Here is how I would rank the classes:

1.1. Fighter - Fine in BG1, but afterwards - avoid. Why would anyone play a pure fighter if the Berserker kit is available ?
1.2. Berserker - Good in the original games. Downgraded to great dualclass option in the EEs. The lack of extra damage reduction is just not cutting it. And the rage isnt so special if you're winded afterwards.
1.3. Kensai - Only interesting as dualclass to mage. Maybe thief if you're really into that.
1.4. Wizard Slayer - Avoid. Absolutely the most godawful class in the game.
1.5. Barbarian - Best tank in the original game, still among the best in the EEs. Can chain rage, which is why they stay great.
1.6. Dwarven Defender - I mean they are fine but also kind of boring. Once the Barbarian gets Hardiness they are just as good and they are a hella lot more fun before that, too.

2.1. Ranger - Definitely superior to the bare fighter. In the original games the superior dualclass option to Cleric because they also got Druid spells; by far the nicest access to Druid spells. In the EEs they took that away, but Rangers get real spells which turns them into the elite among the tanks.
2.2. Archer - If you are really into it, knock yourself out.
2.3. Beastmaster - Avoid. Great idea on paper, horrible implementation, sacrifices a lot for hardly any benefit. In the original games if you dualclass them to Cleric they run into the problem that you'll be stuck on the levelup screen because you cannot spent any more weapon points.
2.4. Stalker - Avoid. If you are really into backstab maybe play Fighter/Thief ? Much better deal.

3.1. Paladin - Same as Fighter, got a superior kit in BG2.
3.2. Cavalier - Best Paladin in the EEs, in BG2 unfortunately less so. The disadvantage is at best a mild inconvenience, the benefits are pretty awesome. But only when the EEs fixed the spellcasting Cavalier became one of the best tanks.
3.3. Inquisitor - The best Paladin variant in BG2. The best non-mage magekiller in the game, with True Sight and super strong Dispel Magic. Unfortunately in the EEs the loss of spells really hurt this kit and while they are still awesome magekillers, they are only a second class tank now.
3.4. Undead Hunter - Better than the base class for sure, too, especially in the EEs, but Cavalier has the nicer goodies.
3.5. Blackguard - Avoid. Cant use Carsomyr. And they dont get a sufficient compensation for that. Not even remotely.

4.1. Cleric - Avoid, actually. All original romances are healers, so you dont want to play one yourself. And if you insist - only play as dualclass from Berserker or Ranger. Best healer class, can buff themselves massively to temporarily turn into good fighters. Even more so if they have been dualclassed from Fighter or Ranger.
4.2. Cleric of Lathander etc - Avoid. They all get nice-ish goodies but again, nothing beats the dualclass from Fighter or Ranger.

5.1. Druid - Avoid, for the same reason as Clerics. Also Druids are a great class in many respects - but their XP curve ! Oh so painful. The by far nicest access to Druid spells pre-EEs was a Ranger(n)/Cleric dualclass.
5.2. Todemic Druid - Not really that relevant differences to regular Druid.
5.3. Shapeshifter - Turns temporarily into a pretty decent tank with their self healing.
5.4. Avenger - Clearly the best druid kit.

6.1. Monks - Avoid. A "warrior" class without hitpoints, without protection from critical hits, without percentile strength.

7.1. Shaman - The better druids. Progress like Mage, i.e. quite slow, but without the sudden delays of Druids. Can summon "infinite" animals to help in combat.

8.1. Thief - This class has their fans and I'll leave them to that. To me this is just painfully slow.
8.2. Assassin - Doesnt seem to be a good deal.
8.3. Bounty Hunter - Interesting traps, if you're into that. Of course the best traps are HLAs and even Bards get them.
8.4. Swashbuckler - THE thief class for dualclassing to Mage, after you have accumulated sufficient minimal thievery skills
8.5. Shadowdancer - If you are absolutely into backstab you'll love this class, obviously.

9.1. Bard - Avoid. Its a severely crippled Fighter/Mage that gets gimmicks for all the things they lost.
9.2. Jester, Skald, Blade - Avoid.

10.2. Mage - The only problem is why would you ever play a pure mage and not a Swashbuckler(n)/Mage dualclass ?
10.2. Specialist Mage - The good specializations are Conjurer, Illusionist, and Necromancer. None of them get Edwins amulet though.

11.1. Sorcerer - The strongest spellcaster in the game, but of course you have to accept holes in your spelllist.
11.2. Dragon Disciple - I mean its fine but really the advantages you get are gimmick-y and losing a spell per spell level hurts quite a lot, actually.

