Starting a new game, would appreciate suggestions Options

[Mongerman]

Here I am, back for another round of punishment and self abuse. Anyway, my planned party (all created) is

Vagrant (flails as main weapon, axe or belm in offhand)
Sorcerer
Wizard (what would be a good specialist class for this character?)
Berserker (main tank, using shield with longsword/1 handed crushing weapon. All AC boosting items go to him)
Ranger/cleric
Cleric

Question, is the pureclass cleric really necessary? I choose her in anticipation of all the healing I'm going to need, but it would be great if I could throw in some melee capabilities as well.

2nd, I've been browsing the threads, and I notice the once popular f/m multi class does not have a place in many parties. What happened? Are they nerfed or something?

TIA for feedback!

[Shadan]

JD sword is single class warrior (ranger, paladin, kits etc.) only.
About AC: of course AC is still important factor in fights. I just wanted to say that in HARD fights against hard enemies, pure AC is not enough imho. Lets see some examples:
I have just killed Conster. He was a hard fight for me, because I didn't have lvl 7 spells for Ruby Ray, and I had only 1 scroll of it. So I had to endure out his SI, and those skeleton lords hit very hard even against -12 AC, what else, they were able to hit down Stoneskins from my blade with -20 AC defensive spin on.
In 4.2 in EDE or high end battles, the max. -24 AC is not enough, enemies can hit you many times without too much problem.
This is why I said, pure AC is not enough sometimes. Of course AC is important factor even in hard fights. To tell the truth, I always would use two weapons instead of weapon+shield, unless I need some special from shield, or unless I see that +4-5 AC will make my char almost unhittable. 2 weapons with Impr. Haste means +2 attack per round, and with good weapons and high strength, that is good damage per round...
Anyway, if you have blade, you don't need high AC tank. Cast Spirit Armor on blade, cast Melf's Minute Meteor, so you can attack from far with a very good damage per round rate. Then Stonekin, Mirror Image, Blur, Defensive Spin makes him the best tank... If I prepare with my blade, I can reach -24 AC with Def. Spin even at early part of the game. Sadly Mirror Image and Blur are useless many times, since all of the opponents cast True Sight. They are very good against golems btw, when no enemy spellcaster is there. I found Impr. Invis useless for similar reasons: enemies have True Sight always, SI: Div. doesn't work since enemies are much higher level than may chars, so a simple Remove Magic dispel all on my chars. And I cannot heal my own Impr. Invis character also with my cleric, so Impr. Inv. is more problem then what I gain from it. So imho illusion school became very weak and will be more weaker when Mislead out. But this is another topic, sorry for offtopic.