Kaylon

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.

The most useful mod on Vion-ceth is the 25% chance to destroy primordials on crits. The +25 defenses vs plant attacks makes it also the ideal weapon against lurkers.

The soul blade/rogue has a specific synergy with the Sun and Moon flail and Toutilo's Palm shield (which I recommend using at least until you get Barring Death's Door) because it will increase your survivability without sacrificing your dps. The flail hits twice which allows you to gain focus during Soul Annihilation and you can spam it over and over again (besides the raw dmg you gain the PL dmg bonus, concentration with every hit and you can interrupt on crits). Because Soul Annihilation is a primary attack you will use only your flail, while the Toutilo's Palm will cut your recovery like if you were using two weapons (besides adding more defense and a chance to riposte). With Salvation of Time you can still use the same combo and benefit also from 50 deflection bonus from Escape for a higher chance to trigger ripostes (from the rogue/shield) which translate in more focus and damage. Using two weapons is of course possible, but then you will have to alternate between Soul Annihilation and other abilities/normal hits in order to gain focus. Using 2h weapons works also very well and with the Whispers of the Endless Paths you can hit with Soul Annihilation multiple targets for great AoE damage. For the stats you should keep in mind that once you have Barring Death's Door con/res become useless (thus you should lower them as much as you're comfortable with). The important stats to max are in that order : per>mig>dex and the rest in int. Ideal race is human (accuracy/dmg bonuses while bloodied).

If you bind the robes of the Weyc to your chanter then you get this ability at lvl2 (it triggers when you empower an invocation - which can be done every fight with Sasha's scimitar)

You can just make a priest instead and use Salvation of Time to prolong the buffs on the entire party, not just yourself. With the coil you can always have brilliant (and give it to you party too with the robes of the Weyc). With Weyc's Wand and death godlike you can also have always +6PL because of Barring Death's Door. While the bellower can have 6 more PL, the troubadour can cast more often which might be better overall (not sure how many jumps you can gain with Eld Nary)... The troubadour can gain in fact 5 phrases every 6s because Brisk Recitation + Muse of Mistery + Brilliant they all stack, while the bellower gains 3 phrases every 6s but his invocations cost less.

If you want to play a streetfighter I recommend you to have a SC priest in your party who can cast on you Barring Death's Door+Salvation of Time as early as possible or else it will be painful. You can pick SC streetfighter and spam Gambit at high level or streetfighter/soul blade and spam Soul Annihilation from start to the end or streetfighter/helwalker who has a chance to attack again on crits. The SC rogue and the monk perform poorly against enemies with high defenses or crit to hit conversion. The streetfighter/soul blade has the highest melee dps (is not dependent on crits) and is effective from the start (at the beginning you can also build him more tanky and play like a regular rogue while still doing good dps); at high level you can have also fun with Disintegration and cast Brilliant on your priest...

Those should be multiclasses of course. The paladin adds tanking/healing, the chanter adds great support for the party (passive healing, buffs, summons), the cipher offers also some great buffs (Pain Block, Ancestor's Memory, Tactical Meld) and CCs, while the priest adds Barring Death's Door and Salvation of Time besides other buffs/heals. With them in your party you can deal smoothly with any encounter in the game. After that, you can have up to 6 other classes in your party which can be whatever you want.

WotW has 2.5s base casting time which means there's always a big enough window of vulnerability, blade cascade or not. You can face lots of enemies or ranged attackers or enemies with resistance/immunity to might afflictions or who simply resist your stun, which means there can be monsters left unstunned who might hit you. Probably most of the time nothing happens, but why take risk if you can stay invisible all the time? Those 3s of invisibility can also help you escape by going out of enemies' sight and prepare if you need it. Also I think the build works very well with Fire in the Hole because it can benefit from the reflex debuff of the flail, can also add distraction (which debuffs armor+deflection+reflex) and adds more AoE damage and resonance charges. I don't think the nature godlike is the best option because there are many good helmets you can use - Acina's Tricorn adds +5acc to your AoEs, Cap of the Laughing Stock lowers enemies' deflection by 10, etc... No, only when you cast it.

Each religion point adds 0.44 burn dmg and with max might and 20+ religion you can do around 20 AoE burn dmg. Also the burn dmg isn't affected by grazes or crits, just by penetration. This build is great for solo, but in a party you will damage your companions adding stacks of Resonant Touch to them too... Also the build requires Ooblit or else you risk being hit during the casting phase of WotW by the enemies left unstunned, which will end your immunity. Another thing to keep in mind - using Dance of Death counts as a hit taken (probably Mortification of the Soul too).

Crazy combo with Saint's War Armor.

Less funny this one... Maybe replace it with: Shook'em all night long - 20% chance to give fatigue

I don't feel the other summons will become suddenly comparable to summoned weapons if all of them scale normally. For me the reason to choose a summon should be based on their different roles - melee/ranged, crush/slash/pierce/fire/shock damage, CC/DPS/tanking. Wurms/Skeletons will never be comparable to summoned weapons because they're not as tanky and you'll have to summon them twice as much, which justifies the cheaper cost.

That's not how it works. That's not correct, the healing bonus should be added to the other bonuses... You should also keep in mind that Sacred Immolation has a base duration of only 12s and it costs 4 zeal. That means you want to squeeze as much int, mig and fire power levels in your build in order to make it worth the cost. With Otto, Sun and Moon/Magran's Favor, Shark Soup/Hot Razor Skewers and maybe even a Potion of Ascension you can reach up to 8 fire PL - which makes a huge difference. However the self damage will increase too and it can reach over 60 raw dmg with Voidward equiped. You want to use also the Ring of Focused Flame or else your accuracy will be rather poor.

Well, a soul blade/rogue can already do more dps without any help from the party...

Old Siec won't drain from more than 2 targets per attack. In fact it will drain from the damage you do to yourself (with no enemies around you will heal for 4-5dmg) and from another target. With high might you will take around 50+ raw dmg/tick with Voidward equiped. Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory + Old Siec will heal at best for 30 endurance every 3s and you're still left with 20+dmg to cover. You might squeeze more regen from items/drugs, but it's not enough to out heal the damage taken. To counter the damage taken you need Pain Block from a cipher or use Lay on Hands on yourself. The Herald is still a nice option because he can add the shock lash from Sasha's Singing Scimitar to Sacred Immolation and also buff himself with Energized. However the most suitable combo for Sacred Immolation is the paladin/monk who can suppress the self damage using Clarity of Agony (without mentioning access to Energized, superior intellect and might).