There are a lot of idiot proof caster builds that stomp, period. Minimal gear, massive impact. There are even people out there who perform insanely good as caster dps. Just straight caster. Druid 18/1/1 for example. No need for weird EK imbue, but even EK is pretty bullet proof for r1 on limited gear and lives, because you have so much sustain baked into the build.
Sorc, blightcaster, (believe it or not da, it is a swiss army knife after all!), warlock, arti-repeater, anything inquis. Some of these go up to high r with little help. All of these can be built with massive room for build errors and still manage soloing and low r. Melee, is it _potentially_ better? Maybe, under certain circumstances. But it sure as hell isn't as easily accessible as caster lives or the inquis/repeater lives.
Examples of "you need to know" are things like possibly skipping one or both of the first heavy armor training feats, or the first or first and second tactical training feats, as the cost per effect is so low for the feat investment.
If you blindly took all four of both, that is a heavy feat tax that doesn't represent a wise return on investment. It is hard to pick not-useful feats as a caster, even if you are an ultra noob. An ultra noob for instance isnt going to take throwing weapon expertise on a wizard for example.