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Can we all get a round of applause for getting to the final mission of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? Except for those who skipped all side quests and only got 30 hours of gameplay instead. No celebration for you.
At this point, Geralt has traveled between different regions, visited villages, gone out into the countryside to kill monsters, explored caves, wells, cemeteries, dungeons, mountains, swamps, rivers, and seas, and even romanced one or two sorceresses, all on the back of his trusty horse Roach, except for the last one of course. Potential DLC content, to be honest.
Having gathered your allies, your main characters are ready for battle. The only thing left to do is to be determined enough to launch into the final battle against the main enemy: The Wild Hunt.
In this guide, we’ll go over this quest in detail, overviewing the lore of the two main enemies and analyzing the best way to beat them to dust.
My Bottom-Line Up Front
On Thin Ice ties up the entire main story of The Witcher 3 and sums it up in a world-traveling, portal-crossing, elf-beating extravaganza. Are you ready to face the guys that have been lurking from a distance right from the beginning of the game? Here is a quick TL; DR on how I beat them.
Caranthir: Daughter and father-figure join forces to bring down the Navigator. While playing Ciri, you’ll be fine. When switched to Geralt, spam Quen and Igni to exploit his fire weakness.
Eredin: The King of the Wild Hunt can be easily beat by spamming Quen and reflecting damage.
The Basics: Preparing for battle
- Zone: Skellige
- Recommended level: 30
- Rewards: 500 points of experience and the silver sword “Hav’Caaren.”
When the mission starts, Avallac’h will ask you if you are ready to go to Undvik and start the game’s final missions. This is the last moment when you can back out but remember that after finishing the story, you can continue playing and doing quests. This is only the end of the main ones.
“I’ve taken care of everything. I’m ready when you are” they will start the mission, and you will automatically go with him to Undvik. If you prefer, you can go on your own to the island, where the elf will give you one last chance not to start the mission right away. The latter would be a good idea to take advantage and do whatever you have pending, as well as make a separate save at this point. Even if it’s not quests or anything, there’s always equipment to prepare, potions to gather, etc… When you are ready, start the big battle.
If you have pursued any romance with either Triss or Jenneffer, you’ll also talk to her now. If you’ve tried both, you’ll go straight to battle.
You will start by controlling Ciri, but you don’t need to stop to fight the enemies. You must go through several Warriors and Hounds of the Wild Hunt. Remember, don’t stop to fight them; just run and “teleport,” going straight to the mark on the map, as the enemies won’t stop coming out. Instead, advance until you face Caranthir, the Navigator, who has ultimately decided to stay on Eredin’s side.
On Thin Ice Guide – Quest Walkthrough
Caranthir, The Navigator
Who Is Caranthir?
Caranthir, a CD Project RED creation, is one of the best magic users in the Witcher universe. He was, in fact, a creation of Avallac’h. Though we’d all love to think that Avallac’h created him by imbuing magic into him, that’s unfortunately not how things went down. It’s a little bit more; I guess you could say, creepy than that…
He selectively bred Caranthir into existence based on the magical talents of the people that bred together to have children. He found two people that were very talented in magic; he got them to have a child; he found two other people that were very talented in magic and got them to have a child. Those two children then had children and so on until eventually, you get Caranthir, who is just one of the most robust magic users in The Witcher universe. So, Avallac’h went out of his way to pick people incredibly gifted with magic to create Caranthir.
Avallac’h taught him everything about magic and allowed him to become who he became. But Avallac’h does consider Caranthir to be not just his son but his creation. Caranthir meant so much more than just a child – it was the culmination of a lot of effort over many years. So being naturally gifted in this way and just being this natural talent. Caranthir earned the nickname “The golden child.”
However, soon things did turn for the worse, as I’m sure you’ll all know, due to his magical ability and the fact that he could open portals between worlds and manipulate time and space. Eredin appointed Caranthir as one of his lead advisors and their essential navigator in allowing the Wild Hunt to continue its activities.
You meet him first when you go to Avalos, a hideout in felon with Keira Metz. Caranthir was there to find information about Ciri, which is the Wild Hunt’s goal. The final time you meet him is in the final battle against the world in Undvik.
How Can I Defeat Caranthir?
It’s not too complicated; attack him whenever you can and be ready to use Ciri’s dodge move to avoid his attacks, especially when he teleports himself and can appear from behind you. Caranthir He won’t trouble you much, mainly because the Ciri is very powerful. However, try to stick to her way of fighting.
After a while, a couple of cutscenes will roll, and you will switch to Geralt. The fight against the Navigator continues, but his attacks will change a bit this time… For starters, he’ll occasionally summon some level 30 Ice Elementals; when he does, you’ll need to take care of them first. They can be a real pain. Quen and Igni, as always, are one of our best weapons.
When he launches several projectiles at once, try to dodge them. Otherwise, they will slow you down. Something also important is that when a layer of ice covers him, you must first use the Igni sign before attacking him. Usually, although the fire doesn’t hurt him, it will allow you to do more damage with your sword.
It is a little bit disappointing how Caranthir died. The entire game, he was excited as this powerful man who could do so much stuff. That was probably one of the easiest boss fights in any Witcher game.
Keep Moving; Close the Portals
When you defeat him, you will have to swim quickly upwards if you don’t want to have a nasty death under tons of icy water… and we will continue the battle. This is going to sound ridiculous, but don’t fight. What you must do here is move forward while closing the portals using Yrden on them.
It won’t be long before you reach Eredin, the Sparrowhawk.
Eredin, the Sparrowhawk
Who Is Eredin?
Asking who the overarching main antagonist of the entire game you have stumbled upon several times in the game is stupid. But have you asked yourself whether you know where this mysterious, powerful, intimidating, and scary skeleton-masked guy comes from?
