the guard) - as the last part of the steel sword heavy style combo and as a finisher. The half-swording, where you grab the blade and strike with the point, was never used in The Witcher.
Sheol_IK He use it also in W2 AND murder-stroke IS a half-swording technique. Also in W1 there is ability in steel sword strong style tree that unlocks special attack which is series of murder-strokes, that reduces enemy's armour and destroys his shield. Also in W1 when finishing knockdown opponent Geralt is sometimes placing one hand on the blade leaving the second on the sword's handle, which is exactly what you would do when finishing armoured opponent lying on the ground. So he's using also standard half-swording as well. Although, it's just one animation.
Kamil Szadkowski I definitely don't remember anything like that in the 2nd game. Mind to point out? No, Mordhau IS NOT a half-swording technique. Those are completely different things. And, well, that finishing move - okay, kinda half-swording, but I was talking about it's use during fight, not as a finisher. And Geralt does not use half-swording in a fight.
How powerful is magic in the witcher world you ask? To put it simply: VERY To put it a little more in perspective 3 members of the sorcerers lodge where capable of leveling a not overly small castle and part of the mountain it was on in an expolsion that could be felt miles away.
But remember, the magic in The Witcher's series is not that easy, of course that magic exist, but sorcerers like Yennefer have live more than a centrury training and training for magic. But the rest of the people who uses magic only are capable to use primitive signs (like witchers do).
I read the witcher books. (Maybe not all of them, but most. At least that... Saga about wticher and witchress. Is it called like that in english?) And there was not many sorcerers that would be able to do this. Yeah. The misters (or how they're called in english) were able to do that. (Yeah, Yennefer, but also Gerhart of Aelle, Vilgefortz, Tissaia de Vries, and few others.) But most of sorcerers in that series were not better than Rience. Those coming from Niflgard were even... less able to do such a things.
Yep. But there are like 7 members of the lodge of sorceresses total, and they are the sum total of powerful sorceresses in the world of the Witcher, at that time. Magic is pretty rare in the witcher. Monsters really aren't, especially the lesser kinds. Ghouls, alghouls drowners, and rotfiends are really pretty common. That said, they are humanoid or like dog/wolf shaped, so for the most part fighting them shouldn't require techniques nonexistent in europe. Honestly, I've often wondered why the lodge of sorceresses bothers with politics. Combined, I expect they'd take over the world without too much of a problem. Like, given what they did at Kaer Morhen and in skellige, they should have no problem destroying armies and castles.
The magic doesn't affect the combat too much in The Witcher series, you have to focus more on who is using these sword techniques; the witchers, superhumans that regenerate and with some potions don't even feel pain, and also have high reflexes. So witchers spin and dodge faster than a normal human, and they also are super strong and accurate, so each spin it's not only to pass trough the monster's skin, each swing is directed to a vein or weak point. So they can (according to books and some videogames systems) literally make genocides with serious injuries. Of course in the videogames he can´t move that fast (it won't be easy to manage, and we don't have super reflexes :v) but thats how it is.
Thank you, sometimes it feels like no one acknowledge the fact that witchers aren't normal humans and that in the Witcher universe the humans doesn't use witcher's techniques, because these ones aren't viable for them
Yep Witchers are far superior to regular humans in almost every way, not only can they move and attack at speeds most humans can't even react to (fast enough to deflect crossbow bolts) but they are also increadably difficult to kill, so much so that in the books a Witcher littrally has his heart cleaved in two during a battle and lives long enough to die on the opperating table.
I think that the best source of knowledge about witcher styles is the author of the books Andrzej Sapkowski. He said in the book-interview that witchers do all this spins and pirouettes to confuse monsters that mostly don't have binocular vision. Also, the style of fighting in Witcher 3 is very simplified. Geralt in books doesn't spin half as often as in W3. In my opinion the Witcher 2 was the closest to the original while Witcher 1 fighting styles have the most depth.
Yes, there were polearms in the Witcher games. NPCs use them. To be fair about the polearm thing, Witchers are swordsmen who constantly travel. Carrying a spear could be cumbersome due to its length. I know that soldiers carried spears when traveling to war. However, these polearms would make traversing in tight spots such as indoors very difficult (even if you strap it on your back). You could argue that spears could be carried on horses, in which you're right. In fact, from what I have read in the first book, Geralt does not carry both swords on him at once like the games. He keeps the silver sword on his horse until he switches his swords. However, this would be annoying for players if they have to switch weapons. That and they don't know what type their next foe will be. I say a similar thing about carrying spears on the horse in terms of gameplay. It would just be annoying to constantly go to your horse for your spear. A telescopic spear, however, may work if you figure how to create the thing and lock the parts in so they don't unintentionally retract. It may not be effective but hey, it's just a fun idea I had. Even if spears could truly work, I am not bummed of the lack of such things. I prefer swords anyway. Just my opinion :)
*Unlike the Guards, Witchers don’t carry halberds*, but they do carry two swords and have *several fighting styles* (std HEMA, fast twirling and slow but strong attacks). The idea behind it is, that for humans they use a pretty standard design longsword (but of superior quality), but against monsters they use a different sword. The reason being that the *silver alloy is brittle* and cannot be used for parrying. *Parrying Trolls* and Fiends makes *no sense* anyway. Dodging and *rolling with polearms* is awkward that’s why they don’t use them. What I don’t get is why the two swords look the same. I would design the silver sword like a Katana, just a bit longer. They got a thick spine, broad blade and no tapering, making them better suited for brittle steels. They don’t need much of a guard, or a second edge. One could argue that thrusting might still be valid against some monsters, but that could expose them to counter attacks of the monsters.
Witchers' silver swords are not brittle - they are empowered with magic. Not to mention that Witchers normally don't carry them around all the time, since the majority of the monsters are easily killable with steel swords. Only ghosts, vampires and purely magical creatures require silver to be damaged. And no, both swords are identical (unless we are talking about the 1st game, both books and 2nd and 3rd games have identical silver and steel swords).
Silver swords in Witcher are actually steel cores covered in silver to make them stronger. Also it's not particularly surprising that the swords are designed the same as standard swords if they're made by blacksmiths who mostly know how to make standard swords. They're not willing to reinvent the wheel just to make a single different blade.
MRKapcer13 It depends. In the first Withcer book Geralt had sword made of pure silver. In the last one - no. However it's still not explained, whether it has a steel core or it has some other type of construction. But in the Witcher games, yes - it has a steel core and covered with silver.
Sheol_IK I actually liked that in the first game they were different. I can't remember where I've heard it, that the silver swords were brittle, but I do remember that was the reason, why they don't just carry a silver-plated sword. Since the Witcher do have the blueprints, it wouldn't be that much of a deal to ask a master sword smith to make a Katana and coat it with silver...
It was definitely explained somewhere... It must have been Season of Storms. They try to auction off Geralt's swords and describe the silver one's construction by saying it has a steel core.
I think one of the most important points missing here is the question, who in the universe of the Witcher, actually fights like that. The answer is, of course, the witchers do! But they have superior strength, endurance and reflexes. If there are advantages and disadvantages to their fighting style, then maybe they take the advantage while being able to compensate for the disadvantages. But I'm not suitable to talk about pirouettes and such things in fights with superhuman bodies, whether it is against humans or monsters.
In the Witcher games human opponents do use polearms and they're considerably tougher to beat than others, you can really feel that disadvantage. In Witcher 2 you COULD pick them up and use them yourself. However, a witcher generally uses his two longswords, as they're the traditional weapons of the guild and they've trained with them (and only them) for years and years. Its sort of like a rule. I think the lore justification is that a long weapon like that limits a witcher's superhuman mobility, which is his primary defense (jumping, tumbling around, etc). Witchers don't use plate armour (though you could put it on in Witcher 3..).
Ha-ha, the piorouettes are obviously bullshit because if you turn your back on your opponent in REAL COMBAT you drop dead instantly, regardless of his reaction. And I know everything about REAL COMBAT because i'm a lvl 69 NAVY Seal ninja with over 9000 confirmed kills and also the final authority on all sword fighting because I watched Naruto. Fear my katana!
Bullshit. If you want to know how swords really worked and work when it comes to "dropping" somebody with any kind of "armor" and better yet MOVEMENT while the swordsman is swinging on them, stop listening to/reading this fantasy bullshit and the medieval/ancient warfare nobody in hell alive today has any REAL idea about and go read "Flyboys". Which is the story of several American naval aviator POWs shot down on and around Chichi Jima Island (an island or two up the chain from Iwo Jima) late in WWII when the Japanese pretty much knew they were fucked and many units had basically been cut off from or abandoned by the IJN "main force" and where the commanding officers of those island forces were mainly nutjobs/dirtbags to begin with who'd been parked there to keep them from fucking up anything more important, spent most of their time getting hammered on sake and doing whatever they could to maintain command and discipline and order to keep from getting "whacked themselves" and in the case of Chichi Jima decided to go "old-school" Samurai on those POWs excecuting them by "beheading". Even with scared shitless, half-starved, exhausted and hopeless POWs of the weakest kind, which is PILOTS stuck on the GROUND to execute while they were completely vulnerable in light shirts and shorts and kneeling and bent over and for the most part resigned to what they knew was coming and maybe ready for it after being beaten and tortured and starved and in a few cases stabbed during "bayonet practice" to "soften them up a little" for execution, young and strong Japanese junior officers armed with those amazingly, crazily sharp "katanas" were unable to do the "one-stroke" thing. The book was written by the same gentleman that wrote Flags of Our Fathers and he ended up interviewing one or two Japanese survivors that were there as well as one or two Americans who were there on the island but didn't get "whacked" before the U.S. rolled up the chain of islands and took Chichi Jima for its air base as a "backup" for the B-29s flying bombing missions from Iwo Jima after it was taken. Its pretty sick what the Japanese did just excecuting them that way, but their nutjob C.O. was full-on wannae "Bushido" and went to a place you don't HEAR ABOUT in the Samurai stories/mythology history but DID exist as it did and still does in MANY animistic "the winning soldier/warrior of a certain race is superhuman and all other life forms are animals to be used/exploited/killed/eaten as desired or required and to gain their spirit" religious faiths of "primitive peoples" where people are also born to their fate so there are "chiefs" and "kings" etc. What was the rest of that story? Cannibalism. Straight up and no shit. And not only because it was the Shinto/Bushido thing to do to take your vanquished enemy's spirit and send him to hell or wherever dismembered and destroyed and to literally eat him and shit him out, but because the Japanese on those islands were starving to death too. And because the crazy-ass C.O. who forced his young junior officers to beat and stab and execute the POWs "to toughen them up and educate them" (and also to have somebody to blame when he surrendered to the Americans because he had no intention of falling on his sword and knew from World War I that "senior officers" just "following orders" from a Kaiser (German for "king") or EMPEROR or KING or SUPREME COMMANDER probably weren't going to get the war criminal thing and HE WAS DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE ANYWAY by killing them, eating parts of them and burying them up on the hills where the Americans wouldn't be when they just showed up to take the airfield. Fucked up shit and hard to believe EXCEPT for the beheading part being impossible with even the "sharpest" swords ever made. Do you think the French came up with the GUILLOTINE for the hell of it and because they really liked making big, heavy and expensive and uncomfortable "furniture"? No. It's because the human body is one hell of a lot tougher to destroy than people who mainly sit around and play video games and watch documentaries on TV and TH-cam and otherwise "do research" on physical "combat" and "warfare" and "violence" and "reenact" it on the weekends with their similarly un-competitive, non contact-sport-playing buddies would ever believe. If you guys ever put on a set of shoulder pads and cleats and a helmet when you were still a boy playing American football and were tough enough to stick it out long enough to get past the "painful" part of conditioning and the like in practice to get to the "fun" stuff of HITTING PEOPLE, you'd KNOW how much abuse the human body can take and keep going. Instead you think its something that can be sliced and diced with a really long and skinny and lightweight and thin and piss-poor no matter how sharp it is "meat cleaver". But REAL meat cleaves are like a GUILLOTINE BLADE and not like a STEAK KNIFE, aren't they? To CRUSH AND CHOP THROUGH BONE BUT BONE THAT"S LAID OUT ON A BUTCHER BLOCK AND CAN'T BEND AND AFTER THE "MEAT" IS DEAD AND ALL THE MUSCLES AND TISSUES ARE RELAXED.
