Haplok

Why not make Fassina a Sorcerer - for the fantastic party support and great breadth of spells that never run out? Plus countless DOTs that will melt thy enemies.

Paladin-Rogue (Trickster), by far. Probably shield + weapon. Even two-handed Whisper of the Endless Paths is an option, particularly against crowds of weaker mobs. Although, Paladin without some item support is not the best in traditional tanking due to limited engagement slots. IMO the correct answer is Fighter-Trickster.

Apologies for the late reply. Regarding gear, most of the game it was the already mentioned Grave Calling + Kitchen Stove combo. Kitchen Stove's special is great, its Thunderous Report with monk Int has a huge cone, deals high damage and debuffs foes with Daze for a long time. And of course, instant Ascension. I like having a Priest with Salvation of Time to extend its duration. With Seeker's Fang taking over after Seeker, Slayer, Survivor (Spider Flurry has a far smaller cone, but its often possible to get 3 enemies in it... and it's devastating - while also instantly filling your Focus) . Other notable stuff: Helm of the White Void (+10 Accuracy is awesome - and you take advantage of it all the time with Stunning Surge/Forbidden Fist or the Cipher debuffs/CC). Devil of Caroc Breastplate is awesome for nearly every character, offering a good balance of speed and protection, bonus immunities and bonus resources. But not exactly critical here. Abilities... Parting Sorrow is important for monks, particularly FF. Stunning Blows+Surge, Swift Strikes+Flurry, Duality+Turning Wheel, Thunderous Blows, Heartbeat Drumming, Two Weapon Style. If you have the slots, Crucible of Suffering is very nice also... and Rooting Pain. Also Improved Critical (with Community Patch). Flagellant's Path was already mentioned, I liked it a lot, but I guess it depends on play style (and PL VI slots are kinda sparse). On the Cipher side, Borrowed Instinct, Disintegration, Secret Horrors, Ectopsychic Echo, Mental Binding. Amplified Wave can be strong vs mobs. Hammering Thoughts are a good passive. Draining Whip, of course. The Empty Soul is great. Whispers of Treason and Puppet Master can be situationally very good (and kinda staple for a Cipher), I liked Ring Leader less (short range, makes combat more chaotic, many enemies can quickly flip from Charm). I also like Mind Plague a lot, its a strong debuff. Situationally also Eyestrike. Recall Agony and Psychovampiric Shield are strong vs bosses. Echoing Horror can be nice - but not exactly critical.

Personally if you did not plan to be a wizard, I'd focus on Lord Darryn's Voulge, Amra (particularly as Frienzied berserker killing his own skellies, like Boeroer described) or maybe Karaboru as AOE weapons. IMO WotEP is kinda underwhelming damage-wise.

I realize the OP probably made his decision regarding the Transcendant, but still I want to share my experience. I played an Ascendant/Helwalker, close to melee, and it worked marvelously. I used Grave Calling saber a lot, killing skellies summoned by Pallegina, which both Blinded, Paralyzed, damaged enemies and gave Focus (with Kitchen Stove blunderbuss offhand for Thunderous Report instant max Focus and Ascension, huge damage and Daze opening - and faster attack speed in melee from dual-wielding). Later on moved to Seeker's Fang rapier with its Spider's Flurry and mini-disintegrations. Used Flagellant's Path to zig-zag trough the battlefield, often one-flurry killing squishies. Was super fun. Ascendant can spam spells, which is particularly helpful with high levels ones, like Disintegration. And Ascendant's high Focus ceiling was also nice for Seeker's Fang damage scaling. Plus Ascendant gets bonus damage when Ascended (therefore almost always). I really had a lot of fun with that character. A FF would have less damage from might, but also be MUCH more durable. And +50% duration of hostile effects PLUS enemies unable to heal AT ALL is just awesome!

Make Eder a Swashbuckler at least. Such a wasted opportunity with vanilla fighter...

This and Port Maje Gorecci Street are like the 2 most difficult encounters in the whole game - so no shame to struggle, lower the difficulty or even skip it. I usually try to use Eder with a pistol & shield to sneak near the powder barrels in the corner, ignite the barrel with a pistol shot, wait a little to lure enemies and then Escape (rogue active ability) like hell to the stairway, where the rest of the party is waiting. The powder barrel explosion should deal significant damage to the drake and hopefully some panters and boars too. Then its a nasty fight on the stair bottleneck. Don't be shy to use any consumables (healing potions, cinder bombs) you might have found up to this point - you'll never get better use from them.

Whispers Mindstalker was way too slow for my taste. Slowly whittling multiple enemies - provided that they are actually positioned well - is not my kind of playstyle. Personally I prefer to focus on priority targets and eliminate the threats ASAP. Also quite squishy. Sun & Moon + Tuotilo's Palm is better IMO - but still quite a one-trick-pony. My recommendation is to consider trying a monk MC

For an awesome martial cipher, I'd recommend Transcendant. My favourite is Ascendant (particularly if you have a SC Priest in your party to buff you with Salvation of Time), but a Soul Blade can work well also. On the monk side I like Forbidden Fist the most, but a Helwalker can work beautifully as well - you just have to be quite a bit more careful not to get focused by enemies/mobbed. Monk synergizes very well with casters, particularly martial ones. Huge Int bonuses mean long ability durations and large aoes. Swift Flurry / Heartbeat Drumming crit chains simply melt squishier (therefore often most dangerous) enemies. Stunning Surge keeps enemies stunned while usually being free (if you crit with one of the 2 attacks). Helwalker offers a huge Might boost that will increase the potency of your powers. But FF offers something arguably even better: +50% DOT, CC & debuff durations on affected enemies and enemies cannot heal or regenerate. Plus its a "free" (if used reasonably) and quite strong attack). The Fire lash is nifty too. And do try Grave Calling Scimitar with a Chanter in your party summoning skeletons for some fun. Kill them with the Cipher and you'll generate party-friendly Chillfogs that blind, paralyze enemies and damage - while providing Focus for you! (with the right scimitar enchantments). Later on, the Seeker's Fang rapier from SSS DLC is awesome.

