In many situations the best strategy to not get hit is by simply executing your full sword combo to make the enemy monsters fall over / flinch.

For enemies like ordinary wolvers and gremlins, it's easy to tell when the enemy will be unable to counter, it flies away backflipping.
Some monsters, however can not be knocked over, like Lumbers, Alpha Wolvers, Lichen Colonies...

Then there are the monsters that can be knocked over, even though it doesn't look like it.
Gunpuppies, Polyps, Jellies for example.

An example:
You hit a Jelly cube with the second blow of the Troika/Kamarin/.. while it's preparing an attack and showing the yellow warning lines.
The Jelly is knocked back, the warning animation will continue normally but end without an attack as soon as it would normally occur.
Judging by the look, you could still think the Jelly was going to dash at you and attack.

Now, when you're not absolutely sure which attack of which weapon can cause flinching and which enemies can flinch, you can't be sure whether or not the enemy will still attack until it's too late.
This is especially scary when you smack a gunpuppy in the face just before it would shoot. It looks just as if it was still going to shoot at you, but then no bullets appear.

Therefore my suggestion:
As soon as it is certain that an enemy is not going to attack, the attack animation should immediately end with a distinct signal, e.g. the warning lines dissolving into an expanding circle harmlessly or something like that.