Great video. One note is that in the first Witcher game, there are 3 fighting styles (high, mid, low), depending on the type and size of monster you're up against. While all styles can damage whatever beast you're fighting, the trick is to use the style that best matches your opponent (and sword of course). Correct matching of style to creature type results in maximum damage.
+Kamil Szadkowski also, most did not take into account that it was in a different world, and that fighting styles were developed according to time and circumstances in that world.
Great video from the Metatron! Couple quick notes just to add to the discussion: polearms certainly do exist in The Witcher series, you see them in the hands of guards, soldiers, some bandits as well as strewn all across the various battlefields you come across. Halberds, spears, poleaxes and bills all exist in the setting, it's just they're very much a battlefield type of weapon (lances too, for the few knights you come across). They just don't make as much sense for Geralt as a Witcher since he does a lot of crawling through caves, moving through back alleys and generally "operating medievally," alone while hunting monsters. A master swordsman can probably get a lot more out of a sword when alone than a polearm as those really shine (in my opinion) as part of a formation. They can certainly be used by a lone warrior, don't get me wrong, I just think the choice of longswords for Witchers makes sense given they typically aren't in a battlefield setting. Second point: most of the fighting styles of the people in the setting are much more conventional, without all the pirouettes and spins (Eredin of the Wild Hunt even makes fun of the Witcher style of fighting at one point). Witchers have their own unique style that is, in universe, supposed to leverage the advantages their mutations give them. Being extra strong, extra fast and being able to live for centuries opens up new possibilities for training and sword combat that not only take enemies off-guard, but also take advantage of those traits. I really like how the setting makes the distinction and if you look closely in the games (particularly the latest one), you can see there's a big difference in the way characters move and fight compared to Geralt. If you're not too busy trying to avoid getting skewered by a halberd that is. :P
Great video discussing the plausibility of geralts fighting style historically. I liked at the end how you clarified that its fantasy and he can fight however he wants and it would work, considering he has inhuman reflexes, abilities, strength, training and magic which allow his techniques to work.
Max Chatterji it's widely considered that elder scrolls morrowind is the best elder scrolls, and it probably is even with it's awful combat, its story is good, it's settings unique and there lots to do, but it's pretty slow starting out.
I have thought of and discussed this with a weapon expert in the past. The thing to keep in mind is that the Witcher is frequently fighting multiple opponents and at least in that specific context mastering pirouettes would be very practical/beneficial. If you watch Geralts movements during the pirouettes and spins it does look like he is laterally sweeping and parrying which would be a handy tool if fighting more than one opponent. I have no clue if that is what the developers were thinking of, but it looks attractive in any case. The books also mention the use of the swords impetus to aid in movement speed
Don´t know if it has been mentioned yet, but in The Witcher 1 Geralt actually uses halfswording (and also murder strikes) as some sort of finishers. :)
There is this good mod for skyrim called "Heavy Armory" that adds such weapons like polearms of each weapon material. I like it compared to other high-quality collections such as Jaysus Swords, because Heavy Armory uses vanilla assets and textures.
The Elder scrolls had pole arms and spears in all of its games except oblivion and Skyrim which was a huge disappointment for the game Skyrim which is all about Nordic Viking like culture.
Krytern UK Nope. Go play them and fin out. I finished daggerfall many times, so i know what im talking about. Googled about arena, doesent have spears too. However, daggerfall had flails, but they arent polearms.
Shrekas 2 My mistake then I always assumed that they had polearms and spears. Not sure why they don't add them they could easily make them balanced by just making them slower.
Krytern UK You mean why dont they add them into newer games? Actually, spears are kinda op in real life, so they should be make good in games too. Everything needed to balance a spear is just to make them two handed weapons. In reality its just like that - spears > swords, nothing new.
The variety of weapon choices in Witcher 2 including polearms was something I wanted to see in 3, the fact that everyone had different cosmetic versions of the same swords counted against 3
Great video, but here is a thought about one advantage to all the spinning movements that you didn't touch on: multiple opponents. For someone in a combative situation where they are outnumbered, spinning around during a strike the way Geralt does would give the attacker a quick 360 view of the battlefield. This would allow him to see if other attackers are trying to maneuver around and surround him at the same time he is attacking. Since Geralt tends to fight alone and against multiple monsters at once, utilizing these spinning movements to both enhance striking power and survey his surrounding at the same time makes sense to me.
In the books (haven't played the third game), war is very traditional and European in style, including cavalry charges, pike formations etc. Magic isn't used all that often because the number of magic casters is very limited, especially after what happened at Thanedd.
You're one of the best youtubers that treats these arguments. Always talking about context, and you are perfectly right. Not like others (KNIGHT SQUIRE for example) that in order to show off their "very limited and basic" knowledge and under standing of HEMA, are always complaining about what they do in HEMA class, without even analyzing the context of what they are talking about. You are always numble, serious about your research, and entertaining. Good work Metatron, sei davvero in gamba e spero che un giorno avrai a disposizione più mezzi e collaborazioni per i tuoi video. Sei una parte fondamentale della diffusione della cultura e delle arti marziali europee e non. Continua con la tua umiltà, competenza e buon senso a intrattenerci e ad informarci.
Also: Witchers were trained to fight monsters. Therefore their combat style is built around exerting as much force as possible (this is why whenever Geralt fights he spins and makes such large swings). In conclusion witchers use their strength in combination with their agility, speed and dexterity in order to deal as much damage as possible specifically to fight monster which pretty much never use tool or weapons and are at a bare minimum just really strong animal with the occasional magic potential.
Change of subject, I just recently brought my first katana and was given a cleaning kit for it. I know there's plenty of videos on how to clean it but could you do a quick video on how to properly clean and care for blades ??
in star wars, they had light whips, flails, shoto sabers, sabers that would bleed plasma off of the blade and cast it into the strike, and a few had dual length sabers to increase the draw cut across a wider arc. there was an instance where one Jedi Master lured his unbeatable opponent in close yet out of easy striking distance. he held his saber high and right over his shoulder and struck by directing the tip of the blade at the enemies head and then, since he was out of strike range, engaged the longer blade which shot out a meter and impaled the enemies head through his eye.
Couple points (not in contrary to the video, just wanted to add a couple things): 1. The spinning (I'm not trying to spell the right word) also serves to allow witchers to prepare a sign without revealing that sign to their opponent until the last moment 2. Also on the previous point, the spinning serves to move you quickly to avoid or move past or around monsters while not letting them strike safely. This is intended to prevent them from escaping as well as to avoid several specific attacks or abilities that certain monsters may perform. (spitting poison is a good example; your sword work can be as good as you would like and it won't matter if you're not moving to avoid a lethal dose of poison) 3. This point is probably the most significant, is slightly touched upon in the books, and is why a Witcher will still continue to spin even in fights against human opponents: Witchers usually fight by themselves against groups. They spin to offer them a chance to block from any given direction if they need to, as well as the ability to move to avoid being cornered. Witchers are naturally much faster than their opponents in terms of reflex, so this also allows them to strike on the fly in any direction without warning. However, that does not mean they're faster than all monsters. In one of the books it even mentions how they automatically include parries and blocks in their spins designed to be effective against certain monsters regardless of whether or not it's necessary because they may not be able to react if the monster strikes, or if they are fighting more than one and simply can't focus to be able to react against all threats. They carry this methodology over against humans, but they do include more traditional strikes as well in those cases. Against each other they spin because they treat fighting each other much like fighting a monster. 4. This isn't specifically about lore in the Witcher, although it does tie in to it in terms of effectiveness of spin attacks, and I have a disclaimer to add with this. Disclaimer: I am an amateur and have extremely little hands-on instruction on how to properly use a sword in combat (basically, read on only if you're interested in a poorly described experience of mine in a fight with my brother). My brother and I (he's had some experience fencing, and did quite well although not on any form of real competitive level) have fought since we were children (I mean children, I was like 5 or 6 years old when we starting and we're both adults in our 20's now). We don't use actual swords or we would be dead, but we do not fight slowly or lightly; we have often injured each other fighting. Since we have fought for so long against each other with fairly high intensity, we have developed a fairly good understanding of how each other fight. I for my part fight much more in HEMA-like style, where I would describe his style of fighting as a form of kendo that favors fencing thrusts thrown in. Obviously when I say this, this is a very vague approximation as I know fairly little about disciplined sword combat on a technical level, and I may be describing this inaccurately. However, that aside, I'm going to try to describe something my brother did that caught me totally off guard. My brother used a very interesting type of spinning strike that I literally never saw coming. He took a step forward with his right foot appearing as though he was striking from high right (his perspective), so I was ready to parry the strike. Then, as his strike started to move forward, he quickly put his left foot forward while twisting his weapon down to his left side (still moving it foward slightly), and proceeded to spin quickly off of his left foot to his right. Since he was continuing his strike through from his right to his left, as he spun his weapon still was on my left side. I saw his spin as an easy opening because it looked like he couldn't hit me, so I transitioned to an attack, striking at his back. However, he had continued taking his weapon across and turned it into a full 360 spin across the front of his body. Because he spun his weapon and his body in the way he did, it so happened that he was able to completely reverse which side his attack was coming from by the half-way point though his spin, and his weapon was high when he did it. It took him virtually no time to do it; I hadn't even brought my strike down (moving at full speed), which began the same moment he started to spin, by the time he had managed to totally switch the direction he was attacking from and he even increased the power of his strike with it. The result was him hitting me directly in the side/back of the head with enough force to nearly knock me out. I wasn't even sure what he had done until he showed me later because I was dazed from the hit. In a later fight (that particular hit ended my fighting for that day), he attempted the same move, and I tried to block it this time. It didn't go as badly as before, but it didn't go well. My brother and I typically are very even when fighting, we win equally often. We're of similar size and strength, although he weighs quite a bit more. When I tried to block that strike in the later fight, I discovered that he was actually putting his full weight behind that strike, and simply, I couldn't block it and stay on my feet. I didn't lose my grip and he didn't hit me because of a mistake on his part (mostly his surprise at how strong the strike actually proved to be) but he knocked me down from the force of the blow. Almost immediately after that he did it again, which I was ready for, but he was able to totally switch the angle of the strike without making what he was doing appear any different from my angle, and that's the one place that I see a real use for spinning attacks. He was able to adjust his attack without me being able to immediately react to it because he could change it without me being able to tell what his movement was. Spinning definitely left him open on occasion and I have hit him easily at times because of it, but once he started doing that he was able to transition into a strike quickly enough that hitting him during a spin because risky enough to simply avoid. As I said, we're both amateurs in the sense of any actual instruction, so I have no doubt that anyone trained could easily beat us both. However, I also have no doubt that someone well trained could take what he did and make it effective against others who trained. The ability to alter an attack without an opponent being able to tell where it was coming from seems like something that would be extremely useful to a Witcher to me, especially with a monster who may be able to react to a Witcher's strikes quickly enough if it saw them coming. I can see that influencing the Witchers style, but I could of course be totally wrong.
