2 Warriors, 2 Rogues, or 2 Mages?

[Agent Chieftain]

As I'm sure we all know, these are the 3 basic core character archetypes at the heart of an RPG. However, this creates an interesting dynamic when it comes to team building when you have a party size of 4; such as in Dragon Age, and here in Baldur's Gate 3.

To have a balanced team, you would have to have at least 1 of each basic role, but this leaves you to decide what role is taken by the last slot. And while hybrids exist, most of them usually fall closer to one archetype than the other, rather than being totally balanced. A Paladin can heal and support, but every turn he's doing that is a turn he's not delivering an almighty smiting.

So, given the choice when building a party, which basic archetype do you choose to double-up on?

Personally, I usually prefer to run with 2 warrior archetypes in a party. It's nice have 2 tanky bois who can sit at the front of the battle. Then just have a mage and bow using rogue use whatever ranged attacks, debuffs and support skills they have from the back.

[Foolswalkin]

You can slice the archetypes up lots of different ways. 4e DND was Defender, Striker, Leader (healer/support), and Controller (CC), with ranged, melee, or hybrid versions of each, and classes with primary and secondary strengths. When you divide them this way, you don’t need redundancy.

[DexGames]

To answer directly, minding your setup, I'd say : Two Spellcasters.
One support oriented, the other one damage oriented.

[buttawise]

I like doubling up on magic people while being the heroic melee. Paladin/Barb. Sometimes I dex cleric or dex bow/fighter. Thanks to sleight of hand I dont need to bring rogues but I do like bards/blades.

I like Druids, Clerics, Bards for my supports and i'll usually play a super offensive Str pally leaving a 4th spot open for a friend or say a story character I like because I enjoy narrative so if i feel someone is story relevant i'll save a spot for them or build around them. Like using Steiner and Vivi together in FF9 it's literally pointless to have steiner and not Vivi in the same party.

[RakiaTime]

imma go full melee party, balance be damned

[Indure]

I don't think you need 1 of each. The only thing I think each party needs is 1 person to be the Face (stupid number of charisma checks) and 1 person that can do AoE damage (stupid amount of enemies on screen per fight). After that how you mix and match members seems arbitrary.

[ShadowBastard69]

always saw it as 4 basic roles for a "balanced" party. tank, healer, caster dps/cc/utility, dps/lock picker. in this case both the caster and the rogue (ranger could also fill this slot probly) share the dps role but 1 also brings CC and utility and the other being essential for locks and traps.

[Nurse A'vani]

As a Dragon Blood sorcerer, you can be both a mage and a rogue at the same time (See Shadow Blade)!

[Edstyles]

Ranger can be both tank , ranged damage , meele damage and pet utility and rogue utility(thief). Ranger is stacked :D and I like it , much better than whats its suposed to be.