Alan Padziński, a professional instructor and sword performer from Poland, has (like me) been playing too much Witcher 3. Instead of endlessly writing about it on a website, though, he’s hit the woods and started working through his addiction with swords.
This video shows how to do Geralt’s special fast attack move, the “whirl”. Note that this is training for fun, not training for combat: The Witcher 3 is not real, you’re not a monster-slaying mutant, and this definitely isn’t how people actually fight with swords.
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11 responses to “Here, Learn How To Swordfight Like A Witcher”
Make sure to get as close as possible before attempting a spinning jump lunge!!
I recently tried out the whirling manoeuvre in The Witcher 3. Pretty disappointing. Even at the highest level, it drains stamina really quickly and isn’t that effective. You really need three or more foes surrounding you at close quarters for it to be effective, and if you let that happen you are really asking to be ganked. My fighting style is stack on the fast attack crit bonus, stack on the adrenaline generation, stack on the bleeding/burning effects, then pump Quen and dance around your opponents, laughing and slashing in equal measure. The only times I seem to get in trouble are where there are forced close quarter fist fights (they piss me off so much) where you are arbitrarily barred from using signs or weapons, and you have two or three opponents ganging up on you. The only really challenging part on Death March for me.
*Like Conan the Barbarian…
Watched the GIF and started singing “DANCE MAGIC DANCE! MAGIC DANCE! MAGIC DANCE!”
I instantly think of the Kurgan when I see this….THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!
saw the gif and honestly though i saw RVD
Question is would this fighting style hold up against traditional methods, this guy should practice dual some traditional English swordsman representative of the time. My guess is doing spins and manoeuvres like this will just get you a sharp jab to the guts every time.
It’s called flourishing and is a technique, not a style. It’s fine for Geralt who is superhuman but in reality it’s not quite used the same way.
Flourishing can be found in many styles the world over, but unlike Witcher, flourishing is about confusing the enemy and hiding the lethal strikes, not making every movement lethal like you see in games and movies.
Take some Chinese staff and sword styles, very technical and showy but not every movement is an attack, often it’s positioning for an attack.
Knife fighting tends to use the same principle with constant movement used as misdirection to seed confusion.
The guy actually said (either on Reddit or Youtube, don’t recall which) that while it looks great, it wouldn’t hold up as a fighting style.
The book/game lore holds it up by the Witchers having incredibly fast reflexes and aiming to nick arteries etc rather than engage in long swordbattles.
You would want to be really careful about clipping problems. A sword passing through the arm isn’t nearly as painful in the game as IRL.
I’d rather learn to fist fight. Much more practical as can be seen by youtu.be/MerOZ0eR0z8