Gents..... I can't fucking do it.

I have literally had no trouble with anything up till this fight. I can get him to his rapid teleporting state without being hit. Then he basically combo one hit kills me every time. Every. Damn. Time.

How do I do it? I understand he always teleports behind you, but after a while I always end up rolling into him....How can I cheese him...I can't sleep at night.

I. Can't. Go. On.

Roll until he slams his hammer into the ground and then hit him.

Just go for one hit after the hamma-slamma.

I found dodging to be more effective than rolling. Use quen liberally.

I rolled forward whenever he was going to teleport, kept Igni ready for his frost armor, and got a quick combo in before quickly disengaging. Rinse and repeat. It was a tedious fight.

I can provide assistance, but I need to know what your build looks like.

I remember losing that fight. It requires way too much repetition. Ultimately it came down to focus and not letting my greed get the better of me - and by that I mean as much keeping Quen up for when I made a mistake as not trying to get too many hits.

It caused a lot of trouble for me as well. After a couple of deaths (8 or so) I decided that some experimentation is in order. I respecced toward alchemy to build toxicity resistance (a first for me in the Witcher series), drank 3 most applicable decoctions (already forgot which, but there is a group of four or five of them which are obviously the strongest) and beat him first time in half the time it previously took me to reach the second stage. It was almost too easy, I felt a little dirty...

Having the alchemy skill that slows time for critical hits helped me out a ton. The decoctions that increase your damage output are a must, too. I don't recall offhand if the bombs that interfere with magic help, but I want to say they did.

Always Be Rolling. And Quenning.

The fight took time for me, don't remember it giving me huge amounts of trouble but I was definitely over levelled by the time I got to it which probably made a difference.

@oldirtybearon: maxed quick and heavy attacks. 3 points in that dodge damage reduction. Max ingni armor melter and continuous flame. Max quen shield. Max magic trap damage and time period.

@friendlypossum: Any chance you dropped any points into Whirl? Any chance you can drop points into Whirl? Because Whirl + Ekimara Decoction (I think that's the one; it regenerates vitality upon hitting an enemy) = Imlerith dead in seconds.

Aside from that, judging by your build, there's not a lot I can recommend save for Quenning. The problem with Imlerith is that any attack on him instantly reboots the teleportation, so you can't cast Igni to disable his frost armour and still land an attack combo. You have to eat the frost resistance, sadly. Unless you have fire damage runes on your sword. That might be worth a look. Sadly Yrden is pretty much useless in these boss fights. A pain I know all too well being a Yrden man myself.

Since you don't have any points in Alchemy, there's no point going for bombs. They'll be rather ineffectual against Imlerith since you don't have any of the bonuses associated with bombs. You're not crippled, however, because putting points into fast attack (and heavy) means you can whittle Imlerith down fairly easily. It's more a matter of keeping your adrenaline points and keeping your Quen shield up. A tip I can offer is that, when you see Imlerith disappear for a teleport, swing the camera around to behind you. He will always appear behind you, and actually seeing it can give you enough time to roll out of the way. Rolling is preferably to dodging when you need to create a ton of space between you and Imlerith as opposed to a normal dodge. Normal dodges should only be used in the Dark Souls sense, that is to say dodging to the rear of your enemy.

Also keep in mind Imlerith's attack pattern for phase two. He teleports twice for wild swings, and the third teleport is one fuck-off sized hammer strike to the ground. During that time you can get two to three good swings on him before it starts all over again. Focus less on your abilities (aside from Quen) and more on getting into the rhythm of the fight. It's important to remember not to panic if Imlerith strikes you. Don't spaz out and start dodging willy nilly. Keep cool and stay collected. Keep some White Rafford Decoction on hand for instant heals. If you have Enhanced or Superior Swallow on hand, use that as well. Imlerith punishes panicky play rather hard, so keep in mind that getting hit isn't the end of the world. It happens. Re-center yourself and watch the animation on Imlerith's swings. I find that, facing Imlerith, rolling into the direction his swing is coming from is a pretty sure fire way to avoid damage.

Hopefully you stick with it and get through, bruh. It's a hard fight for Sign builds, but it is doable with careful play and patience.

@friendlypossum: I had trouble with this too. His second "form" or attack pattern is awful.

The only thing I can say is persevere.

