*long drawn out yes-no-maybe wishy-washy noise* In short, the combat isn't bad. I'm still uncomfortable with it though. I've played a handful of combat focused games in the past 10 years (not including fighting games like Street Fighter). The primary being WoW, where my movement has little to do with my character's innate dodge and parry functions. After that I picked up Dragon Age: Origins, which was much the same, unless you were running away to heal yourself or something. Then there was Bloodborne (and shortly thereafter, all the Souls games)... The Souls games were my first real foray into active melee combat where my blocks, dodges and parties were fully under my control and really effected the outcome of fights. Granted the reaction times and rolling that your characters in the Souls games did were not entirely realistic and only the roll rate itself was really effected by your gear. Those games all but ruined me when I try to play anything else in the medieval melee genre. I gave Shadow of Mordor a solid try. The character basically felt like they were stuck in knee deep mud the whole time I was fighting. The parry prompt was about the only thing that saved that game for me and I still haven't really gotten into it. When I first booted up Witcher 3, it felt much the same. I was initially disappointed and always felt a little out of control during combat. The new control scheme helps a little, but Geralt still seems to have some of his own ideas about how he wants to fight. Regardless, it's not bad overall and with the magic mixed in (and the crossbow), it makes the game work within it's own system. As the game is far more forgiving on the lower difficulty settings. I must admit, I haven't gotten to play Witcher 3 as much as I'd have liked to as I made a deal with my girlfriend that I'd stay behind her in the main quest... And well, she doesn't play all that often.