Combat should NOT be a jack-of-all-trades.

There is a good joke hidden in there somewhere, two in fact. 

Mass Effect proves that it can have both strategy and fast paced combat and it worked well. Dragon Age can do the same if it was executed right.

It doesn't have the amount of strategy DA:O has because as a twitch-based system it can't. I'd like them to be able to blend the two but it seems unlikely, and in the event they cant, go back to what worked: DA:O. There's a lot they could do to make it relevant now.

Also, please for the love of god no turn-based combat. That would not work in a DA game. 

Just because you prefer one style of game over the other, doesn't make it superior. For me personally I found MEA combat so boring at times I almost hoped Jennifer Hepler's wishes for combat skip button were implemented. On the other hand I'm enjoying Divinity Original Sin 2's combat so much I've lost several hours without realizing.

Witcher 3 isn't comparable at all seeing as Geralt has no party and is using a sword to hack and slash no matter what. While sure it was fun for Witcher, ultimately the combat wasn't that deep and I woulnd't want that in a party based game like Dragon Age. Now I'm not saying BW couldn't take some lessons from the fluidity for the melee classes (which were exceptionally clunky in DAI) but I don't think the whole game should be like that, esspecially since Dragon Age is a lot more spell based game than W3.

I would personally prefer the game returned to it's original roots with a robust tactics menu and healers but as long as the enemy AI is good and the combat requires some sort of tactical thinking I don't mind too much. Judging from DAI I think the AI was pretty well on it's way with enemy rogues going for your squishies and more years of development should have done wonders to it.

I do not play fast-paced real time combat.

I skipped Andromeda because they got rid of the tactical pause.

You just speaking for yourself and not everyone feels the same way you do. I mean it's fine if you don't like action oriented combat. Each to his own, right? But the combat design in DA has to improve some kind of way otherwise it would be a disaster for BioWare if they screw up again.

That's why they need to create a classless system to have Warrior, Mage, and Rogue as skill sets to create your own build instead of choosing a class and stick with it for the rest of the game. And BioWare does need to have balance in their games.

I'm not even new and story, character, and dialogue can only go so far and CDPR proves it can be done with good combat, amazing character development, and a great story with Witcher 3. And BioWare is in no position to be repetitive and expect different results.

Again this is why they need to hire experienced combat designers and choreographers to pull it off, and they should learn what balance means because it's something that they should work on.

I've just reread this thread since it's been a while and this actually makes me more concerned. I don't think there's a wide range of options at all - whatever type of companion control is possible has been done already and any option that's "between DAI and MEA" is setting a very low bar.

At that point, maybe it's better to go the whole way and go the Mass Effect route.

And about The Witcher combat, I don't see anything wrong with it. The first game had terrible combat, but the second game got a really good one, although difficult (you really had to dodge and time your attacks), but the third game had an ok combat to me. It's a standard "dodge or block and attack".

They could still have an action oriented gameplay to it I don't see why not. And they could set up of having companions as an option without making a player to rely on them for example: On DAII I decided to go solo to see that I could kick ass all by myself, but I quickly died by bandits @ Hightown. I don't like what they did for me to rely on companions all the time. I like it how Fallout and Skyrim provide that option without penalizing me to go alone without a companion.