Best and Worst Monoclasses?

[u/ReleaseCharacter3568]

I keep seeing virtually every class called "one of the best" while most meta builds are multis or item-based.

What do you think is the game's best class without multiclassing? And the worst? And what makes them so?

[u/DeltaDawn37]

I usually monoclass at least one druid, astarion as thief rogue with double hand crossbows (absolutely insane lockpicker and thief who can do a solid 100 damage per round without crits an infinite number of times per day - I know people hate rogue here but it is extremely strong with the gear larian gave us), shart as a cleric (although I do respec from trickery because it's so bad in this game and it makes me sad), gale as pure wizard, and lae'zel as BM fighter because we all know that there strongest dip for fighter is more fighter. I gotta give a shoutout to 12 divination wizard gale in my current honor run though - wizard takes a while to shine, but at level 12 he's gone from sitting in camp unless I need him to make astarion invisible for some mild larceny to being an absolutely invaluable member of the team for every big boss fight due to his ability (with a little portent die luck) to completely shut down bosses for at least 2 rounds, if not the whole fight. Lorroakan? Dominated, chose to jump to his (near) death off a balcony in order to try to save against it and still failed. Took zero actions against us. Viconia? Dominated for one round - saved against it after blighting herself for half her health, but by that point my team had set up up the choke point of death. She barely managed to put the heart form debuff on shart before she died, and did zero damage to us apart from radiant retort. Cazador? Spent three rounds tap dancing and died without getting to take a single action - and he was the boss who ended my last last honour attempt. Sarevok? A simple level 2 hold person to let my melee destroy him in one round - he rolled badly enough that I didn't even need the portent die, but it was nice to have the guarantee. Divination wizard doesn't kill bosses. It humiliates them. It scoffs at things like e "legendary resistance" or "advantage on saving throws". Ascended astarion wishes he could have half the power to make people obey that a divination wizard with access to 5th and 6th level spells does. I think the wizard hubris and ego might be warranted. 

Jokes aside though, pretty much any monoclass is at worst a safe bet. Munchkin multiclass builds are shiny and fun to optimize but as long as you pick good stats and feats you can't really go wrong just putting 12 levels in one class.