Quote: I was hoping that both of these characters' would be viable on their own.An avenger is viable; it is one of the more powerful PVM non-caster paladin builds (well, nothing can outkill a hammerdin anywhere ever, save "Happy Wailing Beast Land"). The trick is, however, that an avenger needs medium-decent equipment (well, as all melee characters). And even if you avenger is very well equipped, a naked sorceress will outkill him, since Conviction makes every spell a lethal attack.
Despair not, however, since the avenger will be a powerful character in itself, and my ladder-playing experience shows, that if you hoard perfect gems, you can buy yourself the mid-level gear (like Guardian Angel) that will give you a 95% resall, fast-blocking character that is capable of killing EVERY ENEMY IN THE GAME on their own, with the minimum amount of personal risk (wearing a Tgod, you can chat with your friends in the middle of a gloam pack, and keep your party members death count :P).
The avenger is the true party-leader kind of paladin Blizzard intended the paladins to be. He can kill on his own (taking out the critical monsters his party members can't), increase the effectiveness of his partners' attacks, and provide protection (if you get bored by the constant yelps of "TP TP!" in a gloam--infested Worldstone, switch to Resist Lightning, and let the others do the killing).
You just need to think warm fuzzy thoughts about this when your sorceress partners kill the bosspacks with a single meteor :)