Fabulously Olivier

Innate abilities are equivalent to Hidden Talents, and the chosen classes for each character are often a reference to their old Hidden Talent. IE: If Felix maxes out Dark Bishop, he'll learn Nullify Magic.

So, dancers obviously have no preferred users. Native sword users will be more effective but they already have preferred movesets that are IMO more fun. Dorothea and Manuela are obvious dancers, and I think their unique abilities are actually better utilized here. Marianne is my favorite because of Blutgang. My preferred great knights are those who already have mounted outfits. Lorenz has a pretty decent personal axe, and Jeralt looks like a Great Knight. Leonie has those dual quivers, and I think she should have been a bow knight to begin with. She'll also carry that outfit over whereas all the natural bows lose theirs. Her having essence of fire makes her a fair bit different from the natural archers who all have wind or ice. Annette with Crusher is fun. And if you make her a wyvern rider, you can pretend she's Cherche with that bonnet of hers. I like Ignatz as a Mortal Savant since he has a great personal outfit, can knock back enemies easier in this class, and wears a sword on his hip anyway. Hapi is basically a weaker Lysithea in almost every way. Granted, every mage is weaker than Lysithea, but the comparisons with Hapi are way too close. May as well make her a Dark Knight to dodge the comparison entirely, and her unique tome is worthless anyway. Constance's Essence of Light makes her a great Holy Knight. I don't like her outfit anyway, so no big loss there. Sylvain should have been a Dark Knight to begin with, and he doesn't lose any effectiveness whatsoever by switching. I already have Bernie-bear as an ice archer. May as well make Shamir an Assassin. She'll keep her outfit, and neither of the native assassins are ice.

I reset Balthus to level one yesterday as a War Master, and he literally one shot an entire group of level 73 tome users with Eviscerate. One Punch Man!

Fierce Iron Fist, Eviscerate, Flamewhorl Kick with Essence of Fire, and Dual Devastators are my favorites.

I disagree so hard. Balthus is the best power fantasy in the whole game to me right now. Not only is the moveset fun, but it feels like a downright meat grinder to enemies with fast attacks, hard-hitting combat arts, and easy bar breaks.

Yeah. I feel that we need some kind of mounted sword, mounted tome, and magical axes/bows. And to be real, an infantry master class for axes and bows feels mandatory because those characters just have no way to retain their outfits. Not necessarily Gauntlets because they stand on their own - a magical class would invalidate War Master unless it's a totally different moveset, and mounted gauntlets don't exist for a reason.

The Mercenary already has upgraded combos, because they're based on weapon rank. So the full moveset is there. All you need to do, unless you add in a mount, is to add the learned skills and you have a finished class.

Time travel is a major element of Zelda so it doesn't bother me. But this is very much a case where they could have had their cake and ate it too. In Warriors Orochi 3, you see things go wrong and then you use time travel to fix it. In some cases, you CAN'T save a character the first time you do a mission until someone you recruit later can be taken back to solve the problem. So you get both experiences. You get the darkest timeline and then the happy ending. It's how time travel should be handled.

I like the idea of a bard class in this game. Could be a tome or a bow.

I think AoC was only egregious because the story people wanted was never actually experienced. Three Hopes' alternate timeline is perfect. Final Fantasy 7's story was told already. It is more interesting for its remake to tell something new. And as a newcomer to the series who had never liked a Final Fantasy game before, 7 Remake wasn't alienating - it was fun and refreshing.

Honestly, they need to free up the reins on NG+ or atleast remove all restrictions (including letting you purchase other route exclusive units) when you've already completed a route. The game knows you've done so. It displays lord icons for each completed route on the save file. Use that distinction to make infinite replays more free and more compelling. You don't need the "immersion" of restricted deployment anymore at that point.

Dancers counter mages. In regards to monsters, it's very rare from my experience that you'll be able to pop all shields (most of them have so few health bars that it is actually impossible), and you've got Hapi in all routes who can break any monster shield with her unique support ability.

The same could be said for Returning Axe though, and that keeps your damage type consistent. The reason to pick Lightning Axe should be for the status effect. Or, you know, Crusher Annette. And I certainly wouldn't use both Flare and Luna in the same build.

Claude is an idealistic extremist at worst, not a dictator. He's not likely to take out someone who may further his goals if he doesn't have to.