The Witcher Series: 10 Bosses That Look Weak But Are Incredibly Strong

It’s no Dark Souls in terms of difficulty, but The Witcher series has always presented lots of challenges to its players. These come in the form of RPG choices– usually a tough choice between redhead or brunette, but from time to time, they do introduce some menacing bosses. The third game is quite notorious for this sort of difficulty spike.

Meanwhile, the first two games, due to having fewer bosses, don’t have as many of these walking and talking hurdles but they still have a couple of apparent chumps who are actually monsters. These bosses tend to surprise the players with how unforgiving, infuriating, or just plain unfair they can be especially when compared to the actual formidable-looking bosses.

10 Azar Javed (The Witcher)

Azar Javed is one of the many antagonists of the first Witcher game. At first glance, he doesn’t look like he’s more intimidating than a white-haired albino who can cut down ten men in ten seconds. He’s just a bejeweled sorcerer from Zerrikania, after all. Lo and behold, he’s quite the magician when Geralt finally gets a chance to duel with him.

Azar Javed easily assaults the players with chain knockbacks and stun attacks and for a sorcerer, he hits like a truck with his physical damage. There’s the fact that he’s also a magic-user so he’ll cheat and bring in his two minions after the fight starts to go in the players’ favor. Never underestimate a Zerrikanian.

9 The Operator (The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings)

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has even fewer bosses than the first game but it does present these beastly obstacles on a grander scale. That’s why a hidden optional boss such as The Operator came quite as a surprise since he has the worst presentation for all the bosses in the second game.

He’s mostly just a masked sorcerer who talks like Darth Vader and speaks in cryptic or complex magical mumbo jumbo. Then the fight finally begins and players soon realize that they’re not just fighting The Operator but also the environment as it’s full of invisible walls and barriers. The Operator himself is not so durable but the minions can easily bully Geralt into the ground.

8 Nithral (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

Now, on to The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. One of the first few Wild Hunt bosses that the players will face is Nithral while they’re raiding Avallac’h’s hideout. Geralt and Keira Metz stumbles into them and a fight ensues. It wouldn’t have been much of a problem because Geralt is with a sorceress, right?

Well, turns out Nithral has his own tricks involving the White Frost and literally summons a miniature version of that snow apocalypse in the relatively tiny arena. The result is that the fight tends to go on longer than it should since players are constantly forced into a defensive role.

7 Crones (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

The Crones do look horrid but they don’t give off the impression that they’re battle-hardened beings. They’re even afraid of the Wild Hunt and seeing as Geralt easily beat Eredin and Imlerith, many players can easily assume that the Crones would be pushovers.

Except the person who will be fighting them is Ciri and not Geralt. This lends an added layer of struggle to the fight because controlling Ciri is slightly different than what players are used to with Geralt. On higher difficulties, especially in Death March, the Crones can even end up making the players turn down the sliders.

6 Djinn (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

Speaking of magical beings that don’t look that scary at all, the Djinn would be another creature that lots of players tend to underestimate. There’s only a few of them in the game and one of them is a boss that both Geralt and Yennefer must face together. It’s not exactly a painful fight but one has to consider that it’s a 2-v-1.

Geralt or Yennefer alone by themselves wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Djinn. Moreover, the best they could do was trap the Djinn and probably didn’t even have a solid plan or way of killing it. In hindsight, this one was a rather foolish plan by Yennefer considering their previous Djinn encounter in the books nearly killed them both.

5 Wicked Witch (Blood and Wine)

The expansions of The Witcher 3 have also brought in a host of hard bosses though Blood and Wine has the weaker entries among the two add-ons. Dettlaff is certainly threatening at first glance and so was the giant at the start. So that leaves a few other bosses like the Wicked Witch as behemoths in disguise.

The Wicked Witch appears in the Fablesphere world and looks like a stereotypical Grimm fairy tale villain. She certainly appears as though she can’t even strike Geralt but then the fight happens and the witcher ends up untangling himself from all the Archespores the Wicked Witch summons. Additionally, she also flies in a bubble for most of the fight, she’s definitely not as helpless as fairy tale witches.

4 Iris’ Greatest Fear (Hearts of Stone)

Hearts of Stone is the more infamous expansion for The Witcher 3 since it not only has that one rune merchant that will make Geralt poor but also added the number of the most difficult bosses in the game. One of those is Iris’s Greatest Fear who’s basically just a zombified Olgierd.

Players tend to enter that fight with low expectations since they’ve already defeated Olgierd prior to that point but they’ll mostly be unprepared for the barrage of ghoulish attacks this boss dishes out. Some attacks even power through Quen which is the only safety cushion that players fall back to when the going gets tough.

3 Ofieri Mage (Hearts of Stone)

Even at the very start of the Hearts of Stone questline, players are already being punished for belittling seemingly harmless human enemies. Case in point is that one Ofieri Mage that greets Geralt right after getting shipwrecked. He’s accompanied by bodyguards which is weird since he has proven himself vastly more powerful than swords or muscle.

Geralt simply can’t stagger-lock this one to death as apparently, this old mage can block a witcher’s swing. Moreover, he has a tornado attack that makes him somewhat invulnerable. Dimeritium bombs are useful for this fight but good luck remembering Geralt has those as he’s half-naked in this fight.

2 The Caretaker (Hearts of Stone)

The Caretaker is frightening enough, but there’s a chance that some players didn’t actually expect him to be a regenerating powerhouse. At best, he appears as a stern bodyguard who will fall down after a few strikes and don’t really seem like he’s put up much of a fight with a shovel.

Turns out that shovel was the Caretaker’s way of thinking ahead as he’s going to use it to dig Geralt’s grave. If the fight goes on too long then the Caretaker will simply reset his health. He’s pretty much a gatekeeper to check if players have been paying attention to Geralt’s DPS.

1 Toad Prince (Hearts of Stone)

Last but not least, the maddening Toad Prince. It’s basically just a giant toad stuck in the sewers. How hard can it be? Geralt has faced more ferocious monsters such as dragons, giants, and even the Wild Hunt. A measly toad should be a problem for a centennial witcher.

So came the fight and the players realized that even the best witcher of them all is no match for some back warts and a prehensile tongue. The Toad Price just wrecks any players who love to get in close and personal. Its exploitable weakness is fire but Igni isn’t that popular of an option for many players. Hence, the Toad Prince ends up owning Geralt for a while until the players cave and lower the difficulty level.

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