Croca is a good supportive fighter, since he only has one ability which requires a melee weapon, you can give him a missile weapon and stick him in the back row to give him a defensive advantage. I usually equip Croca with medium armor to give him more quickness than most of the heavy armor users, and a battle standard to attract missiles and spells.
what are some nice things you've done for the ragdoll? i've set up a party for it, with cake, balloons, and even some gifts! but there was something wrong... no, he wouldn't... he couldn't! he did! the ragdoll has managed to catch itself on fire from the candle on the cake! of course this triggered the fire alarm, thus activating the shotgun hidden in the wall causing it to shoot the ragdoll right in the head. well, that escalated quickly.
Sorry for posting a second comment, but I've thought of a nice add-on to the permanent death challenge: You may revive your fallen allies after you've completed a zone.
Permanent death challenge: Whenever an ally dies in battle you must remove them from the party, but if Sonny dies then you must restart your saved game. Challenging or Heroic difficulty is recommended, but not required.
It's like these nubs never played an rpg before, usually when an enemy has an absurd amount of health that enemy usually has a gimmick to kill him faster. like with the baron, if he runs out of focus he will damage himself to get it back, try draining his focus, every class has some move that drains an enemy's focus.
I notice a lot of people have trouble with the Baron, all you need to do is survive until he kills himself because he must regain focus, or drain his focus yourself and kill him faster. Either way works, good luck on heroic.