I finished VII without too much trouble with a really odd party - monk, thief, archer, druid. Only the Archer could use any Light magic at all, and obviously this team has no GM magic of any kind; pretty different. I missed having GM Protection from Magic as others have said, but it didn't render the game unwinnable by any stretch of the imagination, just a pain in the neck in places. The Druid was the MVP for much of the game, in the late going the Monk took over - hitting for well over 100 damage, about as often as the rest of the group put together.

4 sorcerers is the funniest build imo. Let them grandmaster one elemental school each then put it all into light/dark magic. Once you have 4x divine intervention you are kind of good at healing. And when everyone can summon 5 light elementals each you can throw out lots of distractions so hostiles don't attack you

I have always like the party of thief, cleric, druid, sorcerer

playing the game without cleric / sorc is more challenging and more fun, also allows for some interesting parties so I'd suggest trying it

I second this. Either this or Cleric/Cleric/Sorcerer/Thief (/Archer).

Isn't MM7 two games in one? Dark path ("for Blood"?) and light path ("for Honor"?). Lets us use two different parties.

Never liked the cross over classes in MMVII. But I did try Ranger which was okay, sort of. Probably because he could use the Minotaur Axe with some effect and I think that Axe looks cool.

To cover everything:

MM6: default Paladin, Archer, Cleric, Sorcerer - good for learning the MM ropes; also, it is the challenge we've been set.

MM7: default Knight, Thief, Cleric, Sorcerer - accept Mr. Malwick's offer, just to see what will happen. Choose dark.
MM7, second time: choose light with Monk, Ranger, Druid, Sorcerer (if this is a harder party to play, so much the better).

Ranger, Paladin, Monk, Archer

You are without any "pure" class, no best mage, no best healer, no best fighter, no best thief.
At least you have the best archers, usefull to kite monsters without needing mana.

GM alchemy is mega worthless

Yeah have to agree, to get GM alchemy you need a druid in ur party (And yes also its useless since u can buy black potios in the pit or Celeste, and 50+ aint that much of a gamebreaker. And druids in MM7 is "meh".
The best and most fun min/max parties in MM7 is 1Cleric/3Sorcs (For prot from magic so u dont die) Or a melee party consisting of 3 Knights 1 Cleric. Honestly the melee party is the most fun and feels the most genuine (atleast after completing the games around 30 times during the course of 20 years). With the melee party u just hire an instructor and a teacher for max EXP gain. You can also Hire a flightmaster and a Gatemaster for convinience. Also a small tip for the knights (this goes for mm6 aswell), use 2h Axes. Or if dualwielding then Axe/dagger (just 4 points into dagger).
Once you reach axe skill or 30 or so, your recovery will start to get to 30 with is the fastest (27 with a helmet of recovery).
And your damage will be insane. Ive been readong so much about Spear/sword for the past 20 years and ppl really seem set in their minds that its the best.... I mean 20 years?? And they completly overlooked axes?! Like.... wow... ppl are sheep.

Just get urself a 2h axe of darkness. Or 1h axe of darkness and some elemental dagger (pref ice or thunder)
Just kill the minotaurs in mm6 and ul get one fast if u just do some save/load infront of the corpse, and cmon ppl... before u start ranting on about how its cheat/exploit its a 20+ year old game. Everyone knows about this.
Just go to krigespire castle (can be done quite early at lvl 20 or so for beginners) and kill the first 2 minotaurs in the first room (can be a little had but u can do it!!) then just go along the hallway and you will se minotaurs behind some windows and also behind some bars in the floor if you go the right way. Just position yourself so they cant hurt you while you hurt them. And whoops ur gona start getting axes from the minotaur kings!

Clubs have a recovery time of 30 from the beginning, can be used by anybody, and need no skill points spent on using them (cannot have any spent on them). Whether the recovery time is by accident or by design I do not know, but if it was by accident, it is an accident that the Grayface patch hasn't corrected.

I'm currently playing, have got to level 15, and my sorcerer, having already reached expert in all four elemental magics, has just gone from spiked club alone (I haven't found a +5 killer one) to spiked club in right hand and dagger in left. Twice the damage half as often, but a better chance to hit.

I feel like druids could be good if black pots would A: be impossible to buy, B: you could drink more than 1 per stat, C: higher stats were more useful and D: black pots were harder to make. I think it would be a cool way to endgame-grind if you could gather rare ingredients to boost your party.

BTW: Where do you find comprehensive info on actual values behind recovery?

Grayface patch. https://grayface.github.io/mm/ Right mouse button over Attack and Shoot in character Stats display. Shows us the current value; what influences it we have to learn by trial and observation.

Thanks!