Oh yeah, Flemeth... I suppose one can't really use two mages unless your warden is a mage, but don't take a ranged rogue. Take Wynne (as you said), Sten, Shale (If you have him... if not, Zevran) and Alistair. BTW, I'm assuming, because nobody answered my question after the corpse advice, that all of you are unsure of your gender... There are ways of telling you know...
Thanks again for all these posts, keep on going PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! 
It is so beautiful when people work in harmony to help fill a topic. Putting this all in one place has made me realise how much work bioware put into this! Let's keep posting, any comments on the following:
Annoying walking corpses in elven ruins: Alright, so I am sure we have all screamed at this one before, even though it doesn't have a boss in it (imagine the horror if it did!) it is difficult enough to make the forums. All one really needs is walking bomb and crushing prison spells, but a force field won't go amiss. If you have the crushing prison then you have the force field. They go boom and then the others go boom.
BTW. I want to know how many Dragon Age fans are out there, females and males (yes you get both) who have extensive knowledge on this topic, because honestly, these corpses can be more difficult than the Sloth demon. If you can't remember these corpses, they are the ones that appear after the ghostly boy says Mamme? Mammea? Mammea samae sandwich - or something...
I hate those walking corpses. I just stabbity stab them. Use Morrigan to put them to sleep or group paralyze them. And then stab away.
My warriors and rogues like them because they leave these neat little circles, instead of dying in unorderly piles or scattered about.
I love walking bomb!!! I just have to make sure to keep my party away from the exploding idiots! 
Nothing cripples a mage more than friendlies mingled with the enemy hordes, or in fact friendlies being anywhere near the scene of battle. Mage DPS depends entirely on wreaking wholesale destruction: a mage can take out an entire horde of enemies just as easily as a single target, but killing any single target requires as much work as killing a whole group. And therein lies the rub.
All spells with decent damage are of AoE type: the cones, Fireball, the bombs, Inferno and its little brothers. Even Entropic Death, since it requires an active Death Cloud. Being kept from deploying those spells effectively is like having both hands tied behind one's back.
Ranged companions get in the way less, but even their steady stream of background DPS is usually more trouble than it is worth, except for cases where you really need the extra DPS (i.e. some boss fights).
For one thing, enemies are much easier to herd into position for nuking if they all hate your mage. If some of them go scampering after your ranged then you have to deal with them separately, and you may even have to introduce a tank into the battle. Micro-management galore.
For another, there's the matter of self-detonating bombs. Since they do not require extra work to set them off, they are like having two extra Fireballs with smaller AoE but higher damage.
However, choosing suitable candidates is tricky enough even at the best of times, with a multitude of factors like movement pattern of the enemy group, damage rate from active effects like Inferno, Crushing Prison or Fireball/Flameblast afterburn, the need for a relay/repeater bomb if the cluster is not tight enough, relative location of ranked targets, and so on. All within a split second. Your ranged only introduce additional unknowns into the mix without doing significant damage, and if they mop up the wrong grunt at the wrong time then you suddenly have a whole group of enemies left unexploded.
It's an absolute blast during the endgame, though, because all grunts detonate immediately upon spell impact.
Anyway, in 99% of all cases a mage can work much more effectively facing the enemy alone.
I like using blizzard in narrow caves, like where you meet Branka in the deep roads. I have everyone "hold" and use blizzard in the long cavern past Brankas camp. Any stragglers get picked off when they come out. Or give the party ice salve and let them go.
I'm taking the Vestments (Witch Hunt) and the Sash (Amgarrak) on a fun run through Origins, and decided to stick to strict solo rules as long as possible. Gazarath cost me four lesser pots (3 health, 1 lyrium) because there is no suitable obstacle for kiting him around. The tree trunk lying on the ground near where he spawns is no obstacle for him - he can jump over it. He took some doing but nothing memorable.
Now I've just been to see everyone's favourite, the Ishal ogre. He is in a different class altogether. Even with the Vestments, a mage won't survive a grab without getting bashed out, which is a strict no-no under soloing rules. Death #1.
Apparently he has no cooldown on his rams. I've often see him do two in succession, this time it was three. With the only kind of health pot on cooldown and all spells, that was death #2.
