It's taken me a long time to get to this point. But, I think the TW2 is pretty bad. I can still play through the first game but part 2 is just not a fun game to play through. I feel like I'm just constantly struggling with the controls and the meele combat is just abysmal. I had similar issue with TW3 but the newer responsive controls really did wonder for it.
I hear ya'.
I first started TW2 on Dark and it taught me everything awful about its combat. Then I went to beat it on Insane. I've come out with the conclusion that the combat is way more reliable than it seems, but unintuitive (doesn't make as much sense as it should) and hampered by a janky leveling system.
Basically, the roll doesn't work like you would think it should, but more on that later. Also, the light attack locks you into an almost unpredictable animation length. It's based on distance away from the enemy, and you can eyeball it and kind of get a feel for which attack its going to be. But it's not reliable, and it doesn't generally hit other enemies, which makes it suck even more in a crowd. That's why I would generally recommend using the heavy attack for most scenarios, unless you have the whirl perk or need to close in some distance.
There is no invincibility on the roll, and you would normally assume to roll away from the enemy. Well, enemies get an upgrade to backstab damage just as you do. So what you'll want to do is upgrade backstab protection and possibly roll speed/length (it's one perk) as quickly as possible. They're in the Swordsman skill tree. If you get the latter perk, you can basically roll circles around the enemies and control the battlefield easier. If you unsheathe, you can roll places faster than running. But I digress.
Fights in TW2 work by basically corralling all of the enemies into a group and hacking at them with the heavy attack. As you corral, some enemies may be faster than others, or their attack patterns may keep them from being corralled as easy. If someone is ahead of the pack, tap light attack to basically get to them quickly.
Most enemies counter attack after two hits, but you can offset that with an Aard or Quen.
If you ever play again, I hope this helps.
The Witcher 3 was also written in English so there isn't really any reason to play it in another language imo.
This sounds vaguely familiar, but looking at the writers for TW3, are you sure it wasn't localized?
