I've been bringing out my Roy as well, my first 5* unit that very quickly gathered dust. The majority of the Tempest Trials are done with Tharja, Bridal Cordelia, and Azura. C Buffs, seals, and Cordelia with her ridiculous Atk/Spd Rally makes Tharja a monster and Azura moves her again to either back out or attack another unit.
Really need to give Desperation to my units though, never cared for such skills until these Trials have come up. So often my perfect run is ruined at the end because Tharja gets too low to survive the one hit from Veronica to double her to death safely.
On the other hand I've been slapping Wings of Mercy or Escape Route on everything because that completely opens up a world of possibilities that can keep the team healthy. The offensive and defensive potential makes it a lot funner to think about too.
My plan is to aim for an average of 5,000 points per day, which will get me Quickened Pulse before the end, which is as far as I can bare to go. While this is probably my favorite event thus far, it can take a bit of a toll. The 20 stamina cost is actually great because it causes large breaks from the grind.
I like Wings of Mercy on my dancers in particular, so if someone doesn't manage to finish an enemy off in one round, my dancer is ready to fly in and refresh them, so they can finish the job.
Most of the work on my starting team is done by Catria:
Might not look that impressive on her own, but with some flier buffs behind her, she shreds pretty much everything in the game except some of the bulkier greens/Emerald Axes. Of which there are plenty in the Tempest Trials, but I have other units like Quick Riposte Michalis, and Minerva, to deal with them. I also have Lucina with Reciprocal Aid to keep Michalis' HP ticking over, and she works pretty well as a fighter too.
Once I reach the final battle, if the enemies look acceptable I'll try and clear them out with my first team, or else I'll drop out and bring in my second team, which usually consists of Roy, and whoever best counters the other enemies (I have a decent selection that I think covers more or less everything, like Cecilia, Olwen, female Robin (for deleting Reinhardt), Camus, Ryoma, Titania, Azura, and so on, and I'm working on a few others like Celica, Xander, and Brave Axe Cherche). Once I can tailor my team to match the enemies at hand it's pretty straightforward, actually, unless something dumb like 76 HP Hector pops up.
I reckon by now I've won the majority of my runs, and I should be able to get Quickened Pulse comfortably enough before it ends. I'll probably drop it by then, though, since at that point the only remaining rewards are orbs, and they come in so slowly that the grinding will probably become just about unbearable.
So, there's this cool site that lets you customize the EOV portraits just like in the game
http://edit.s2.xrea.com/sq5/
I just wish the clothing colo could be edited but this is already a pretty big step up from the previous games and there are two palettes already anyway
Still, I really like the options avaible and I'm probably gonna spend a long time with these when the actual game comes out
Oh dear, I am going to spend way too long on this when I get the game. I already spend ages figuring out my party members at the start of a game, without getting to customise their hair and eye colours as well...
I have a few problems; I wish the hair highlight option changed something other than the lighting, since as it is it makes me feel like I have to make the two options match, otherwise they look bad. And why doesn't it let me have custom skin colours? Who are they to tell me I can't have characters with blue skin? Other than that (and being able to customise the clothing colours like you said), it's pretty neat.
Anyway, I think this is my favourite of the new portraits (spent a few minutes customising him):