There were spears in Elder Scrolls - Morrowind. They were actually my favorite weapon due to the range advantage. I was unhappy when they got removed in Oblivion.
Dark Souls had to nerf spear and shield because, on release, it was one of the most effective ways to fight. Even in the final version, spears and halberds are really strong.
Thank you for saying what I was thinking all along. The witcher 1 game had three different styles for dealing with the different situations you just described. Situations such as numerically superior (or multi-headed) enemies, large and though brutes, or quick and nimble targets. However, one factor that I feel was not elaborated upon in this video is the fact that Witchers are mutated superhumans who possess supernatural speed, reflexes, and abilities. As Skallagrim pointed out in his great video about how useful superhuman speed would really be in real life, a Witcher would be able to get away with using techniques that would appear less then optimal in our reality. Long story short, the operator is what matters most, not the technology or techniques.
I like that you do acknowledge the magical side of fantasy. Too often people disregard that aspect on how much it can actually change up fighting styles. Thank you! Eg. The Witcher being magically enhanced to be more than the typical human in terms of physical physiology and magical capabilities.
I know this is a pretty old video and he probably won't see this comment but it would be amazing if he could make a video about the armour in the Witcher 3.
This is another awesome video. I also saw some of your armor evaluations, i really liked those. Do you plan on maybe evaluate some of the witcher armors in the context of monster hunting i would love to here your opinion on them.
In the God Eater games there is at least 1 polearm weapon, it's called the Charge Spear God Arc. It's one of the go-to weapons I constantly use in the games.
Finally someone agrees with me on the polearms. I raised hell on so many forums about polearms not being in Elder Scrolls or most other games that handle swords.
Hey man I love your videos, and I've always been into Medieval knights since I was little and you've taught me a lot, so thank you. Could you do an interactive experience with a knight? that would be awesome! Thanks for making awesome videos and keep up the good work!
I also think the very long spinning swings could help against large groups of monsters to force them to stay back. They might try to leap at him into such a swing but they'll just land into his spinning blade.
This was a really interesting way to look at this, I never thought about it like that before. Great video, thanks Metatron. A game that does actually make great use of pole-arms is Mount & Blade. The game makes it a little too easy to defend against them with a shield or any weapon though.
About the halfswording: in The Witcher 1, Geralt has an animation, in which when a Kikimora (Basically a dog-sized ant with chitin armor) is knocked down, Geralt uses a reverse grip to finish it off with bludgeoning damage. Fairly realistic if you ask me
One thing worth mentioning is the fact that witchers also use basic magic as well as alchemical potions in order to enhance their combat capabilities. These abilities also affect their sword technique. So they are more like warlocks
Metatron the one thing in the whitcher that you didn't look at or touch on was the schools and disciplines such as cat, griffin, wolf and bear were each focus on a specific style of combat eg bear school is high damage were as cat is mobility and agility. But it is good to see an evaluation of fictional fighting styles.
Good video man. Your best video to date though i must say was the one abput knives, been shareing it on fb to create awareness of the reality of knife fights seeing how i know from experience how not flashy they are (yea i was a bad kid back in the day). Keep that info flowing brother, people need to learn facts. On to something else. Could you do a breakdown of the fighting styles of the jedi and sith? Id love to hear your views on how plausible the sword fighting styles of star wars realy are(if you haven't already done this ofc and i missed it :S). Anyway keep upp the good work. Looking forward to your next video.
about halfswording against thick skin, if i-m not mistaken the purpose of half swording id to get mor control of the tip in order to stab the gaps between plates, skin however has no gaps, you just have to stike harder. However if the monster resembles a lobster, with tough, hard, chitinous plates, then hals swording would make sense, after all lobsters have gaps between their plates.
Very good points here, the thing about having different weapons according to what enemies your fighting is very true, and it's something that's often ignored by other people (Skallagrim is a notable example). Assuming you (magically) had the strenght to weild an absurdly large weapon, wouldn't you use that to fight a dragon, a golem or something like that?
Strength and speed aside, witchers also often use signs, which require a free off-hand. I'd argue that an aard or igni sign (force push or throw sparks), closely followed by a slash before the opponent has time to recover, would be a witchers best offensive move, but that requires a free off-hand for maximal speed. Letting go of a two-handed weapon or shield strap for a second to throw a sign would require grabbing it again before the next attack, which would mean a delay an opponent (or a group of them) could take advantage of. That said, it's not rare for other characters to use spears in books, there are battles with pike-shield walls or spear-men stopping a cavalry charge, and an instance of a knight charging a dragon with his lance.
I don't quite remember, but I think the pirouetting styles are for fights against multiple enemies, especially monsters. With the superior speed of a witcher this might even make sense.
Metatron, in earlier Elder Scrolls games there were polearms. They were cut from Skyrim because of time constraint (they were actually going to add it in, there's even video of the devs playing with spear). Not sure why there wasn't one in Oblivion though.
I've had a theory for the possible use of spinning: to break magical shields surrounding human enemies. In that case, half-swording doesn't work, the only thing that does is the amount of damage that you can inflict on the shield, and if you say that the more cinetic energy there is, the more damage the shield takes, it could make sense to start spinning, and then whole martial arts would have to be developped around inflicting the most damage to a magical shield.
Good Viedeo! First of all. In the books the author gives quite good explanations why Geralt is fighting this way and you pointed some of them out quite good. The polearm would be a hinderence to Geralt because he often fights in confined space and dodging is essntial for the fight against monsters. The whole style is based on his magically enhanced reflexes and therefor couldn´t be compared to the style of a common soldier. The auther symbolises that with witchers beeing the only people that are wearing theyr swords on the back. Even as you pointed out before it doesn´t really make sense. But hey it looks cool and it´s sort of a guild sign for the monsterkillers. However, the main assets to a witcher are his enhanced reflexes and his agility, so using a polearm or a lance would probably rob him of his main advantage. Also the blades of a witcher would always be covered by some sort of oil that is specially designed to hurt or poison the specific enemy so that it can´t be locked with the claws or such means. The Staff of the Polearm would be easy to grapple and, or break for a monster, leaving Geralt without a weapon in midfight. However, let me compliment you ob your channel witch i enjoy very much and please keep on with your work. Salve Metatron ;-)
One think is worth mentioning, in addition to simple spells (signs), super human reflexes, super human senses, very high resistance to poison, and other things, witchers are also really, really strong. it isn't emphasized as much in the games as their other abilities but Geralt is strong enough to cut a steel clad knight in half down the middle. all the way through all the plate, meat, and bone in one swing. he can also dismember larger creatures, like decapitating a griffin or cockatrice. all of this takes a sharp blade and an inhuman level of strength. His fighting style against monsters (at least in Witcher 3) involves a lot of dodging out of the reach of potentially long reach swings and lunges as well as getting in close and making a powerful swing in short time. he can use these tactics against humans as well but can also perform more traditional moves like parying.
There's polearms in the Mount&blade Series. They are pretty common, amidst soldiers, and using them with two hands in duels or for killing mounted troops is awesome. Another good aplication for them is when you fight archers on meele, they tend to have fast onehanded weapons, and this sometimes hinder twohanded or long onehanders clumsy, but polearms keep the archers away while delivering good damage. But spear+shield sucks a lot, there's only one direction plausible for attack (thrusting), and they are pretty slow. Using this combo is bound to get you killed. Unless of course, you mod your game in order to add twodirectional thrust (overhead and underhead) and enhance speed. Tweaking game values for armor resistance against piercing damage is also a way to go, but it affects literally everytingh that deals piercing damage (Here ya go, killing knights with a pitchfork)
I agree that more games should have polearms. The last fantasy game that I played that had polearms was WoW (World of Warcraft) but those were not itemized for warriors/heavy armor users (most of the time). Though the Transmogrification system made it so I could make my greatsword looked like a polearm :) A little off topic but I think more games (MMOs) should use the RIFT wardrobe system where you can change the appearance of any slot for free with few restrictions (I had a plate wearing warrior using a staff but some abilities lacked animations). More appearance customization options is a good thing in my opinion (also it is proven that nice looking appearance only stuff sells so there also is a profit incentive for the developers).
to polearms in games: quite some games actually feature polearms like the D&D or DSA based games. In terms of TES you could count spears and some of the bigger 2 handed axes as polearms and WoW does have polearms. The overall problem with polearms afaik is balance. You see those games that have polearms in them are often critisised because polearms are too effective, they either have a huge reach advantage that makes it hard to fight someone, or they dish out enourmous damage, or in case of DSA its almost impossible to even get close to someone with a polearm while in D&D polearms can be used from the second line of attack thus you just need 1 tanky guy in front and have others attack behind him with polearms. So in games people want to have balance meaning if someone fights with a dagger and no armor he should be able to compete with someone in full plate armor and a polearm - and thats the thing where polearms fail so many designers skip polearms entirely to make balancing easier. I mean just in terms of kiting . imagine 2 melee classes fighting each other in an action rpg - one would use daggers one a polearm and even if the polearm would do near to no damage at all, the simply fact that it has the longer reach makes it totally unfair as the one with the polearm can kite the other guy to death
For future reference: High Fantasy = breaks our laws of physics, Low Fantasy = intrusion of Fantasy characters into a world very similar to ours (can even have magic if it doesn't break our laws of physics e.g. potion that gives you night vision). Just because it has large monsters, elves and such doesn't mean it's high fantasy. It's high fantasy because you have magic casters that cast powerful spells out of nowhere.
The variables and the "what-ifs" are the best thing about Fantasy. It makes a game/story that much better when there is logical reasons as to why things are the way they are, and how they are. Gotta agree about the polearms too, i never really noticed how neglected they are in games (Dark Souls has plenty of them ;) )
I think the main reason characters have swords instead of polearms in these games is the heroic figure, in terms of hollywood design aesthetics, main characters have swords, background characters have spears/polearms, in a similar way to Star Trek/Star Wars and other war movies, main characters use pistols on the battlefield because it gives a more athletic/heroic silhouette than a rifle
the first witcher did something that made sense. not only did u have to chose the right weapon and oils when fighting, but you also had to alternate between fighting styles when facing adversaries. there were three fighting styles in it. one for quick but less effective strikes, usually used agains quick but weaker monsters, one for strong but slow attacks for stronger and bigger monsters and the last one was mostly defense and counter attack i think. if you used a strong attack on a small monster like a drowner, he'd dodge it quite easily and then you'd be over run and killed quite fast. if you used fast attacks against a cockatrice or troll or knight with heavy armor, then you'd just give them mosquito bites and he'd cut you half. i think the last style was mostly to use against fast opponents that attacked quite often for longer periods at a time. can't remember, didn't really use that one that often.
"The monsters are big but very slow. They're also not particularly intelligent." Literally saying what I've been thinking all this time! It makes sense for geralt to move the way he does when facing the enemies he does. That's what a lot of people don't seem to get. A lot of the time they're just like "Oh, he spins a lot so it doesn't make sense". It does make sense in the witcher universe.