I had a trouble with this guy as well, especially his third stage, after the forth or fifth time I got him into the third stage I just stomped attacking and focused on dodging and rolling out of the way,you will learn his patterns after a while and begin to see openings in his attacks. Stick to light attacks and dodges don't be greedy

Also try dodging instead of just always outright rolling since more often than not you'll just get caught with a bad roll whereas you can spam dodge and have a much faster recovery. Try just hitting him with just two light attacks or one heavy attack and be prepared to dodge again instead of going for another hit or you'll just get stuck in an animation and get hit by another attack after a teleport. If you get a chance, just keep casting Quen.

In short, just dodge and cast Quen as much as possible and don't use unless you absolutely need to.

Quen's active shield + Ekhidna decoction is also a pretty good combo. Being a nighttime mission also helps since you can use Superior Tawny Owl which never expires at night. Its the most useful potion in the entire game for me along with Active Quen with Ekhidna since I wouldn't even need to depend on using using health regen items and the damage he deals is enough to recover a huge chunk of health.

Also at this point of the game, I was rocking a re-specced, Combat + Signs + Alchemy hybrid build. I had 6 Combat skills (with Whirl), 3 Sign skills (with Active Quen), 2 Alchemy (with increased Toxicity limit) and the Medium armor buff. Come to think of it, it may be possible to kill him in one fell swoop by being able to take the Superior Maribor Forest potion (increases adrenaline, adds one adrenaline point) along with Superior Blizzard (when you have three adrenaline points you don't run out of stamina). I've yet to try it but it may be possible to just keep hitting him with Whirl until he dies and it'll never come to a point where he'll get to the second phase of attack patterns.

Dodge a bunch, get one or two hits in, repeat dodging. Put up quen whenever he knocks it off of you. I know that's not a very satisfying response or tip, but that's really all it takes. This was the toughest and most fun fight in my opinion. It's all about your patience and timing. Pretend its dark souls for this fight. Avoid rolling because your stamina will not recover while you roll. No stamina = no quen = death sentence.

Quen

QUEN

I think it was one of the longer fights in the whole game. It's really all about patience and being consistent. He has a ton of health so really all you can do is just chip away at his health slowly when there's an opening, which is when he slams down his hammer. I had the 3 tier strong attack move, which is essentially one hard hitting attack that you have to charge up for a little bit. I only used this attack after he did the hammer slam move. If I saw an awkward animation, like maybe he teleported in a weird direction that wasn't quite facing Geralt or something that caused a similar opening that wasn't supposed to be there, and usually if that happened, I would hit him with one or two fast attack moves.

You're pretty much going to be using Quen only on this. Bombs don't really have any substantial effect, the animation takes too long and you'll probably die before hitting him. Since the fight is so long, potions don't really matter. I would have Swallow on the slot and you should probably have White Rafford Decoction on the other just to keep yourself alive since this fight is essentially an endurance run and if your blessed, you might get a magic pixel if he combos off you if you have health regen going on.

Like most have said on here already, keep rolling to an absolute minimum. Most of his attacks can be dodged with the sidestep dodge and you will be needing the stamina for keeping Quen up. Just stay on your toes when he starts teleporting around everywhere and try your best to dodge each attack. Don't corner yourself and remember the basics of CQC. Good luck.

Yeah I gotta repeat everyone and say Quen and timing are pretty much the only strategy. For me, as an alchemy only build, damage boosting potions and decoctions are a must and I think the most effective oil was the elementa oil (I found it weird that I was using my silver instead the steel sword, they are elves aren't they?). I used Samun at the start which was effective but I quickly ran out of it. No other bombs had much effect, grapeshot barely phased him.

I just got passed this recently on Death March with Imlerith ~5 levels ahead of me so needless to say I had a wee bit of difficulty in this fight. Couldn't survive more than 1-2 hits in a row.

The key with the second part isn't really quen I don't think, but it sure helps. It's just timing your dodge/roll that's the secret. Don't spam it. Stand still and chill out and keep yourself away from cliffs. When you hear/see him teleport, tap X to roll and make sure you roll in a smart direction. Half the time I died I was rolling right into/under his swings. Once I got good at this I could either roll or dodge my way through this casually without getting hit at all.

You only get 1 good hit really when he hammers the ground so make it count.

Pretty much just quen (even if you have no upgrades it will still do the job).

It was awkward for me because I put everulice or something as one of my healing items next to swallow thinking it would give me a little bit of healing for the fight. Instead it just made Geralt drunk... But I still managed to beat him just by getting the dodge right

quen, dodge, hit, repeat.

Here! this will solve that problem easy and its even on Death March difficulty! Invest in the Hurricane Slash :D