The T2 Footman + Cleric spam run wasn't meant to "win" it was meant to see if it was possible to tank the final boss at all with absolute max tankiness+sustain. It was more a balance check than anything, and if max tank + max sustain doesn't have any chance at tanking something. Then its damage is probably overtuned. That was the mindset behind that test.
But yeah currently if I wanted to win every run, I'd just rush T2 footmen, T2 Cleric and then either Strongbowman or Fire mage as the 3rd. Swordmen can be solid, but the RNG of then randomly being cleaved/target swapped to doesn't make up for their upside (what is their upside over mage, actually?). Berserker is too RNG for me. It just feels so bad unless it spins, and if you get one early and it just decides to not spin at all 3 waves in a row. You just lose, and there is nothing you can do about it. No choice was "wrong" it was just RNG. So that's not an enjoyable gameplay experience to me personally. Same can somewhat be said for Strongbowmen's pierce, but since there's two of them. You get more normalized outcomes.
Archer feels like they are in a weird spot. I was super excited about the damage swap, thinking it would be great. But so far they have just felt bad. There being 3 of them should be an upside, but most the time it just means they will split their damage in ways that are entirely unhelpful.
My issues with the orclings was mostly just a skill issue not being used to the new patch. Having played against them some more, they are not really a threat, unless you get the 40 orcling wave where they aren't actually showed in the UI, unless you scroll and just hit "resolve fight" on muscle memory. Which was what happened the first time I got wrecked by them. So that was probably more of a slight UI issue leading to a misinformed decision, than an actual balance issue. Paired with me playing too fast.