I think I've officially given up on 'Normal' difficulty. The combat just seems to clunky for it to work. Found myself in a battle with 6 elves, all of whom blocked attacks. I could easily dodge them but I never had a chance to attack, when I did, I got carved up. Parrying was useless as I would run out of vigor from the first two attacks then just get stabbed in the back by another enemy. So I couldn't block, all I could do was roll around, then when I tried to attack, another enemy would start their attack and I'd end up in the same situation.
Combat works fine when it's one or two larger enemies but any more than 2 and I just never feel like I'm equipped with any real abilities to deal with them. Avoiding them is never a problem with Quen, roll etc but there's simply no way of getting in any attacks without being immediately pummelled as a result.