The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

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Master Marksman

Master Marksman

Kill 50 human and nonhuman opponents by striking them in the head with a crossbow bolt.

0.5%

How to unlock the Master Marksman achievement in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition - Definitive Guide

This achievement is a pain in the butt because it's so time-consuming but otherwise easy. Some quick tips:

  1. Lower difficulty to Story
  2. Equip "Lightning Reflexes" and "Anatomical Knowledge" abilities from the Combat branch. Also the "Steady Shot" ability from the General branch.
  3. There's a place in the south east of Skellige where there are 2 infinitely respawning pirates. You can kill them and they'll respawn after a few seconds and kill them again. I found this much easier than Devil's Pit.
  4. Make sure your screen shakes for a split second you headshot kill them. That's how you know the game registered it as a headshot kill.
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09 Dec 2018 19:18

17 Comments
The 2 infinite spawn pirates on Skellige was a great hint. I was also able to hammer out Hasta la Vista, Humpty Dumpty, The Enemy of My Enemy, and That Is The Evilest Thing... achievements.
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By Knickade on 17 Jan 2019 18:04
this spot is wonderful, i was able to get humpty dumpty as well
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By Emivader on 18 Sep 2020 18:22
I got this really fast, but I’ve been using axxi on the goats and headshotting them too.

I cannot say for sure animals also work, I don’t know if I made accidental headshots during my playthrough, but it does give the shake effect if you headshot them.
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By The Dutch Pony on 17 Apr 2021 12:58
Excellent location. For me they respawned before even reaching the high mound directly east of them.
Method: Strong punch got them to about 5% health. Axii. Shoot.
Difficultly: Just The Story.
Abilities: Lightning Reflexes, Anatomical Knowledge, Trick Shot, anything to help stamina regen.
Done in under an hour.
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By xWild Yak on 05 May 2021 18:07
1/26/2022 Can no longer attack those pirates. Sucks
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By I Am The Wasted on 27 Jan 2022 05:08
Pirates are attachable as of May 2022. I lowered difficulty to just the story and made sword sheathing manual. I’d quick punch each pirate and then headshot them. Counted 50 using an app on my phone but achievement hasn’t popped, did a power cycle, then it popped :)
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By minisim24 on 06 May 2022 17:40
So can you damage them with other things than the crossbow, or does the entire damage have to be from the crossbow?
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By GhostJohn325 on 24 Apr 2022 04:19
I was wondering can you shoot cows because I was looking at the achievement to kill 10 cows and a video on there of the guy using the crossbow to shoot them in the head killing them instantly would that work for this achievement
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By ItsGamer FURY on 25 Aug 2022 03:41
I was wondering can you shoot cows because I was looking at the achievement to kill 10 cows and a video on there of the guy using the crossbow to shoot them in the head killing them instantly would that work for this achievement
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By ItsGamer FURY on 25 Aug 2022 11:50
The 2 pirates was the way to go. I would only suggest that you first punch them once and then Axii before shooting, very fast and easy. You can also knock them with Aard to get another achievement in the same spot.
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By coloradojack on 11 Nov 2022 13:41
I can confirm this method still works, but takes awhile. For some reason, the tracking of headshots is still bugged.
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By on 01 Jan 2023 02:07
Can confirm that this still works in 2023
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By DARKNEBULA73 on 07 Jan 2023 01:51
If you are like me and planning to get all ? in Skellige, you one shot kill the creatures under water, often with a headshot as they are swimming towards you.
By the time you are done with exploring, this should come naturally or put you very close to the 50 kills.
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By psybOltOn on 29 Jan 2023 20:50
Great job, still working.
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By ajsouza on 19 Feb 2023 18:24
This is a great spot if you still need the "Humpty Dumpty" achievement for using Aard to push enemies off cliffs, too.
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By Tupacca on 07 Apr 2023 20:18
Changed to a new crossbow, aimed manually, and did it in one sitting. Exactly 50 aimed headshots. Had other un-aimed headshot kills, but I didn’t mark them.
Maybe it was the new bow in one sitting, maybe it was the manually aimed. I used the regular bolts.
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By The UFO Hive on 18 Jul 2023 22:05
yeah even with all this and damage potions, it still takes like 100 shots to kill one person
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By LaTrickster2 on 02 Nov 2023 08:25
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-For this particular edition of the game, if your achievement is not popping after 50 headshots, hard reset your xbox and start up from your save point. After 6 hours of getting headshots (as well as the other combat achievements), I hard reset my xbox and got each combat specific achievement after one kill. This will save you tons of time.

-Also wanted to clarify this means 50 human OR nonhuman enemies. You only need to kill 50 of one type. I would suggest killing the bandits at Devil's Pit in Velen. You can lure them to the door and they will not be able to come through. This allows you to aim at their head with a fair amount of accuracy.

EDIT: According to Cheva1ier, the bandits pursue you past the Devils Pit. Awaiting confirmation from others. Just wanted to let others know just in case
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29 May 2017 02:50

11 Comments
6 hours bud? shock

It takes between 5 and 10 respawns of the Bandit Camp for the crossbow achievement, around 2 for Aard, same for bombs. That's one hour max. Why 6? You must have realized it wasn't unlocking before 6 hours. That's more than 600 headshots cry

In any case, you should explain what hard resetting your Xbox means. Most people think holding the power button down is enough, but for those problematic achievements, it isn't, at least not always. Your best bet is to go in your console settings before every Witcher session and do Settings > Network > Advanced > Alternate MAC address > Reset > Restart. And then start playing Witcher without booting another game in-between. It's an absolute pain, but the only sure way.

