As I see it the key issue is the armour system (which I think everyone has pretty much said anyway):
Bluntly, the armour system does not work, and as far as I can see, it will never work.
Every fight is; step 1: burn through armour; step 2: CC; step 3: there is not step 3, you got to step 2 so you won.
The stats from the first game (body building/willpower/etc) and elemental resistances worked far better, (and can be modified to work better still), with the status system. For example making it rain before using lightning to increase stun chance/reduce resistances. Really given how much environmental effects and statuses are being emphasised by the developers I'd have thought the stats/elemental resist route would make far more sense for the gameplay.
The % system means that if your wizard messes up a CC, another character has to spend resources (AP) you could have put somewhere else. It also would mean that there's a point to having melee and magic fighters attacking the same target, because at the moment that's pretty much pointless - melee fighter attacking someone? Just pass your turn wizard, him hitting won't do anything about that 100 magic armour you'll have to burn through to do anything useful.
On a hopefully thread related note - 1 handed melee fighters: If a character has a shield they really need to have way more defence and the ability to taunt. At the moment the benefit of a shield seems pretty pointless. You massively reduce your damage for practically no benefit.
