Rolling doesn't work if you haven't upgraded it in Sword talent tree. I hadn't and tried Kayran about 10 times before I stopped rolling and beat it on second try.

quen prevents burning so at worst dragon fire will only take off half your health bar(on insanity)

On normal I had to restart maybe 6-8 times, the rock throwing got me more than once. As for failing 50+ times on easy, id say you are missing a fundamental point about boss fights in the Witcher 2. They require varied tactics and all have unique strength/weakness that you need to exploit to win. When one approach fails try another. I personally enjoy the challenge, and while it may be frustrating at times it makes the rewards for success much more satisfying. Other RPG's of late assume that the majority of their target audience want to be spoon fed instant gratification. Thank you for the challenge CDP.

As a side note as I have found an abundance of unique of ways to get killed, insane difficulty is exactly that.

personally I feel like most new players are too unfamilliar with the little quirks and features in the Witcher universe (steel&silver mechanic, different magic signs, alchemy), they are too used to simple gameplay mechanics that rely on what is currently happening on screen at that time, rather than planning ahead and using abilities to its fullest.

I think Witcher 1 had a more manageable learning curve where the devs took their time in introducing players to the mechanics stated above, Witcher 2 condensed that into a much more tighter time frame, players were expected to have full control of their abilities once they hit chapter 1.
Which is too bad for those who didnt pay attention to the prologue and missed all the little gameplay nuances, and instead get frustrated at why it takes 100+ hits to kill a Nekker with a steel sword.

Is it really hard? The sorceress already gives you pointers (yrden). I only died when the kayran was throwing fire boulders on me as I didn't know 1st where to go. I always went to whack the body of the kayran. :)) Realized it was hopeless, I just hide behind the fallen part on the bridge while analyzing my surroundings.

For me, MALENA'S Trap/ambush is the hardest in Ch1. :))

Yes, I used Quen also. You missed my point (but thanks for a helpful tip). My point was, it's in the very beginning of the game, and if you're new to the Witcher, it murders you over and over, even on Normal. I'm addressing the OP's title, about "developer mistakes", and the dragonfire and tutorial are really, IMO, two places the design really stumbles . . .unfortunately, right out of the gate, too. The kayran, however, is well done, at least on Normal difficulty.

Now you're getting it.

The fault with that particular part was on three fronts, the hitbox of the actual dragon fire was much much wider than the fire that he spits out on screen,
secondly the burning environment gave a sense of urgency to players making them rush through the mobs (and getting slaughtered by them) not knowing that the disintegrating building was mostly cosmetic and didn't actually harm you.
Thirdly, there should be some form of indication (Triss telling you to use quen, or a tooltip with quen) to prompt new players from actually getting roasted out while in the open.

Síle even says "use Yrden" and you see glowing tentacle joints.. 'the fuck?

I hope the OP never tries to play the Ninja Gaiden games

I died quite a few times in this battle, and i felt "done in for" everytime. I had the mongoose potion, so potion wasn't issue. I even had the kayran trap with which you can easily take out a tentacle.

Also i don't think it matters whether you are playing on easy or hard in this fight, if you know the optimal sequence of taking out the tentacles it is most likely an easy fight.

So what annoyed me?

1. I had to die at least twice before realizing that only certain tentacles can be "trapped" .
2. I died at least twice because i couldn't clearly see the QTE while riding on the tentacle
3. I died a ton of times because it was not clear where i should go after i got 3-4 tentacles down (i.e the bridge).
4. I died twice because of the electrical field for some reason putting me in a state of permanent shocks until dead.
5. I died instantly a few times getting hit by a rock thrown by a tentacle.

I am playing the game on Easy and difficult QTEs off . This fight was not fun at all and simply frustrating. It is the trial and error nature of it that is PITA. All your abilities and combat experience also means diddly squat in this battle. This goes against my sense of "why am i leveling a character with all these abilities, if every critical fight is going to be a glorified Quick Time Event" ? And that is exactly what the Kayran fight is, a big QTE.

If you know the fight routine and know which tentacles to take out in which sequence this is an easy fight i'm sure.

Took 6 tries on hard, and only due to the fact its very unclear what to do after the bridge collapses on poor old Kayrie.

What ever happened to enjoying a challenging boss fight? The sense of accomplishment after beating a difficult boss fight is one of the most rewarding feelings a video game can invoke in you, imo - and a lot of the good old games on this site have very challenging boss fights - unlike most modern titles.

Do people really want to just faceroll through every encounter/game these days? I suggest you check out DA2 if thats your cup of tea. Button ---> AWESOME.

Personally I found the Draug fight in chapter 2 the most challenging, and I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out just how to defeat the bastard. (wouldve enjoyed it even more if the save point was just before the fight instead of having to clear some regular fights - im sure it'll be patched)

So did all of you who actually found the Kayran hard to fight actually do the Endrega side quest by any chance? Just curious.

I thought the Endrega quest was a cakewalk compared to the kayran.

I mean, there's like a ton of traps in that area, just begging you to pick them up and reuse them. I piled a big bunch in one spot, lured the Queens into it, and bam, they're down almost 50% of their life right there. A few strategic Yrden's after that and they're owned.

so you didn't have endless respawning endrega warriors helping the queen?