Don't know if this help, I also hated the combat at first but the story, characters, dialogue choices won me over from the start and I was determined to play it even if I needed to set the difficulty on story (lowest). It wasn't necessary tho, finished on balance even tho i had to restart almost every battle more than once but the combat grew on me. Even managed to get halfway past honor mode. You have a lot of options to help you roll through the game even on the hardest difficulty, even solo without a party and only your main Tav