Difficulty balancing

Hey, guys I just started Wasteland 3 and it's awesome. It's already one of my favorites RPGs. I like to suffer a little and so I chosed Supreme Jerk for my first run. Most of the time it's been the right amount of challenging without being too frustrating. The merc slavers and the crazy clown dentist outside the Bizarre were hard and I had do retry a couple times, but they were fun fights nonetheless. Until I got to the church clowns... I simply couldn't do it. So I had to swallow my pride and tone down the difficulty to Ranger. Then it was a breeze and my team barely lost any health. I don't follow any build guides because figuring things out for yourself is half the fun. But I read here that the game gets kind of easier later and the gameplay becomes simply alpha striking. So I was wondering if playing on Ranger and somewhat nerfing myself would be best. Maybe a 5 or 4 people party, not using deployables and gun mods? I would like to know if somebody has some experience with this kind of run and if it was worth it. Thanks for reading and have a nice day! :)