Well, that's exactly what I was talking about. As there are so many other options to raise your critical chance apart from raising WITs you can put points into scoundrel regardless. And the extra crit chance from putting points into WITs at the expense of your damage dealing ability does not get evened out.
E.g. this is the damage formula the game uses for a two hander:
[base weapon damage] * (1 + 0.05 * (STR + Two-Handed)) * (1+0.05* Warfare) * (1 + [if crit](0.5 + 0.05 * Scoundrel + 0.05 * Two-Handed)
calculation of crit chance: 0.01 * (WITs - 10) + [if hothead] 0.1 + [if human] 0.05 + 0.01 * [gear crit chance]
As far as I can tell [if crit] gets only calculated once for an ability, even if it involves multiple hits (e.g. Onslaught)
From the formula it's easy to see, that the most optimal way of character progress should look like this:
1. buy the best weapon you can find at each new level
2. max Warfare
3. max STR, get enough memory for your skills then put any leftover points into WITs
4. max Two-Handed put leftover points into Scoundrel
With a wizard build the picture changes slightly:
[spell base damage] * (1 + 0.05 * INT) * (1+0.05* elemental skill) * (1 + [if crit](0.5 + 0.05 * Scoundrel + [if high ground](0.2 + 0.05 * Huntsman)
calculation of crit chance: [if savage sortilage](0.01 * (WITs - 10) + [if hothead] 0.1 + [if human] 0.05 + 0.01 * [gear crit chance])
So here it's easy to see that in order to maximize damage you should technically maximize your favourite elemental skill. However, this would also make you relatively inflexible as you will encounter enemies with 100+ resistance to your chosen element. So it's best to create the build this way:
1. make sure you have enough Memory to have a nice assortment of spells from multiple schools
2. put 2-3 points into magic skills, maybe 5 in one or two
3. max INT
4. put the rest of the points into huntsman if you can stick to high ground
5. if you can see in advance that you won't be able to utilize high ground boni (e.g. upcoming indoor battle), respec into scoundrel
6. put leftover attribute points into WITs
The thing is, I only play on tactician and even on tactician you could still get by with inferior builds, especially after reaching Driftwood. So you can just play whatever character you like, even one who maxes out Leadership and Dual-Wielding and uses wands to deal damage. But no, this guy is not the optimal solution for this game.
As far as tanks go there is no such a thing as a tank in this game, due to the fact that there are no skills other than provoke to make an enemy attack a specific character. In fact, if you want to make a tank, it's probably best to make him a glass cannon and give him tons of CON and huge armor boni as the AI is programmed to go for the weakest link. Glass cannon would just put a large "hit me" sign on his back
I think I already had some suggestions regarding defensive abilities. Aero 2 with Uncanny Evasion (1AP), Teleport (2AP), Nether Swap (1AP) are possibly the best utilities in the game. You could also use Smoke Cover (1AP) or Chameleon Cloak (1AP).
However, I think the biggest problem with your party equipped with wands is that it's lacking cc capabilities. With wands you cannot utilize Battle Ram, Battle Stomp, Crippling blow and the rest of Warfare. Neither can you use special arrows for knockdowns / stuns / charms. And they do way less damage than any other weapon. This I think is the primary reason you feel you need more defense.
This game gives you plenty of abilities to incapacitate an enemy if you can't kill them outright. Not using these can certainly make life difficult.
