Combat, barrier spell, armor bar and lack of heal

My two cents on the modified gameplay regarding healing and protection.

First, taking the healing spells away is a huge minus for me. In DA2 there was like one individual heal and one party heal and it was fine like this. Now, we have limited numbers of potions, and my question is why? If we can't cast healing spells, why having us running back and forth to the camps just to get some potions back because my party suffered damage encountering basic enemies? Also it hinders boss fights and especially dragon fights.

Second, the warriors' ability to get that armored bar over their health. Everywhere I looked said that it activated when using warrior skills such as taunt and others and that the warrior gets the most armor if they taunt several enemies at once. My warrior almost never have their guard/armored bar, and they very often just drop dead after a few hits, despite having supposedly bigger health bars and better constitution. And yes, I crafted upgrades ans everything. I started the game in normal difficulty, like I always do, and after ten hours or so I lowered the difficulty to easy/casual. I NEVER play games on easy, but it wasn't manageable. And now the higher level I get the more difficult things are. You'd think that I could kill a lvl 19 dragon at lvl 20, well, apparently no. Maybe I'm just a bad player, I really don't know, but it takes away my enthusiasm to play.

I read stuff  and tried things, I know what I'm supposed to do but it just doesn't work. Mages cast barrier over warriors who are supposed to have their guard bar and all that jazz. I have the feeling that sometimes the barrier spell is just ignored, for my warriors with almost full health would just die on the spot after being hit. If the warriors could trigger their armor/guard bar more often, it would help, I think.

Anyway, you won't make me say that taking out the few healing spells we had was a good idea. There was too many in Origins, granted, but none at all feels a little extreme.