Agree that for a lot of the optional bosses in WoTR, they don't do a good job establishing build up and merging it with the narrative. Most of the hardest fights are fights that happen out of nowhere with very little dramatic tension built in.
Despite overall loving the game, my biggest complaint on the gameplay is definitely the lack of proper AI and weak encounter design. This leads to Owlcat leaning really hard on statistical buffs to increase difficulty - since the AI is never going to outsmart you, and there are rarely environment or other non-stat factors (i.e. time limits, secondary objectives, etc) inflating the difficult. This leads to two common solutions for encounters:
1) Brute Force - just out-stat the enemy. i.e. 70+ AC on enemies doesn't mean anything when you can just get your attack bonus to 90+ (probably the easier but more boring of the two)
2) Find the Gap - just examine the enemy for its weakness, and figure out what you have that can be used against that gap (i.e. Touch AC, low Will save, etc)
This means most of the difficulty comes simply from acquiring game knowledge (mainly what stacks), as opposed to making a lot of strategic decisions in reaction to smart decisions by the AI. It ultimately isn't very mentally stimulating once you've figure a few things out. Mind you, most RPGs are like this to some extend - but I feel like Owlcat has the tendency to really really lean into the high stats = difficulty more.
