If you want to stay generally away from Wizards… I’d do Falchoner for the skill Circling, which allows you’re AoEs to become true AoEs which lets you totally wreck end game content. (it’s kill 150 mobs in one room in 5mins type stuff)
----him
As the person above me suggested Quarrel shooter is a great choice for early levels of archer since the 3rd circle of Quarrel Shooter has a great attack speed buff and there is a lot of utility in the class. Your friend will even gets to fulfill some of the tank roll by tossing down big shields to hide behind or caltrops to hinder enemy movement.
I would do Archer>QuarrelC3>Falchoner>Cannon or Musketeer depending on whatever your friend thinks is more badass. Personally I like the snipe skill for the musketeer. But lugging around a giant ship sized cannon has it’s own appeal.
----You as paladin
And if you wanted to do a strong support role that scaled very well into end game. I’d ClericC2/DievC1/PaladinC3/PlagueDrC1 . You will be able to protect a party from melee attacks with Barrier and your friend will be able to do Deploy Pavise inside the Barrier to block ranged attacks. So you’ill have some pretty crazy control for end game content. ClericC2 will give you good basic healing and a strong safety wall, DievC1 will give you another melee attack Carve and 20% cooldown reduction which is very good late game. Paladin of course gives you their hallmark Barrier and Conversion as well as a nice suite of defensive buffs and some physical attacks. And lastly PlagueDr gives you debuff removal and prevention and arguably the best heal: healing factor.
You will have one weakness late game and that’s monsters that have the spell reversi that steal your barrier or heal tiles. But I think they’re only on a couple floors of the Earth Tower and I’m sure you can tough it out anyway and just bring a traditional tank for that little bit.
—You as monk
You could do a build with monk instead but you would need to rely on someone else to tank for you. If you do a monk I would personally run. ClericC2>DievC2>MonkC3 the DievC2 adds the ability to silence a room which is strong stuff. As well as Owl Statues which can tank some monsters and deal good damage even without investment in Int or high matk. As a priest you’ill have matk on all your mace type weapons by default so you’ill have some even without putting stats into Int. And MonkC3 will give you some great armor strips which will stack with your friends armor strips (bows get that stuff passively). And you will have some decent emergency defense skills.