I picked Landsknecht and Survivalist in EO2 and my damage was fine, but it was partly because I got the Zamiel bow early on. I literally picked Land just for Tornado and to have a warm body that could absorb hits on the front line. I get that Land is supposed to be suboptimal or "weak" or whatever in terms of DPS, but having a reliable frontiner with area damage seemed way more practical to me than having a one-shot god. In hindsight even she wasn't necessary - my Gunner and Survivalist did most of the work, with support from Hexer.
What's funny is, all this was the case, even though I sat on my points for most of the game. Like my War Magus was a Warmight/healslut with 35 unused points by fifth stratum end. Other characters would have 15-20+ unused points starting with the 3rd stratum. It feels like the game is very strangely balanced with a lot of skills being dead air, and a lot of skills being easy to max out. I didn't upgrade my Survivalist's 2-shot past 1 for almost the entire game and she still kept walloping everything for 300-400 damage up to the end.
I hope EO3 lives up to the party building hype. 1 and 2 just felt kinda bland, and it's been well over a decade since I played 4.