I am playing missions after main story now and preparing for the Very Last Boss.
My party:
Mordred
I've abandoned any attempts to do any damage with him, so full tank mod. Stigma is very nice debuff a stun from Thunderbolt to switch off highest value target on the battlefield is priceless.
Vanguard - Boudecia, before her Balin with traps.
Standard jumping-hiding-backstabbing vanguard. Can't imagine my life without one, because even without cheaty AP restoration per kill, Vanguard's Backstab + Surprise attacks are my only real options against 500-1000 HP mobs in post-main-story missions.
Sage
Really wanted to bench her for Lancelot but turned out that asshole is intolerant toward tyrannical characters in the party. But he just can't compare because on top of Inspire for extra AP and cd reset she got:
- Bless for Vanguard
- Sage Relics that often buff the whole party
- Ice Wall. I've discovered how amazing it is way after I got access to that spell but damn thing is priceless. It covers you from enemy archers, halts melees and sends AI into huge dilemma whether to break it or not. And it freezes everyone around it when it breaks or expires. Or you could break it yourself to freeze everyone around it.
Arcanist - Ector
Went into many directions with him over 50 hours but a just love his whole kit. Fire Spells and burning dot are extremely well supported with items and relics, he gets Fire Blast Early and Fire Wall with it fully configurable shape is better than it looks on the first glance.
My newfound love is the Death Hex that just removes 50% of boss/nastiest critter hp to soften them for the Vanguards backstabs. Never used it until the endgame though, never had a need. Blood Hex is probably his only useless ability but all hexes have a low AP costs so I use them to trigger -1 Cooldown reset from Mindstorm.
Tried to use
but he got negative Loyalty for me and I never achieved the same proficiency with his spells as with Ector's. He has some interesting options there, I admit.
On other classes.
Marksmans suck. No way around it. Champions shine in early game but never come close to Vanguard's damage output and their tanking power is questionable in the best of times. And other defenders only needed to fill the role when Mordred is wounded and needs time to heal up.
And in general, I had a very bad experience with anyone built around poison and bleed.