Ok the review is too long, I'm too lazy today. So I don't think it covers the dodging aspect of combats, but Im' not sure.
I have watch many video (I have achieved the second grade at Barking Dogs school), read plenty posts with comments/advices about combats, and something seems very clear, almost no player use much the dodging.
And that's weird, for me it's pinpointing an awful design failure, because combats can have a quite advanced dodging gameplay. Here an example, not all will show it clearly but some will, and surprisingly the archery guide is among the most marking example:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxuUSp4WB4DgqEOqAHa9OSork5K2sTKGa
You have other tools to manage combats, long range or even hyper magic specialization, block enemies with obstacles, apply chain locks, jetpack, companion, circle run, power build character and/or equipment, many more. Absolutely none reach the finesse that can have close combat dancing as there was in Gothic 1&2.
The worse is it's there, but from what I noticed very few player ever reach the ugly elephant dancing level, so even less reach the ballerina art level. This aspect of the combat is mostly fully out of reach of a large majority of players, it looks wrong.
But there's another element, ok exploration has many qualities, but if combats aren't much a challenge the game lost a lot in term of exploration density filling. A lot of this filling is also coming from enemies that could cause you troubles. And then paradoxically the design flaw of an impossible learning curve for dancing combats becomes a sort of quality be delaying mastering to later game when the player achieves some building level.
A quality, a flaw, I don't know. Still the consequence is for most players it's no way the satisfaction to have learn a mastery level as you could in Gothic 2 Gold. At best it's the satisfaction to control a bit better combats and achieve an OP build working well with the few you learned.
For sure it's a problem when you master the combats. If you achieve it even at lower level, many enemies will look like preys, the exploration quality will suffer and the whole game too. Still there's something wrong in combats design. The chains get too much focus, the building allows too OP builds, multiple weapons are too OP, Elex abuse is too easy, more.
So for me the game is inside a paradox, two bad designs, completing fairly well and achieving a fairly good fun level, even without to ever feel you have achieved something through some mastering.