Lesson 1: always keep an interrupt locked and loaded in case he telegraphs 'Grab' (or 'Ram' at lowish health): Grasp, Cone, or Glyph of Paralysis. Force Field if you have it, but I didn't. Mind Blast maybe.
Lesson 2: if he sets up a ram when you are in reasonably good health, gain distance. After the ram he will likely try a hurl in that case, which means you win and he loses. Edit: A hurl takes such a long time that you can get almost across the room from him, and then you can give him the fullest possible treatment: bomb, classic unresistable Paralysis Explosion, and all the rest. Even if you started coning him before he began the hurl you can still get far enough away. If you started the coning after he telegraphed the hurl, well, it's your funeral.
Lesson 3: without Haste or Swift Salve it is virtually impossible to put some distance between you and him, without throwing him a bone by letting him hit you. That can put you at maximum coning distance from him, which is the only safe way of trying a Cone of Cold (because you will remain immobilised for a bit even if he resisted, and then it's a ram or grab if you are too close). It seems almost impossible to chug a potion while kiting him without getting hit, so it's best to use that as an opportunity to hit back.
Lesson 4: the safest way of putting the hurt on him is to open with a Glyph of Paralysis. If it sticks, upgrade to Explosion, inoculate him with the green stuff against overlong life expectancy and finish with a Flame Blast and a Grasp or Bolt. It can be tempting to cone him as well, but a Cone is better life insurance than a Grasp. If you got him coned for whatever reason and you are at maximum coning range you might try a Flame Blast if you feel cocky enough. Unless the glyphs are charged, in which case you can give him the full treatment.
It may be tempting to Grasp him every now and then, since it is bound to slow him down even if resisted. However, there's little point to it. If the spells are charged for the full treatment, open with the paralysing glyph. If not then it is an unnecessary risk.
Total quaffage: 8 lesser health and 2 lesser lyrium. Thanks to the Maker for the Quartermaster's stock.
This time I saw again what I call the sudden, inexplicable bossy nightmare speedup. Normally the ogre is no faster than you but sometimes he picks up speed and catches up with you in no time at all, for no apparent reason. I've seen all kinds of slow lumbering beasts do it - ogres, alphas, dragons, bossy golems. Does anyone know what's going on?
Not a boss fight, but tricky enough: the brawl with the Commander and his four goons in Dane's Refuge, when you go to pick up Leliana.
In that fight you can lose quite a few kills to Leliana but the game fails to credit them to her - she will get neither the kills nor the XP (otherwise I'd probably leave all killing blows to her). There are two key elements here that you can use to shape events: Leliana is immortal in that fight, and she will always attack the target of the controlled character.
That knowledge can turn the fight from a messy, chaotic affair with uncertain outcome into an opportunity for playing with possibilities, one where you can achieve your goals reliably - whatever they might be.
One approach that works for any class is to have Barkspawn sit back on his haunches and direct operations, by having him look at whomever you want Leliana to attack. Pause the game for giving a round of orders but do not forget to switch back to Barkspawn before unpausing.
That leaves only one tricky bit, the cutscene in which the fate of the Commander is debated once you have knocked him out. After that cutscene, Leliana will be standing right next to the Commander, and if she was focussed on him before the cutscene then she will drop him before you can do anything about it.
One remedy is to leave one of the goons with good health and to let Leliana focus on him before you knock out the Commander. All goons - dead or alive - get moved to the kitchen during the cutscene, giving you a fair chance of beating Leliana to the punch after taking out the Commander without any competition. This is easy enough in theory but it is very easy to forget or fumble in the heat of battle.
Fun run mage Sonea found a new way to bend the odds in her favour: if the Commander is burning when he gets knocked out then he will still be burning after the cutscene, and the burn kills him faster than Leliana can take a swing. That means you can simply clean up the whole menagerie in one go, without fuss.
This fight is also odd because it is much easier on Nightmare than on lower difficulty. On Nightmare, default threat is based solely on proximity whereas on lower difficulties the game adds threat for armour and melee weapons, presumably to draw aggro towards the party member most likely able to take the heat. This Nightmare peculiarity normally puts squishy Wardens in mortal danger, since cutscenes and ambushes tend to deposit them in front of the team and thus makes them the target for the first volley of arrows, spells and weapon swings.
