All of your are wrong.
To those saying the Witcher 3 combat is terrible: welcome to the world of video games. The only games with good combat in the history of video games are fighting games, everything by From Software, Devil May Cry, and Battlefield Bad Company 2's multiplayer. So get off your high horses. And before you say "muh Jagged Alliance," RTS and turn-based combat aren't combat -- they're chess with different rules.
Death March is the only way to play TW3, and it comes close to working properly.
Geralt isn't a god. He's relatively weak. His mutations make him strong enough to block an attack without breaking his arm, fast enough to barely dodge a few drowners, and fast-metabolizing enough to heal injuries quickly and ingest potions. In other words, his mutations give him a fighting chance, while his knowledge of strengths and weaknesses give him the edge. Death March gets this right.
Conversely, Death March fails to get Geralt v. human combat right. Humans shouldn't be able to block Geralt's attacks so consistently, nor should they be able to stun him off their own blocks; they should've been like children to him in terms of speed and strength.
When monsters hit Geralt in Death March, they do significant damage. Most combat encounters are trash mobs. They attack variably. You're going to get hit (that is, unless you play a cheesy constant kiting gameplay style, but that trivializes the combat in pretty much every game ever made, so it's hardly a criticism). Frankly, I call bullshit on you
Falksi. There's no way you survived similarly leveled average combat encounters on Death March with your eyes closed. I bet you were over-leveled, or only fighting 1-3 monsters at a time, OR just fighting humans, which are much more predictable despite their miraculous blocking/stunning abilities. Or perhaps you just rolled incredibly far away, attacked once, rinsed and repeated; i.e. you kited, which is, again, hardly a playstyle that validly detracts from combat mechanics.
I've played with different skill allotments and had very different experiences. Going melee-focused is straightforward and pretty easy. Going spellsword is a dynamic and fun mixture of charging straight ahead, and managing stamina/adrenaline resources to cast spells at the right times. Going magic-focused is pretty much impossibly difficult against harder bosses. Going alchemy-focused ends up feeling like a supercharged jack of all trades for a limited time, and then like a pussycat once your toxicity fucks you. Could the AI be better? Yes, but it's not utter trash. Otherwise, the combat is plenty acceptable.
I agree that Witcher 2 had slightly better combat, but would hardly say TW3 is bad. It's definitely better than all the Ubisoft shit (and its clones) that people hold up as the gold standard for hand-to-hand, story-driven video game combat.
***
Skyrim's combat is generally bottom tier in every respect... except for archery, which is probably the most satisfying archery-focused gameplay I've ever experienced. Granted, they still have a lot of room to improve on that front, but there really isn't any other show in town for first-person archery combat.
Daggerfall otherwise has the best TES combat (and it's still terrible).
