Escape from Castrum Centri is impossible to complete

In the main story mission, Escape from Castrum Centri, the NPCs (Biggs, Wedge, and the Two other characters in the 2nd fight) who assist you in defeating the Imperial soldiers are laughably weak. No matter what actions or strategies I employ as a Scholor/Arcanist, they die before I can accomplish anything, no matter how many echoes stacks I have.

The first fight is much of a coin flip at 5 Echoes stacks. Biggs and Wedge lose HP to the enemies so rapidly it's funny. I cannot gain threat to take the hits for them. I cannot heal them faster than they take damage, no matter my choices in healing spells. I cannot DPS down the enemies in this fight fast enough most of the time, because one of the NPCs has much greater HP than the others, and attacks Biggs to the exclusion of everything else. Neither Biggs nor Wedge do anything to avoid AoE Circles, and stand right on top of one another, and since I cannot obtain any kind of Aggro, I cannot reposition anything. There are 2 NPCs to be freed in this fight, but doing so is nearly impossible, takes longer than it takes for Biggs/Wedge to lose 50% of their health, and adds little to their survivability. It also summons more foes to fight. The only way I have beaten this first fight is pure DPS in Cleric Stance, and then, as I have said, its kind of a coinflip, as I cannot win consistently.

The Second fight is an even bigger offender. The 2 NPS who join you in this fight have the same problem, they cannot survive the fight for more than a minute. This fight requires you to leave the fight after dealing with the lesser foes to destroy a generator that makes an Elite foe invulnerable. By the time I have destroyed the generator, an amount of time I clocked at 16 seconds, the 2 NPCs lost 80% of their health. When the Elite Robot is defeated, 2 more spawn in, along with 2 corresponding generators. The one time I got this far, I didn't even have time to check if destroying the generators made the robots vulnerable, as the NPCs died, and I had to restart BOTH fights. I hear there is even a third robot wave I must fight after the two robots from the second wave are defeated. I have never seen it.

I have researched this quest; these NPCs are reported to be very durable. They are not for me. I had a veteran player watch me stream this fight; he has said I did everything correct, I have proper gear, use all my skills correctly, etc. The NPCs just die 10-20x Faster than I expect them to. Most of these kinds of NPCs in story fights are fairly durable, and give you some wiggle room to negotiate what is going on.

I have contacted a GM and they directed me to post here. I hope a fix can be found soon, as I cannot continue the game without passing this story quest.