In this particular case it means that the Warden taking a step or two backwards puts Leliana in the crosshairs of everyone, which she - being immortal - has no problems with at all. You can watch the show to see how long she takes to finish them all off, or drop your glyphs in peace and nuke the whole bunch.
I played this game so many times and now and then something is different. I always hit that first Ogre with a Glyph. This time it didn't work. I had to run in circles and throw acid at him. He is hard if you have to get close. Keep the stuns handy. He can't resist dirty fighting. He can be stunned or frozen with cone of cold. I actually ran in circles while the others hit him with range weapons.
I actually ran in circles while the others hit him with range weapons.
That is the safest and fastest strategy overall, I think. Hit him with the grenades you found in the Wilds, switch everyone except for the Warden to ranged and scatter them around the perimeter. That way they start shooting as soon as they reach their positions, and they won't stop until the ogre drops. And he will drop pretty fast. For the Warden, if they only have to kite the ogre - instead of doing damage at the same time - then it is nowhere near as risky. Chance is that the ogre will die before he does any damage to anyone at all.
Cone of Cold and the paralysis spells - including the glyph - have a physical resistance saving throw. Hence it is no wonder that the ogre resists so often. Even more on Nightmare, where he gets an extra 10% spell resist.
Soloing Slothy as a mage
My fun run mage (Vestments of the Seer, Sash of Forbidden Secrets) is currently doing the Broken Circle, and she has just gone through the Fade. By and large it was a disappointment, what with emissaries wielding swords instead of magic, alphas and 'greater' shades that don't put up much of a fight because they are critter-ranked (white) instead of yellow, stuff like that. The yellow Arcane Horror on the third level of the Tower was much more dangerous than all of them combined. Only the Desire Demons and Slothy himself were as enjoyable as ever.
Sloth took some doing because I had decided to stick with strict solo rules as long as possible, and a level 9 mage isn't exactly suited to tanking bosses. Unsurprisingly, the ogre and arcane horror forms were the trickiest.
The ogre can do quasi infinite chains of attacks with knockdown effect, with no cooldown period for any of the special moves (i.e. multiple successive rams). This is particularly dangerous if you are using the golem or horror forms, because they react more sluggishly than the others and their chance of getting out of the stun lock is near zero. With a mage's stats, the golem form has no physical resistance and thus spends most of the time on its ass. Death #1.
The ogre's spell resistance (natural plus nightmare bonus) and ridiculously short stun durations - about one second - made Mind Blast and Cone of Cold virtually useless. Force Field proved invaluable, because it is a one-second cast (unlike Cone of Cold, which immobilises you for an additional second, which hurts when it is resisted). Plus it allows you to get some distance from the ogre in addition to casting one hex and one glyph. Follow up with Fireball, Paralysis Explosion and Walking Bomb, and finish the series as best fits the situation. Flame Blast plus Cone of Cold is a possibility, another is shifting into horror form to cast Crushing Prison and Winter's Grasp. Inferno, if available. Shift back into burning man form to resume the game of kiting and fireballing until you managed to put some serious distance between you and the ogre.
The burning man form has some speed on the ogre and is thus best suited for kiting. The game cheats every now and then by making the ogre go super fast, but the burning man can reliably avoid getting into ram/stun lock and that is the most important thing. When the ogre sets up a Ram, head away at a right angle to the ogre's direction. You will get knocked down regardless but you'll be far enough away so that the ogre can only resume jogging or try a Hurl (if the game doesn't cheat again by teleporting the ogre close to your toon). If it is a Hurl then you can put some serious distance between you and the ogre, enough for shifting back to take a peek at the spell cooldowns and to initiate another treatment round.
The best thing about the burning man form is the fire immunity in connection with Inferno, though. It means that you can seriously damage most of Sloth's forms by kiting them at a leisurely jog while your spells recharge.
Sloth's arcane horror form was the most dangerous, because it can fire off spells at an incredible rate even while standing on a Glyph of Neutralisation and because it launches random gratuitous attacks at your companions, even if they do nothing to interfere with the duel (not even healing/buffing).
