Clarissa Arwin: 8.5/10. She has all the stats in the right places for magical builds as a rule of thumb (and magic pretty much dominates XF outside of the very endgame, and even so it's still high-profile). Dandelion OC is hands down one of the best in the game and her equips are also decent. Physical builds are kinda sketchy for her, but Strahl Gewehr itself has uses.
Felius Arwin: 3.5/10. Just kinda sucks. High strength, but sketchy equips and skillset, and the other stats need work. As a rule of thumb, physical builds in XF take a lot of work for relatively little return and Felius has the least interesting unique tools for one.
Labyrinthia Wordsworth: 4.5/10. She's sorta jeigany in that her wealth of worth really lies in the early game. Arcanist OC is all kinds of cool (Warp is godlike, Replica is fun, Revive is quite useful and even Lightning has its uses) and the skills in the class are also quite interesting, but Labby's egregious stat spread just sorta puts everything to waste. Her oddball OC still finds its niches every now and then even once her stats start fucking her up, at least.
Tony: 1.5/10. Useful solely on C1 until you get past the swamp and a full party. Past that, complete waste.
Levin Brenton: 8/10. Sort of a mirror to Clarissa. Faster, deeper resources and more mobile, but worse equips, less amazing OC and, most important of all, his offensive stats aren't all that good - particularly magic, which kinda wastes Blast's mult and P properties. Still, his utility mix is really good (Execrate+Widespread Emulator OC, for instance, is one of the most broken combos you could ever muster) and he has better options for physical builds than Clarissa.
RAGNAR BLITZ LEBRETT: 5/10. He could have the best build for physical setups among the uniques, but the accuracy issues speak against him pretty notably. Particularly, he borderline -needs- to land AIM +25% to be viable long-term unless you enjoy casting Invoke on him every turn (and your Fantastica OC carriers certainly will have better things to do than baby Ragnar around). On the other hand, Hyper's one hell of a buff for physical fighters and keeps him competitive enough.
Alexia Lynn Elesius: 6/10. What a neat, fundamentally flawed yet strangely useful build. Speed is trash, but her weight game works beautifully with Strider OC and she can spend little to no time in the class due to not needing the AIM boosting ever. Past that, her generall skill build is very good, her equips are solid and she makes the most out of physical builds overall. I'd care more about the trashy speed if speed in a tactics-based game wasn't rendered less important than move (and Strider OC fixes any problems she might ever have getting into the frontlines right there -AND- synergizes into her oddball speed game).
Secutor: 6.5/10. The starting point for every single viable physical build out there. The EQ is good stuff (axes are really impressive for damage if you can mitigate the accuracy problems, shields are great and even work into offensive padding for specific builds), the strength is excellent and Atk +25% is amazing, making it even a prime physical carrier. The OC sorta underwhelms me, but them's the breaks.
Elementalist: 8.5/10. Like Secutor, the starting point for all viable magical builds, but to an even more dominating degree. No mage build worth its salt goes without Elementalist EQ -at the very least- because books are crazy good. The OC is very one-dimensional but very good for the vast majority of the game too, and, of course, if you can, picking up Mag +25% is golden. The bases are good enough to keep it a solid choice for a carrier for a long time to boot, but staying in the class isn't a problem, especially considering it's a basic job. Paves the way for XF's magical dominance quite overwhelmingly.
Fantastica: 7/10. As shoddy as the class itself may be (and it actually isn't -that- much, at worst, Fantastica EQ covers some interesting niches and you don't need to stay that long in it due to innate CSP boosting), the OC is utterly godlike. Rush alone does wonders to huge chunks of the game's skills and Invoke is a pretty good boost to any physical fighter you carry around. Slow Down and MP busting also round out the utility. That OC alone makes the class worth staying in for a while and it should be passed around like candy.
Gadgeteer: 4.5/10. Its worth largely relies on mastering the damned class and keeping up with its higher-end items, which isn't all that great, especially since, speed aside, Gadgy offers little as a carrier. If you do, though, once you set up some extra magey tools like Elem EQ, it's quite powerful. It's still rather limited no matter what - and the non-item resources sorta need work to boot. Strange class.
Sentinel: 3.5/10. Well, Heavy Strike is nice and weight is kinda cool for Strider OC! The EQ really needed to be easier to get, though, and the speed quite underwhelms me, especially when it's usually bereft of Alexia's speed gaming shenanigans.
