I heard this games combat is shit, should I just play on easy mode?

pretty much impossible to lose no matter how trash you are.

It's not as bad people make it out to be, just gets old eventually since pretty much all enemies behave the same.
Play on max difficulty, anything else is extremely dull.

Yeah, the difficulty is bulshit in this one, play on normal if it's your first time, use rolls, Quen, bombs and potions. Witcher 3 basically got rid of any challenge

The first talent I got on 2 is the one that makes you immune to backstab extra damage. Have no idea how someone would play without it.

Yes.
t. played on deathmarch

the nekkers in chapter 1 are the hardest part of the game on dark mode
everything after that will be a joke and very easy for you

The game isn't difficult because your gear rapidly outscales everything in the game. So your difficulty selection really only affects the first 4-8 hours. Basically as soon as you get your first full Witcher gear set everything becomes irrelevant.
I'd recommend ramping your difficulty, ie. Start the game on Normal and increasing it as you play and find it too easy.
I also highly recommend the mods that tweak Relic weapons and Trophies. Otherwise ALL relic weapons are just very expensive trash and trophies are just kind of boring. With the mods I at least found some reason to use non-Witcher weapons. There is never a reason to use non-Witcher armor.

it's funny because i had no issues with witcher 2 on dark mode but died a few times on 3 (vs the frog, vs iris' worst nightmare but i was doing the challenge to fight all 6 clones at once, one time to detlaff cause hitbox on his batrush attack was bigger than i thought)
they're both easy games but it felt like 3 had some moments where you get oneshot whereas everything was controllable in 2

No, and it's more fun on DM
I'd recommend playing W2 on easy, in that game combat is actually atrocious

thing i always found funny with witcher 2 is the hardest parts are early random trash opponents
the tutorial is probably harder than anything in the actual game

The difficulty is Oblivion levels of bad.
There is no real fix, you can try enabling enemie level scaling up to your own, but the rewards will still be shit.
Try playing on normal or Blood and broken bones and with different abilities, while ignoring Quen.

I remember this Cutscene and looking at the Sword in my inventory afterward.
The stats were so bad that I tried to give it back.
youtube.com/watch?v=v1Pketo4GME&ab_channel=Thunder777

Something something Gothic

No, the combat isn't that shit, it's just quite simple. Go death march desu. Or one difficulty lower if you find it too bothersome.