What I did, having had the same problem with the normal edition of the game, was make a save before every story-related achievement in case they didn't unlock (and I still missed 4 unmissables in my first run basically the first 4 for finding Yen, helping the Baron, Keyra and finding Dandelion), then make a save before clearing the last Monster Nest, before completing the last race, fist fight, Flaming Rose camp, and so on. So if they didn't unlock, I would clear my cache properly, boot the game, do it again and it would unlock every single time.

Cheers wink
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By Asturgis on 31 May 2017 08:03
It was kind of crazy haha! I've heard worse horror stories about this too. This edition of the game has a ton of glitchy achievements so I figured it would pop eventually!

I actually just held down on the power button until it shut off. Once I did that, all glitchy achievements started popping (as long as I met the requirements). Thanks for the feedback!
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By PensiveOregonad on 01 Jun 2017 01:42
What does it mean by non human, is that people like dwarves, elves and the like. Does it include monsters at all?
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By Monkeyman1188 on 30 Jul 2017 05:20
Non human means anything not elf or human. This does work on monsters.
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By PensiveOregonad on 30 Jul 2017 17:22
You now have to get this legit. Devil's Pit bandits now pursue you to the extent of their range through all doors and gates. Please confirm and/or edit?

Will probably need to focus on combining time-slowing effects from skills or w/e and slowly working on this through normal game progression to not make it much of a grind on the side
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By Cheva1ier on 20 Jan 2018 01:15
okay so after playing the game extensively, and visiting Devil's Pit for other chievs like the Humpty Dumpty one using Aard to blast dudes off high places, or the Dragon's Breath bomb one where you throw the bomb on dudes that are already ignited...I left Master Marksman for waaay later mostly because crossbows are garbage....so I returned to Devil's Pit around level 36 while working on the Heart of Stone DLC and low and behold....all of a sudden the bandits don't move past the inner most gate/door

so perhaps the bandits pursue you through the gates when you are close to their level? or maybe when I was there earlier and cleared Devil's Pit a couple times for the other chievs it somehow glitches the bandits...dunno...but eventually they won't go past that gate
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By Cheva1ier on 01 Feb 2018 13:00
I'll probably put this off some more until I get that Touissant crossbow that the other guy's guide mentions, and have cleared most of the other chievs, then I'll probably kick it down to easy so the bandits have less hp (once I'm sure that all my Death March stuff is taken care of)...so this might end up being the last chiev in the game that I get...assuming that Ashes to Ashes stops glitching and unlocks eventually
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By Cheva1ier on 01 Feb 2018 13:06
Finished the Death March chievs and went back....switched it to easiest difficulty...only takes 3 shots per bandit....
So I farmed for a while and called it a night and planned to work on it the next day for a little bit
Next morning I spent a couple hours on it trying to count the screen shake kills...checked my achievements finally to see if it had secretly popped and sure enough, had popped the previous night without any notification
The screen definitely has to shake when you get the headshot, and aiming for the nose/middle of the face manages to get the headshot hitbox way more often
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By Cheva1ier on 16 Feb 2018 03:02
Yeah definitely switching to 'Story Mode' is the way to go, makes it a million times easier and quicker! Just 2 shots then stun with Axii to line up the headshot, then bam.
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By Lockie on 10 Mar 2018 12:39
For what it's worth, I've noticed a few things:

- This achievement is so much easier when you use the skills "Lightning Reflexes", "Anatomical Knowledge" and "Trick Shot". Make sure to equip them as well.
- Get about 200 precision bolts. You can buy them from Hattori in Novigrad.
- I used the Feline Crossbow (+225% attack power), which is part of the feline set. There are better crossbows in Toussaint though.
- Changed to the easiest difficulty.
- Dumped a few points into "Delusion", but never needed it.
- Travel between Vizima and Valen to respawn the bandits.
- Progress is cumulative and doesn't have to be in the same save file. I've switched back and forth trying things out, and got it in the Devil's Pit when my "fresh" counter was at 25 kills.
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By GrawlNL on 30 Dec 2018 01:52
I would like to add that after extensive research that the achievements that are not properly counted is due to a bug caused by the game not being properly closed in between sessions, mostly due to the console being in instant on mode and/or not being exited out of properly. I had a few issues at the start and that's the reason I don't have the lilac and gooseberries achievement despite having all of the other story related achievements. The best way to combat this is simply have your console in energy saver mode or make sure to completely quit out of the game.
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By PassiveKnight on 08 Nov 2019 11:05
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On Death March, NG+, or Death March and NG+ this can be a pain to unlock. One potential solution is to save this to the end of the game, after reaching a high level and gaining Geralt of Rivia's Crossbow from Touissant (or a high damage alternative from the vanilla game). Returning to Velen or White Orchard you'll find that your crossbow shots do drastically higher damage and should make short work of foes, especially if you have the Lightning Reflexes perk allowing you to slow time while aiming. This process is made even easier if you use the Cat Eyes mutation perk from Blood and Wine, allowing you to essentially one-shot many foes.

If you're like me in clearing the game but finding it difficult to come across groups of low level bandits, you can also do this with high level enemies. It takes substantially more work and is something of an unofficial challenge, but it's possible to complete by using Lightning Reflexes, Cat Eyes, special bolts (like Split Bolt or Tracking Bolt) and a decent crossbow.

Note! I strongly suggest avoiding any bolts, crossbows or potions that induce damaging effects on foes while going for this achievement. Often you can have your headshot stolen by some errant poisoning or bleeding effects before you can land the killing blow, essentially wasting your time and forcing you to try again. An alternative would be to face your foes in regular combat countering and slashing them down to around 20% of their health, allowing any potential status effects like poisoning or bleeding to subside. Then you stick on Quen, aim your crossbow and constantly move around your foes while killing them solely with headshots, preferably with standard or split bolts.
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08 Aug 2017 15:43