Holy crap, those shoulders. Is he wearing pads? Because I'm pretty sure that his right shoulder is much wider than his head, even accounting for perspective.

From this description, I don't see myself using Lysander much, just going off of what we're given. A breakdown of why:
- No ST healing past a certain point is a crippling problem. It forces you into a binary dilemma: One, use your MT heal like a ST heal, which means SP woes. Two, gamble, and potentially lose fights due to bad luck. Both of these are aggravating at best. The description makes me think that leveling him up to learn Media may make some boss fights at that point *harder*, because the majority of their damage is likely to be ST and therefore Media just tends to waste your SP. And Gaia Link exists on the main character, who you'll be using all the time, and it apparently lasts the entire battle. And all of his presented buffs work towards 'make one person target of everything and tough enough to take it,' which a ST healing situation. This is 'out of the party at the earliest opportunity' levels of bad. I cannot possibly hammer this home enough.

(Now, I know there's potential here with Gaia Link; just set it up on some other party member and suddenly Media is ticking twice on your tank. That's still costly as hell, though, and likely to be unnecessary. If it *is* necessary, and there's just no other way to get enough healing with the given tools, then a well-designed game will have someone else who can cast the Media, or you'll be at the point where using someone else isn't even an option.)

- Tactician would be "game-best" levels of great, but it has horrible, horrible synergy with his given syncs. If you're striking weaknesses consistently, then you've already discovered their weaknesses, and Data Dump probably isn't that useful to you. Additionally, if you're hitting weaknesses consistently, you're likely to be ending fights pretty quickly. Neither directly assists with that. (Data Dump does, but see point one.)
- His stats are going to make a difference here. In Personas 3 and 4, for example, Yukari and Yukiko had the best magic stats. They could heal and they could nuke, and while they lacked variety in either role, they had quite a bit of power. Does Lysander have that? If not, that's a problem. Even if he does, ST only? He'll be limited at best here.
- All of the mentioned buffs are trade-offs. Are they situationally useful? Yes, but not enough to redeem other factors that are lacking. And none of the ones presented help to end fights faster, only to make them easier to outlast. They don't add any new dimension to his character, they just deepen the already existing one, and the role in question is one I'm not fond of. And I've played SMT for ages, so buffs are typically in my "oh hell yes" list of wants in an RPG party.

Changeable Persona solve all of the aforementioned issues, but I think I'll be too turned off by him at that point to care much.

Harsh words aside, I'm enjoying reading the updates, and I'm quite looking forward to the game itself. SMT is my thing, as mentioned. Feel free to hit me up if you need a tester!

Changes? In response to little old me? I feel so special. :D

Oh, okay, I was guessing it was RTP from the style. Still. Holy crap, those shoulders. It feels a little weird to say 'why is the head so small?', but perhaps that's a sign of too much anime.

I like this version better. ST healing should definitely be any healer's focus, and I feel like the change in focus also helps raise the importance of Gaia Link. It also encourages vigilance on the player's part. I definitely like Sukumai, that's an interesting spell. (Should have commented on it previously, but the squeaky hinge and the oil.) The change to give him more offensive 'oomph' is good as well. Soulspring will probably ensure he stays in my party.

My comment on Lysander 'not helping end battles any faster' was mostly targeted at boss fights. It depends on the game, but in my experience, non-boss fights are part of the resource management aspect of a game more than anything. They're a task focused around getting through them with minimal expenditure of resources, whether those resources be HP, SP, or inventory so that you can dedicate a larger portion of those resources to the boss.

Tarukaja helps with boss fights, certainly, but Retribution by definition is offensive only against randoms. Bosses will generally be immune to instant death. And against randoms, it's still likely to be largely defensive, since you won't have the dedicated buffs to increase aggro off of the bat. It depends on the Hama chance, really, since Rylan has Sukumai; it just feels doubly dicey, since they have to A) hit the target and B) die to Hama. It's the old instant death dilemma, where an ID spell is generally not used below a threshold and abused above it. We'll all see which side this sits on. Even without it, though, that half damage effect is useful.

(That said, isn't there a Press Turn/One More variant in this game? If so, please make sure that Retribution's Hama doesn't count against you if it's nullified, since that will happen in every boss fight. That would be horrible. Obvious, I know, but there's no mention of it.)

That said, it looks like he's a pretty good offensive caster, so this is less of an issue. It was really a problem only when he had no offensive buff options and his personal offensive ability was in question.