Quoting: denyasisIf say the only thing I'm still trying to get a hold of are the defensive actions. Parrying and riposte are very hard, I can't seem to get the timing just right... And then take an axe to the face... Again.

Superlate reply, but in unmodded Witcher 3, I'd say that just sidestepping is a good tactic. Keep slightly moving, and enemies have a hard time hitting you. Not played for months now, but think it's on Ctrl or possibly Alt, plus movement. Parrying is a bit harder timing-wise, and like Shmerl said, it doesn't work on two-handers because they have too much power. Bigger enemies can't be parried either, and iirc, nor the jump attack of drowners.

In addition to the Ghost mode mod, which is excellent and stays faithful to the base gameplay, I tried out one that added more life to the world, in that more enemies would spawn here and there, particularly at night. Looking over my mods folder, it must have been called Random Encounters Reworked. Lots of customisation options. It was hard to get the balance right, because at times poor Geralt would kill one mini-boss enemy after the other. But overall it was nice to get some more action in the world once many of the missions were completed.

Anyway, it's a fantastic game without mods too, and I hope you enjoyed the journey :)

Thanks! I installed a few basic QOL mods (GUI clean up). Other than that I was playing mostly unmodded.

I completed the Bloody Barron quest line before getting bored and moving on to a different game. I think I burned out a bit playing all three in a row, lol.

I'll definitely be back, the series is one of the best "epic" RPGs series I've played.

Playing all three in a row is probably a bit much, yeah :D But I hope you will return to the game at some point in the future. It's an excellent game with a very strong story.