Combos, something's changed?

Hi guys,
I recently decided to replay the game in hardcore mode (haven’t played the game for a year), no problems so far except for combos. At first I thought I was just rusty and simply needed to train more but after hours of training, i still rarely pull out combos. Is it just me or something changed? I’m ok with enemies blocking more often but for some reason the game is “slower” to register the direction of the blow, looks like Henry changes his stance a lot more slowly which makes combos harder to perform. Anyone noticed this or I just lost it?

No such change as far as I know.
But if you start a new game, Henry will be slower than the trained end game Henry. The combatant with higher Warfare skill is faster.