My troops got hit with a Blizzard and a Fireball quite a while after I had flung enough spells at the horror to generate more threat than a chain-taunting tank. It cannot have been due to proximity, since I was halfway between them and Sloth, and I had made sure to keep well away from my companions at all times (in order to avoid splash damage from spells aimed at my mage, and to avoid Sloth getting peeled off due to proximity).
When the horror resisted the neutralisation glyph I shifted to golem form and slammed him off it. I had planned on turning the tables by standing on the glyph and casting with blood magic (a trick I learnt from Zathrian) but somehow I didn't get around to it and Sloth was dead soon after anyway. The glyph works better as an anti-mage device when you can use line of sight to make the enemy walk over it, but the arena isn't suitable for that.
P.S.: the burning man's Fireball is useful even against Sloth forms that take little or no damage from it, because of the knockdown that affects all forms except ogre. It can give you the breathing space for trying Force Field or a round of golem treatment (Hurl + Quake + Slam). The latter may not be the most efficient use for mana, but it's fun.
Warden's Keep, boss-level abomination at the the Fade rift (nightmare mage solo)
Like all abominations, this one is fairly benign. It has to waddle into melee range in order to hurt you and even then it does fairly little damage. It slumps in on itself for a couple of seconds when it gets fireballed, and it gets pushed back by a Glyph of Repulsion more often than not. If it does resist the glyph then you can lure it across all the way and then run to the other side of the glyph, giving the abo another chance to fail.
There's tricky bit, though, and it is the reason I'm posting this at all. The four dead Wardens standing on the circle thingies will heal up the boss even if they don't have line of sight, and a second contingent of them will get teleported in once you have reduced the boss to 50% HP or so. This means that the abomination will almost inevitably be at full health at that point, and any work you've invested in it will be lost.
My mage eliminated the dead Wardens with an Inferno, which was still burning when the second set of healers arrived. They burned up pronto but they were still able to heal up the boss before they croaked. The greater rage demons that arrived with the second wave were kept from acquiring line of sight by way of a repulsion glyph at the choke point and taken out with spells that do not require line of sight (Winter's Grasp, Cone of Cold).
I thought it might be possible to keep the second wave from healing up the abomination, by casting the second glyph of a Paralysis Explosion the moment the new troops arrive and before the healers have a chance to do any mischief. So I replayed from the autosave, and it turned out to be easier than expected - but the abomination was healed up anyway. The shoddiness of the game scripting simply boggles the mind sometimes.
P.S.: this is similar to the boss abomination at the end of the third level of the Broken Circle, which can convert a tranquil into a shade even while paralysed. The first conversion will happen the very second the boss perceives any of your toons, making it extremely difficult to save all three of the tranquil.
One of the more enjoyable encounters in the game seems to be missing: The battle for Redcliff w/o losing any allies. This can be somewhat difficult, esp on Solo Nightmare. Guess I like it for the tactical aspect, as well as the humor at keeping Lloyd alive.
No real advice here, other than a lot of castings of Force Field, Glyph's of Repulsion, Healing spells, and Earthquake are quite helpful for me.
Strange. The Attack at Nightfall is always the least enjoyable battle of the whole campaign for me, along with the arrival at Redcliffe Castle shortly before Morrigan walks out on the team.
The broken camera control is unable to handle battles on uneven terrain (slopes, stairs) and/or with high-rise geometry (walls, house fronts), and AoE spell targetting is near impossible under these conditions. Overlapping glyphs are not recognised and it is often impossible to tell whether an AoE spell will in fact overlap the caster's position or not, never mind placement to catch the most enemies.
Then there's the broken scripting that sabotages normal aggro mechanisms. Proximity, damage, threat, taunting - everything gets ignored when the undead are in thrall to scripted commands. They zigzag around the battle field, trade blows for a second and then run away attack someone else for a while and then they break off and run somewhere else again.
You can't tell the villagers to go do a Godwin and hide in the Chantry, and Lloyd is the most suicidal of them all. They all act just as irrationally as the undead, and they do stupid things like running into a burning inferno. Needless to say, the 'barricade' before the Chantry has more holes than you can plug with two sets of glyphs and one force-fielded Shale.
One of my mages cracked and went Sith on them, burning up the whole bunch. Nicest Attack at Nightfall ever. Since everyone at the Windmill had been saved as usual the game counted it as a win.
