@ corey_russel
I think you're seriously underselling the bomb spells in relation to Mana Clash.
Walking Bomb does the same damage as Curse of Mortality, Stinging Swarm, Blood Control and Nightmare, 200 points at spellpower 100 (against resistance 0 and without +spirit gear), and roughly the same as Crushing Prison.
It is much more mana-efficient than all of these spells, it cools down faster - 20 seconds - and if the bomb detonates then it deals the same damage again as physical damage in 5 m radius, attenuated by distance. The primary effect deals spirit damage, which is fortunate since the fire+spirit amplification combo happens to be the most potent by far and all my mages swear by it.
Walking Bomb is massive ranged AoE damage early, at the cost of only one spellpoint. It is fire-and-forget disposal of ranged mooks, even a whole cluster of them if they are standing close enough or can be made to form a tight cluster with a well-aimed fireball or by turning a corner. It works like Fireball - with smaller AoE but much more potent - if you cast it on a near-dead enemy or a one-shotter. It is massive physical damage against hard enemies with inconvenient elemental resistances, if there is a mook around whom you can blow up in their face. Shattering can often be used to achieve fast and precise remote detonation.
Virtual Walking Bomb does 50% more damage and - as Ironman said - it is handy to have in reserve to keep battle strategies from being derailed by a resisted Walking Bomb. The bombs together are a nuker's bread-and-butter elite and boss killers, at much lower cost than Storm of the Century and Entropic Death and available much earlier.
If you cast another bomb spell on an already ticking bomb then the earlier effect is stopped and the new bomb is effectively doubled. If you cast Crushing Prison on such a double-ticker then its ticks are doubled as well, although the vagaries of overlapping ticks and durations can often cost you one pair of Crushing Prison ticks (i.e. 2 x 4 instead of 2 x 5 against elites, 2 x 3 instead of 2 x 4 against bosses).
In any case the double-bombing makes Crushing Prison more useful as a damage spell against elites and bosses, whereas otherwise it wouldn't be worth the mana except for the immobilising effect against elites. The effect of Crushing Prison on the player is so much more devastating - despite lowish enemy spellpower - because of hidden damage multiplication and extended duration (110%, like for critters).
To give a concrete example, here are the numbers I measured for spellpower 100 and 30% spirit damage amplification against a fully hexed boss (Nightmare difficulty, i.e. 15% hidden extra resistance):
WB: 325 (14 x 23)
VB: 721 (14 x 51)
CP: 342 ( 4 x 86)
WB+VB: 1477 (1 tick of WB plus 2 full VB)
WB+VB+CP: 1991 (dito, plus double-ticked shortened CP)
The damage is even greater against enemies of elite rank or lower, and on lower difficulties. The DPS is on the order of 100 over the duration, which would be respectable even for a warrior or rogue but for a mage it rocks. Especially as you're free to pile Fireballs and stuff on top of that.
Double bombing alone is enough for all nuisance bosses, and with Crushing Prison it's enough even for the likes of Branka. There is a lot of bossiness in and around Orzammar: Piotin, Jarvia, revenant, Ageless dragon, revenant, ogre alpha, fade beast, spider queen, Ancient Darkspawn, Forge Master, Gangue Shade, Broodmother, Branka, Bhelen, and then Piotin again.
Mana Clash is totally useless against most of them but they all go down fast if hexed and double-bombed. Even the Anvil finale is much less stressful with Branka out of the picture 15 to 20 seconds into the fight, and you don't need to prep Oghren for tanking or kiting her either. Just send him off to go sulk in a corner somewhere.
In most cases enemy mages can be crowd-controlled and burned together with their entourage without any special measures whatsoever. In a few cases you have to be careful to CC them before they come into spell-casting range, or let them walk over a Glyph of Neutralisation. But that isn't a big deal, and there are only four or five such occasions in the whole Orzammar campaign. The number of bosses in that expedition is three times as big.
On the whole that makes Mana Clash fairly unattractive in comparison to its extortionate cost of four spell points. During the course of a DA:O campaign it removes exactly one major headache - Gaxkang - and it can be mildly useful in a small handful of occasions, all of which concern bossy blood mages but which can just as well be solved with glyphs, Sleep and general nukage. Mana Clash is loads of fun but unlike the bomb spells it is not even remotely necessary, which makes it a luxury item as far as solo mages are concerned.
Soloing without any bomb spells is bound to be slower and more painful whereas soloing without Mana Clash is not only possible, it's easier and faster than doing without the useful spells that those four points could have bought. Soloing may not be everybody's cup of tea but I brought it up because it's the only case where build decisions actually have cost. A solo mage probably couldn't afford Mana Clash until the late teen levels without serious pain, too late to make much of a difference (although some fun still beckons).
Things are different if there is a team that can pick up the slack, allowing the Warden to specialise in whatever strikes their fancy. In that case Mana Clash is an excellent option since it is fun and insanely effective against mana users; mandatory soloing occurs post-origin only in the Fade, where Mana Clash tends to make a lot (Circle) or all (Connor) of the fighting trivial.
My current toon Ajira had to make do with only one bomb until level sixteen, which was the price she paid for getting the hexes and Sleep much earlier than usual. That made dealing with bosses and fire-proof elites more difficult, more often than Sleep made other things easier. She finally got the second bomb in the Deep Roads, and she's been on a roll ever since.
P.S.: Spell Might is a non-starter except as an enabler for Storm of the Century and to improve Animate Dead. It increases spell damage by 10% but it drains too much mana to leave it on, since that mana can do more damage if it is used to cast spells instead. And if you don't leave it on then its effect on things like SotC, Inferno and Glyph of Repulsion goes away. It works well for casting spells like the hexes, bombs and Crushing Prison, because they probe the caster's spell power at the moment the effect is created on the victim. Theoretically that applies also to Stone Fist, Mind Blast, Fireball, Cone of Cold etc., except that it is usually not practical to turn on Spell Might when these spells are needed in self-defence or to push a boss back into the fire.
For Entropic Death the caster of the cloud needs to be at maximum spellpower and spirit damage amplification at the moment the combo effect hits, i.e. when hex meets cloud. It doesn't matter who casts the death hex.
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