Kaylon

A well built darcozzi/troubadour is basically immortal and can also rez fallen companions if needed. I would add to your party a forbidden fist monk who is also nearly immortal and by the end can beat any encounter by himself. An ascendant/ghostheart with Frostseeker is also great and can clear the field very fast with his bow/spells and later can provide Brilliant to the entire party. An assassin/bloodmage is also very powerful and once he obtains the invisibility spell can also solve encounter by himself. A devoted/trickster with sabres is a very solid damage dealer and can trigger disengagement attacks with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage. Another alternative is a soulblade/trickster who can deal high single target dps with Sun and Moon + Tuotilo's Palm and also great AoE damage from the back of your tanks with Whispers of the Endless Paths (and he can also buff your other cipher). Anyway all these characters, if well built, don't require end game items to be strong and can roll over most encounters just on AI. The only one who requires more micro is the bloodmage/assassin.

The blood mage has unlimited access to invisibility and spells and all that combined with assassin's bonuses (acc, pen and crit dmg) allows you to be a very powerful caster, like @Boeroer explained. However you can't spam spells without serious healing and for that you have to mix draining spells or use draining weapons. The melee part is self sustainable much more easily. You summon a draining weapon, attack from invisibility and finish your target before the other enemies can react which will replenish your lost health at the same time, then become invisible again, recover your spells, etc. You can switch easily between the two modes without any drawback and have a purely offensive build. However, until you obtain Arkhemir's Brilliant Departure you have to use a more conservative way of playing. Use wizard's buffs to increase your survivability and go melee and when you draw the aggro use Smoke Veil to escape and launch a few spells, etc...

The cipher has many buffs that can make his pet pretty effective and les squishy, but of course not enough to replace a tank.

If you want to play ascendant then arcane archer is the best option. Grab Essence Interrupter (with modal activated) and Frostseeker vs multiple targets and forget about firearms - focus will fill very fast. Xoti is better with mortars spamming Stunning Surge until she gets WotW and destroys everything. Maia scout with the Red Hand is probably the companion with the highest single dps and has the best ranger pet. There's no better companion tank than Pallegina herald and her support is huge. Tekehu has some unique spells with great utility both as druid and chanter. However you can keep only one of them if you decide to pick a faction at the end. (and without faction the ending sucks) You need 2 tanks in the party to be safe and Xoti is not a tank. If the MC is not a tank I would say Pallegina and Eder are almost mandatory. Xoti monk can be later a very strong dps/CC. You can use the last spot to switch companions/sidekicks. If you want to keep Tekehu you can replace Pallegina with Aloth fighter/mage. The strongest end game party (with companions) you can build would include Eder (fighter/thief), Pallegina (paladin/chanter), Xoti (monk) and Aloth (fighter/mage).

The monk is very dependent on crits for his dps and is more sturdy (especially the FF). The rogue delivers high dps against all enemies, but is a little more squishy (however the trickster has a few tools to increase his survivability). Both are good, but the monk helps more the caster part of the cipher (speed, might, penetration, intellect). If you want to use lighter armor then a solution is to use 2h weapons with increased range and stay behind your tanks. Another strong melee/caster combo is assassin/blood mage, but it's a different style of play.

Another weapon that works well with a monk/soulblade is WotEP. You can alternate easily between Stunning Surge and Soul Annihilation. With your high accuracy and deflection debuffs (Cap of the Laughingstock, Phantom Foes) you can easily crit and trigger other AoE attacks with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming.

It depends if you play with Community Patch or not. If you play an unmodded game those combos don't work that well because the Forbidden Fist attack doesn't generate focus. Also the Ascendant is mostly a caster and in general you want light armor and high dex to be able to spam spells rapidly while ascended and without being interrupted. As a melee you need more protection, the FF can't have high dex either and you can be interrupted often. That's why you don't see melee Ascendants builds, they are better as ranged characters. The Soulblade is meant for melee and works better with the FF (only with CP) - you can alternate between two strong melee attacks and can also cast spells.

The berserker/skald can also use the Grave Calling trick (I found killing a skelly every 6s is optimal for your frame rate). He can use Blightheart trick too... And of course he can just mix melee and invocations.

Yes, the Ring of Focused Flame helps greatly the Powder Burns attack. DoCB helps with survivability, but if you're fine then keep Miscreant's Leathers. Heaven's Cacophony is of course great if you rest often (personally I like to stack the resting bonuses).

Do you play a plain monk/rogue or nalpazca/streetfighter? And of course the equipment makes a big difference for the build. Ring of the Marksman, Ring of the Focused Flame, Acina's Tricorn, Devil of Caroc Breastlpate (with Devil's Due) can greatly increase your effectiveness. Also when you run out of resources it's better to switch to mortar + Toutilo's Palm (you attack just as fast but with increased defenses).

Yes, monk/streetfighter with mortars has great synergy and doesn't require any particular micro - you just activate Powder Burns and enjoy the increased attack speed and damage.