Just found out: apparently so many people demanded the bug with Druid spells on a Cleric if its a dualclass from Ranfger (or a Ranger/Cleric multiclass) back that theres a .ini (well now .lua) variable for it !

ROTFL

And since I havent touched the .lua - its definitely set by default, too !

Its definitely by far the nicest access to druid spells that you can have. Clerics may not level as fast as Druids on lower levels, but around level 15 Druids get unbelievably slow. Even worse if its Jaheira or any other Fighter/Druid multiclass, of course.

Interesting assessment. Still, I'm thinking about BG2, single player. Aren't shaman denied any stronghold?

And what if you DID want to do a full playthrough while getting the bard stronghold? I'm curious about what you'd recommend for PC and party in that case?

Okay first things first. I somehow forgot to rate the multiclasses.

General - multiclasses are really stong. They are good at any level and when other classes hit diminishing returns, multiclasses still keep improving. They are one of the features where AD&D shines and later versions never came up with something like this again.

The multiclasses pay for their advantages with low hitpoints, few weapon points, and slow leveling. Also, multiclass Fighters cannot put more than two points into a weapon, while dualclass Fighters can. And you cannot get any advantages from kits - unless you play a Gnome mage, then you get to play an Illusionist.

Fighter/Cleric - I'm not sure where exactly I would put them, but they are definitely in the top 10 of strongest classes. As mentioned before, Clerics can buff themselves to be pretty decent fighters and this multiclass of course really is a fighter, too.
Fighter/Druid - Really the only thing Druids get to directly improve the Fighter is quite late the Ironskins, and thats purely defensive. And Jaheira only works that well in BG1 because she gets a very solid xp advantage over the rest of the party. Still, its not a bad deal. Until you hit about Druid 13 and then its painful.
Fighter/Thief - If you want to have a full thief that still gets more than enough skillpoints to distribute, but that also gets multiple attacks per round, good attack, wide weapon choices (not for backstab though, you have to use weapons useable by pure thieves to get the backstab multiplier), etc, etc etc, here is your deal. Picking Halfling for race seems like a nobrainer here, Dex 19, short race thievery bonuses and short race saving throw bonuses are very hard to argue against. Buf of course Dwarf can have a percentile strength while Halfling cant.
Fighter/Mage - Really just the strongest class in the game.
Ranger/Cleric - I mean there is absolutely no reason to play Fighter/Cleric instead. After all, both can only put up to two points into weapons. Except you can only pick this class as a Half-Elf. Also, the bonuses you get are kind of gimmicky. A bit of stealth, two points in two weapon style for free. Nice. But not really too relevant. Obviously if you play the original or have enabled the bug then you get Druid spells, too, thats quite substantial especially if you dont otherwise have any Druid spells.
Cleric/Thief - So you are both support classes at once ? I know of no good synergy bonus here though. Limited to Cleric weapons, and can only backstab with weapons that thieves can use, so its only possible with Clubs and Quarterstaffs.
Cleric/Mage - The second strongest class in the game, at least in the later game.
Thief/Mage - Can backstab constantly once they learned Mislead. Just like F/T this is a very fun class, and obviously as a Mage theres countless possibilities.
F/C/M - Now this is really slow leveling. And what is this class even supposed to be ?
F/T/M - Actually you can just think of this one as a thief with bonuses. Of course learning stuff like Mislead takes a lot of time. To be precise you need to have 2,250,000 xp until you reach mage level 12, spell level 6, and thus Mislead. If you would force me at gunpoint to recomment a bard, I would go for Skald. Primarily because their song works on summons, too. That multiplies their effectiveness quite nicely.

This was really for all parts of BG1+2 and addons, including the EEs and the Black Pitts minigames, and primarily rating classes on strength.

Yes Shaman is the only new class the EEs introduced and they didnt get a stronghold, because there was no good match among the existing options. Personally I would have given them the sphere. It already doesnt make too much sense that Sorcerers get it, too, not just mages.