To put it quite simply, nobody does. His origins are pretty much unknown, and the first piece of information we have surrounding him is that at some point, the king of the Aen Elle elves, Auberon Muircetach, appointed him the leader of the Red Riders or Wild Hunt. Eredin is an Aen Elle elf, to summarize very briefly: an elf from the other world in the Witcher Games and books.
The Red Riders or Wild Hunt’s primary purpose was to travel to different worlds to acquire humanoid enslaved people for the Aen Elle. The world of the Aen Elle was now mainly populated by elves and unicorns, and as you can imagine, unicorns didn’t exactly make for good enslaved people, so instead, they had to go to other worlds to get them. It’s worth noting that the Aen Elle elves have a distaste for humans and generally enslave them.
So, to try to simplify the time-traveling war and summarize it, here goes a quick recap:
The Aen Elle elves, and other races like humans, used to be able to travel between the world quite easily. When the Conjunction happens, time traveling comes to a halt. But then the unicorns helped the NL travel between the world again until they found out the NL elves were using this power to plunder and enslave. Unicorns don’t want to be associated with criminal activity, so they stopped helping them, and then the war between them began.
This is what eventually led to the elves cultivating the Elder Blood Gene, which would allow them to access this gate between worlds without the unicorns’ help. In simpler terms, he wants Ciri to have a child with him so that they can use the child’s power to reopen the “Great Gate,” resume their time-traveling shenanigans and enslave people from other worlds.
Under my dead, witchery body, sir. Let’s beat him up.
How Can I Defeat Eredin?
Of course, the king of the Wild Hunt is the game’s final boss. You have two options: easy and slow.
The Slow Way
The slow way is to attack Eredin little by little, hitting and retreating to prevent him from dealing too much damage.
During the whole battle, the main thing to keep in mind is not to try to do a lot of damage as you could do with any other typical boss; here, you will have to be patient and go little by little… hitting him, retreating, and repeating, the priority is to dodge his attacks and always keep moving, using the Quen signal to minimize the damage. Another proper signal is Yrden’s since even if he doesn’t do wonders, anything you can slow him down is always welcome. Don’t forget Igni, which you’ll need to use when he’s covered in ice, just like in the fight against Caranthir. At a certain point, after taking a certain amount of life from him,
Eredin will transport you to a new area, and here, he will have two new attacks in his arsenal. The first one is like a kind of energy barrier that will come at you in a straight line. Keep calm when he throws it at you (there will be several in a row), and wait until the last moment to dodge it by rolling to the side. The problem is that at the beginning, it will only be a “barrier,” but later, it will throw more at you, and, as a rule, the closer you are to it, the better. The other attack is projectiles that will fall from the sky and keep constantly moving and rolling. At a certain point, when you’ve taken almost all his health, Eredin will escape through a portal, so follow him and finish him off, thereby giving him the last few hits.
The Easy Way
The easy way is to abuse Quen to reflect the damage simply. He will be the one to end his own life, and Ted Deireadh, the Final Era, will begin.
FAQ
Question: What should I do before on thin ice Witcher 3?
Answer: Here are some things you should do before The Witcher 3 On Thin ice:
• Save the game. At this point, you probably already had to learn -either the easy or hard way- that you should create a save as often as possible. You are about to head into one of the final quests, so save your game.
• Complete the sidequest Reason of State. It can impact the outcome of the final quest, or rather, make a specific ending inaccessible. Make sure that one is cleared before you proceed.
Question: What happens at the end of The Witcher 3?
Answer: After defeating Eredin and after we have seen what Ciri’s destiny is in Tedd Deireadh, the Final Era, this last mission of the game will be automatically activated. Here we will know the final fate of all the story’s main characters.
We will know what became of Keira (if she survived) and Lambert. Or at least what they are willing to tell us about their plans. Depending on what we did with King Radovid and his conspirators, there will be one or another person in power in Novigrad, and it is even possible that some countries razed by Nilfgaard will reappear by the grace of the Empire. Even Emhyr himself could end up dead because of an internal conspiracy involving a specific regional trade corporation is indeed involved…
But the most crucial point is the part of the ending related to Geralt and Ciri. In the case of Geralt in particular, depending on whether we have had an affair with Triss, with Yennefer, or with neither of them, the sorcerer will spend the rest of his life without a partner or with one of them.
About Ciri, it all depends on the decisions we have made at specific points in the game.
Question: What Can I do after finishing The Witcher 3’s main story?
Answer: From this moment, you can continue playing and complete the missions that you have left pending (not all, if you were missing critical characters or if they are secondary missions “with the plot,” you will not be able to do them, for obvious reasons). With this saved game with the completed game, you can start a New Game+ whenever you want; you don’t have to do it right now.
Parting Words
On Thin Ice is one of the game’s last quests and puts you against two of the most formidable members of the Wild Hunt: Caranthir and Eredin. What is most memorable about it is not the difficulty or the fact that you are bringing down the guys you have been chasing the whole game. This final quest is memorable because it brings you together with everyone you have gotten to know throughout the game for one last time.
Whenever I finish a huge game that takes me many hours, I end up the same way: with a strange feeling of emptiness. That’s how I’ve spent the whole week after finishing the story and the primary side quests of The Witcher 3. I said significant side quests because I’m not planning on playing Gwent and ending up sick as I did with Hearthstone.
It’s not the first time a game leaves me with that empty feeling. Still, it is the first time I get to fill that space with the game itself, with what it lets me do wantonly. It’s something we all seem to forget to comment about The Witcher 3: the life of its world is infectious and can be enjoyed in itself, with no goals or anything else in mind.
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