u/BirthBySorrow

And my conclusion is that there is nothing "broken" throughout 90% of the actual game, especially if you are optimizing time by doing dungeons in one day. The problem is the reset button, if anything but that's another discussion that I'll mention a couple times later.

• The Merchant is pretty busted on the MC for a good portion due to getting the double damage weapon relatively early, and it comes closest to trivializing the game on a purely Strength-based MC, but the rest of your party does not benefit much from it and the MC isn't soloing every fight without help. You also have to balance currency used in battle with currency you want to purchase items unless you grind a bit, and there being resource management makes it so you need to know what you are doing and what is/is not helpful to buy. Resource management as a consequence in of itself is a balancing mechanism and making the game a little easier a reward for balancing appropriately.
• Peerless Stonecleaver is very unreliable until you get all the Critical buffing skills in the end game. A lot of enemies also resist, null or better Slash. Yes, you can just reset a ton until you get a couple consecutive Crit rolls but that's the reset option and not the combat itself.
• Faker's Roguery is similar to Peerless Stonecleaver. Even though you are likely to roll well it doesn't add much unless you specifically get the 3 and 4 turn bonuses which makes it not worth using most of the time unless you want to do dungeons in bad weather, perhaps. Another case of the reset button being the issue.
• Eveything else I'm aware of is an end game option including Tycoon and the Sublime Spoonful that you have to have either prior knowledge about in the case of the latter or have been hoarding MAG and incenses to create the broken builds. Otherwise you will have to grind to obtain them, at which point you are already overleveling, etc., etc.

Everything you hear about how easy the game is comes down to two things, imo:

1. SMT veterans who know Atlus's game design better then the back of their hand, or in other words having a boat ton of experience already. Which is fine. But this is a very select group of people and it requires knowledge unlike something like Persona 3 Reload which breaks itself even if you try not to.
2. Those who only take into account end game, which is a very unfair and incomprehensive way of evaluting the game. It's like those who only take the great/terrible ending to a film into account while ignoring every issue/positive beforehand. It gives the wrong impression of the whole thing.

If I've missed anything feel free to inform.