In part, this was the motivation for implementing physical and magical armour. Combat in D:OS EE was less than strategic when you could just open with your biggest spells each fight, and mop up from there, if required. Rather than outright prevent powerful spells from being used immediately, the armour can block some damage and CC effects, so there is intended to be a trade off between using skills early and maybe having the effects blocked, or waiting until you can remove or reduce the armour.
