I believe I have found the pain point in "slow" and poor response combat. You seem to have a kind of hidden "global cooldown" between MANY actions, if not all. Even the "lock on" toggle and switch seem to be subject to it.

I noticed it the most with doing a charge heavy range attack on "Cattie-Brie." If I learn the "beats" of this GCD it and other actions go off without a hitch but if I try to do it rapidly the game won't register my attempt and I will have to release a regular heavy attack or nothing at all in an attempt to activate it again.

This cooldown needs to be severely shortened, removed and/or allow abilities to more aggressively clip one another. Even with knowledge of it the game feels too slow and almost "turn based" except actions aren't in sync.