Some thoughts, since I happen to have checked the board and noticed this topic (I don't generally check the board because I don't like these games):
* Cleric: Not everyone is into romances. For example, if you're playing a female character in classic BG2, the only romance option is a man (which I wouldn't have any interest in romancing), isn't the best personality, and isn't necessarily the best build. I happen to really like having healing spells on the main character whenever I play an RPG that has a main character (not all RPGs I play do). Also, this class is really good in Icewind Dale because of the undead and the scroll scarcity issue (and lack of spell picks at level up) that plagues mages in that game. (Also the best class in Dungeon Hack, for one of these reasons plus some others specific to that game.) (In BG2, I like the Cleric/Mage multiclass because of the ability to put cleric spells in sequencers.)
* Druid: The problems with the XP table don't come up until level 15, and Druids get Heal (a *major* upgrade over any lower level healing spell) well before Clerics do.
* Bard: Gets caster levels faster than mages. In Icewind Dale, they get some nice songs, inclunding a nice healing song..
* Wild Mage: You neglect to mention this class. If you're exploiting bugs in the classic edition, they're the most powerful class, due to being able to stack triple (Greater) Chaos Shield and use level 1 spells to mimic any spell they can cast, including Limited Wishes for more first level spells.
* Cleric/Thief: I believe Sanctuary, unlike Invisibility, isn't broken by actions like finding and disarming traps.
* Thief/Mage: Polymorph/Shapechange + Backstab works (at least in CE) and is *really* powerful
* F/C/M: I see this class as more like the Red Mage from Final Fantasy, being able to competently fill most roles. (Also, can do some nice things with minor sequencers.)

I always saw f/t/ms and f/c/ms as perfect for solo runs (or reduced party).

I played pure class fighter in each game and they are a solid option throughout the series.

I respect everyone's different approach to playing these games and I can't say anything much about Anomen in tactical terms (I know he's not considered the ideal companion by many players from that perspective), but I will say that if you and Anomen fall in love he actually turn out to be a much nicer and more complex person than he seems at first. (I think part of the idea is that his self-righteous arrogance is actually an act hiding the pain from his difficult family situation and maybe uncertainty about whether he really deserves to be a knight.)

I dont see how that contradicts anything I've said.

I merely wanted to give pointers to players what the strongest classes are.

Not claim that the classes I dont recomment are outright unplayable.

Sorry, I misunderstood your post.

the multiclass cleric ranger extra spell list was not a bug but by design... this was talked about at the time and confirmed

Interestingly enough, there's a similar trick in the Dark Sun games that allows a dual-class Ranger/Cleric to have full access to 2 elemental spheres. I would consider that setup reasonable because, for whatever reason, Clerics in that setting (and that game) have no access to non-elemental spells above 3rd level, meaning that they don't get access to spells like Cure Serious Wounds and (in the second game) Heal.

Why yes, of course its a bug.

But its also the only reason one would ever forgo the enormous benefits of playing Fighter(n)/Cleric instead.

What else does Ranger get ? Gimmicks. A bit stealth. Two points in two weapon fighting for free. And thats already the end of the list. Otherwise they level slower and cant put more than two points into a weapon.

I've tested it and I frankly still much prefer the Fighter. Berserker's Enrage AND five points in weapons ? Gimme gimme gimme ! If you play Berserker(13)/Cleric you get no less than four Enrage. Thats plenty.

While Druid spells, sure they are nice. But none of them is ever REALLY needed.

Oh and by the way the value has to be 0, not 1. Otherwise the Ranger doesnt get Druid spells ... well they get whatever Druid spells you had on the Ranger. If you do a Ranger(13)/Cleric, thats all three spell levels that Ranger gets anyway. But of course the really interesting spells are on higher levels.

Pretty sure you can't use a kit on a multi-class character.

Also, if you're playing BG1 Classic Edition, you can't use kits at all, since they don't exist.

I was talking dualclassing.

When I write class1/class2[/class3], then I mean a non-human multiclass

When I write class1(n)/class2, then its a human dualclass, where class1 is of a fixed level that wont change anymore.

The meaningful point to dualclass from a warrior are 7 (gets an additional 1/2 attack per round), 9 (maxes out constitution bonus and gains another weapon skill point) and 13 (gets an additional 1/2 attack per round and also had another weapon point at level 12).

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Also, you are wrong. Gnomes are always Illusionist, even in multiclasses.

And your other claim is also wrong. BG1 already had mage specialists.

No other kits, but mage specialists are also a kit class.

In fact in original BG1 you can make Imoen into a Thief(n)/Conjurer.

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Oh and by the way, even as multiclass I prefer Fighter/Cleric, though for different reasons. Ranger/Cleric multiclass is Half-Elf only. As F/C you can be Dwarf and get their great saving throws.

OK admittedly any warrior/priest multiclass is already OP when it comes to saving throws.