Yeah, these are some good suggestions. I was struggling with my mage, but found it significantly easier once I started experimenting with the tactics screen. It's a must have to succeed, especially on console... Here are a few things I found that worked well...
1. Make sure all of your non-healer characters drink their own health poultices. Set to 50% for anyone who has less than 300 health. Once they get over 300 health I find it's better to set it to 25% or you'll be wasting a lot of them. Also, don't use the "Use Item" menu for this, if you keep scrolling down you'll see "Use health poultice: least/most powerful".
2. Melee characters should have an entry in their tactics that tells them to use an AoE talent when surrounded. Something like two-handed sweep, war cry or whirlwind, but this can be changed to your liking.
3. Try using the targeting system to focus your attacks. I always make sure that one of my melee characters has an entry to tell them to attack anyone that attacks me, or to attack the person I'm attacking. I'll also typically set one of them to attack the guy with the lowest health. These are great to thin the numbers.
4. Mage characters are their own special joy. Wynne is a spirit healer so you could learn something like group heal. Also, be sure to put at least one entry in to tell her to heal an ally with low health, but also an entry to tell her to heal herself if she has low health. What I typically do is put the first entry as casting heal on an ally with less than 50% health, and my second entry is to cast group heal when wynne herself has less than 50% health. I do this because if Wynne is taking damage I can be pretty certain that the rest of my party has as well.
Also, try getting the Ranger class specialization for Leilana or Zevran. Don't do both, because you can't have more than one animal companion, regardless of how many rangers you have in your party. However, the animal companions are quite helpful and they help to even out the numbers a bit.
1. Make sure all of your non-healer characters drink their own health poultices. Set to 50% for anyone who has less than 300 health. Once they get over 300 health I find it's better to set it to 25% or you'll be wasting a lot of them. Also, don't use the "Use Item" menu for this, if you keep scrolling down you'll see "Use health poultice: least/most powerful".
2. Melee characters should have an entry in their tactics that tells them to use an AoE talent when surrounded. Something like two-handed sweep, war cry or whirlwind, but this can be changed to your liking.
3. Try using the targeting system to focus your attacks. I always make sure that one of my melee characters has an entry to tell them to attack anyone that attacks me, or to attack the person I'm attacking. I'll also typically set one of them to attack the guy with the lowest health. These are great to thin the numbers.
4. Mage characters are their own special joy. Wynne is a spirit healer so you could learn something like group heal. Also, be sure to put at least one entry in to tell her to heal an ally with low health, but also an entry to tell her to heal herself if she has low health. What I typically do is put the first entry as casting heal on an ally with less than 50% health, and my second entry is to cast group heal when wynne herself has less than 50% health. I do this because if Wynne is taking damage I can be pretty certain that the rest of my party has as well.
Also, try getting the Ranger class specialization for Leilana or Zevran. Don't do both, because you can't have more than one animal companion, regardless of how many rangers you have in your party. However, the animal companions are quite helpful and they help to even out the numbers a bit.
