I finished the game on Hard, so I thought I'd give Insane a go.

Everything was going great until I got to the Draug battle.

To say that this is the most annoying part of the game would be an understatement.

Anyway, I got him down to 1/3 of his health, and I knew that if I could just finish him off the rest of the game shouldn't give me trouble.

But then he summoned trouble in the form of trebuchets.

I looked for a safe spot, but I got hit by one which threw me to the ground.

I tried to get up as fast as possible, but was immediately put back on my arse by another one.

And so it went, bombed and slammed to the ground, get up and bombed again until I was put out of my misery.

After everything I went through, and all the excitement and anticipation, to be killed like this was really cruel. :(

The timing of those trebuchets is cruel, even on normal difficulty.

But I'm proud of you for not hitting escape before death to load an earlier save and cheat out of dying. Props.

Draug "tactic": Cast Aard. Strong attack, strong attack, strong attack. Cast Aard. Strong attack, strong attack, strong attack. Cast Aard...
The boss can be stun-locked, rendering the battle extremely trivial.

And admittedly, I have no idea why you did not reload after the first trebuchet hit...

Welcome to the DHC. The Dead Heroes Cemetery. R.I.P. and long live your new witcher. Strength in Honor and Stay Alive!

My insane run ended very earlier than you. It slightly bug me how to get past from the horde of Nekker in Nekkar cave? Even with potion, oil and etc. i couldn't get past them.

It's so easy really, once you get experienced with it. That cave for Malena's quest is all about guerrilla tactics. Never get surrounded, never get hit from behind and never attack more than one at a time. Bombs and particularly Brown Oil works wonderfully there and in the other nekker's cave you go for some Osmug.

You might find yourself resting for 24hrs on the plateau in the middle of the cave to let them respawn and farm a little for mutagens but it has drastically dropped in quality with 1.3.

Yeah, perhaps i'm still looking down on those creatures. Because my approach is similar with fighting human. And i forgot about bomb too. Apparently monster in Witcher 2 is deadlier than human.

I did a total of 7 insane runs...all of them ended before I even progress till half the game.

1. Prologue: Died in dragons fire
2. Prologue: Died when I rushed into archery fire after the siege on the walls
3. Prologue: Died when I accidentally stepped multiple times into fire in the City
3. Chapter 1: Died when Nekkers ganged by the dozen in the caves
4. Chapter 1: Died against the 'Old Man'
5. Chapter 1: Died against *spoiler character* at elven ruins, totally freaky way to die..was tapping sword block/parry against a poison gas bomb! "-_-...
6. Chapter 2: Died on Helselt's side during the starting of Chapter 2 (the ghosts on Henselts side in the FOG appear to be a bit more difficult to fight than while fighting with the other side/path)
7. Chapter 2: Died on Helselt's side when I was charred to death while standing on fire (curtesy of the dialog taking place on FIRE.....during arm wrestling conversation)
8. Gave up Insane difficulty, As I figured I play the game for content/roleplay and not power-gaming (breaks my immersion in the game)

Unless one has really high resistance to incineration/fire, I suggest not remaining for a long time in conversation vs arm wrestling NPC's in Henselt's camp.

Sorry to hear about your untimely demise.

As far as the trebuchet goes, there's no 'safe spot,' as they home in on where you are. My first few runs, I always looked on the ground for those small pillars of light, indicating where they will land, but this doesn't give you enough time to get out of the way all the time. Instead, look to the sky, as you can see the boulders approaching from a much greater distance, and simply move around while starting at the sky (just make sure not to accidentally step too close to the draug). It's much easier this way, I feel, and I can now dodge flying molten boulders like a champ. :)

Actually in my insane run the hardest part was before that when you aren't Geralt and you can't cast Quen.

I want Insane difficulty without game over. Love it when looting is much harder to get useful item and enemy AI slightly harder. Please CDPR, make it happen. Or any mods?

So, has no one completed an Insane run?

I've only tried 2, one died during the quick time event with the dragon (swear that one's a little glitchy) and the other was an endrega queen. After that I didn't try again- I just felt like I'd wasted about 10 hours.

Wut? many times now and I know quite a few players who have too.

Been a while since this:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/dead

And any decent HC D2 player will ultimately win by persistence! =) Remember, our motto is Stay Alive!

I'm well aware of the tatics.

Anyway, Aard is not all that effective on Insane.

And he wasn't the problem, it was the trebouchets.

BTW, keep in mind this was only my 2nd playthrough. Because that's only cheating yourself.

What's the point of an Insane run if you just reload everytime you don't like an outcome?