Sacred Slayer: 8/10. The class is painful to stay in, but holy -shit- what a skill pool. Sacred Slayer OC is horrendously overpowered (seriously, what's up with those mults on Heal? Fragile is very good too and Turn Shift is seven kinds of broken), Widespread is godlike (alone making the class worth considering as a carrier in spite of the crap stats) and even the EQ is pretty good (strong armors, mainly). The stats are hideous otherwise, but the skillset is overcentralizing as fuck, also being a fundamental stepping stone for dominating mage builds on both offense and utility.
Excavator: 2/10. Uh, they have move and speed and ranged physicals! Too bad about the terrible OC (useful only for synergizing with Gadgeteer and some gimmick battles) and bad offense.
Geomancer: 4.5/10. Kinda bad. Geomancer armor is very good and the attack is decent, but that OC is terrible outside highly niche uses and leypoint manipulation is generally very rarely useful.
Berserker: 5.5/10. Spears suck and kinda hurt an otherwise interesting skillset, but I kinda like the mobility and stats. It's a strange, not always practical, but fun physical carrier that can make interesting waves with the right setup.
Enigmancer: 7.5/10. Nice carrier mage class with the best general stat spread (good magic, best speed out of the dedicated mages and four move) and a great mesh of class skills and OC. Dispel alone is great for being your only practical status/stat-busting healing tool, Devastate is pretty cool for on-the-go crowd control that meshes beautifully with Rush and IFF and Elem EQ fixes the kinda sketchy weaponry right there. Durability is particularly trashy, but you can't have everything.
Strider: 6/10. Drop Kick ALONE makes Strider OC borderline unskippable for physical builds (good mult+ranged damage physical classes -badly- need in general? YES PLEASE), and all the skills on it are useful for what they are. Aim +25% also increases the viability on a lot of builds, though that's not a simple acquisition. The class itself isn't so hot, but it has its perks and, generally, you don't skip both Secutor and Strider for your physical setups. Secutor mostly for stats and equips, Strider mostly for skills. Works.
Grappler: 4/10. I don't really like Accelerator due to how it unstabilizes long-term strategies with its unreliability, but it's a pretty good skill for its cost. Damage is okay, but has its issues and the class itself is sketchy. Positioning shenanigans are kinda cool when you can put them to use, but they're not viable without IFF, and that's poor synergy all around.
Nightstalker: 4/10. Six Shooter can get increasingly nuts with Invoke setups, but that's only one skill and not versatile. Rest of the skillset is hit or miss and its carrier possibilities (it's such a goddamn fast class) get mitigated by the horrible offensive stat spread. I usually grab Six Shooter and run away (you don't even get enough CSP to master RFX +25% in the game sans grinding or extreme CSP manipulation). Still, goddamn that speed.
Emulator: 9/10. Holy crap is this class broken. Exploit Weakness on a class that gets ALL elements at 6 range and P properties -and- high Mag, powerful status whoring, Action Replay for specific boss-mangling shenanigans, gravity for bosses, four move and jesus christ what the -fuck-. The only thing that even keeps this remotely in check is the moderate effort you have to take to grab the skillset - and maybe the subpar speed, but that's not too bad with the threat range on their stuff. Past that, though, you're golden. Magic honestly dominates XF and Emulator's the shining capstone.
Extremist: 5.5/10. Command Critical is oddly good under certain setups (in particular, Invoke+Command Critical Six Shooter can net you utterly gross damage figures) and Extremist makes an oddly capable carrier mostly due to good defensive stats (mainly badass evade and nice HP) and the second-best skillset in a physical class (High Slugger is very solid, Anchor Hook is sorta cool, Debilitate is excellent). Nutso offense doesn't come from its bases (in particular, Scimitars are underwhelming weapons), but it makes one of the best Six Shooter users due to Command Critical, which compounds nicely with Invoke at least. Pretty much the to-go physical class to carry the cool physical stuff your game-long fighter built up in my eyes.
High Cavalier: 3/10. You'd expect a skillset with Quicken and Intrude on a Wild ARMs game to be badass, but wow is High Cavalier willing to prove you wrong. The HP is good and both Remain and Intrude have uses, but the rest of the OC is a waste and the class itself has nothing else interesting (MAG-based weaponry doesn't work in practice, its carrier stats don't impress much at all). Pick up Intrude and run away, if -that- much.
Come to think of it, the class dynamics in XF kinda prize themselves in being opaque and weirdly nuanced. Hit or miss philosophy, but goddamn do I love this kind of approach when it's done in-depth like this. It's almost like nearly every class is the weird little thing in the catalogue.
