u/shikiseki

The new character is announced soon so it's your last chance to place your bets on what it's going to be like!

I'm personally hoping for Bartz so here's what I'd like to see:

First off, his usual Dissidia appearance seems a given but I hope the casual wear is going to be based on his blue tunic sprite with unkempt hair and loose athleisure, ready to go skating or biking to mimic his love for chocobo (maybe a british/Jockey inspired wear?)

Now his theme is pretty much Four Hearts and the Lix theme for sure!

He also comes with a stage, there's castle tycoon but it seems more like something Lenna would get, the ship graveyard is more of a Faris one. Lix would be boring tbh, forked tower is very niche, a void eaten world would work but screams more exdeath. The big bridge could since it's extremely iconic but it could be attributed to Galuf or Gilgamesh. It's hard to guess this one tbh

As for his playstyle, melee seems like a safe guess, as is his element of wind.

I know he's usually displayed as mimic/freelancer with various other job skills on top although if we go with Krile as blueprint, he might either be a blue mage, mimic or a mix of a variety of jobs commonly associated to him.

Although a mimic style would be fun like being able to set up URs from other characters, I feel like it'd be way too much work to update Bartz every time too (unless the effect just plays as Bartz does a generic animation)

The other concept could include the Brave Blade and Chicken Knife but I'm not sure how that could translate to this game honestly

Here's what I could come up with:

Passive: Skills get a 10/20/30% boost every time they are used, up to 3 times

CA: short dash forward, leaving chocobo feathers as animation (a nod to his Boko and Wind attribute)

R - Bladeblitz - quickly attacks nearby targets (extended range with mastery, affected by spellblade)

SR - Rapid Fire - quick mid long ranged hits (raises hit count every usage up to 3 times at mastery, affected by spellblade)

UR1 - Sword Dance - deals severe damage to the target (gains life stealing and confusion (jumbled controlls or using skills at random) at level 2 and 3 respectively, affected by spellblade)

UR2 - Call of the Wind - raises his movement + attack speed and adds an additional wind/flare/holy spell blade follow effect to his attacks and abilities (stronger effects each level up to 3)

This would cover Gladiator, Hunter, Dancer and Spellblade for Bartz although I'm a big fan of Blue Mage for him, something like Time Slip, the old status effect reducing the level of the rival would be also a fantastic addition to his kit - ultimately trading a bit of raw power for quirky and unique effects to them, taken from existing characters

Can't wait to see how he'll shake up the game!

So a certain FF6 character with long hair will arrive next week and I'm just going to be bold to assume it's Celes at this point (sorry Umaro)

I'm quite excited to see what she will bring to the roster!

I think outfit wise she'll be coming in her amano design with her yellow outfit. Her modern outfit could go in many ways, maybe something elegant to nod to her iconic opera scene although I'd like to see something cool/modern chic. She's the type of cool successful actress lol.

Her musical theme has to be a mix of her own theme and searching for friends - I'd be very surprised (and upset) if that isn't the case. An operatic remix would be a fun nod but something more playful like Terra's arrangement would work well too.

Combat wise, water affinity seems to closest to her ice affinity - question is whether she's a support or melee. I could see her being similar to WoL as she seems to be leaning more into tanking than straight up melee.

I think the biggest question will be how her signature runic could come into play. It could easily slot in as passive, as hold ability, as any unique ability too so it's hard to say. My personal preference would be to be her hold ability like WoL. Alternatively her passive "not some opera floozy" would redirect nearby enemy spells towards her (ok that's a bit of a stretch as she could potentially negate the rival bursts with aerith near the boss lol)

As for her abilities: she has runic, any blizzard spells, her spinning edge and potentially any esper (as seen recently in the octopath crossover summoning Bismarck). She also has some holy element to her, making curative effects pretty plausible.

It's going to be interesting to see, how she'll distinguish herself from WoL if she goes down the support tank role and how her runic will end up working like. Running into 1vs3 with 2 barriers and Ramza to fuel your party from blocked enemy URs certainly would be a choice for taunting and masochistic playstyle. Can't wait for next week's season!

I'm highly anticipating his upcoming release as a big FFX fan so I thought why not speculate a little what his release is going to be like:

First up would be his modern wardrobe which would definitely be something sporty, maybe even uniform like.

While he does have a theme song, which a variant also plays during the arrival in Luca, To Zanarkand feels like his theme to me tbh. Although his character is usually cheerful to play such a heavy song in this game...

Now we know that he'll be released with a new stage which could play around the coastal area or the iconic Tokyo Dome

I feel like his main design could play around his Time Mage sphere grid, delaying the enemy while boosting the party. His passive could either play into his Overdrive modes, reducing own skill cooldown every time he or his allies get hit by attacks or play around his signature "Cheer" ability that boosts atk/def of the party slightly depending on how many people are around him (up to 5 times counting 2 party and 3 rival characters)

His hold command would work nicely for his Slice & Dice, performing a small quick hit that can be comboed up to 6 times that slightly pushes back enemy skill cooldowns by 2sec, temporarily disrupting the enemy line. If there are multiple targets, each hit will automatically circle to the next target in range

As for his regular skills it could be something like this:

R - Spiral Cut: dash forward for damage on low cd (pretty straightforward)

SR - Hastega: temporarily speed up skill cooldown for the party on a high CD (potentially busted that's why it probably has to be limited by potency, cd or range)

UR - Energy Rain: jumps on a target and performs a wide aoe burst around them (fairly straightforward, could have lower cd)

UR - Blitz Ace: his signature combo that requires to have an ally nearby for an extra finishing AoE blow at the end (this plays into his character centering around companionship)

Can't wait to see what he will end up like next week!