To start with - The Elder Scrolls - The third main installment in the series Morrowind had spears :) (I'm not saying that previous ones didn't have, but I simply never had a chance to play them). In the first The Witcher there were three fighting styles: powerful - good against heavy-weight opponents, fast - against lighter and/or very agile enemies and group - self explainatory. Witchers were mutants, enhanced mutants with improved reflexes, sights, strength and overall senses. What's more they were some sort of alchemists and were able to prepare potions enhancing their abilities even more. Plus their "signs" were some sort of elemental magic so they were nothing like a real swordsman ;) Polish HEMA instructors were even joking that the writer inserted pirouettes in places where he didn't know how to save the situation without killing the protagonist ;) "And so Geralt made a pirouette and killed everybody around him and he was the badass boss as always. Yay!" :D
Keep in mind w.r.t. polearms, Witcher had some NPCs that used halberds against you, if I recall correctly. Though with the whole magic thing the range didn't pose such a threat to the main character.
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Don’t fight like a Witcher...
Unless you are a genetically modified killing machine Witcher, in which case, fight how you want you’ll kill everything anyway.
@GiRayne I think in a lot of ways it'd be more difficult to fight an animal than a human geralt style. A lot of animals fight close range and immediately try to get that range by sprinting in, they do a lot of wrestling as well.
@GiRayne Geralt is even more ludicrous in the books. You can`t translate someone fighting faster than normal human reflexes can deal with to the game. It would be unplayable. I have my own wishes about gameplay, mainly that there is no difficulty setting that went balls deep into gathering knowledge about monsters and preparations being much bigger part than what they are, but it is what it is.
There are more monsters in the game than in the books, but it`s a gaming thing. The worlds in any game are not representative of the lore and story 1 for 1. On the other hand, there are quite a few of them. The reason why Witchers are unneeded is not that there`s very little of monsters left, but that humans grew so much in power and numbers that they can deal with them without Witchers and humans became rather phobic about everyone different like elves, dwarves, mages, sorcerers, and mutants.
There is an actual sword style similar to Geralt`s. It was meant only for duels and for weaker agile fighters that use momentum to generate force.
@GiRayne
"Then again nothing about Witcher's world makes sense... at least not in the games (I gather the books are far more coherent). The conceit that the games trade off is that Geralt is scorned and shunned for being a freak, halfway between human and monster. 'Cept the worlds are positively teeming with monsters... In 3 you can't go out for a stroll as a farmer without being harassed by a frikkin' wraith in your fields. Pop down the main road towards another village, and boom, you're running the gauntlet past nekkers and insectoids."
GAMEPLAY THING. You dont know that in the most games(GTA, RDR, Witcher, assassin creed, The elder scrolls) Gameplay is not canon for the most part? There are alot of monsters in witcher 3, because without them world would be empty. Also you seems like you didnt pay much attention to lore, because everything in games has really good connection. Cutscenes, dialogues are canon.
"Witcher's game world just doesn't cohere to its own presented lore. The gameplay says one thing, the world and lore pretends something else. The humans tend to behave more realistically, hence all the misery-porn. Yet if there is any nod to realism of psychology and world building, then it follows that witchers would either be absolute godsends, practically worshiped and feted across the lands for being the only people who can carve up a pack of drowners without breaking a sweat, or they'd become "
People are affraid of them because they are diffrend. Like in real world people are affraid of gay people, diffrend skin colour. It's not far from real life. Also, you clearly doesn't know a game Lore. There ARE regular humans learning witcher sings, or combat, but they are not as effective in combat as witchers, guess why? Because they arent mutants with "superpowers". And again, you clearly didn't play much of the witcher, or you didn't pay attention to lore.
"Also, Geralt's a rather shit swordsman... His footwork is dreadful even in some of the actual proper guard positions he temporarily adopts, and the animation for Rend suggests he has a 'peasant's blow' appreciation of how to generate power with a sword cut."
Do you even realise that Geralt combat in books/games is strongly connected to magical signs? It's easier for witchers to be glued to the ground, so they can use signs instantly, yes he is making spins or rolls, but other than tah he has that stiff foots for the most part so he can use sings instantly. Also, footwork helps HUMANS to get momentum, or be ready to "dodge" an attack. Witchers have inhuman reaction time, strenght and perception, they doesnt need to have flawless footwork, because it wont help them at all but it will ruin thier magical capabilities. Just watch shadiversity and what he thinks about Geralt combat. He said that "witcher combat" is impractical for HUMANS but witchers are SUPERHUMANS so it works for them really good.
I agree that Geralt should have diffrend animations for fighting with humans and diffrend for monsters, but that's it.
You really should pay more attention to lore, instead of splitting shit like this.
" and the disconnect between how witchers are treated due to the lore and how demonstrably and objectively valuable they are is frustrating." - btw. That's a thing from the books. Just like magicans were treaten in books, or warriors in RL, or people that are diffrend than most of the society in RL. Just sain
@@DarkThagan
Right. In books he was able to kill 5 people in 1 second with 5 diffrend swings. Also in books witchers "combat" is meant only for monsters. They doesnt learn about how to deal with humans, because thier purpose is to kill monsters, not humans. But after people were manipulated by mages to hate witchers, things goes rough. Witchers are using "Monsters" combat moves against humans.
" The worlds in any game are not representative of the lore and story 1 for 1" That's true. Gameplay isn't canon as i said before. In GTA isn't canon that you killed 5000 people, stole 5000 cars etc. Story, dialogues betwen characters, some events are canon.
GiRayne
has some troubles with understanding game and books lore.
"The reason why Witchers are unneeded is not that there`s very little of monsters left, but that humans grew so much in power and numbers that they can deal with them without Witchers and humans became rather phobic about everyone different like elves, dwarves, mages, sorcerers, and mutants. " That's it. As i said before, people in real life are affraid of "diffrend" skin colour, sexuality, religion. Witcher books and games has tons of exmaples of "dumb" people being phobic. It's pretty realistic tho.
@@majorbombas ffs... people are not afraid of gay people. Who told you that? They think it is unnatural mostly. You know one male and one female to procreate not 2 males or females... thats just biology. Wether it is actual unnatural is a whole other story. But no.... most people who are against gay stuff and a-z folks are not afraid of them but are afraid of the(nowadays forcefully pushed) idiology it comes with.
the guards in the witcher series have polearms and they almost always kick your ass (30 lv above the player)
i kinda like that they are overleveled, cause it encourages you to behave peacefully in the cities
Imagine they would just send the guards out to fight the monsters.
Who needs witchers anymore :D
I guess the Order needs 'em, don't they?
uhhhh , just a small correction: Guards are only 6 lvls higher than you at all times.
This is done so that the guards are good enough to be able to punish you for doing lore-unfriendly thing, such as stealing and scaring citizens - things a witcher (especially Geralt) wouldn't do. After all this isn't fallout or skyrim, this is The Witcher, you are playing a specific character who is actually based on a book, who can be played (story-wise) in a few different ways.
The reason they've made them 6 lvl's higher is because of the way the leveling system works. Everything that is up to 5 lvl's higher or lower than you will give you XP and will be appropriatelly difficult. Everything 6 lvl's lower than you will give you (almost) no XP and everythin higher than 6 LVL's will be a MAJOR challenge to kill (but it can still be done if you've got a good perk build and good equipment).
Personally i'm pretty decent at the game and at late game i can usually kill guards with a bit more focus and care.
+Seneca Nero ....as if not allowing the player to attack civilians wouldn't already have achieved that.
Polearms are rarely in video games because they're *TOO* good. Developers don't know how to properly balance them. They work in Dark Souls because the combat is so weird with exaggerated telegraphing, but most games don't give you obvious cues and instead just make the damage more forgiving. My best example of a standard game with balanced polearms is Chivalry, and things like Dark Souls fit into their own weird little category
"because they're TOO good." - "The Frank thrust him with the spear, but the Turk warded off the point of the spear with his shield and, notwithstanding the spear, advanced towards the Frank... ...The Turk dealt him a number of blows..." - Usama ibn Munqidh
For high ranked people, polearms (as well as the two-handers) in Chivalry are still too strong lol. Long reach in this game is still a very big advantage. With a polearm or zweihander, vanguards can easily control the pace of the fight, or quickly disengage from a feint no matter it's 1 vs 1 duel or team fights.
While that may be a large part of it (I have a friend who designed his own tabletop RPG, was a pain to balance the polearms against close-range weapons), I still think it falls under "Rule of Cool" logic. Polearms to us (read, the average first-worlder) feel kind of like cheating, hitting the enemy before they're even in range. There's not a lot of satisfaction in it, and it's not as fancy as sword-to-sword combat. In sword fights, you can have blows and parries, fast-paced swings, face-to-face with your enemy, risking death and overcoming it, etc. Just look at Star Wars, it's rife with sword-fighting cliches. Because video games tend to be "hero"-focused, constantly risking death feels more satisfying and heroic compared to the smart, "easy" way to fight, i.e. polearms.
In star wars there is indeed a polearm equipped squad of elite guard and in older the elder scrolls {i mean from I to IV} this weapon is real good and it is as say above even to good in hand of experience player so its possible that the developer know the new player simply can defeat opponent with greater reach and non telegraphic move set.
I can't speak to the Elder Scrolls (only played Skyrim), other than yes, polearms do exist in games. They're just EXTREMELY rare compared to swords, knives, and bows. As for the royal guards, they're showpieces. They're there to look scary (which they do), but you never see them fight. Eventually you do get Maul in I and the Magna Guards (or whatever they're called) in III, who technically have polearms, but they're used exclusively like swords. Because flashy! xD
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that Geralt is nearly 100 years old and have been using a sword to stay alive since he was in his early teens.
He is also a mutant with enourmous strength, speed, stamina and agility, his sword technique might be a result of him being ridiculously skilled and just throwing off his enemies with lots of unorthodox movement, kind of like feinting in boxing.
SODEMO2007 i beleive in the books at one point it says that he uses the spinning theatrical fighting to intimidate his opponents
SODEMO2007 Maybe witchers get bored of proper techniques
+SODEMO2007 Or his sword technique is the result of incompetent writers who don't understand swordsmanship. Geralt's lucky he didn't grow in this world or he'd have died in his teens against the first unarmed opponent he fought unless they were sleeping.
+7dayspking Dude you are such a fucking witcher 3 hater. Goddamn, it's like every comment on the witcher 3 you try to refute their points.
1. The witcher games don't even reflect the canon fucking story of the books, why do you think they should portray every single part of the books? Him not having incredible strength or speed that is faster than enemy reflexes is because it's a game. It would be quite trivial if you could kill any human opponent in the game faster than they could blink.
2. Pirouettes are actually useful to speed up an attack and thus, momentum. Yes, in a real fight where one is doing it quite slowly, it would get you killed. However, even in the games, Geralt moves very quickly in his 'ridiculous twirls' often being able to move along with them. How would that not be useful?
3. "Slicing through plate armor" This is easily explained by Geralt having enhanced reflexes and aiming for weak points. How the fuck would you show this in a game?
How about you go watch a guy called The Sword's Path do some of the moves that Geralt does. Now imagine them being around 3x faster. As a normal, plain old humie, you would get sliced apart. Especially considering many humans in the Witcher series don't wear helmets, though I don't know why.
Now stop bitching and eat that shit sandwich :)
+ThePalo48 I wouldn't have purchased or finished TW3 if I hated it. You are correct though, I certainly respond to comments I disagree with.
1. Correct the games are their own continuity, you of course then ask me a loaded question one I'm not answering.
2. sword moves fastest when activated from the wrist lever, the arms move faster than the body. While performing a Geralt styled pirouette the blade's speed is limited by the body's...the difference here is well more than 3 x faster, Geralt would need to be dozens of times faster to justify what he's doing. The issues are inferior momentum, terrible cutting motion and failure to retain edge alignment and not threatening your opponent with the weapon while also being open.
