I’ve only tried Bastard Sword so far, so I’ll speak with that in mind.
Before the patch you could target undefended areas with Faint strikes and the NPC (mostly Bernard in the training arena for me) would move his hands to defend it and sometimes I could hit it if the strike was fast enough.
After the patch, though, his hands just teleport to blocking position without any animation and it seems like combat is totally random now, you hit his instant blocks until one of your strikes lands and this totally made combat unenjoyable for me, because it’s not tactical anymore.
I don’t play “q” button for master strikes (i didn’t even train them in this playthrough for that reason). I really enjoy offensive during combat, mixing it up with perfect blocks, and setting up combos, but as of right now, it’s not possible. Or rather, random than intentional.
Please, confirm if this is a bug and if anyone else noticed it?