The new upgraded ultimate weapons did a great job in balancing the characters.

[duderino]

For the most part (I'll get to that)

Characters who where already top tier got a minor upgrade and addition to their weapon (Precis, Whelch, Diaz). The additions to these weapons -like Diaz double power buff trigger rate- are not that huge and the damage upgrade is around 25%.

And yes, having the highest damaging weapon with the ability to always crit made Diaz top tier in late game of the remake (you have to get the 2% HP/MP on crit factor on one of his armor pieces and watch how he never runs out of MP or HP).

The mid tier characters have much better upgrades:
With Opera (if you take healing weapon and armor factors in consideration you must admit she's not the essential heabot she used to be in the remake) she's got maybe not that huge of an addition to her ultimate (shoots homing orbs at everything now) but got the biggest damage upgrade (around +75%) out of all the ultimate weapons.

Claude his ultimate now gets a 200% shield depletion addition. He is the ultimate shield shredder now. Remember the demon sword was only so good if you did the very cheap Valiant mail + Adamantine factor + eat mandrake combo.

Ernest ultimate weapon now always hits and that's great.

The two Mid\low tier Characters Ashley and Bowman got really insane additions:
Ashleys ultimate is no longer elemental and all his attacks are considered enemy weaknesses. I tested this and his damage output is now through the roof either with normal attacks (ring of lightspeed) or with sword dance or hurricane. I consider him top tier now.

They maybe went a little overboard with Bowman. See his 80% damage midigation while full health was allready good but now you can combine it with one of the new armors (you get from the new wise men raid bosses) that gives 30% damage reduction, he becomes completely immortal. I tested it works as long as you have the status effect inmunity formation on (otherwise you can still be petrified and so on). On top of all that his ultimate now get's the always berserk status addition. This saves you a ring slot so you can now do a ring of might (or the "newer" version) and lightpeed combo.
I don't know about this to be honest. He's god tier now.

The low tier (and yes, Chisato was good in the original SO2 but does really low damage now) then:

Unfortunately Chisato, Leon, Rena and Celine's ultimate weapon additions do not make enough of a difference to move them out of low tier.

Leons addition (35% chance to have zero cast time) is so RNG depended that it's not worth it in my opinion.

Celine's addition (half of attack stat added to intelligence) sounds really great on paper (with the frenzy earring 200% attack boost combination) and I see a damage increase (it doesn't show in status/equipment menu for some reason) while I tested, it's not enough. Consider also she's even more a glass cannon than before because the frenzy ring now replacing something more defensive.

Rena and Chisato's additions are not even worth mentioning.

HOWEVER, there is sill a huge surprise ahead: Noel! his original 25% chance to add revive effect went up to 35% (or 33%?) but now comes the kicker: It gets a new addition that's a whopping 70% cast time reduction. Couple this with the new "ring of logic" (gives +30% INT and 30% cast time reduction at the same time) and see how he can now spam EVERY spell instantly. Seeing how good his arsenal of healing and protection spells are compared to Leon and Celine, having them come out so fast means that he as a mage is now a very viable option (as long as you put 5% MP steal factor on weapon). I tested it and even the AI does an excellent job in keeping my team alive and nuking the boss like crazy. I say he's now mid/high tier.

So there it is, my analysis of the new patch additions and character balancing. Do you guys agree/disagree? Let me know.

[Aeby]

Bowman being able to be invincible is kinda weird, like it's actually very strong obviously since he can't die but it exists in a game with Bloody Armor so it feels like something you have to decide not to use to begin with lol