Wild Rage 2 + Dragon Dive. Not as OP as it was in SC.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Just got Agate, fitted him with a Pendragon Sword, and any + STR items I had.

Wild Rage 2 + Dragon Dives don't seem as OP in this game. You got a lot of mobs who are weak vs time/mirage/space, and you can do as much damage with an arts AOE, if not more than Agate can do with a 150 CP dragon dive. You also got orbal down which you can inflict on mobs to increase the damage even more.

The tougher mobs in general just seem to have higher phys defenses than arts defenses. Orbal down + death scream spamming is more OP than Dragon Dive spamming in most cases.

[Gabby]

So we're complaining that things were rebalanced between games?

[AH-1 Cobra]

I'm not complaining, I'm just making a statement. Arts spamming is really good in all the Trails in the Sky games, and it's more powerful in 3rd than in any of the previous games. Strong arts users > Agate, for the most part. This wasn't the case in SC. Agate is still the best pure physical attacker. He's still useful if you need to eliminate a group of shining poms with 1 attack.

You only really need 1 character with good physical attack, and Joshua can fill that role and be an arts user at the same time. That makes him more useful than Agate.

[stally]

Then there is Richard and his low delay crafts.

[AH-1 Cobra]

The only thing to keep me from using Richard is where the game has forced me to use 2 set party members. And the other 2 is usually Joshua and Kloe or Oliver. If I had 3-4 free slots, I'd probably do Joshua, Kloe, Richard, Agate. Or Joshua, Kloe, Richard + other.

[Carnasid]

Agate spam is less OP, sure, but Zane/Zin is still almost as brokenly OP as he was in SC, save for thunder god kick only hitting things once rather than hitting everything once for each enemy it hits.