Skipping The Kayran fight

After finally beating the Kayran, here are some tips on killing the beast.

You need to trap the tentacles using the Yrden sign (The 4 tentacles with the slightly glowing, thicker part). You can only trap the 4 rear tentacles with the glowing part, the front tentacles of the Kayran cannot be trapped!. If you crafted a Kayran trap, you can use that one for the first tentacle, the location is highlighted if you have the trap in your inventory. You need to place an Yrden trap at a location where the tentacle will hit the ground. The easiest way to achieve this is to stand in the same location as the trap, once the Kayran lifts its tentacles, immediately roll to the side. The tentacle will hit the trap and you can sever it.

Avoiding the tentacles is important, a direct hit can do a lot of damage. Watch the pattern, you'll quickly notice when the Kayran lifts its tentacles and it is time to evade. Sometimes it also hits you from the side with a tentacle, but I haven't found what triggers this attack. You also shouldn't stand directly in front of the Kayrans mouth, it can perform an attack that poisons you (if you didn't drink the Mongoose potion) and immobilizes you.

You can also use the Quen sign to protect yourself from damage, but you have to time the casting right or you'll just be hit by a tentacle while or shortly after casting it.

After severing the third tentacle you get a quicktime event (right click, repeated left clicks and space) which will cause parts of the old bridge to collapse. The Kayran now throws stones after you. You need to go to the left and go up the fallen down part of the bridge that now leads directly onto the Kayran. And then you've finished this fight. Don't forget to loot the Kayran for reagents and crafting material.

I've written up some tips on the Witcher 2 combat on the Gaming.SE blog, here are some tips out of that for dealing with multiple enemies.

Most of the time you will be fighting multiple enemies at the same time. What makes these fights difficult is that you receive doubled damage when hit from behind and that you are staggered for a moment when you’re hit and unable to do anything. The most important thing by far is to never get surrounded! Once you’re surrounded you will take double damage from the enemies behind you and the enemy attacks will stagger you and preventing you from escaping quickly.

You should always stay on the side of the battle if possible, not in the midst of it. Use a light attack from the distance to close in on an enemy, preferable one a bit isolated from the group, and roll away before the other enemies can surround you. Hit and run tactics are very effective in this game.

To fight multiple enemies at the same time you should always open the combat with a sign from a safe distance. Using Axii to turn one enemy to your side is a very good opener, it means you have one less enemy to fight for a short time, and this enemy will distract other enemies and allow you to attack those.

Another very good option is to set one or two Yrden traps to immobilize enemies. Once you immobilized one, you can attack a different enemy without being in danger from the immobilized one.

Once you’ve used your signs and decide to attack with your sword, use the Quen shield on yourself. This means you don’t get vigor regeneration, but it will protect you from damage. Even more important it will prevent you from getting staggered while attacking an enemy, which makes it far easier to roll away after your attack. This sign probably makes the biggest difference in combat, always shield yourself with Quen when you’re attacking.

Using Aard from the sidelines and then leaping in with a light attack is also an alternative. If you get lucky the Aard sign stunned the enemy and you’ll perform a finishing move and instantly kill the enemy.

If all this isn’t enough, you need to be prepared better for the fight. Drink some potions before the fight, you have some Swallow potions from the beginning and you should use them for the difficult fights. Set some traps if possible and throw your bombs or daggers (if you have the required talent). You’re meant to use all these consumables in this game, don’t hoard too much.