First time playing as a mage, and oh, my...

Well that's a bummer to hear about playing a mage DA:I.  I was looking forward to it.  I only played the game once as a Qunari two hander and got bored which is why I never beat the game.  I had forgot about the annoying barrier casting on npc's and player each time before and during battle.

Who??

Inquisition's talent trees just boring. A lot.
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Mage Hawke was the best. A demi-god. Mages are dangerous. (Of course it was probably just my feeling.)
But the Warden was the most variable. I loved it. No restriction, just pure joy.

I still feel like being a mage in DAO is more fun and also more challenging than in DAI or DA2 ... imo. Like damn.. variety of spells that you can learn and use in the combat. In DAI I recall only fire, ice, electricity and soul spells. During my first playthrouth I already kwen which one I want to use and I didn't really study them. In DAO completely opposite situation. I was reading about all those spells and what they can do and there is soooo many ways to play as a mage and all of them are just so OP if you combine them correctly. In general all classes can be powerfull and carefully chosen skills can make game really easy.. but imo in first game mages are just by fact too strong. As an example if someone didn't explore that path there is this spell that you can cast on your enemy and their death causes a small explosion that damages all the enemies in specific range. The stronger your hero is the bigger damage it causes and at some point during my game I was able to kill all the enemies with this single spell during combat.. well so far I didn't see any possible way to go through combats like that in DA2 or DAI. I don't mean that mages are soo weak later or something. It's just they became easier to play I guess, cause it takes time to understand how to play them in DAO.

I'd like to take the opportunity to say: Rogue enemies with scattershot. Fuck those guys.

It paralyzes everyone and it gets spammed because there usually are at least three archers. Also, this ability becomes common after you reach a certain level.

You can disable friendly fire in DAO too.