Your Party
 

My own is a cipher PC, Eder, Kana, Aloth, Hairyanus, and Durance.

I am reluctant to switch out other party members, but would like to get the full experience and finish all the companion story quests. Most likely to swap would be Kana, but I don't think Mother or Sagira would be very good secondary tanks. :/

Do I have to switch out and around early and ofter, or can I wait til near the end to do the companion quests / stories?

Both Mother and Sagira are better than Kana; Mother can be awesome.

I already am a cipher. Am worried about losing an off tank if I drop Kana. Mother and Sagira are best ranged, right?

I use Mother as melee once I quickly use up her focus; fast weapons means focus is back quickly. I found chanters to be underwhelming; by the time they can make use of an invocation the battle is usually over or nearly so. Perhaps they can be built better, but I just didn't like Kano.

Front row: PC Chanter, Edér, Pallegina
Back row: Aloth, Grieving Mother, Sagani

Kana is great in longer battles (of which there are fewer so far, I must admit). But when needed, his invocation to summon drakes I find invaluable. Also his increased firing rate chant is great for my mostly control and ranged based tactics.

Party:

Eder: Main Tank (all but invincible)
Crom: Custom Barbarian (decent damage dealer and half-assed tank)
Valaria: Custom Druid (not terribly formidable, but I like Woodskin and stuff)
Mia: Custom Priest (fantastic buffer/healer)
Kana: Chanter (great for buffing ranged reload speeds)
Lond: My main - Rogue (best single-target damage dealer)

9 out of 10 fights:

Position my tanks - block passage to the rest of the party.
Slaughter everything with (mostly) the rest of the party, all using guns buffed by Kana.
Heal and buff when doing tougher fights.

I use, literally, none of my active powers except spells and Rage for my Barbarian. At least, it's extremely rare - as they're just not needed. I've never used a single potion or any kind of food.

I'm playing on Hard - and I'm not finding much in the way of challenge anymore. But that's fine, as I don't really enjoy the micromanagment of the combat system.

It's more or less like Baldur's Gate when it comes to "Core" challenge level, except the "hard" fights are much easier, so far. It starts out very hard - much like BG did, and starts to get easy around level 4-5, which is also much like BG. But BG hard fights were often REALLY hard - mostly because of nasty spell casters, where PoE doesn't seem to have many of those, at least not in my ~35-40 hours of playtime. The only fights I've had trouble with - with my current setup - were the Shade fights in the Lighthouse - until I found a decent bottleneck and I started using my Priest properly.

The combat system doesn't seem very well balanced in terms of challenge curve. I think most of their mechanics are relatively sound in concept (but really quite dull) - they just need a few more releases to hit a sweet spot. Perhaps the second expansion will have a better challenge curve.

I'm a rogue, rest are all companions: Fighter, Ranger, Priest, Wizard, Chanter or Cypher depending on mood.
Mostly my rogue scouts with his blunderbus in stealth mode, when he finds an enemy he scouts a little bit to see what other mobs are there, then back. If it's a tough fight he sets a trap, then sneak attack with snare the closest mob and then run to the rest of the group.

My main char is also a cypher and the rest of the party: Edér, Pallegina, Aloth, Durance and Agatha a custom made female druid. On my next playthrough I will try different class for the main char and will, most likely, take Mother and Kana into the group.

Rogue, Eder, Mother, and Durance. I haven't played in about 2 weeks, I had just started the faction areas, and so far this team has done outstanding work for me.

pellegina, eder, hiravis (or whatever he is called), durance, aloth and me (a cipher). I would have liked a barbarian in the front row, but didn't meet a barb NPC? I love my cipher…ah the power! I only regret the level cap, since I have found 6th level wizard spells and Aloth can't use them :-/

My main is a Cipher, pale elf. Eder as the tank, Druid npc for nuking and healing, Mother as second Cipher, Sagani and dog, and whiny Aloth to make me hate him.

Cool info guys. :)

Does anyone know what it takes to do the companions quests/stories? Do I need to keep them in my party a long time? Or can I quickly rotate them in and out to trigger them?

This is close to my playstyle, except I always start the battle with a free interdiction, and chanting. Eder may do a knockdown if it's getting too busy. I do spam mental binding every encounter though. I rarely take any damage to endurance with this approach… Probably should bump up the difficulty.

My party, in this formation:

x…x…x
..x….x

x…x…x

From top left to right:

Duke (Bear companion of Matthew)
Pallegina
Sagani
Matthew (Ranger)
Itumaak
Kana
Durance
Aloth

The 3 ranged characters are the 3 in the back row. The other 5 form a protective wall when possible. I try to focus Duke and Matthew on the same target, as well as Sagani and Itumaak. Matthew has the best deflection so I try to engage more targets with him.

Kana chants and summons wurms, Aloth slings spells and Durance casts offensive spells. All 3 use ranged weapons, and if an enemy slips through the line and starts attacking them, Kana can switch to a 2-handed weapon and engage them.

As long as the 5 primary melee characters hold the line well enough, it's a pretty sound party and I survive. If it turns into a giant mess, things could be ugly. :)

Some you need full time, such as Durance and Mother. Others like Aloth, or Kana you can swing in and out as necessary. I didn't use Kana at all after our initial meeting, but when I arrived at the level of the Great Dungeon where his quest is resolved, I sped back to the Stronghold and added him for that level. Quest completed.

Thanks for the info. I'd rather not have another cipher tagging along the whole time, but so be it. Cheers!

I guess Kana will take a back seat. Hirvanius will try frontlining for now. Too bad as he's been my best DPS nuker. Blizzard and Hailstorms are quite effective. May work if I double up on mental binding with Grieving Mother and my cipher to exert more control, though more repetitive… ;?

What classes are not available in the game as joinable npcs? I know there are no rogues (which I find very disappointing). What else is missing?

I'm talking about story npcs of course.

rogue, monk.. and… and barbarian I believe.

No monk "companions", either.