I finished the game on normal mode this morning and wanted to start it again straight away, but this time with the insane difficulty setting. What this means is that if Geralt dies during the game it's a game over. Now this is something that requires a lot of planning ahead, min maxing and playing absolutely safe as I died numerous times even during the normal modes prologue.

Has anyone else started or given a thought about playing with the insane difficulty setting? Any talent build suggestions?

I'll update this post with my progression through the game and share hints with you step-by-step.

Insane Difficulty
Can I save and load the game with insane difficulty setting?
Yes. You can save and load the game normally as long as Geralt hasn't died. This means that you can leave a save point before a decision you make and load back to it if you want to change they way you want to progress.

What happens when Geralt dies?
The game ends and all your saves done with current playthrough are marked with skull symbol and cannot be loaded anymore.

Can you change the difficulty level if you start the game with insane setting?
Yes. This is something that I hope they will patch out, but can be used to prevent one-shot deaths in boss fights and some qtes.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Note: if you have old Witcher save you should import it to get better starting weapons and armor. I myself had D'yaebl, Aerondight and Raven armor. Weapons do 3 points more damage and the armor mitigates 4 points more than the default starting equipment.

Prologue
Start of the prologue was quite easy. Just remember to keep Quen(shield) sign up and don't let the enemy hit your back. On group fights let the NPCs tank enemies and take fast swings on them and dodge back when they are about to hit you. Refresh your shield when it drops down and make sure you have swallow potion active in case you get hit and need to regen fast. If you don't have NPCs support just kite them around while taking fast hits on them and dodging back. Be aware of the archers shooting at you and try to block line of sight to them. Search for the fallen assassin near the ballista to get the ability to do extra damage when attacking from behind. At the top of the tower talk Aryan La Vette to drop his arms.

First encounter with the dragon was rather easy. Just kept the shield up and quickly killed the two patrols under the covers so I could get next to the gate. At this point I let the NPCs tank the enemies near the gate and slowly killed them off with quick attacks. Can't wait to meet this lizard again!

Finding the way to open the gate didn't cause many problems or close by situations. I did all the side quests in order to get maximum amount of XP and put all my talent poinst to extra vitality. The battle at the gate was pretty much kiting and taking fast hits on enemies, keeping my shield up and putting down traps when I had vigor for it. I had one moment where I accidentally jumped on center of the enemy group and let my health drop to 20%, but I managed to dodge away from them. Eventually I finished them all and opened the gate to the monastery.

Monastery solar was the place that I was afraid of the most only because you have the qte at the bridge where you can die if you don't click at the right time. Anyway... I made past it!

I tried to sneak out of the prison in order to avoid fighting, but somehow I ended up killing all the guards which isn't bad for the extra XP you get. Outside the prison one of the NPCs that I met at the start of the game distracted the guards so I could slip past without fighting.

Prologue was suprisingly easy. I had only one close by situation where I almost died. Quen sign proved to be a saver as I can take few hits before losing any health. I will definitly try to improve this through the magic talent tree. Now it's time to start the real adventure!

Chapter 1
Coming soon...

I have a feeling that you want to max aard & vigor & health. Then stat into swordfighting.

This way you should get finishers and survivability. Though I'm sure there's just as much merit going down alchemy but you might get caught in a bind if you run out of potions whereas vigor recharges for free.

If I ever try it, I'm maxing Quen as soon as humanly possible so that it reflects a good portion of received damage back onto multiple attackers. On normal I can take out entire waves of virtually anything using it and nothing else (except a sword, naturally), and it minimizes damage quite a bit. Seems like it could be helpful.

This is what I'm most worried about right now. I died ~5 times during the normal mode just because of the fire.

Dragon wasn't hard for me on normal. Just use the covered paths.

I think Quen would probably be the best value sign. I get the most use out of it and the trap sign.

I've updated this post with my experience so far and added some info about the insane difficult setting. One thing that really annoys me is that you can change the setting during the game. In my opinion this should be locked in insane mode.

I just finished the game on hard. I will NEVER touch Insane. Too bad there's no newgame+ =/

I'm now thinking about playing two games side by side. One hard one and one insane one just that I can go through the parts first in hard so that I'm absolutely sure what to do when I try it on insane. :)

Prologue done now! I'll try to clean up the text and make it more easier to follow later on.

I'll be playing insane mode at some point. I've recently completed Demon's Souls, and Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master ninja mode (hardest gaming experience I've ever had), so I'm in the mood for another challenge

I suggest maxing Queen and it's damage reflection. Go deep into magic and decide whether to use Yrrden or not. It's very handy, very situational. Then go alchemy, get either the bomb or the trap bonuses, or both, depending on your play style. I prefer bombs, Zerikanian (or however you spell it) is very handy, and grapeshot.

I think that's a good way to go. Doing damage from range and kiting enemies over traps should be a lot safer than being surrounded by enemies and getting backstabbed.

I'm a bit worried about the Karyan fight and being one-shotted by the tentacles. It might be possible to take one hit if you have Quen up and have the best armor available at that stage of the game.

Wow, I am raging furiously right now after losing my insanity run to a group of nekkers, NEKKERS OF ALL THINGS, le sigh.

This is going to be a fun challenge to watch unfold for the brave few who attempt such a bold task :).

I'd love to watch a justin.tv stream of an attempt or two sometimes. Call me evil, but I wanna see the reaction when so many hours of hard work go down the shitter via one simple mistake.