I'm so shit at remembering my skills in the middle of combat, and TBH I can't help but think that most of them aren't significant anyway.
The thing is, the game can't assume that you do or don't have any particular skill, as it doesn't know how much XP you'll have harvested and what you'll have chosen to spend it on, so all the fights have to be doable with pretty much the 'default' Kratos and Atreus.
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
Although I am up to the bit now where the game has taken Atreus off me so I've got to do things by myself. So the familiar genre trope of 'taking your guns off you halfway through the game when you get captured'.
The most important things to make sure you're doing during combat (IMO at least) are dodging, blocking and parrying, and using the resulting situations to attack the enemies without getting twatted yourself - all of which are available as standard moves from the off and which the game makes a very big deal of explaining to you during the first fights in the game.
I keep reviewing my skills out of combat and try to remember to incorporate the various button combos during combat, but almost always fall back to standard style basic ranged attacks, using Atreus, dodging, blocking and parrying, using openings to attack enemies, get the ranged fuckers down first etc etc.
I mean, it's nice that the skills are there, but they sort of feel like window dressing a lot of the time.
I did the 'double boss fight' last night where you take on the two brothers simultaneously, that was a fucking epic fight.