Boss fights are WAY overtuned
I'm playing a mage on adventurer difficulty, which is supposed to be the "balanced" difficulty. So why am I stuck constantly dodging around the entire battlefield for half an hour while my companions...
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Treads like this always makes me smile. Fits the what Hawke said about Qunari "you give them gold, they complain is too heavy".
There are a few points where a player should pay attention: combat customization, choice of skills and gear, timing and targeting. When fight a dragon target the body part which is on different color than the rest. If is is nothing to pick (no highlight body parts), run because you are under attack. Exploit the weakness. Save the skills for the time when dragon is down to maximize the damage. Use complementary skills (and gear) to take advantage on stats effect. Mages, should change knife&orb with the staff according to the distance. I am consider myself to be the worst when it comes about combat so from the beginning I set up the difficulty to my level. Also first dragon fight at my choice (not forced by story) was at level 30 or 31. Difficult but entertaining.
The combat is punishing but it is fair. Too bad there is not enrage timer where the boss will wipe out all team for incompetence (like it is in swtor - operations).
Oh, I'm always confused about realistic part especially when it comes about fantasy games... Aside the magic part, fighting a dragon is totally realistic.
Also first dragon fight at my choice (not forced by story) was at level 30 or 31.
If your first dragon fight wasnt until level 30 or 31 then you don't really even know what I am talking about. I got to corius pre lvl 20 (I am focusing on getting companions before exploring, which is the strategy bioware should expect most players to use since so many areas are locked without companion skills). I just barely reached level 20 and there's a dramatically noticeable increase in Rook's strength and survivability.
The combat is punishing but it is fair. Too bad there is not enrage timer where the boss will wipe out all team for incompetence (like it is in swtor - operations).
All, the combat is not fair when taking a single hit from the boss essentially stunlocks you on NORMAL mode because the basic recovery animation (not the one you can get out of with a button press) is slower than the boss's next attack. On NORMAL mode you should be able to make a couple of mistakes without it being an automatic KO. (Also, enrage timers? Seriously? Maybe on hard mode, but again we are talking about NORMAL mode. GTFO with that gatekeeping **bleep**, games are for PLAY and no one should have to be pro level to enjoy one. Not to mention punishing people for "incompetence" has literally never been what dragon age combat is about.)
Genuine question, is this the first game you've played in the series? Dragon age combat has NEVER been this level of intensity. The closest fight to corius from the previous games is the arishok fight in DA2, which up until this game came out was the most hated fight in the series. Super weird decision on the part of the devs to lean into the style of fight that everyone hated. I'll say it again, they alienated their existing base in favor of making combat feel like another soulslike clone (well, diet soulslike, anyway). I'm not the only person saying this. They took away what people loved about dragon age (romances, companion interaction, choices, dialogue, and storytelling) and gave us punishing combat that no one asked for. Punishing combat should be saved for hard mode, because it's fine that it exists in the game and people who want to play that way should be allowed to. But it shouldn't be the normal mode for the game because so much of the fan base just doesn't like to game that way.
All of your points about where to target a dragon, etc., are all obvious and known already. It's not just the dragon - it's all enemies.
There is nothing fair about combat in this game when all of the enemies only attack Rook. I have watched as companions are left alone and all of the enemies are facing and heading to me. There are three people on the battlefield for enemies to attack and they only attack one of them - not realistic, even for a game.
And, outside of the healing some companions offer, they do little damage to opponents anyway.
