What party would synergize with a hydrosophist mage?

[Die Dame des Berges]

I want my main character to be a mainly hydrosophist mage, focusing on heals,armour and ice surfaces. What kind of party builds would complement this playstyle?

[Reeva!]

Aerothurge would be great. Hydrosophists make enemies Wet with their abilities, reducing their air resistance, you could have a heavy hitting Aerothurge to compliment you.

Any tank with Taunt and a lot of Retribution to reflect damage taken back to enemies, your Hydrosophist can make them invulnerable when they take too much damage, heal and remove effects from them, and Hydrosophists can Chill enemies along an Aerothurge's shock abilities, handicapping enemies a ton. Scepter (Wand) and Shield is great because you're magic orientated, physical damage is going to have a tough time going through armour with just the tank doing that type of damage.

Geomancers can work as well because they can turn water surfaces into poison surfaces, although that could heal undead enemies which is crappy unless the Geomancer is undead, which is also crappy because Hydrosophists can't heal undead.

Summoners are all rounders. Summoners can take some of the gimmicky Polymorph skills because they have really situational builds that are powerful when it works, Atrophy and Chicken Claw being 2 of many, Chicken Claw cuases enemies to run around and if you've covered the enemies in ice they can't run away properly. That, and Summoners can make Air/Water elementals to further make enemies Wet as needed if your abilities are on cooldown, to decrease air resistance, or blast them with lightning if you have enough Wet procs.

Huntsmen. They're ranged, and Hydrosophists can limit the movement of enemies that will protect your squishy bow users so they can spec fully into damage. They can also use Elemental Arrowheads on Electric surfaces, since all your enemies are wet and take bonus damage.

Make sure to get variety past Air/Water magic. There are a few bosses who heavily resist both.

Edit: You can also make your tank a Polymorph, because they have Heart of Steel and Equalize, regenerating physical armour while your Hydrosophist buffs their magical armour, and Equalize is best used to recover health by reducing enemy health. Your low life tanks can become boss busters this way and keep themselves alive, since you don't want your Hydrosophist sinking healing into a high HP target when your other allies need your heals more.

[Chaoslink]

Contrary to the above, I’d recommend against a sword and board tank. The way threat “works” if you want to use that word, means your tanky character won’t be focused. Even taunt rarely does what you think it would.

The reality is, the game rewards offense and makes defense builds struggle. The more offense focused your builds are, the easier you’ll find the game.

[Reeva!]

Taunt is a bit iffy, in that, if you taunt an enemy, it will prioritize buffing itself over hitting the taunter. Or, it will try and hit the taunter and whoever else it can hit at the same time with AoE skills, but Taunt does work as you'd expect it to, the enemies are just smart enough to not swing their sword wildly at you, they'll try to find ways to be as effective as possible, however they cannot simply target a different character while taunted. I'm not sure if they can reposition themselves in favour of simply running away, but even if they do, they can't do anything to anyone else.

[surreptitious]

geo ...turn the screen green