I did just fine as a Swashbuckler - Trickster / Devoted to Estocs. In fact, I though it was a very strong melee build. The "Pierce immunity is common" I consider an Internet meme more then anything. So you have like 5 areas with a bunch of higher level skeletons where this applies (but which you should still easily beat beyond the starter island - either with your fist or another blunt weapon at -10 Accuracy) - with 2 of them strictly optional depending on faction choices AFAIR, plus a handful of generally solitary Lurker enemies that are no threat at all. Some enemies have higher Armor Rating vs Pierce, true. On the other hand, the Estoc has the highest Penetration value out of all weapons AFAIR. I've never really struggled with Penetrating AR with it, particularly when using rogue active abilities, which often come with a further Pen boost. In fact in a large portion of fights I had the +30% Overpenetration bonus on a large amount of mobs.

Another durable build is Swashbuckler. Mine was Streetfighter/Devoted to Estocs. Very effective, can recommend. Need to be a little careful at first, but once he gets Unbending, he can charge headfirst into combat (he wants to be surrounded by enemies!) and be the main tank actually.

Shadowdancer is awesome! My favourite is Forbidden Fist / Trickster dual wielding rapiers with modal. Decently tanky and simply melts enemies with streams of crits, FF, Stunning Surges that are usually "free" and for bosses Confounding Blind + Toxic Strike (with extended durations due to FF debuff).

A bit late to the topic. But also a little bummed by no mention of Assassin as MC - particularly for casters. But can be also great fun on weapon switching Black Jackets and such.

Shadowing Beyond is great in Turn Based mode though - as its a Free Action there.

Well, killing members of a faction is a rather fast way to lower the rep. Never had issues with getting the Principi to hate me - even though I usually try to get Engoliero de Espirs ASAP (which is about the end of their questline), sometimes also Scordeo's Edge. Forcing your way into the Undercity trough the thug controlled elevator kinda helps...

Also they scale with other weapon damage modifiers, such as rogue sneak attacks & deathblows.

I'm not sure about the choice of WotEP on the riposte Swashbuckler. It both has very low damage per hit AND will offer less Deflection then a weapon & shield combo. Offensive Parry is nice, but for such a build I'm not sure it compensates for these downsides (when you need 2 hits with WotEP to do same damage as with 1 strike of a saber or axe - and in your rounds, you'll be spending twice the resources to do the same damage with active skills). I'm sure it can work, particularly in an enemy mob, but is far from optimal IMO. Personally I'd go with Tuotilo's Palm (if its not reserved for a monk in your party) - it doesn't lower your Accuracy, also has a not very strong attack and also has an enchantment that has a chance to trigger a weak riposte damage plus Magran's Favor battleaxe (with modal on the defense - or when fighting a boss). With this combo my Eder was sometimes scoring Ripostes about ~200 total damage (plus inflicting a nasty DOT on enemies). Gipon Prudensco armor ensured good action speed (when not using the axe modal) AND provided even more Deflection (hence more Riposte chance). Nomad's Brigandine is also good and usually available earlier.

When playing my Spellblade, I had to be careful with Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, since its extremely loud and would always break Stealth. Still a great spell, though.

Exactly. Two advantages: accurate aoe aiming (can't retarget in Turn Based) and can't be interrupted Frankly, I never really noticed my spells rolling over to the next round with any regularity. I mean it maybe happened a few times, but definately not often. And my Dex wasn't even particularly good. Perhaps you get interrupted too much or a similar effect is happening to delay your action? My experience is quite opposite to the OPs. Turn Based mode is paradise for wizards (and other casters too, to a lesser degree - wizards rule due to all the Free Action buffs they get). When you only get 1 action every round, a huge aoe spell with large impact will have WAY better action economy then 1 sword swing... Even better if you're a Spellblade and only exit Stealth once your spell resolves (while enjoying +25 Accuracy, +4 Pen, +50% Crit damage)...

The changes the Community Patch introduced are mostly slight buffs to a few abilities which were frankly downright crap in the vanilla version - so much that I'd never pick them. But the buffs were not so big as to make them "obligatory", if you understand what I mean.

Well, nuking with Assassination bonus is pretty damn effective too. And borderline broken in Turn Based mode, when you're untargettable - untouchable most of the time AND have plenty of time to set up optimal situations/positions. Plus ray-type spells are "compressed" in Turn Based mode into ~3 large damage ticks and become great Assassination tools - and with good positioning may even not break Stealth on 1st tick (particularly Ninagauth's Death Ray, which with a little Fort debuffing, goes trough golems and other high AR enemies, like trough hot butter).

Shadowing Beyond has no Recovery AFAIR. But its even more expensive, of course...

No great helmets? How about a helm that gives +10 Accuracy to all abilities/attacks that carry an affliction? I think chanter has a few of those...

For sure, there'd more synergy with other Cipher subclasses. Trickster would pair particularly well with Soulblade for example. But would be a solid, if unspectacular, match for Ascendant also.

I'm sure its doable but... why struggle? I also prefer high Con AND flat Might for a more forgiving and easygoing gameplay. Its not like some +20% damage for your spells will make or break your game. And you'll have to work more on compensating self-damage, perhaps spend more action time (of you or other chars) to regen.