Kaylon

There are too many holes and you assume too many things. Without seeing a video I have a very hard time to believe it can be pulled off.

Even if you manage somehow to kill the first form of Hauani, you can't prevent the merge.

Not true, he can't kil the ooze and I doubt he can kill the water dragon either. A psion/assassin could kill them (use Disintegration vs Hauani), however he will also have a hard time against the water dragon. But waiting 2hrs for a boss to die from bleeding isn't very fun. (And in theory all classes can exploit this trick using Lover's Embrace/potions of invisibility.)

Go with DoC breastplate and pick the health regen bonus because with your crit chance you can keep it up all the time while the AR bonus can be triggered only twice. Also don't forget to buy Voidward ASAP.

Two hits is enough. If you can Mule Kick both oozes at the same time and get your discipline back you can prevent them from merging.

In my video on youtube I already kill him in something like 25min. You can improve the dps by changing some items (pet, armor, belt) and use Marux Amanth when he's under 25% health - all that would cut the time by more than 1/4.

Hauani takes 1 hour... With optimized gear Dorudugan can be killed in less than 20 min by a herald. The monk becomes OP when he gets WotW, until then he struggles and has to skip many fights... Another strong solo class is the bloodmage/paladin - he performs better than the herald against Hauani, but he has a harder battle against Dorudugan. The tactician/assassin is probably the most OP class, save vs Hauani. It's the most effective as a sniper, but it works very well as a melee too (infinite Unbending helps). I never tried using Wahai Poraga with Mule Kick, but if the knock up is applied to all the targets it hits while giving your discipline back, it might be a solution... PS. Forgot about soulblade/paladin using Sun and Moon/Tuotilo's Palm. He can kill easily Hauani - when less than 25% health left cast Disintegration and finish him with Marux Amanth. In theory he can kite Dorudugan or use Nomad's Brigandine to avoid his attacks in melee. I'm pretty sure you can also tank him because you can reach 21 melee AR as a paladin, reducing his damage by 75%. The only problem is the AoE fire attacks will heal him back and I'm not sure the dps will be enough to kill him (the herald can also tank him in melee, but can't kill him because of that).

The fire shield stays if you switch from Magran's Favor?

Bloodmage/assassin is very strong because at high level you can have unlimited invisibility. Losing health to restore your invisibility spell isn't a big problem because you can use infinite vampiric touch to backstab and heal back (on top of regen/heal on kill items you can have). But until then you can play like a regular assassin/mage.

Even if it's 15% dmg every 3s, it's not a 30% lash because it doesn't stack - it will just add 15% more dmg every 3s, no matter your attack speed. Voidwheel (without the proc) will add 20% dmg with every attack which even with an average 3s delay will outdps Effort easily.

Maiming does 15% total damage, not 15% more dmg every 3s... In fact it does 5% raw dmg every 3s (3 times with 10INT) and it doesn't stack, which means adding more INT won't increase the total bleed damage (if you hit always the same target). If you attack every 3s it's like having a sword with 5% lash, if you attack faster it's even less - not even close to the dps Voidwheel can produce (20% lash and 25% chance to proc Necrotic Lance)...

Keeper of the Flame

The reason to play the pale elf are mostly the elemental resistances which will help at higher difficulties. But you can pick any race you want, the most important are the items and the abilities.

There are two good builds around Voidwheel if you don't mind playing a steel garrote. One is the steel garrote/assassin (or trickster if you want more survivability) which has huge backstab damage potential (with modal activated) and has also good single target dps, coupled with decent survivability. The other one is the steel garrote/helwalker spamming Raised Torment. The constant self draining from the sword coupled with Hylea's Talons ensure plenty of wounds and you can keep most enemies stunned while also dealing good AoE damage.

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