3. NPC's can also slice through armour. You can show this ability by actually making animations.
The blows landed wouldn't penetrate far enough to slice much of anything. The time it takes to perform a Pirouette is well more than 3 x how long it takes to perform a conventional strike.
A factor that I have almost never seen considered when talking about either witchers, jedis or things like that are augmented senses and physique. If you have augmented reflexes, speed, strength and agility, you can perform moves that regular humans couldn't without leaving themselves exposed. And this moves could be used either to give more power to your blows, confuse the enemy or opening new angles of attack.
Like the scene where Qui-Gon catches Jar-Jar's tounge on Ep1?
HappyBeezerStudios that could be an example. Or in every episode when they deflect freaking laser shots
Jedi do those spin against other jedi that are also faster beeing so that is still insanely stupid, even more considering that no mater how weak is your strike with a light saber it will be enough.
Absolute bullshit. In the games he is not superhuman...in the latest game his movements are *mocapped* and finally having enhanced speed does not mean you're not left open....that's like suggesting a bullet will always hit a target because of it moves faster.
of course it doesn't mean you are not left open, but the time you are left open would be considerably reduced, and opponents who don't have equal speed and reflexes would have a really hard time trying to take advantage of that opening
important note.. witchers have been magically enhanced with faster reflex's and such
yes this is crucial to consider
that plus polearms, imagine spinnign polearms like that
dark souls halberd r2
But not in the games ...making your point completely redundant.
Well in the games the npcs are slow as fuck to attack and such, I'd say it resembles that well enough
The editing in this video is great. This has got to be one of your best yet, you're getting REALLY good at this.
Thank you very much for that!
Metatron Did you know that Geralt's meteorite sword is actually a curved sword with a very small guard and simple handle?
Hey metatron, what advice do you have for creating a high fantasy world.
Marcello Emiliani I don't mean to be that guy but couldn't he just find that out by looking at it? Or is this sarcasm? Or is it a hallucination and part of the slow but inevitable journey into madness to which we are all destined?
Here I am just annoyed that ending one rightly is not an option of attack.
The only that shall die is our enemy when we end him rightly!
And I'm annoyed that this stupid meme based on a stupid myth is still going on.
David W In that case, I live in a world where those things are ineffective. It's called real life.
David W Thank you :)
And hey, I was just voicing my opinion and reassuring that I am safe from thrown/flying pommels as I live in a different world from theirs.
Still, I don't mean to be a jerkass. If I came across as one, then I am sorry.
Cade Thumann And they say internet is cancer. Bull, I say. It is the f-word that is cancer.
I actually dispute pole-arms making sense for the Witcher (or most of the time, the Elder Scrolls). Geralt of Rivia is very often out in the woods, sneaking around, following scents, fighting in the middle of a heavily wooded area. Going deep into caves that may have tight, enclosed spaces. Travelling for days with only a single horse to carry his things.
The problem with a pole-arms in all of these settings is that they are freaking huge. It would be very difficult to use a spear or a dane ax or something like that effectively if you were beset upon by 2 or 3 ghouls in the woods and suddenly had to bring out your weapon and defend yourself from them. It'd be difficult to bring it to bare against them, and while once positioned it'd be easy enough to thrust with a spear, it'd be very difficult to move from one enemy to the other, especially if the trees were thick enough.
I wouldn't want to bring a spear into a cave. I wouldn't want to carry a halberd deep into the woods where you don't know what might jump out at you at a moment's notice. Pole-arms are great weapons for many, many purposes, but the sort of adventuring that is done in the Witcher, and indeed in the Elder Scrolls, really doesn't suit them very well (Elder Scrolls is much more amenable to this however, as you can do so much to adjust the way that your character plays, but even if I were a massive, heavy armored tank, I'd still never want to bring a big pole arm into a cave where I have no idea how narrow the passages might end up being that I'd have to take.
actually it doesn't have to be huge. and also, if the pole-arms doesn't fit the surroundings then he could just drop it, or don't bring it with him.
a fighting spear could be small say 4 feet but just having them present in universe for the appropriate personnel and having the option to use them would satisfy this.
Mmm but in the elder scrolls there are cities and armies too, they could use polearms, when you think about elder scrolls you have to think about the whole setting, not only the main character as this one can do whatever he wants, roleplaying as anything. That's why in witcher there are polearms but only used by guards and enemies, but in elder scrolls they would let you use them if they were there, because Geralt doesn't use polearms, shields, etc but insertplayername does use everything in elder scrolls.
In Skyrim there is one Polearm, a Unique Poleaxe
Johannes "Fountain" Micha you mean the roeful axe? that's the only unique axe i can think of and it isn't really polearm, not as metatron was talking about
I have to disagree on Witcher being high fantasy. It's more in the middle between high and low fantasy. Overwhelming majority of techniques in the world, will definitely be developed to be used against humans. Monsters and magic users are very rare in the world, mainly the later.
High fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy, defined either by its setting in an imaginary world or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, and plot. I believe this would qualify Witcher as high fantasy on both counts. The inclusion of monsters and/or magic isn't a requirement.
aussiebloke609
I have always understood high fantasy as this very fantasy element heavy, extremely epic story like Lotr.
The Witcher story is less "epic" than most, the characters are not really as much larger than life as seems to be common in high fantasy. And technically is set in distant future.
BTW, would the Game of Thrones then qualify as high fantasy.
To be honest I'm only going of the books and the first game, a lot might have changed in the next two.
What defines high fantasy is how otherworldly the stuff that happens actually is. The witcher is in sort of a middle ground. Stardust is high fantasy, as are most Final Fantasy and D&D stuff. Game of Thrones is sort of low fantasy, as is most fantastic realism. Epicnes doesn't really count for how fantastic things are. Iblard Jikan is almost as high fantasy as it gets, and theres absolutely nothing epic about it at all.
Julia Linne That may be how you wish to consider it, but I was going by the actual definition of "high fantasy." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy Other way to define it are that high fantasy takes place in a fantasy world that isn't analogous to our own, and low fantasy takes place in a fantasy world that can be compared to ours - or that high fantasy has fantasy elements as common in the world and low fantasy is like our world but with a dash of fantasy thrown in here and there, rarely.
One could argue that Conan and Star Wars are fantasy settings (Star Wars more towards high fantasy, Conan more towasrds low fantasy)
I would say the Witcher series is more on the "lower end" of high fantasy.
You've said that you are making an evaluation of fighting styles in witcher SERIES. But you clearly never played W1 and W2 where Geralt is using half-swording sometimes.
6:11 +Metatron But this is exactly the explanation given by the author of the witcher saga ;)
7:55 Of course they are polearms in witcher games. Actually enemies armed with polearms are among the most dangerous ones.
I have played W2 but I haven't finished it, I think I got to the point when the elf gets killed in the gallows in town, or something like that, it was a while ago.
Geralt did not use half-swording. What de did use, in the first game, was a murder-stroke (grab the blade and hit with the guard) - as the last part of the steel sword heavy style combo and as a finisher. The half-swording, where you grab the blade and strike with the point, was never used in The Witcher.
Sheol_IK He use it also in W2 AND murder-stroke IS a half-swording technique. Also in W1 there is ability in steel sword strong style tree that unlocks special attack which is series of murder-strokes, that reduces enemy's armour and destroys his shield.
Also in W1 when finishing knockdown opponent Geralt is sometimes placing one hand on the blade leaving the second on the sword's handle, which is exactly what you would do when finishing armoured opponent lying on the ground. So he's using also standard half-swording as well. Although, it's just one animation.
Metatron I see, thanks for the answer.
Kamil Szadkowski
I definitely don't remember anything like that in the 2nd game. Mind to point out?
No, Mordhau IS NOT a half-swording technique. Those are completely different things. And, well, that finishing move - okay, kinda half-swording, but I was talking about it's use during fight, not as a finisher. And Geralt does not use half-swording in a fight.
How powerful is magic in the witcher world you ask?
To put it simply: VERY
To put it a little more in perspective 3 members of the sorcerers lodge where capable of leveling a not overly small castle and part of the mountain it was on in an expolsion that could be felt miles away.
But remember, the magic in The Witcher's series is not that easy, of course that magic exist, but sorcerers like Yennefer have live more than a centrury training and training for magic. But the rest of the people who uses magic only are capable to use primitive signs (like witchers do).
That is true.
It also can backfire a lot
I read the witcher books. (Maybe not all of them, but most. At least that... Saga about wticher and witchress. Is it called like that in english?) And there was not many sorcerers that would be able to do this.
Yeah. The misters (or how they're called in english) were able to do that. (Yeah, Yennefer, but also Gerhart of Aelle, Vilgefortz, Tissaia de Vries, and few others.) But most of sorcerers in that series were not better than Rience. Those coming from Niflgard were even... less able to do such a things.
Yep. But there are like 7 members of the lodge of sorceresses total, and they are the sum total of powerful sorceresses in the world of the Witcher, at that time. Magic is pretty rare in the witcher. Monsters really aren't, especially the lesser kinds. Ghouls, alghouls drowners, and rotfiends are really pretty common. That said, they are humanoid or like dog/wolf shaped, so for the most part fighting them shouldn't require techniques nonexistent in europe.
Honestly, I've often wondered why the lodge of sorceresses bothers with politics. Combined, I expect they'd take over the world without too much of a problem. Like, given what they did at Kaer Morhen and in skellige, they should have no problem destroying armies and castles.
The magic doesn't affect the combat too much in The Witcher series, you have to focus more on who is using these sword techniques; the witchers, superhumans that regenerate and with some potions don't even feel pain, and also have high reflexes. So witchers spin and dodge faster than a normal human, and they also are super strong and accurate, so each spin it's not only to pass trough the monster's skin, each swing is directed to a vein or weak point. So they can (according to books and some videogames systems) literally make genocides with serious injuries.
Of course in the videogames he can´t move that fast (it won't be easy to manage, and we don't have super reflexes :v) but thats how it is.
If you sometime manage to strike with a sword 3 times on the carotide in a second, be happy, you're a witcher :D
Thank you, sometimes it feels like no one acknowledge the fact that witchers aren't normal humans and that in the Witcher universe the humans doesn't use witcher's techniques, because these ones aren't viable for them
Yep Witchers are far superior to regular humans in almost every way, not only can they move and attack at speeds most humans can't even react to (fast enough to deflect crossbow bolts) but they are also increadably difficult to kill, so much so that in the books a Witcher littrally has his heart cleaved in two during a battle and lives long enough to die on the opperating table.
I think that the best source of knowledge about witcher styles is the author of the books Andrzej Sapkowski. He said in the book-interview that witchers do all this spins and pirouettes to confuse monsters that mostly don't have binocular vision.
Also, the style of fighting in Witcher 3 is very simplified. Geralt in books doesn't spin half as often as in W3. In my opinion the Witcher 2 was the closest to the original while Witcher 1 fighting styles have the most depth.
Kamil Szadkowski I agree with you¡
Yes, there were polearms in the Witcher games. NPCs use them.
To be fair about the polearm thing, Witchers are swordsmen who constantly travel. Carrying a spear could be cumbersome due to its length. I know that soldiers carried spears when traveling to war. However, these polearms would make traversing in tight spots such as indoors very difficult (even if you strap it on your back). You could argue that spears could be carried on horses, in which you're right. In fact, from what I have read in the first book, Geralt does not carry both swords on him at once like the games. He keeps the silver sword on his horse until he switches his swords. However, this would be annoying for players if they have to switch weapons. That and they don't know what type their next foe will be. I say a similar thing about carrying spears on the horse in terms of gameplay. It would just be annoying to constantly go to your horse for your spear.
