Kaylon

Sapphires and rubies can't be found in shops either, but they're less scarce than adra ban.

He said compared to PoE1 (like most classes) which I also agree. In Deadfire priests/wizards are considered OP only because the SoT/Wall of Draining cheese... Without those spells they would be on par with druids, ie just an average class...

The monk is the strongest and you don't have to buff yourself for 10 min before each fight...

All abilities/spells/itemss are overall weaker in Deadfire. A way to compensate this is to find another class having good synergy with the one you want to play. For a ranged wizard a great combo is with a helwalker which adds might, intellect, penetration and speed... The monk can also use Citzal's spear as a ranged weapon (with Instruments of Pain) as a way to deal ranged AOE damage, which is even better than the PoE1 rod. If you want to make a melee wizard, then you can combine a bloodmage with a paladin and tank any monster in the game.

You can use drugs before the fight.

Shieldbearer isn't required anymore for this build, you can pick any paladin subclass... To avoid the extreme self damage from Sacred Immolation you need Voidward, Ring of the Solitary Wanderer, high resolve and use Clarity of Agony to reduce the number of raw dmg tics to 2-3.

You talk about solo? Having access to brilliant is just nice, I'm not even sure there's a tactician combo who can solo every megaboss (without wall of draining/salvation of time cheese).

Actually Brilliant itself is pretty weak. The problem comes from Wall of Draining/Salvation of Time and the fix was always pretty simple, don't let Brilliant/Blood Sacrifice restore them.

The Red Hand is perfect for Maia Rua, you don't need to make a special build for it... For Frostseeker the ranger is mandatory (accuracy+bounce). I don't recommend SC because Twinned Shots is expensive and you can't use it many times (unless you're using the mod from Nexus which changed Twinned Shots to restore Bond on crits). If you want to have a pet I recommend Ascendant/Arcane Archer which has great buffs/CCs and can keep the pet alive. If you don't want to bother with a pet then Ghost Heart/Helwalker - adds accuracy, dmg, speed, 2 strong pets and also can stun at will. The rogue/ranger can also deal great damage (sneak attack/deathblows apply to the AoE) but requires buffs/CCs from the party in order to be effective.

Can you change the color of the models? I always wanted to make the armor/weapons set of the Deathdealer (berserker/streetfighter) using existing items: Rekvu's Helm (black) - maybe something like Deltro's Cage (but for melee damage) gives a raw dmg lash The Bloody Links (black) - add some mods from Reckless Brigandine/Guardian's Plate Magran's Favor (2h axe black) - like Lord Darryn's Voulge but with raw dmg instead Sasha's Sniging Scimitar (black) - with mods similar to Kapana Taga Cadhu Scalth (black) - retaliate with main attack on miss

Priest and wizard combos are very strong, but they require lots of buffing (which becomes very tedious in the long run) and are vulnerable to dispelling. Tactician's trick (become brilliant while invisible) is good for solo, but not if you have a party. For party game play the strongest classes are the Darcozzi paladin/troubadour (the swiss knife of the game) or the Darcozzi paladin/bloodmage (requires minor buffing, but has access to powerful nukes) both being solid from the start to the end. (you can replace the Darcozzi with Steel Garrote if you want to be evil).

If the rogue can't maintain the enemies afflicted reliably he will do poor damage. And if you have to cast CCs often, your dps will go down also (the Gaze of Adragan is good on paper, but it comes very late, has very short duration and targets the highest defense of the enemies). A good solution is to use the Ring of Clenched Muscle to afflict enemies, however it comes late too. But if you have a cipher or a blood mage you want to micro manage to maintain the enemies afflicted all the time, then it will work.

Like Boeroer said, the answer is the Frostseeker build. If you like to always have a pet then I recommend ascendant/arcane archer with bear companion because the cipher has great buffs for the pet. If you want the feel of the PoE1 archer with stunning shots, then you should try helwalker/ghost heart (the pet is harder to keep alive and it's better to not bother about Bonded Grief) can spam later Stunning Surge. The rogue/ranger works great with other weapons (Red Hand, mortars), but doesn't have good synergy with Frostseeker. The devoted/ranger is pretty good too if you want to trade versatility for survivability.

Big shields should do more damage or else small shields will be strictly better for bashing because no accuracy loss.