I got a balanced party and it works very well. If you party is too unbalanced you might get some troubles in certain fight specially later in the game when you find a lot of spellcasters as enemies. And if you move right and have a good formation the monsters do not hit your mages or other ranged combat chars, and if it really happens, they normaly do no die the first blow, even my fairymage can take some blows
Vader