The combat in Witcher 3 is not serviceable its dog shit. Its a very bad Arhkam-Souls hybrid with awful unresponsive controls.
Awful controls as stated. Very sluggish and unresponsive. It doesnt feel realistic to control him its just bad. Geralts suppose to be some fast bad ass mutation monster hunter not a fat ass rhino.
The game chooses combat mode for you but ranged enemies can attack you before the game detects enemies for it to engage combat mode.
CDPR marketed this combat system as tactical yet in most important part third person melee combat swordplay the game uses a distance modifier. This means the game calculates the distance between Geralt and an enemy. Than it chooses the right combat animation for the distance. This automates everything and makes everything less tactical(nice try CDPR this combat isn't tactical). The worst part is this distance modifier doesn't work even work for in a lot of cases. Its soo poorly programmed and designed that mind numbing. Frequently Geralt does the wrong animation for the current distance. An example is I am right in front of the wolf and instead of doing a simple quick slash Geralt does a longwinded pirouette spin resulting in me get hit. How is this tactical? How is this fair to the player? Its poor poor design punishing the player for no reason.
No control over attacks. Similar to the previous point. When the player has no control over Geralts attacks and the distance modifier doesn't even consistently work. It makes the combat feel even more clumsy and inconsistent than it really has to be.
The inconsistent dodging mechanics. The dodge i-frames don't work immediately after you attack, get hit, or use a sign. You have to attack, wait, then dodge for it to work. There are also some unblockable attacks, and broken hitboxes that only exasperate this situation. Dodging should be consistent.
Awful hit detection and hit boxes especially on larger monsters like Griffins and Wveryns.
Poor damaging scaling on higher difficulties