yeah n knights with vampyric weapons are almost immortal already, trolls are pretty useful for the stun / paralyze lock on enemies though

I guess it's also that dragons exist so if I'm not taking a dragon it's gonna be for good spells or misc skills

Yeah, the best parties for dealing damage include a Troll and a Knight. I still like always having a Cleric & Necromancer as well, with the 5th one being up in the air depending on need.

I always liked Dark Elf for disarm, merchant and the handy utility spell combo they get. While having master elemental magic AND a good set of weapon and armor skills. Also it's easy to get a lvl 50 one once you know where.

I will stick to minotaurs being pretty awkward, they only GM axe and perception of all things, and expert level self magic is really not great. Feels like you're always better with a knight or troll for fighting or a vampire that at least gets master level self and their unique spells. Though vampires were awkward too, they don't really replace a cleric and self magic doesn't stack too well.

But how early can you actually get a vampyric weapon?
Except that damage only helps if you're actually trying to kill enemies; if you are not, or if there's non-enemy hazards to worry about, then damage is useless but health is not.

Trolls might not have quite as much raw damage as a Knight because they don't have GM Armsmaster, but Omgzed is absolutely right about their combat utility. At least Expert Leather to remove the recovery penalty, Master Armsmaster, Master Sword if you want them to dual wield, GM Body Building for crazy high hp, and GM Regeneration for insane hp recovery. Everything else goes into Mace for that paralyze chance. They can even Master Repair Item if you don't want to just pop over to an Adventurer's Guild and have one of the pre-leveled Knights do it for you.

Looking at my end game Troll PC, he was rocking nearly 1100 hp at level 59 and had a 24% chance to paralyze any monster he hit in melee. Nearly 1 in 4 hits would just remove a monster from combat, to be cleaned up at my leisure, regardless of the monster's hp. My end game strategy was to run up to a monster pack and hold A to win.
I pretty much agree here. I pretty much always have a Dark Elf for Disarm and Merchant (comes with decent combat), Necromancer for GM Elemental and Dark, and Cleric for GM Self and Light. I like to take a dragon for the solid damage and early Fly. Vampires do come with levitate, which is nice for dealing with the indoor lava floors sprinkled around the game; they're decent fighters and Self magic users, but they're only "Nice to have".

I should try a Minotaur sometime to see how it plays out in practice. In spite of lacking both helmet and boots, maybe that Axe is better than I give it credit for. Maybe I'll try a Knight too at some point; I've never bothered with one since they don't bring anything unique to the table except GM Repair, and a quick TP over to Ravenshore or Dagger Wound gets the same effect without using a character slot.

if you up for some save scumming about 30 min into the game, if not, well then its pretty rng n could take a while ye

think minotaurs might be worth it with a full melee dps party for the AC reduction on tough enemies, probably not sprinkled into a "well rounded" party though.

since we talking about our favorite parties I'll have to tell yall about the magic of 4 dark elves + a cleric, with bow being the only skill you really care about you'll get close to 0 recovery very quickly and just machinegun shit down like blasters with extra damage. I also think lacking gm water in the party makes the game more fun and fair but ya know

How long would it have taken for that troll to recover from 1 HP to full health? (Also, did your troll ever die (or get knocked out) to HP damage in the endgame, or is 1100 HP plus health regen enough for the enemy's damage output to not be able to keep up?)

With spell buffs from Light magic, you can stand in front of almost anything and just hold down the attack button, with or without trolls. There's also a powerful regen spell that can be cast on anyone.

Is the Axe debuff one that sticks around? It didn't look clear if it was just for the axe attack or for everyone, I guess that could be decent.

That other party sounds pretty fun - and it's true that GM Water gets a bit absurd. As long as you have Master water you still get pretty good quality of life without the broken ability to town portal out to a temple and lloyds right back to where you were. I've always been too lazy to play without at least master rank elemental magic though, town portal and flight are something I don't want to give up.

A late game option - but also pretty fun is stacking necromancers and flying around outside to stack up enemies. Because souldrinker works outside.

Also I realize now that I think I was just assuming the troll paralyze didn't really work well for some reason.

it should stick yeah, I've only tested it in mm7 though so

If the AC debuff sticks around for the whole party to use, then maybe Minotaur, Knight, Troll, Dark Elf, Cleric. You'd keep Master Elemental for Fly, Town Portal, and some item enchanting, and the only real Dark magic buff you'd lose is Pain Reflection.
You can also go into Turn Based and use the Troll to specifically target unparalyzed enemies to remove them. This helps in cases like the first room of the Fire Plane castle with all the elementals throwing fireballs and such.

The only enemy that really seemed dangerous in MM8 - assuming appropriate levels - were the crystal dragons. Paralyze would be great on them, if it works.

that's weird I always found the earth and fire planes way harder than the crystal which seemed quite easy, then again I don't think I've ever been "appropriately leveled" in any of the games

It's mostly the fact that you can't just fly away from them or kite them easily as they appear in confined indoor spaces.