The most important thing for me is how fast they are; not necessarily their agility stat, but in terms of their attack animations. For example, I find Luke and Yuri hard to use because there's a bit of delay to their attacks. That being said, I still prefer playing as a close range fighter, so usually this ends up meaning I prefer the fist fighters if the game has one (Jude, Farah, Sophie, etc.). If it doesn't, I usually end up playing as the faster sword user (Guy as opposed to Luke).

Though occasionally I end up preferring the resident archer because some of them have fast attack animations, or maybe the delay is acceptable because they're ranged weapons. (Natalia, Raven kind of) I don't know.

I don't know if I have a main exactly, because I admit I mostly get through Tales games by button mashing orz;;