My camera controls are fine; at least good enough to overcome those kinds of problems. And I generally refuse to use agro related Talents or mechanics; not a fan of MMO style gameplay.
But the chaos of indv NPC's meandering everywhere kinda reflects the Fog of War to me, as adrenaline overcomes reason. I do become irritated when Alistair continually wishes to head into the flames, and have also immolated everyone in frustration at some point, but enjoy the overall evening.
And this is at least one occasion when Earthquake is shown to be a worthy investment; personally rename it as a Slow spell.
My camera controls are fine; at least good enough to overcome those kinds of problems. And I generally refuse to use agro related Talents or mechanics; not a fan of MMO style gameplay.
But the chaos of indv NPC's meandering everywhere kinda reflects the Fog of War to me, as adrenaline overcomes reason. I do become irritated when Alistair continually wishes to head into the flames, and have also immolated everyone in frustration at some point, but enjoy the overall evening.
And this is at least one occasion when Earthquake is shown to be a worthy investment; personally rename it as a Slow spell.
I put Al on hold in the attack by nightfall. I have my people spread out. Range behind tank. The Al Threatens to pull them in and all DPS crew hit them as they attack Al. When he is on hold he doesn't go into the fire.
Or you can just not use the fire, because if Alistair isn't running into the flames, then the Redcliffe knight are playing barbecue. What ever small advantage completing all of the pre-battle prep quests gives is negated by the "asset" you found killing your allies.
The fire can be problematic, but generally works very well for me. With the Party held, I can generally keep Earthquake going, Inferno, Glyph's of Repulsion on either side, or in front, and lob the occasional Fireball in there to keep the Undead away. By using ranged attacks like this, the Knights are less likely to advance into the flames.
Use the force field and heal spells on the villagers and crushing prison the yellow ranked corpses. If you dislike the battle then you could always leave Redcliffe, but have never had the guts. I admit... I don't use glyphs in battle unless I am trying out the new spell. I keep winning the attack at nightfall and nobody dies... but it is fun to loot the militia's corpses.
Or you can just not use the fire, because if Alistair isn't running into the flames, then the Redcliffe knight are playing barbecue. What ever small advantage completing all of the pre-battle prep quests gives is negated by the "asset" you found killing your allies.
True. Even when I hold my team back the Knights will occasionally run into the fire. Ser Perth is really bad about that. I have had to force field him to keep him out of the fight just so that he doesn't jump into the fire.
Have you played it without the fire? I'm thinking the fire is more of a pain then just fighting the Ghouls without it.
It is difficult to keep the Windmill allies from joining the fray if the undead come within alert distance, which is higher for ranked characters.
The fire is no problem if your artillery is up to snuff (mage Warden), because in that case you can roast the undead before they even get close to the barricades. Just position your team before the barricades, light an Inferno and let rip. As Elhanan said, Earthquake works wonders here. Fireball, repulsion glyphs, Paralysis Explosion, plus Shale's artillery skills. Not to forget Affliction Hex for heating things up a bit.
If kill-stealing is a worry and the above strategy is not possible (non-mage Warden or not specialised in nukeage) then it is better not to light the fire. You can paralyse kill-stealing allies but you cannot paralyse a kill-stealing fire. You can Blizzard it, though, if you happen to have that spell.
It is advisable to sprint down into the valley the very second the Windmill fight is over, with Haste or Swift Salve. The last time I raced down with Haste on as usual and even so Lloyd was almost dead already. I was just barely in time to force-field him and heal him up.
True. Even when I hold my team back the Knights will occasionally run into the fire. Ser Perth is really bad about that. I have had to force field him to keep him out of the fight just so that he doesn't jump into the fire.
Have you played it without the fire? I'm thinking the fire is more of a pain then just fighting the Ghouls without it.
Yep, and I finally managed to not lose a single Redcliffe ally. (Oh-so-stylish Helm of the Red, you are mine!)
I have never found a need to equip a mage with a sword. They do better set to ranged tactics. I once gave Wynne a shield to hold in her alternative weapon set and I could never figure out why she was dying. Lesson: Don't give mages swords for any battles, especially the attack at nightfall.
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