Anyhow, for full character evaluations as PCs on WoO, because I still got the game on my system.
Dorothy - The skillset goddess. Healing, revival, status healing, buffing, magical damage, crippling status, she has it all. 1x Ratio gives her a lot of leeway to sneak her into just about any battle formation, which lets her pull off her ample support rather leniently. 1x ratio also means she's good for randoms: the damage on her physical sucks, but enemies are so frail she often OHKOs the things she hits type weakness on, and Dream Land is one of your only fast crowd control methods for most of the game. All this packed on someone with pretty solid speed, and she often ends up taking magic better than the rest of the party in practice due to game-best MDef and no elemental weaknesses (and this isn't a trivial concern: magical damage is common). She has a couple -glaring- problems, though: game-worst HP and the speed isn't godly, just solid, which means that she can be reasonably outpaced to her support. It's weird, but those two factors balance her out quite nicely. MVP due to having enough stats to use her excellent skillset and being a good character for randoms, but this isn't a spot she earns for free and her disadvantages are definitely not trivial.
Strawman - There's a big reason why Dorothy doesn't coast straight to MVP land, and this reason is called Strawman. His skillset is clearly inferior to Dorothy's, and it starts up downright unappealing. Unlike Dorothy, who can call about 3/4 of her skillset money moves from more or less the get-go, Strawman's skills are often niche or just not that interesting at first, with only a few standouts. His damage is also very clearly game-worst, having even less strength than Dorothy and not even getting a good damage spell lategame. However, he gets the single two most important things to make you good on randoms: speed and 1x ratio. Strawman is -fast-. As in "less than ten enemies outpace me even half of the time" fast. Also benefits from enemies being frail, so he can clean randoms well. That alone would be nice, but, as I said, his skillset only has a few standouts, but those few jewels are amazing within the game's design, and his niche stuff is hardly problematic: First Wind doesn't see a ton of use at first glance, but it is a neat idea if you want to, say, get a Tin Man turn in before a boss dispels his Power Boost, and it can be plugged in almost anywhere. Stealing is a neat, if unreliable way to deepen your item reserves, and you -want- items in Oz so Strawman can put his game-best speed to use on bosses whenever you need healing that won't come from Dorothy fast enough (this happens pretty often). His debuffs are also fairly effective - Fox Hunt, particularly, is a very neat anti-physical skill, and it can play some funny, if expensive synergy with his status even on randoms, and it's a pain on bosses with physical damage worth caring about. Dispel is a must in the lategame, as boss buffs are just plain scary and you don't want them flying around unless you like the idea of eating crucial one-turnings. And, of course, Tomato Bomb is the aforementioned status: as accurate as Dream Land and off someone notably faster, this gem is one of the best moves in the game. Confuse status may not be immediately crippling like Dream Land is, but running off that speed and shutting down everything that isn't a basic physical -along- with giving enemies a chance to waste their turns either hurting themselves or doing nothing is fantastic. And, unlike sleep, it doesn't get undone by damage. The ID is accurate enough to be worth using, and it can save you turns, although it's sadly expensive. And Strawman, of course, makes a great backup healer if you're not too stingy with items (don't be). His only real drawbacks lie in the poor offense (not a big deal), his game-worst by far MP (-this- is a big deal, as he uses his skillset a lot and his highest risk/reward move is not cheap) and the effectively game-worst durability. His HP is almost as bad as Dorothy's, his defense is notably worse and his MDef, while second-best, is far removed from hers, and he also has a pesky elemental weakness to Fire. Still, it's impressive how he makes so much out of a skillset that doesn't seem that attractive at first. The stat spread is just that good.
Lion - LVP. Lion's stat spread is game-worst, having no stats where he truly stands out, but being saddled with game-worst MDef by a fair margin and subpar speed. Since his HP isn't that good, it makes him sort of a liability against magic in a vacuum, and his offense needs work - while his strength is second-best and he can still act up to two times a turn, it takes him a long time to get offensive skills. So, he has to get by with his oddball defensive skillset, which, fortunately, is actually workable. Perfect running is pointless. Alert is your earliest anti-magic device, and, while it's unreliable (just evasion against spells), it gets all spells in the game and is GT, making it worthwhile to cast - especially given how magic is rather prominent in boss fights. The rest of his stuff is rather niche, though: Wild Cry is very accurate, full MT stun, which would be great if it worked on enemies faster than him - although it is useful on those slower than him indeed. D-Formation is a good buff in a vacuum, but Fox Hunt is a better anti-physical tool in practice. His MT gravity skill also ends up being sorta unexciting, mainly because enemies are often OHKOed in Oz to begin with. His skillset finally rounds up when he gets Lion Roar and Elements, though - Lion Roar is much needed offense, which is rather badass, but also rather inaccurate, but it's good enough to make it worth using when you want offense in a turn but can't afford to swap Tin Man in. Elements is basically MT elemental walling, reducing all elemental spell damage by 75%. Given how much of your boss-fighting happens against elemental damage, this has very obvious uses, although it's late. Lion can provide a fair wealth of anti-magical defense, which is a welcome niche in Oz, where 3/4s of your party has issues handling magic due to the RES curve and elemental weaknesses, but besides that, he mostly plugs filler holes in offense. It's enough to make him not dead weight, but being the worst character on randoms just hurts too much.
Tin Man - Amazingly, the game-worst speed PC with 3x ratio is not bad against randoms. Tin Man starts out downright useless (YAY having only a basic physical and eating almost all your party spots), but he starts picking up into a very clear niche as soon as he gets skills. While Dorothy gets the tools to keep your party alive, Strawman gets stuff to annoy enemies and Lion has tools to mitigate magic, Tin Man packs a full wealth of offensive options, which are sorely needed. He's the first character to get GT offense (Full Swing), and he handily OHKOs most groups with it for the entirety of the game. This works quite well in tandem with, say, Dream Land, and it's both cheap and running off Tin Man's surprisingly deep MP reserves (only below Dorothy). He also gets ITE, mitigating his accuracy issues, and starts getting higher damage skills progressively, which -also- can hit type weaknesses, making him very apt at handling the more durable monster types that won't, say, be even 2HKOed by their typical weakness hitter, and they tend to mulch even the durable randoms without hitting weakness to boot. When he gets Battle Wind, his offense suddenly skyrockets and he becomes your highest source of high-profile offense: a Power Boosted Battle Wind is a nasty four-digit damage drop on bosses, and its unfocusing properties means you could even use it on randoms. Then, his final skill kicks in and he becomes the most powerful crowd clearer you could hope for besides Melt Down Dorothy (if you're willing to cover the HP cost, and Dorothy has to use her MP on a lot of stuff to begin with): Soul Break is an ITE, full MT high-damage skill that only gets stronger as Tin Man's HP goes down - it works well for his high-profile damage sponging niche with game-best HP, defense and only slightly below average MDef, and very little survives a Soul Break even with full HP Tin Man - low HP, it's just downright murderous, and it finds great use in the last boss due to his actually non-complete failure support. Tin Man fills a role very similar to Raquel's in Wizard of Oz, and does it quite adequately: he may not be a MVP like Raquel was, but his durability and offense are very welcome. Just keep him away from ice magic, though: Tin Man suddenly turns into Lion against that element.
