Does going for the Landschrek's elemental skills in any way hinder him as a good character damage wise? I'm not familiar with the skills in the game yet, but what would the Landshreck normally go for if you had a runemaster?
Their Elemental Links are essentially their best build ... but it's a party-combo, not really a Landsknecht one. With a Runemaster, you could just go for the actual Sword skills but, honestly, the Links will eventually win out for damage.
Though, worth noting that it takes until Level 20 and 40 for Links to really take off due to their true value being tied to later skills. Maxing the Links does relatively little.
Edit: Early on, you'll basically have a Landsknecht to Power Break (or Mind Break, if applicable) and have Vanguard to up their base damage. Their Novice skills for actual damage aren't that great.
I finally played teh demo yesterday before going to pick up the game, and my Sniper was really dealing damage on the low-end compared to some others, and his binds always missed. Restarting the game with the whole new party though and want to make sure I get a good combo of classes going in.
Sniper is going to be a slow burn at the start since they're weapon dependent for damage and starting weapons are mediocre. That and how stat reliant things are. They'll take off after awhile but I think that their end-game usefulness is a little lackluster compared to some of the other options.
Which, really, is more a testament at the damage of other combos and not really something against the Sniper.
two more questions:
1. Runemaster is there any point in putting more than 2 points in the novice elemental spells? Shouldn't I save the points for the stronger spells that replace them?
Well, the later spells are actually fundamentally different (e.g., Volt goes from line target to single-target, to random multi-hit).
...that said, I didn't spend extra points in them. I just maxed Runic Gleam and got myself more TP.
2. Sniper Leg/Arm snipe skills. Are these good, do they stack, and should I max them
It's the route you'll most likely want to take them. They have a multi-hit skill in one of their lines that you'll want to get as well most likely but, yeah, Snipers will basically be there to setup and chase Binds.
As long as your party is varied enough to deal with magic and weapons resistence you should be fine. Even then in EO3 you could forge weapons to have elemental properties, I don't know if is the same here, as I don't have any elemental hammer yet but you should be fine anyways.
The above was not true in the post game content of the previous 3 games. I guess will be the same here, the post game bosses generally require a specific setup.
Well, it depends. EO1 was very limited (essentially one class was a hard requirement), EO2 had a few more options (two options, not counting gimmicks), and EO3 brought the most variety (two classes, could be covered by sub-classing, proper itemization could also work) with the exception of one-encounter ... though that still had cheese strats for it.
From what I've seen of EO4 so far, you're limited in the power of sub-classing but itemization seems better. There's a greater focus on how encounters work as well as even early FoEs showcase off scripted behavior (e.g., HP% triggers, varying Priority attacks, Turn count triggers, skill sequences, etc.).
