I also disagree that Ranger is useless. I made a custom Warfare Ranger with Sebille for this play through. This allowed me access to rage and warlord, and I easily mopped up groups of enemies even with the nerf to Rangers as a whole.
Shields were amazing for survivability early on when I had little armor. Then I switched to dual wielding or staffs as needed once I made it further. But the shield recover ability remained amazing for dealing with the heavy incoming damage.
The ability to choose what class our companions start as was also huge. I made the Red Prince into a Wizard and then went Pyro with a splash into warfare for Rage/Warlord to combo with Savage Sortilege. Lohse was an enchanter that specialized in damaging magic armor and supporting the party. Then I made Ifan into a tank with some Geo utility spells to keep the opposing party slowed as much as possible, along with Fortify.
This party worked well, I never lost any of the fights. I did come close in the last battle due to the fire mage up on top of the fort having significantly more range than should be possible. There may be a bug/oversight allowing the AI to have more increased range than is possible for the player.
The biggest difficulty was the increased cost to skill books. Thievery did not receive a buff to value either, making it a much more limited option than it was before. Bartering is much more valuable than it was.
As a whole, the gear that was available from merchants or which dropped also seemed to be much weaker. Much fewer blues and purples being sold by the undead merchant. Though I'm sure it would have been difficult to afford any of them anyway.