A telescopic spear, however, may work if you figure how to create the thing and lock the parts in so they don't unintentionally retract. It may not be effective but hey, it's just a fun idea I had.
Even if spears could truly work, I am not bummed of the lack of such things. I prefer swords anyway. Just my opinion :)
*Unlike the Guards, Witchers don’t carry halberds*, but they do carry two swords and have *several fighting styles* (std HEMA, fast twirling and slow but strong attacks). The idea behind it is, that for humans they use a pretty standard design longsword
(but of superior quality), but against monsters they use a different sword. The reason being that the *silver alloy is brittle* and cannot be used for parrying. *Parrying Trolls* and Fiends makes *no sense* anyway. Dodging and *rolling with polearms* is awkward that’s why they don’t use them. What I don’t get is why the two swords look the same. I would design the silver sword like a Katana, just a bit longer. They got a thick spine, broad blade and no tapering, making them better suited for brittle steels. They don’t need much of a guard, or a second edge. One could argue that thrusting might still be valid against some monsters, but that could expose them to counter attacks of the monsters.
Witchers' silver swords are not brittle - they are empowered with magic. Not to mention that Witchers normally don't carry them around all the time, since the majority of the monsters are easily killable with steel swords. Only ghosts, vampires and purely magical creatures require silver to be damaged. And no, both swords are identical (unless we are talking about the 1st game, both books and 2nd and 3rd games have identical silver and steel swords).
Silver swords in Witcher are actually steel cores covered in silver to make them stronger. Also it's not particularly surprising that the swords are designed the same as standard swords if they're made by blacksmiths who mostly know how to make standard swords. They're not willing to reinvent the wheel just to make a single different blade.
MRKapcer13
It depends. In the first Withcer book Geralt had sword made of pure silver. In the last one - no. However it's still not explained, whether it has a steel core or it has some other type of construction.
But in the Witcher games, yes - it has a steel core and covered with silver.
Sheol_IK
I actually liked that in the first game they were different. I can't remember where I've heard it, that the silver swords were brittle, but I do remember that was the reason, why they don't just carry a silver-plated sword. Since the Witcher do have the blueprints, it wouldn't be that much of a deal to ask a master sword smith to make a Katana and coat it with silver...
It was definitely explained somewhere... It must have been Season of Storms. They try to auction off Geralt's swords and describe the silver one's construction by saying it has a steel core.
I think one of the most important points missing here is the question, who in the universe of the Witcher, actually fights like that. The answer is, of course, the witchers do! But they have superior strength, endurance and reflexes. If there are advantages and disadvantages to their fighting style, then maybe they take the advantage while being able to compensate for the disadvantages. But I'm not suitable to talk about pirouettes and such things in fights with superhuman bodies, whether it is against humans or monsters.
I really enjoy the way you do videos on a historical perspective and a videogame perspective...its very refreshing.
Please keep them coming.
I'm glad you do and thank you for watching
In the Witcher games human opponents do use polearms and they're considerably tougher to beat than others, you can really feel that disadvantage. In Witcher 2 you COULD pick them up and use them yourself. However, a witcher generally uses his two longswords, as they're the traditional weapons of the guild and they've trained with them (and only them) for years and years. Its sort of like a rule.
I think the lore justification is that a long weapon like that limits a witcher's superhuman mobility, which is his primary defense (jumping, tumbling around, etc). Witchers don't use plate armour (though you could put it on in Witcher 3..).
Ha-ha, the piorouettes are obviously bullshit because if you turn your back on your opponent in REAL COMBAT you drop dead instantly, regardless of his reaction.
And I know everything about REAL COMBAT because i'm a lvl 69 NAVY Seal ninja with over 9000 confirmed kills and also the final authority on all sword fighting because I watched Naruto.
Fear my katana!
There is something called trying to hard NijnaEugene.
dude - love your series on this subject!
you might be a level 69 Navy seal. but I am a level 120 Wizard. 1v1 me at wildy. btw love your video on the witcher also!
btw. necro. cuz why not?
But have you used a katana?
Bullshit. If you want to know how swords really worked and work when it comes to "dropping" somebody with any kind of "armor" and better yet MOVEMENT while the swordsman is swinging on them, stop listening to/reading this fantasy bullshit and the medieval/ancient warfare nobody in hell alive today has any REAL idea about and go read "Flyboys". Which is the story of several American naval aviator POWs shot down on and around Chichi Jima Island (an island or two up the chain from Iwo Jima) late in WWII when the Japanese pretty much knew they were fucked and many units had basically been cut off from or abandoned by the IJN "main force" and where the commanding officers of those island forces were mainly nutjobs/dirtbags to begin with who'd been parked there to keep them from fucking up anything more important, spent most of their time getting hammered on sake and doing whatever they could to maintain command and discipline and order to keep from getting "whacked themselves" and in the case of Chichi Jima decided to go "old-school" Samurai on those POWs excecuting them by "beheading". Even with scared shitless, half-starved, exhausted and hopeless POWs of the weakest kind, which is PILOTS stuck on the GROUND to execute while they were completely vulnerable in light shirts and shorts and kneeling and bent over and for the most part resigned to what they knew was coming and maybe ready for it after being beaten and tortured and starved and in a few cases stabbed during "bayonet practice" to "soften them up a little" for execution, young and strong Japanese junior officers armed with those amazingly, crazily sharp "katanas" were unable to do the "one-stroke" thing. The book was written by the same gentleman that wrote Flags of Our Fathers and he ended up interviewing one or two Japanese survivors that were there as well as one or two Americans who were there on the island but didn't get "whacked" before the U.S. rolled up the chain of islands and took Chichi Jima for its air base as a "backup" for the B-29s flying bombing missions from Iwo Jima after it was taken. Its pretty sick what the Japanese did just excecuting them that way, but their nutjob C.O. was full-on wannae "Bushido" and went to a place you don't HEAR ABOUT in the Samurai stories/mythology history but DID exist as it did and still does in MANY animistic "the winning soldier/warrior of a certain race is superhuman and all other life forms are animals to be used/exploited/killed/eaten as desired or required and to gain their spirit" religious faiths of "primitive peoples" where people are also born to their fate so there are "chiefs" and "kings" etc. What was the rest of that story? Cannibalism. Straight up and no shit. And not only because it was the Shinto/Bushido thing to do to take your vanquished enemy's spirit and send him to hell or wherever dismembered and destroyed and to literally eat him and shit him out, but because the Japanese on those islands were starving to death too. And because the crazy-ass C.O. who forced his young junior officers to beat and stab and execute the POWs "to toughen them up and educate them" (and also to have somebody to blame when he surrendered to the Americans because he had no intention of falling on his sword and knew from World War I that "senior officers" just "following orders" from a Kaiser (German for "king") or EMPEROR or KING or SUPREME COMMANDER probably weren't going to get the war criminal thing and HE WAS DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE ANYWAY by killing them, eating parts of them and burying them up on the hills where the Americans wouldn't be when they just showed up to take the airfield. Fucked up shit and hard to believe EXCEPT for the beheading part being impossible with even the "sharpest" swords ever made. Do you think the French came up with the GUILLOTINE for the hell of it and because they really liked making big, heavy and expensive and uncomfortable "furniture"? No. It's because the human body is one hell of a lot tougher to destroy than people who mainly sit around and play video games and watch documentaries on TV and TH-cam and otherwise "do research" on physical "combat" and "warfare" and "violence" and "reenact" it on the weekends with their similarly un-competitive, non contact-sport-playing buddies would ever believe. If you guys ever put on a set of shoulder pads and cleats and a helmet when you were still a boy playing American football and were tough enough to stick it out long enough to get past the "painful" part of conditioning and the like in practice to get to the "fun" stuff of HITTING PEOPLE, you'd KNOW how much abuse the human body can take and keep going. Instead you think its something that can be sliced and diced with a really long and skinny and lightweight and thin and piss-poor no matter how sharp it is "meat cleaver". But REAL meat cleaves are like a GUILLOTINE BLADE and not like a STEAK KNIFE, aren't they? To CRUSH AND CHOP THROUGH BONE BUT BONE THAT"S LAID OUT ON A BUTCHER BLOCK AND CAN'T BEND AND AFTER THE "MEAT" IS DEAD AND ALL THE MUSCLES AND TISSUES ARE RELAXED.
Awesome video dude. Love this game, Geralt of Rivia is my idol. XD
you need to check the fighting style, armor and weapons from monster hunter franchise, it would make a amazing and funny video
Great video. One note is that in the first Witcher game, there are 3 fighting styles (high, mid, low), depending on the type and size of monster you're up against. While all styles can damage whatever beast you're fighting, the trick is to use the style that best matches your opponent (and sword of course). Correct matching of style to creature type results in maximum damage.
This makes me ashamed of how poor my video on the subject came out...
To be honest all evaluations on the witcher are rather poorly made. Mostly about people that don't have a clue about games or books.
+Kamil Szadkowski also, most did not take into account that it was in a different world, and that fighting styles were developed according to time and circumstances in that world.
Don't feel too bad. You live and learn 😂
Fun fact, in the Witcher 1, sometimes Geralt would finish off enemies (only monsters with his Silver Sword I think) by using a half-sword technique.
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metatron btfo
Great video from the Metatron! Couple quick notes just to add to the discussion: polearms certainly do exist in The Witcher series, you see them in the hands of guards, soldiers, some bandits as well as strewn all across the various battlefields you come across. Halberds, spears, poleaxes and bills all exist in the setting, it's just they're very much a battlefield type of weapon (lances too, for the few knights you come across). They just don't make as much sense for Geralt as a Witcher since he does a lot of crawling through caves, moving through back alleys and generally "operating medievally," alone while hunting monsters. A master swordsman can probably get a lot more out of a sword when alone than a polearm as those really shine (in my opinion) as part of a formation. They can certainly be used by a lone warrior, don't get me wrong, I just think the choice of longswords for Witchers makes sense given they typically aren't in a battlefield setting.
Second point: most of the fighting styles of the people in the setting are much more conventional, without all the pirouettes and spins (Eredin of the Wild Hunt even makes fun of the Witcher style of fighting at one point). Witchers have their own unique style that is, in universe, supposed to leverage the advantages their mutations give them. Being extra strong, extra fast and being able to live for centuries opens up new possibilities for training and sword combat that not only take enemies off-guard, but also take advantage of those traits. I really like how the setting makes the distinction and if you look closely in the games (particularly the latest one), you can see there's a big difference in the way characters move and fight compared to Geralt. If you're not too busy trying to avoid getting skewered by a halberd that is. :P
Enemies in the witcher 3 have polearms.
Great video discussing the plausibility of geralts fighting style historically. I liked at the end how you clarified that its fantasy and he can fight however he wants and it would work, considering he has inhuman reflexes, abilities, strength, training and magic which allow his techniques to work.
There are polearms in a certain Elder Scrolls game. You know, the actually good one.
I love your profile pic, I can see that you're no n'wa ;)
I know I'm late but can somebody explain this thread please.😀
Max Chatterji it's widely considered that elder scrolls morrowind is the best elder scrolls, and it probably is even with it's awful combat, its story is good, it's settings unique and there lots to do, but it's pretty slow starting out.
