Didn't have time earlier, but I wanted to go a bit more in-depth over what we can see from the class trailers:
Hound:
High strength and agility
Decent HP and TP pool
So at first I pegged the Hound down as a typical Ranger archetype, with a combination of bow attack skills and pet assists, but after looking at the trailer I think it's more accurate to say its a beastmaster archetype. The Hound is deeply tied with their pet, needing them to be present to perform the class' attack skills and heals. This puts it on the opposite playstyle of the Necro where their pets are more disposable.
Pet summons are very expensive, so there is probably a secondary skill to gain back some of the TP used, and you are encouraged to keep your pet alive for the duration of the battle.
The other thing to note is that this is the only bow using class that we see, however the trailer didn't show any explicit bow skills. I think it would be kind of off for an EO game not to have one ranged dps class, so maybe they just skipped over the bow skills for the more sexy looking pet skills. That said even with the Hound's decent TP pool you will probably want to conserve it for pet related skills, so subbing it with a class that give good combat passives is probably a good idea. The Dragoon's passive to counter any attacks on your row certainly looks good for it.
Necromancer
High int, moderate wis and luck
Low HP and good TP pool
So there's a few interesting things here with the Necro's minions. One is that its very cheap to summon a minion, but in turn is more expensive to use a skill that sacrifices a minion, which again puts it on an opposing playstyle to the Hound. The other is that minions are VERY bulky, with their HP sometimes over double that of the average party member shown (compare this with the Hound pets, whose Hps hover around a similar level to the party). This could mean that Necros can simply throw bodies at the enemy as a form of tanking, or perhaps the effectiveness of a minion sacrifice is tied into how much HP the minion currently has.
Other things are that the Necro's decent luck stat could mean the class has status effect skills, and the good but not great TP pool leads me to believe the Necro must have some kind of TP recovering mechanic.
Hound vs Necromancer
Just a special note for these two classes since they fight for the same resource (that is party space). In EO3 you had three pet classes but only room for one in a full party. One of the nice QoL changes shown is that there are two reserved slots for pets now so you could have both a Hound and Necro or just one class to fill up both pet spots. I think most people will want to pick one pet class to optimise its usage, but it's certainly viable to have two pet classes now, with the advantage being that you can now focus all your points into a single pet to fill one slot each, and to split the summoning costs between the two classes.
Shaman
High wisdom, moderate intelligence, vitality and agility
Lowish HP and high TP pool
To correct myself, the Shaman looks to be a combination of the Prince/Dancer's buff centric skills with the Arcanist's circle magic. Why I believe circle magic is back in some form is because you can see on the character portraits that the class wields magic charms, which lends itself to the idea of dropping down long lasting field buffs.
Now the Prince/Dancer and Arcanist are some of my favourite classes, but with that said I think the Shaman is the toned down version of all three of these classes sadly. The shaman lacks the bulkiness of the Prince and the dps of the dancer, and if the Shaman does indeed lay down field effects, then a field buff is a lot less useful than the Arcanist's field status effects.
If it is the case then the nerf is understandable since buffing classes are strong in EO, but still I hope there is more to the Shaman class than just buffs.
Reaper
High vit, strength, agility and luck
High HP and moderate TP pool
So at first glance this class looks pretty similar to the Nightseeker, with it's high damage, low armour appearance, and the high luck to help it inflict status effects with its attacks. It also has the Nightseeker's field skill of ambushing the enemy, which alone is worth having or at least subbing one in for your party.
What sets it apart from the Nighseeker however is its surprisingly high HP pool, and in the trailer you can see that vitality is actually its highest stat. Sacrificing its own HP will likely be this class' core mechanic, possibly to increase its damage?
Cestus
High vit, luck strength and agility
Good HP and moderate TP pool
The Cestus looks pretty similar to the Monk class minus the healing skills. Not only in looks but also in having the Monk's counters and aoe attack that sacrifices their own HP.
It was a good move to remove the healing line as it greatly overshadowed the pugilism. The trailer showed one of their attacks to cause a bind, and with their very high luck stat I expect that Cestus will have many status/bind inflicting attack skills.
With that said, I worry that the Cestus class is the most unnecessary of all the classes shown. It's a hybrid melee dps/ailment inflicter, in a game that rewards a team of specialists and not generalists.
Masurao
High strength and agility
Moderate HP and TP pool
With almost backline caster health and probably only cloth armour to boot, the Masurao is the designated glass cannon melee dps class. I don't think there's really much else you can say about this class. Expect high risk but very high rewards if you can keep him alive.
Herbalist
High wisdom, moderate int, vit and agility
Decent HP and TP pool
Giving the game's healer group wide debuffs/mez is a pretty neat change for EO. Them being 2nd rate fighters in the previous games was a bit meh as most party setups would have them sitting in the back row anyway. On the other hand, it looks like they might only wear cloth armour this time round, so you will have no choice but to make the back row warriors.
At first, I thought the Herbalists ability to debuff and inflict ailments were ridiculously good when they've shown it in the trailer, but after seeing how surprisingly low the Herbalists luck stat is, the chance of inflicting an ailment on an enemy is probably low unless the Herbalists has a strong passive to back it up.
The Herbalist will also suffer from the problem of having to focus on one of their two strong skill lines: healing or debuffs. So while the Herbalists looks very strong, in truth you may have to have one dedicated solely on healing, and another or sub that focus on debuffs.
Warlock
High int, wis, moderate luck
Low HP and good TP pool
The Warlock is a pretty straight forward mage class. Deal aoe damage, exploit an enemy's elemental weakness for massive damage. It looks most similar to the Runemaster where they try and spice things up by having different elements have different aoe patterns. Their TP pool don't look to be very high for what is a TP intensive class, so they can probably recover TP in some way or have a way to increase their TP pool.
One thing that may be new is that in the character portraits all the Warlocks wield a magic sword that makes me thing of the Moonblade in BG1. Maybe they will be a unique mechanic involving it, though the Arcanist also wielded rapiers for no reason other than being not-elves.
That said, the Warlock will likely be one of those classes you will always take since their ability to exploit elemental weaknesses and pierce high defence targets are too important for the early to mid game, and their aoe damage keeps them still useful to have around in the late game.
Dragoon
High vit and luck, moderate strength and agility
Good HP and low TP pool
The Dragoon wields a flintlock pistol, so like the Hoplite class before it can probably switch between the two rows as necessary.
The Dragoon's HP pool doesn't look very high for a tanky class, so there may be a passive that enhances it.
It's not very clear in the trailer, but it looks like they were putting points into a passive, and that later that causes them to perform an aoe attack that debuffs (and costs TP). This may be similar to the auto-taunt passive in previous games. If so then maybe taunting has been changed to also deal a little bit of damage to the enemies now as well.
With that said, I'm kind of meh on this class. I never found tank classes to be very useful in EO games, even in the early game. There isn't anything here with enough pop to make me want to try it except as maybe a sub for someone.
Fencer
High vit and luck, moderate strength and agility
Good HP and moderate TP pool
The class has an attack that can inflict blind, it also looks like it has a passive that increases their chance to evade and counterattack.
Really though the only thing you need to know about this class is that its the one with the chase skills, and chase skills deal such ridicolous damage you're going to absolutely have one of these in your party.