I would say the monk is almost mandatory to a mortar build because Stunning Surge increases greatly your survivability. As a ranged character you have poor defenses and you're also close to the enemies - without a hard CC you'll be attacked very often. Also mortars/blunderbusses scream streetfighter... A ranger doesn't add much besides Driving Flight to a mortars build. Also without Avenging Storm the damage is solid, but not spectacular (Frostseeker, Citzal's Spirit Lance or Lord Darryn's Voulge builds can do more AoE dps). PS. Maia has increased range only with arquebuses, arbalests and crossbows.

Devoted/berserker with LDV is very solid, has great AoE dps (very fast attacker, cleave attack and of course Clear Out) and doesn't require much micro. Because of the high crit chance, Amra is another good weapon choice. WotEP works well only with a soul blade/rogue for the big AoE bonuses you get with Soul Annihilation. However vs less than 3 targets the damage is bad. The Offensive Parry is nice, but it's not worth building around it because it does little damage and isn't an AoE attack. A much better AoE weapon than WotEP is Citzal's Spirit Lance (you can use LDV/WotEP until you obtain it), but of course you have to pick a wizard. The wizard has some great melee buffs and you can pair him with barbarian, rogue or monk for great results. Barbarian/wizard lacks Clear Out and cleave attack, but the regular AoE dps outperforms LDV. The rogue/wizard can add Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Deep Wounds, Gouging Strike to his AoE attacks. The monk/wizards with Merciless Gaze and Citzal's Martial Spirit can generate many crits and thus perform many free AoE attacks. PS. The AoE attacks of the weapons are considered ranged and are affected by the Ring of the Marksman and the Harley pet.

St. Drogga's Skull has "Accurate" instead of "Sharp". Beza's Blade has "Veil Piercing" instead of "Sharp".

The torc works on yourself but has limited uses and just removes injuries, doesn't make you immune to them. The easiest way to make such build work is to import a second Ring of Reset and refresh its charges after each fight.

Just +1PL (over Hot Razors Skewers/Shark Soup) isn't a big deal and you lose much more.

Full melee is perfectly viable - front Eder (fighter/rogue) + Pallegina (paladin chanter), behind them Aloth (fighter/wizard) with Citzal Spirit Lance and PC with WotEP (soulblade/trickster, fighter/barbarian, etc.), back Xoti (monk) with Instruments of Pain (until she gets WotW). You can also replace Pallegina with the PC and use instead Serafen (cipher/barb) behind.

Berserker/fighter, berserker/steel garrote, berserker/skald can be built to be self sustained at any level and don't need special healing at all. Then it's even worse than I thought, because the point of going berserker is to stay afflicted the entire fight in order to benefit from the bonuses of the set and the FF goes against that. Also I don't even see the point of mentioning confusion in the heal/wounds discussion because Frenzy isn't something you can spam for free and use as a source of wounds and heals.

To counter the self damage and be at least self sustainable you have to move around all the time and heal. If you need other characters to work for you instead of doing damage it's not very efficient. PS. You're not confused by the boots, you're hobbled.

That happens only if you move constantly your character which becomes boring very fast (without mentioning you can trigger disengagement attacks...).

Since many bonuses require to be afflicted, the berserker becomes the ideal candidate (his speed bonuses help also with the high recovery of the plate). Overall the ice set seems also to be made for a tank and you should pick another class that has some kind of health regeneration to make the self DOT manageable. I think a paladin steel garrote fits the best this role and Spirit Frenzy/Barbaric Shout can keep enemies afflicted and allow you to also drain health from them. You can also use Grave Calling as backup weapon. Another possibility would be a street fighter with min resolve and max intellect - use a blunderbuss to afflict himself with a long lasting Powder Burns, then switch to weapon and shield. As a second class you have more freedom here - a black jacket who can switch easily between weapon sets fits well and his Armored Grace reduces greatly the armor recovery. PS. Also a pale elf fits perfectly here because his racial bonus covers the elemental weakness of the plate.

It's not strange, it's the best approach.

Those procs require party members, not allies. Ranger's companion is considered a party member and indeed you can exploit his death because he doesn't get injuries. From what I remember you can get at most +4 MIG/RES until the end of combat.

Obviously you can't tank them with a rogue. However I remember there was a video of a monk who soloed the encounter mostly using shoot and run tactics, it should help you. The right resting bonuses, food, scrolls are required to succeed. The bog is pretty big and you have plenty of space to run around. The dragons have only AoE spells which are easy to dodge with high running speed, however single target spells from casters are harder to avoid (especially Llengrath) and you have to make sure to kill them first (with a little help from the dragons).

IMO barbarian works much better as a MC. Berserker/devoted is a very powerful melee combo who can use Clear Out as a cone version of HoF and has some very good weapon choices (Lord Darryn's Voulge, Amra, Karaboru). Berserker/troubadour is also very powerful if you decide to use Grave Calling and spam Chill Fog by killing your own skeletons (however it's not really a melee build). Another great combo is rogue/barbarian - with a 2h weapon he can easily spam Barbaric Smash and also trigger Blood Thirst (if you have a priest who can cast BDD, then a berserker/streetfighter with Voidwheel is devastating).