Anyone able to help me defeat the Kayran (on 1.3) ? Some games are not leet enough to get through this and my PC hardly handles it, cutscenes and bugs (e.g. cannot use the trap) ruin the experience. Yes I have tried and I did not have much trouble with the rest of the game. This quest simply is out of proportions.

Any help appreciated (have trap and potion).

There are lots of videos on Youtube showing this quest. The key skill is the ability to cast quickly and immediately dodge. If you are not good at this, or your computer isn't responsive enough, you can try proceeding this way:

Turn off "Difficult QTEs" in the Options. This affects only two QTEs that aren't that difficult in this quest.

Dope up on Swallow, Mongoose, and another protective potion (I favor Virga). You have to meditate before you reach the place where the cutscene triggers.

Immediately cast Quen and watch where the kayran's tentacles come down. If the kayran knocks your Quen out, dodge until your vigor bar refills and cast again. Directly under where the nearest tentacle comes down, cast Yrden. This is where, if you're not good at casting and dodging, you'll get knocked silly. But the tentacle will be trapped by the Yrden. Hack at the red glowing growth with your silver sword and strong strokes until it breaks. Cast Quen if you need to, and get out of there.

If you have taken damage, run to the foot of the bridge; there's a safe spot right by the statue's foot where you can recover.

You do not really need the trap. It will trap one tentacle for you, but Yrden will do the same.

You can find several save games after this battle on mod sites which are listed in the "Full List of Mods" topic at the top of the forum.

There are a ton of solutions to this problem on this forum, maybe a sticky is needed?

Thanks for the reply.

I watched the video's and read many posts on these forums. I tried many times now but not a chance in the world so far, I guess I am too old for this game.

Standing at the foot of the bridge at the statue got me killed a few times. I would prefer not to download a saved game so I can keep the decisions I made up to this point. I just want to get past this the game is great and fun to play, except for this fight.

For the record, that still works. You get yellow trap signs and when near enough a LMB will place the trap.

The Kayran is a typical frustrating old school boss fight, you get it right by repeating it countless times, dying in the process. All you need is Yrdem to trap the tentacles and Quen to restore some health after you been hit. Never corner yourself to the extreme left or right cause the outer tentacles perform a sweeping attack that is impossible to evade. Always watch the tentacles and dodge when they're about to drop on you. QTE is quite easy, even on hard, just be concentrated on the screen indications, it's easy to fail by not paying attention, mouse icons especially are way to small in this game, left and right mouse clicks should also be indicated by different colors, gamepad style). The only really difficult moment for me was finding out what to do after the QTE, stick your nose out of cover and you'll be dead in a couple of seconds, and (that's my main gripe) there is no autosave mid fight, so if you die you have to start all over, AFTER YOU BASICALLY WON THE FIGHT, the last bit is just a short run with Quen active (but i died like 5 times before I figured where to run lol).
The Kayran reminds me of final bosses in classic games, like the dragon in Tomb Raider 2 or the demon in Clive Barker's Undying (took me 40 minutes to beat that mother plougher)

Guys, I take it that OP understands how he is supposed to be able to do this, but can't. He likes the game, but is stuck. He wants to use his own save to continue.

Op, put up a save, maybe somebody will have mercy. :-)

It happens. No shame. Happy gaming!

for the record I am in the category hanns.g so politely describes - I'd done well in the game, including the prolog but can't even trap one tentacle after reading all the resources, watching all the youtubes and many tries. I found it to be like a console game approach intruding into an otherwise cool game I was enjoying.
A very kind person played my save for me and I'm moving on.
-mask

Shameless self-promotion! You know, for next time.

But since I'm assuming you've done some other quests, there's no shame in uploading your save and having someone get through that part for you. It's been done a million times :)

Standing at the foot of the bridge can be a bit problematic. You have to be in the right spot, or you will get hit. As many times as I have done it, I still miss at times ( Yeah, I like to load a saved game and go back and play with the Kayran ). Yoy will see a pair of feet from the staute and you stand inside of the left foot agaist the rocks. Some have said taht getting up by the ledge you jump down from is safe, but it hasn't done well for me, but I may have been a bit out of position.

Kayran for me is crazy

I have played through four times with the last one being insane mode with NO Hud at all (It was ok as I knew where to go etc and luckily conversation options and pickup items still show up).

I admit that on the insane mode i did use a program that allowed me to reload to the point before i got killed, but I ONLY needed it for the Kayran!!! I got through everything no problem (Letho, Draug, dragon) but I just knew I was going to get killed by the Kayran. Sure enough it killed me about 8 times. I used the save game program here but ONLY here. For me the Kayran has too much unpredictability. Consequently I just can't imagine doing it on insane with no back up. Considering how hard it was, i also felt the Kayran armour should have been higher spec also.

Still, TOTALLY AWESOME game.

btw, i never played TW1 - would i enjoy it after playing TW2 first?? or would graphics seem to old etc...

I lost, lost, lost, LOST this fight over and over again time after time. In one of the forums it said to turn down screen resolution. I turned down my screen resolution -one notch- and won this battle on the first try.

Here is how I do it:

Select the yrden sign before you enter the boss area.
After the cutscenes, run left towards the base of the bride,
you will hear the kayran its tentacles slam the ground behind you,
stop and cast the yrden sign and immediatly start moving.
most of the time that catches the medium tentacle on the left side smalling down into the yrden sign as you start moving again. Depedning your luck and timing, you may be hit as well
but its usually the only hit I suffer in the battle and I did this part pleny of times with the broken QTE in patch 1.2 :)
after thats cut, its save to hide next to the bridge base as the collumn will catch any rocks it throws.
You can move out of the save position and cast a yrden, position behid it and roll sideways when you see him lift his small tentacle and about to slam down.
Its also possible you are standing out of his reach, in which case he will throw rocks at you instead.

When the 2nd tentacle is trappen and cut I run towards the pitts entry/exit point, wait for the cutscenes to play and his front tentacles to smack the ground, then run to its right side, avoid the mucus that will get you stuck.
Now you can try the first method again, when you hear its large tentacle smack down behind you and you are near its medium tentacle, cast yrden and keep moving forward and with some luck you already catch a tentacle, else keep moving around to avoid the tentacles and try the same method as used to catch the 2nd tentacle before.
After that you can do a Quick Time Event riding a tentacle and finish it off by climbing the fallen bridge