Spamming left mouse button just does NOT work on any enemies other than the weak monsters (harpies, nekkers, drowners etc) and simple soldiers, the stronger monsters and knights with two-handed swords or shields or Scoia'tael with their dual blades will just block and counter you to death, unless you provoke them to attack, evade and counter, which I would call a tactic, and not buttonmashing.
If you're not playing on easy difficulty, shieldbearers should chop you to pieces if you try to click them to death, and so should the brutes.

Well I am thinking if you have a fully powered Quen on all the time you can probably spam LMB. Not me though, if I spam LMB, damn nekkers and rotfiends would bash me to a pulp.

Hm, as far as I can tell, the only aspect in which TW1's combat requires more skill than TW2's is the click rhythm for chaining attacks. Other than that, I find TW1's combat - even on hard difficulty - to be a cakewalk compared to TW2's.
In TW1, I rarely had the impression that enemies pose a serious threat to Geralt's life, whereas in the second game even a puny drowner can be quite dangerous. In this respect, I think that getting rid of the group style really benefitted the combat mechanics.

This thread is hilarious, especially since others have been creating threads about how frustratingly hard they find the combat.

Towards the end of Chapter 1, and definitely in Chapter 2, fights get a lot easier even on Hard due to better equipment. Future mods will help with this, as will not spamming Quen or rushing for group finishers. Still, you can't mess around in the vanilla game.

There are tons of enemies that spamming light attacks won't work against, they'll just block unless you maneuver or open them up first. The Letho fight in chapter 1 is fun, actually not super hard once you have played it a few times since he is unique as an opponent up to that point, but you can't just click light attack and beat him. I have no idea what the OP is talking about, nor do I care.

Just want to say that the Scoia'tael are probably the most annoying enemies to fight in the game for me.

Yes if you keep the quen up you can spam left click as the Quen does negate attacks. The trick with this is click very fast, once you land the first blow the target reels, if you have the target locked, and i mean really click fast they never recover.

The typical fight goes like this;

Cast a Quen sign this blows off any attacks you will recieve. you only have to blow off the first one or at higher levels the occasional one from behind.

Pick a target and lock on with the "E" key now i do not have to worry about aiming or staying close as the game takes care of movement for me so i move with the target and the left hand is not needed for movement.

Now i remove my left hand from the key board as i am locked on a target i do not have to control Geralt's movements anymore the game does this for me. I then place the left index finger on the top of the mouse to hold it steady, mostly to keep it from sliding around while i literally pound the shit out of it, if it moves a bit not to worry as i am locked on remember.

Now i then lay the right hand on top of the left one and tap left click AS FAST AS I CAN, i mean really really fast like 5 to 7 clicks a second fast (the faster the better) . The faster you click the more devistating Geralt is. I am not sure the mechanic here but the faster you click the more blows Geralt lands and if your fast enough the target never gets an opportunity to recover. They will perpetually reel from the ferocity of the attacks. At this point you literally drive them back under a rain of blows the only time this is an issue is when you finally drive the target to a point where they cannot back up any more, when the stuff behind you gets a chance to catch up.

Recast Quen to deal with the dudes behind you while you finish off the original target. The only difference i have seen is at higher levels i have to cast Quen more often, and use a swallow just to keep the vitality up above 50% where as at lower levels once the original target is dead, auto lock and animations pull you to the next target of your choice usually with some special move which is usually unblockable or unblocked as if taken by suprise. All one has to do is rinse and repeat untill all adversaries are dead.

I blew through the game to Act 2 before i just got bored with the combat, as EVERY fight can be resolved this way except for the kayran which is a scripted event. I have had to at the skill above normal force the enemies into a narrow choke point to keep them from circling around behind, but with a Quen and once i start driving the target back they play catch up.

At this point i am just playing for the story as combat while not broken is boring there are enough other aspects of the game that i do enjoy, so i am not ranting just pointing out why i like the combat from TW1 over TW2 and why in as articulate and passive a way as possible. It is really just opinion not worth alot of drama but those who are having trouble with combat this formula has worked for EVERY fight except the scripted kayran fight and Quen is/was easy mode there as well. So maybe Quen is to over powered or they since this is a PC game never expected the two handed mouse tactic CDPR inadvertantly made combat easier than intended.

Asai

This definitely sounds like an unintended bug. I wouldn't be surprised if they fix this in a future patch.

I must admit to liking TW1 combat, at its best it had a certain grace and style that had me truly believing Geralt was a master of light armor and sword.

