Faction fundamentals

So I've been testing out the different heroes and their respective factions and after having a horrible time with anyone but the Order champions I am kind of confused how everyone seems to think that Vizargo and his Volatists are the strongest.

The Order have been consistently the easiest to reach final stand and clear the map now. Edwin starts out pretty strong and at Level 10 he can easily tank a horde on his own and simultaneously clear large chunks with his abilities. Merek almost never runs out of armor and can spin to win with virtually no cooldown. The Order Knights can clear Elite Mob camps on their own and are great frontliners similar to sentinels but with more damage and cleave. Lightbearers make clearing the map easier by removing horrified effects on the go and healing troops.

The Rebellion seems to have stronger ranged units, but after focusing hard on Hunters and some Sentinels as frontline I struggled to survive Deathnights due to a lack of aoe. Sentinels are pretty tanky but compared to Order Knights they just aren't as self sufficient and need help from damage dealers to actually move forward. They also embolden at a snail's pace since they do so little damage and barely last hit anything. Rogues also feel like they are not that useful. You cant send them into a horde for cleanup since they are so squishy and doing straight up damage is better from afar. Clearing the map with Cyrus, a bunch of archers and Sentinels was way too slow and a few times Cyrus and his archers even got overwhelmed by some axemen and crawlers. Edwin would have solo'd that easily even at Level 4. Really disappointed by Cyrus. He did a lot of aoe on a deathnight though I have to give him that I was pretty impressed.

The Volatists felt the worst to me. The starting units, the cultists, are squishy as shit and if you dont constantly micro and move them around they get one shot by a spitter and your clearing troop is halved in an instant. You also can't send them to hold and defend against a horde since they get annihilated by aoe almost instantly. At least the normal footsoldiers survive a spitter shot. Vizargo does some good damage but as a melee with no armor he cant really tank much and you have to keep worrying about him. Also their units cannot be emboldened and rather do more damage when horrified, which doesnt seem that useful to me. They are still affected by the horrified status which slows them down and keeps splitting your units since the not horrified ones keep outrunning the horrified ones. This leads to awkard situations where you have to run in circles to let the slower ones catch up every now and then, if you dont want your forces to be split before initiating fights. The slowed units also run into spitter shots that are aimed at the faster ones by default which adds another micro you need to constantly be aware of since, again, they can't take a single spitter shot. Since a lot of map exploration is made easier by placing fire sconces your units are constantly losing their horrified status and the benefits of it. Completely disregarding fire sconces seems like a catastrophically bad decision though since enemies respawn in unlit areas. All in all I don't seem to get what the deal is with the volatists. I keep reading Vizargo is really strong at level 10, but that can't be the only reason right?

I can't really find good YouTube Video guides on Age of Darkness and information is scarce all around for this game. Can someone help me understand how to play Rebellion/Volatists? I am especially interested in Cyrus since I like his design and heavy aoe focus, but I can't quite get the same tempo as with the Order and overall the game feels a lot more difficult when playing these factions.