SirWinnigton, thank you but what is a n'wa
from what i've guessed its a slur for outsider that Dark elves use
I have thought of and discussed this with a weapon expert in the past. The thing to keep in mind is that the Witcher is frequently fighting multiple opponents and at least in that specific context mastering pirouettes would be very practical/beneficial. If you watch Geralts movements during the pirouettes and spins it does look like he is laterally sweeping and parrying which would be a handy tool if fighting more than one opponent. I have no clue if that is what the developers were thinking of, but it looks attractive in any case. The books also mention the use of the swords impetus to aid in movement speed
Yay, I'm as tall as the metatron! Cool!
Remember: Angels aren't as big as humans. It is merely a shell that is borrowed.
Can I just say you look good moving Dude! Room for improvement but scarily effective movement. Love your content!
To be honest, if I would live in a fantasy setting I would go magic all the way.
Monk is the way to go. You don't need armor, weapons or fancy speels. Just your fists.
You don't have to be rich. All you need is patience.
Don´t know if it has been mentioned yet, but in The Witcher 1 Geralt actually uses halfswording (and also murder strikes) as some sort of finishers. :)
"wichaaah"
There is this good mod for skyrim called "Heavy Armory" that adds such weapons like polearms of each weapon material. I like it compared to other high-quality collections such as Jaysus Swords, because Heavy Armory uses vanilla assets and textures.
The Elder scrolls had pole arms and spears in all of its games except oblivion and Skyrim which was a huge disappointment for the game Skyrim which is all about Nordic Viking like culture.
only morrowind had polearms and spears.
I'm pretty sure the first two games had polearms and spears too not just Morrowind.
Krytern UK Nope. Go play them and fin out. I finished daggerfall many times, so i know what im talking about. Googled about arena, doesent have spears too.
However, daggerfall had flails, but they arent polearms.
Shrekas 2 My mistake then I always assumed that they had polearms and spears. Not sure why they don't add them they could easily make them balanced by just making them slower.
Krytern UK You mean why dont they add them into newer games?
Actually, spears are kinda op in real life, so they should be make good in games too. Everything needed to balance a spear is just to make them two handed weapons. In reality its just like that - spears > swords, nothing new.
The variety of weapon choices in Witcher 2 including polearms was something I wanted to see in 3, the fact that everyone had different cosmetic versions of the same swords counted against 3
Your hair is short compared to mine ;)
same
Same here
No one cares
get a haircut you hippie
Brett Ridings ;(
Great video, but here is a thought about one advantage to all the spinning movements that you didn't touch on: multiple opponents. For someone in a combative situation where they are outnumbered, spinning around during a strike the way Geralt does would give the attacker a quick 360 view of the battlefield. This would allow him to see if other attackers are trying to maneuver around and surround him at the same time he is attacking. Since Geralt tends to fight alone and against multiple monsters at once, utilizing these spinning movements to both enhance striking power and survey his surrounding at the same time makes sense to me.
Don't worry about using feet, stick with metric.
In the books (haven't played the third game), war is very traditional and European in style, including cavalry charges, pike formations etc. Magic isn't used all that often because the number of magic casters is very limited, especially after what happened at Thanedd.
Well Witchers have to fight all kinds of different Monsters and it seems to me like swords are more versitaile than polearms.
Myrdin Osrek polearms are known to be one of the most versatile weapons ever made
oisin finn wven in close quarters? Wouldn't their size get in the way?
Myrdin Osrek true but most battles take place in open fields
oisin finn well yeah ok ur right
i like that you take time to point out there is high and low fantasy
You're one of the best youtubers that treats these arguments. Always talking about context, and you are perfectly right. Not like others (KNIGHT SQUIRE for example) that in order to show off their "very limited and basic" knowledge and under standing of HEMA, are always complaining about what they do in HEMA class, without even analyzing the context of what they are talking about.
You are always numble, serious about your research, and entertaining.
Good work Metatron, sei davvero in gamba e spero che un giorno avrai a disposizione più mezzi e collaborazioni per i tuoi video. Sei una parte fondamentale della diffusione della cultura e delle arti marziali europee e non.
Continua con la tua umiltà, competenza e buon senso a intrattenerci e ad informarci.
Also: Witchers were trained to fight monsters. Therefore their combat style is built around exerting as much force as possible (this is why whenever Geralt fights he spins and makes such large swings). In conclusion witchers use their strength in combination with their agility, speed and dexterity in order to deal as much damage as possible specifically to fight monster which pretty much never use tool or weapons and are at a bare minimum just really strong animal with the occasional magic potential.
It would be really cool if you took some specific fighting scenes from the witcher and evaluated the moves and fighting style of that particular scene
Change of subject, I just recently brought my first katana and was given a cleaning kit for it. I know there's plenty of videos on how to clean it but could you do a quick video on how to properly clean and care for blades ??
in star wars, they had light whips, flails, shoto sabers, sabers that would bleed plasma off of the blade and cast it into the strike, and a few had dual length sabers to increase the draw cut across a wider arc. there was an instance where one Jedi Master lured his unbeatable opponent in close yet out of easy striking distance. he held his saber high and right over his shoulder and struck by directing the tip of the blade at the enemies head and then, since he was out of strike range, engaged the longer blade which shot out a meter and impaled the enemies head through his eye.
ironically The Witcher 3 made me find your channel since I fell in love with the 13th century world
Couple points (not in contrary to the video, just wanted to add a couple things):
1. The spinning (I'm not trying to spell the right word) also serves to allow witchers to prepare a sign without revealing that sign to their opponent until the last moment
2. Also on the previous point, the spinning serves to move you quickly to avoid or move past or around monsters while not letting them strike safely. This is intended to prevent them from escaping as well as to avoid several specific attacks or abilities that certain monsters may perform. (spitting poison is a good example; your sword work can be as good as you would like and it won't matter if you're not moving to avoid a lethal dose of poison)
3. This point is probably the most significant, is slightly touched upon in the books, and is why a Witcher will still continue to spin even in fights against human opponents: Witchers usually fight by themselves against groups. They spin to offer them a chance to block from any given direction if they need to, as well as the ability to move to avoid being cornered. Witchers are naturally much faster than their opponents in terms of reflex, so this also allows them to strike on the fly in any direction without warning. However, that does not mean they're faster than all monsters. In one of the books it even mentions how they automatically include parries and blocks in their spins designed to be effective against certain monsters regardless of whether or not it's necessary because they may not be able to react if the monster strikes, or if they are fighting more than one and simply can't focus to be able to react against all threats. They carry this methodology over against humans, but they do include more traditional strikes as well in those cases. Against each other they spin because they treat fighting each other much like fighting a monster.
4. This isn't specifically about lore in the Witcher, although it does tie in to it in terms of effectiveness of spin attacks, and I have a disclaimer to add with this. Disclaimer: I am an amateur and have extremely little hands-on instruction on how to properly use a sword in combat (basically, read on only if you're interested in a poorly described experience of mine in a fight with my brother). My brother and I (he's had some experience fencing, and did quite well although not on any form of real competitive level) have fought since we were children (I mean children, I was like 5 or 6 years old when we starting and we're both adults in our 20's now). We don't use actual swords or we would be dead, but we do not fight slowly or lightly; we have often injured each other fighting. Since we have fought for so long against each other with fairly high intensity, we have developed a fairly good understanding of how each other fight. I for my part fight much more in HEMA-like style, where I would describe his style of fighting as a form of kendo that favors fencing thrusts thrown in. Obviously when I say this, this is a very vague approximation as I know fairly little about disciplined sword combat on a technical level, and I may be describing this inaccurately. However, that aside, I'm going to try to describe something my brother did that caught me totally off guard. My brother used a very interesting type of spinning strike that I literally never saw coming. He took a step forward with his right foot appearing as though he was striking from high right (his perspective), so I was ready to parry the strike. Then, as his strike started to move forward, he quickly put his left foot forward while twisting his weapon down to his left side (still moving it foward slightly), and proceeded to spin quickly off of his left foot to his right. Since he was continuing his strike through from his right to his left, as he spun his weapon still was on my left side. I saw his spin as an easy opening because it looked like he couldn't hit me, so I transitioned to an attack, striking at his back. However, he had continued taking his weapon across and turned it into a full 360 spin across the front of his body. Because he spun his weapon and his body in the way he did, it so happened that he was able to completely reverse which side his attack was coming from by the half-way point though his spin, and his weapon was high when he did it. It took him virtually no time to do it; I hadn't even brought my strike down (moving at full speed), which began the same moment he started to spin, by the time he had managed to totally switch the direction he was attacking from and he even increased the power of his strike with it. The result was him hitting me directly in the side/back of the head with enough force to nearly knock me out. I wasn't even sure what he had done until he showed me later because I was dazed from the hit. In a later fight (that particular hit ended my fighting for that day), he attempted the same move, and I tried to block it this time. It didn't go as badly as before, but it didn't go well. My brother and I typically are very even when fighting, we win equally often. We're of similar size and strength, although he weighs quite a bit more. When I tried to block that strike in the later fight, I discovered that he was actually putting his full weight behind that strike, and simply, I couldn't block it and stay on my feet. I didn't lose my grip and he didn't hit me because of a mistake on his part (mostly his surprise at how strong the strike actually proved to be) but he knocked me down from the force of the blow. Almost immediately after that he did it again, which I was ready for, but he was able to totally switch the angle of the strike without making what he was doing appear any different from my angle, and that's the one place that I see a real use for spinning attacks. He was able to adjust his attack without me being able to immediately react to it because he could change it without me being able to tell what his movement was. Spinning definitely left him open on occasion and I have hit him easily at times because of it, but once he started doing that he was able to transition into a strike quickly enough that hitting him during a spin because risky enough to simply avoid. As I said, we're both amateurs in the sense of any actual instruction, so I have no doubt that anyone trained could easily beat us both. However, I also have no doubt that someone well trained could take what he did and make it effective against others who trained. The ability to alter an attack without an opponent being able to tell where it was coming from seems like something that would be extremely useful to a Witcher to me, especially with a monster who may be able to react to a Witcher's strikes quickly enough if it saw them coming. I can see that influencing the Witchers style, but I could of course be totally wrong.
Great video. I would love to hear more of your ideas for techniques to use against fantasy creatures.
There were spears in Elder Scrolls - Morrowind. They were actually my favorite weapon due to the range advantage. I was unhappy when they got removed in Oblivion.
The audio is delicious. Thank you for your efford!
Dark Souls had to nerf spear and shield because, on release, it was one of the most effective ways to fight.
Even in the final version, spears and halberds are really strong.
Thank you for saying what I was thinking all along. The witcher 1 game had three different styles for dealing with the different situations you just described. Situations such as numerically superior (or multi-headed) enemies, large and though brutes, or quick and nimble targets. However, one factor that I feel was not elaborated upon in this video is the fact that Witchers are mutated superhumans who possess supernatural speed, reflexes, and abilities. As Skallagrim pointed out in his great video about how useful superhuman speed would really be in real life, a Witcher would be able to get away with using techniques that would appear less then optimal in our reality.
Long story short, the operator is what matters most, not the technology or techniques.
I like that you do acknowledge the magical side of fantasy. Too often people disregard that aspect on how much it can actually change up fighting styles. Thank you! Eg. The Witcher being magically enhanced to be more than the typical human in terms of physical physiology and magical capabilities.
You actually move rather well man!!! You wield that sword like someone that truly knows what they are doing.
geralt is so cool that if his fighting stile isnt realistic, it becomes realistic because of his superior awesomeness
Pretty much sums it up!!!!
I know this is a pretty old video and he probably won't see this comment but it would be amazing if he could make a video about the armour in the Witcher 3.
This is another awesome video. I also saw some of your armor evaluations, i really liked those. Do you plan on maybe evaluate some of the witcher armors in the context of monster hunting i would love to here your opinion on them.
