Well, my sorc can teleport down to the Throne pretty reliably, but nowhere near that quickly. Either the sorceress you were playing with has a very well-developed sense of the patterns of the map randomizer, or she’s using Maphack. My sorc can also deal with the first three sets of minions pretty quickly (except for Colenzo, but as long as anyone else is targetting him, that’s fine), but the Venom Lords (unless there’s Conviction or Lower Resists around) and the Listerians pose a problem for her, as does Baal.
On the other hand, my paladin can handle the minions adequately (though slower than the sorc), and absolutely rips through Baal. Typically, I use my sorc for the first part of a run, and quickly switch characters about when Ventar shows up.
As for an ideal party, I’d build a little differently than Munch. I’d go with five paladins, a barbarian, a necromancer, and a sorceress, as follows:
Paladin 1: Avenger, conviction
Paladin 2: Avenger, salvation
Paladin 3: Hammers, concentration
Paladin 4: Medic, cleansing/meditation (with maxed Prayer)
Paladin 5: Zealot, fanaticism
Barbarian: Concentrator
Necromancer: skeletons, curses
Sorceress: Enchant, teleport, heavy artillery of choice
I’d then have one each of the six Act 2 mercs, but no more. If we want more tanks, we might as well use the act 5 barbarians, since they do more damage and have more life, and we already have the auras. We’d also want to use aura items, if available: Even though we already have all the good ones covered, this will inprove coverage if the group spreads out.
For the paladins, I basically chose the auras I wanted, and then chose the build which can best use that aura. The weak one is number 2, the Salvation paladin, but it’s a synergy for Vengeance, at least. And having him in the party will significantly free up everyone else’s equipment, so I think it’s a fair trade. Since Medic doesn’t take very many points, though, we could merge the Medic and Saviour to open up a slot.
A singing barbarian can have slightly higher warcries than a fighter, but his main value in party is to immobilize targets for the others (and we’re going to kill too fast for that to matter). Trust me, a singer’s damage output is slow, and he wouldn’t benefit much from the assorted mayhem the rest of the party is contributing. A concentrator, on the other hand, can easily max Battle Orders, and has a solid attack that’ll benefit from Might, Fanaticism, Concentration, Blessed Aim, and Conviction. We won’t need Battle Cry, since Conviction will already reduce monster defenses to near nothing, and Decrepefy does a better job on reducing damage. Leave the curses to the necromancer.
The necromancer will want all curses available, though he’ll mostly be using Lower Resist, Amplify Damage, or Decrepefy (hey, versatility is good). He only needs to spend one point on each, since the curses have such early diminishing returns, and he’ll be wearing +skill gear. Meanwhile, his army of skeletons will benefit from almost all of the party-friendly skills.
And the sorceress will enchant everything in sight (four melee characters, eight mercenaries, and a dozen or two skeletons), and contribute heavy artillery. Together with the hammerdin, she’s more than enough to clear out crowds. She can afford to specialize, since Conviction and possibly Lower Resists will leave nearly everything vulnerable to whatever element you choose. She can also afford to load up on magic finding gear, of course.
This leaves us without the benefit of the Druid’s spirits, but in a power party this size, I think we can expect to see at least one Heart of the Oak, Bramble armor, wisp projector, Nature’s Peace, and/or Passion weapon, all of which have assorted spirit charges, and a necromancer can contribute more minions than a druid, so I’m not sure how much we’re missing there.