My TW2 play is much as Asai describes when playing on normal, but a single finger on the mouse is all that's really needed. As for Quen being over powered, well, it is your choie to use it in this single player game, I would be lost without it and as I don't play these games for the combat I'd probably have given up by now.

Well I tried to spam left click too but my *** was handed to me in a silver plate. How the hell do you handle a group of enemies with just attack spamming?

Fair enough i am not telling anyone how to play that is not my bussiness. What is and is not overpowered, what is and is not being used by the player is none of my concern, (not to be dismissive or smart assery). I am just pointing out why i liked TW1's combat over TW2's combat. As a firm believer in "to each his own" there are plenty of ways to self nerf if that is your choice. I am just playing now to finish the story and get a bit more insight as to what CDPR was going for. Seriously so far my only complaint is that the kayran fight seems to so straight out of WoW that i was almost turned off by the game. Fortunately Triss and Ves have such sweet bums, that i would follow them anywhere, so the next chapter it is.

Asai

I use a mod from The Witcher Nexus that modifies a few things, including reducing the efficacy of Quen by 25%. If you manage to upgrade Quen it will still absorb all damage and reflect some, but it won't last as long as in the vanilla game. It also makes it so that blocking with your sword does not incur a vigor loss. This is helpful early on, but later once you may obtain skills that give you another three or four vigor points it can get about as imbalanced as before. This way is still more enjoyable, I think. I am also of the mind that the original Witcher's combat was much better, however easier. I later found a combat rebalancing mod for TW1 that made the game MUCH more enjoyable if very difficult. For posterity's sake, I play TW2 on hard. Also, I have NOT found that clicking very fast makes Geralt any deadlier. It seems to me that establishing a rhythm is a much better means of dispatching multiple foes or a particularly difficult few. Kind of reminds me of how fist-fighting was in the first game, without subsequent clicks interrupting a move, though I'd like it if that were integrated.

Its the Quen spell that makes the combat boring. I can understand how Asai can continuously connect the attacks by abusing Quen. I can connect my attacks somewhat well in normal mode with Quen. My first playthrough was all out Swordsmanship path lol. Despite that i love the combat in TW2 more than TW1, maybe its because its fast paced and more engaging.

I think the combat is better in TW2 but I feel like Quen is a bit too strong prior to Act 3. Act 3 certain things actually burn Quen relatively fast but it is still quite good. (On hard that is)

I agree with you on both TW1 combat and the bums :) The idea of 'self nurfing' is something I often see mentioned, especially with respect to RPGs. I'm not accusing you of the following, but I find the situation both interesting and confusing...

Something like Quen, a feature of the game that supports a certain style of play, in this case the sign path but in another game the play style could be stealth or diplomacy or mercantile or tank etc. Some will enjoy the style of play, some will not and some will combine features from various supported styles to aid their game or create a unique style or simply create the most efficient character the game allows. And now everyone is happy! Except they are not, are they?

Onward to the point... If I decide to play on a difficult setting I will most probably find the game to be more of a challenge, it should certainly require more player skill in order to survive for that is the whole point of the difficulty setting. This is seen as a good thing, my skills are to be applauded and admired, by myself and hopefully others :)

In particular, playing on a more difficult setting reduces the survivability of my character, this is normally accomplished in part by reducing the damage I can deal and overall by increasing the amount of damage I take if I allow myself to be hit.

If I decide not to use Quen I effectively reduce the survivability of my character by increasing the amount of damage I take if I allow myself to be hit. This is NOT seen as a good thing, my skills are NOT to be applauded or admired, indeed there are those who consider me stupid for my choice for I am obviously self nurffing. lol

If I use one game feature, difficulty, to reduce the survivability of my character it makes me leet, yet if I chose to reduce the survivability of my character by using or ignoring some other game feature it makes me stupid. Why exactly do people think this way?

Anyway, off topic and only half serious <shrug>

There is truth in what OP is saying. I'm playing on normal and quen + clickfest works very well. Occasional roll is necessary. I never put any points into riposte because I simply don't use block. Maybe it's useful on hard.

I even tried to clean out the Order camp using this tactic in chapter 3 on Iorveth path. Since they keep respawning out of thin air it was futile in the end. But I got quite far. The interesting bit is that using group finishers got me killed EVERY TIME. Coming out of the "finisher movie" I was surrounded, lost my quen, got stunlocked and dead.

So yeah, I liked the W1 timed combat more. At least I wasn't worrying about my mouse breaking.