Five years after completing PoE1 I have decided to finally get around to Deadfire. As I still have my save game (I knew about importing saves so I kept it around) I would like to continue exactly the same character I had in PoE1. The only question is how to build it?

In PoE1 I had a Moon Godlike Priest of Berath focused on buffing and acting as extra melee with a great sword. And healing.

I've been looking around how viable this character would be and am in two minds. On one hand, people say that to be a strong buffer stay a SC Priest, and on the other hand that an SC Priest won't really be able to fight in melee so I need to MC. Do I need to?

What are people's thoughs on an SC buffer/melee/healer Priest of Berath? the thing I am okay to sacrifice is spell-based damage. Is such a character viable or should I choose and go SC buffer or MC cleric?

A single class Priest can absolutely fight in melee. It's just so that his damage output with a weapon would be better if he multiclassed with a class which added some melee prowess.

But in general you can stand in the front line and swing a great sword. I place Xoit as SC Priest at the front line all the time - often with a Morning Star - and it works fine. Will she be tanking many enemies? No - but that's not her role. But she can stand her ground against an enemy or two for long enough.

In Deadfire, a Priest of Berath can summon a spiritual great sword for himself which has a nice corrosive lash that grows if your reputation matches your god's dispositions. It can become quite powerful. That way even a single class Priest can contribute with weapon damage.

If you are okay with giving up the highest tier spells you can multiclass with not much regret. I personally love to multiclass a Priest with the Helwalker Monk because this has two main kinds of synergies:

1. better melee output: with stuff such as Lightning Strikes + Turning Wheel and some attack abilities such as Force of Anguish or Torment's Reach you can do some serious damage, especially when paired with the spiritual great sword (resulting in a shocking lash, a burning lash and a corrosive lash on the sword). Also the high MIG of the Helwalker leads to more weapon damage.

2. the Helwalker can offer +15 MIG (+1 MIG per wound and +5 from Thunderous Blows) and +10 INT (Turning Wheel) which are both fantastic buffs for casting: INT enlargens the AoEs and prolongs all durations, MIG raises damage and healing power(!). Spells like Shining Beacon profit a lot from +15 MIG (higher dmg per tick) and +10 INT (a lot more ticks) and so does healing over time such as Consecrated Ground.

Aso you can be a bit faster (Lightning Strikes add +5 DEX and +15% action speed) and get some other goodies. The Monk is a great multiclass choice for a lot of classes, Priest is no exception.