In the God Eater games there is at least 1 polearm weapon, it's called the Charge Spear God Arc. It's one of the go-to weapons I constantly use in the games.
So I'm at 0:06 right now and already LOVE the video for that sun glasses involving pose of yours :D
Finally someone agrees with me on the polearms. I raised hell on so many forums about polearms not being in Elder Scrolls or most other games that handle swords.
Hey man I love your videos, and I've always been into Medieval knights since I was little and you've taught me a lot, so thank you. Could you do an interactive experience with a knight? that would be awesome! Thanks for making awesome videos and keep up the good work!
Yes it's planned!
I also think the very long spinning swings could help against large groups of monsters to force them to stay back. They might try to leap at him into such a swing but they'll just land into his spinning blade.
This was a really interesting way to look at this, I never thought about it like that before. Great video, thanks Metatron.
A game that does actually make great use of pole-arms is Mount & Blade. The game makes it a little too easy to defend against them with a shield or any weapon though.
There were Spears and the polearms in The Witcher series and they fuck up my day right quick
About the halfswording: in The Witcher 1, Geralt has an animation, in which when a Kikimora (Basically a dog-sized ant with chitin armor) is knocked down, Geralt uses a reverse grip to finish it off with bludgeoning damage. Fairly realistic if you ask me
One thing worth mentioning is the fact that witchers also use basic magic as well as alchemical potions in order to enhance their combat capabilities. These abilities also affect their sword technique.
So they are more like warlocks
Metatron the one thing in the whitcher that you didn't look at or touch on was the schools and disciplines such as cat, griffin, wolf and bear were each focus on a specific style of combat eg bear school is high damage were as cat is mobility and agility. But it is good to see an evaluation of fictional fighting styles.
I just leave for some months and I come back to delicious and perfect sound mic. #Goals
Good video man. Your best video to date though i must say was the one abput knives, been shareing it on fb to create awareness of the reality of knife fights seeing how i know from experience how not flashy they are (yea i was a bad kid back in the day). Keep that info flowing brother, people need to learn facts.
On to something else. Could you do a breakdown of the fighting styles of the jedi and sith? Id love to hear your views on how plausible the sword fighting styles of star wars realy are(if you haven't already done this ofc and i missed it :S).
Anyway keep upp the good work. Looking forward to your next video.
waited so long for this
Very cool video, lots of information, keep it up dude!
about halfswording against thick skin, if i-m not mistaken the purpose of half swording id to get mor control of the tip in order to stab the gaps between plates, skin however has no gaps, you just have to stike harder. However if the monster resembles a lobster, with tough, hard, chitinous plates, then hals swording would make sense, after all lobsters have gaps between their plates.
05:29 as far as I remember Geralt was using half swording in the very first game as sort of a finishing move to kill off the monsters.
Exactly!!!
Great intro with the shades😎 very cool for school.
Can't believe you didn't mention hunting on boars and bears with the poles. Living proof of a concept.
Witcher 1 explains that the spinning techniques are mainly used against slow, low power groups of enemies. They also had a fast style and heavy style.
Very good points here, the thing about having different weapons according to what enemies your fighting is very true, and it's something that's often ignored by other people (Skallagrim is a notable example).
Assuming you (magically) had the strenght to weild an absurdly large weapon, wouldn't you use that to fight a dragon, a golem or something like that?
Strength and speed aside, witchers also often use signs, which require a free off-hand. I'd argue that an aard or igni sign (force push or throw sparks), closely followed by a slash before the opponent has time to recover, would be a witchers best offensive move, but that requires a free off-hand for maximal speed. Letting go of a two-handed weapon or shield strap for a second to throw a sign would require grabbing it again before the next attack, which would mean a delay an opponent (or a group of them) could take advantage of.
That said, it's not rare for other characters to use spears in books, there are battles with pike-shield walls or spear-men stopping a cavalry charge, and an instance of a knight charging a dragon with his lance.
I don't quite remember, but I think the pirouetting styles are for fights against multiple enemies, especially monsters. With the superior speed of a witcher this might even make sense.
Metatron, in earlier Elder Scrolls games there were polearms. They were cut from Skyrim because of time constraint (they were actually going to add it in, there's even video of the devs playing with spear). Not sure why there wasn't one in Oblivion though.
I've had a theory for the possible use of spinning: to break magical shields surrounding human enemies. In that case, half-swording doesn't work, the only thing that does is the amount of damage that you can inflict on the shield, and if you say that the more cinetic energy there is, the more damage the shield takes, it could make sense to start spinning, and then whole martial arts would have to be developped around inflicting the most damage to a magical shield.
Good Viedeo! First of all.
In the books the author gives quite good explanations why Geralt is fighting this way and you pointed some of them out quite good.
The polearm would be a hinderence to Geralt because he often fights in confined space and dodging is essntial for the fight against monsters.
The whole style is based on his magically enhanced reflexes and therefor couldn´t be compared to the style of a common soldier.
The auther symbolises that with witchers beeing the only people that are wearing theyr swords on the back. Even as you pointed out before it doesn´t really make sense. But hey it looks cool and it´s sort of a guild sign for the monsterkillers.
However, the main assets to a witcher are his enhanced reflexes and his agility, so using a polearm or a lance would probably rob him of his main advantage.
Also the blades of a witcher would always be covered by some sort of oil that is specially designed to hurt or poison the specific enemy so that it can´t be locked with the claws or such means. The Staff of the Polearm would be easy to grapple and, or break for a monster, leaving Geralt without a weapon in midfight.
However, let me compliment you ob your channel witch i enjoy very much and please keep on with your work.
Salve Metatron ;-)
One think is worth mentioning, in addition to simple spells (signs), super human reflexes, super human senses, very high resistance to poison, and other things, witchers are also really, really strong. it isn't emphasized as much in the games as their other abilities but Geralt is strong enough to cut a steel clad knight in half down the middle. all the way through all the plate, meat, and bone in one swing. he can also dismember larger creatures, like decapitating a griffin or cockatrice. all of this takes a sharp blade and an inhuman level of strength. His fighting style against monsters (at least in Witcher 3) involves a lot of dodging out of the reach of potentially long reach swings and lunges as well as getting in close and making a powerful swing in short time. he can use these tactics against humans as well but can also perform more traditional moves like parying.
Metatron: It's a shame polearms aren't in The Elder Scrolls series
Morrowind: Am I a Joke to you?
There's polearms in the Mount&blade Series. They are pretty common, amidst soldiers, and using them with two hands in duels or for killing mounted troops is awesome. Another good aplication for them is when you fight archers on meele, they tend to have fast onehanded weapons, and this sometimes hinder twohanded or long onehanders clumsy, but polearms keep the archers away while delivering good damage.
But spear+shield sucks a lot, there's only one direction plausible for attack (thrusting), and they are pretty slow. Using this combo is bound to get you killed. Unless of course, you mod your game in order to add twodirectional thrust (overhead and underhead) and enhance speed. Tweaking game values for armor resistance against piercing damage is also a way to go, but it affects literally everytingh that deals piercing damage (Here ya go, killing knights with a pitchfork)
I agree that more games should have polearms. The last fantasy game that I played that had polearms was WoW (World of Warcraft) but those were not itemized for warriors/heavy armor users (most of the time). Though the Transmogrification system made it so I could make my greatsword looked like a polearm :)
A little off topic but I think more games (MMOs) should use the RIFT wardrobe system where you can change the appearance of any slot for free with few restrictions (I had a plate wearing warrior using a staff but some abilities lacked animations). More appearance customization options is a good thing in my opinion (also it is proven that nice looking appearance only stuff sells so there also is a profit incentive for the developers).
to polearms in games: quite some games actually feature polearms like the D&D or DSA based games. In terms of TES you could count spears and some of the bigger 2 handed axes as polearms and WoW does have polearms.
The overall problem with polearms afaik is balance. You see those games that have polearms in them are often critisised because polearms are too effective, they either have a huge reach advantage that makes it hard to fight someone, or they dish out enourmous damage, or in case of DSA its almost impossible to even get close to someone with a polearm while in D&D polearms can be used from the second line of attack thus you just need 1 tanky guy in front and have others attack behind him with polearms.
So in games people want to have balance meaning if someone fights with a dagger and no armor he should be able to compete with someone in full plate armor and a polearm - and thats the thing where polearms fail so many designers skip polearms entirely to make balancing easier.
I mean just in terms of kiting . imagine 2 melee classes fighting each other in an action rpg - one would use daggers one a polearm and even if the polearm would do near to no damage at all, the simply fact that it has the longer reach makes it totally unfair as the one with the polearm can kite the other guy to death
For future reference: High Fantasy = breaks our laws of physics, Low Fantasy = intrusion of Fantasy characters into a world very similar to ours (can even have magic if it doesn't break our laws of physics e.g. potion that gives you night vision). Just because it has large monsters, elves and such doesn't mean it's high fantasy. It's high fantasy because you have magic casters that cast powerful spells out of nowhere.
The variables and the "what-ifs" are the best thing about Fantasy. It makes a game/story that much better when there is logical reasons as to why things are the way they are, and how they are.
Gotta agree about the polearms too, i never really noticed how neglected they are in games (Dark Souls has plenty of them ;) )
Nice thinking :D
its realy good when somebody can chenge mindset depending on situation
I think the main reason characters have swords instead of polearms in these games is the heroic figure, in terms of hollywood design aesthetics, main characters have swords, background characters have spears/polearms, in a similar way to Star Trek/Star Wars and other war movies, main characters use pistols on the battlefield because it gives a more athletic/heroic silhouette than a rifle
the first witcher did something that made sense. not only did u have to chose the right weapon and oils when fighting, but you also had to alternate between fighting styles when facing adversaries. there were three fighting styles in it. one for quick but less effective strikes, usually used agains quick but weaker monsters, one for strong but slow attacks for stronger and bigger monsters and the last one was mostly defense and counter attack i think. if you used a strong attack on a small monster like a drowner, he'd dodge it quite easily and then you'd be over run and killed quite fast. if you used fast attacks against a cockatrice or troll or knight with heavy armor, then you'd just give them mosquito bites and he'd cut you half. i think the last style was mostly to use against fast opponents that attacked quite often for longer periods at a time. can't remember, didn't really use that one that often.
"The monsters are big but very slow. They're also not particularly intelligent."
Literally saying what I've been thinking all this time! It makes sense for geralt to move the way he does when facing the enemies he does. That's what a lot of people don't seem to get. A lot of the time they're just like "Oh, he spins a lot so it doesn't make sense". It does make sense in the witcher universe.
To start with - The Elder Scrolls - The third main installment in the series Morrowind had spears :) (I'm not saying that previous ones didn't have, but I simply never had a chance to play them).
In the first The Witcher there were three fighting styles: powerful - good against heavy-weight opponents, fast - against lighter and/or very agile enemies and group - self explainatory.
Witchers were mutants, enhanced mutants with improved reflexes, sights, strength and overall senses. What's more they were some sort of alchemists and were able to prepare potions enhancing their abilities even more. Plus their "signs" were some sort of elemental magic so they were nothing like a real swordsman ;)
Polish HEMA instructors were even joking that the writer inserted pirouettes in places where he didn't know how to save the situation without killing the protagonist ;) "And so Geralt made a pirouette and killed everybody around him and he was the badass boss as always. Yay!" :D
Keep in mind w.r.t. polearms, Witcher had some NPCs that used halberds against you, if I recall correctly. Though with the whole magic thing the range didn't pose such a threat to the main character.
not everyone in the witcher's world are born with magical talents