General

Hero will probably be better for lower funding, but late game Hayato should be stronger.

Having played both classes, the following are purely my opinions.

* Damage = hero (lots of multipliers and abilities designed to bump up that dps to insane heights, compared to hayato)
- This needs further testing, in my department, since hayato can achieve a very high and consistent critical chance easily as soon as he obtains the hitokiri strike cdr hyper skill. Unfortunately, I haven't reached that level yet on him.
- Technically, a lot of classes (if not all of them) can reach 100% critical chance, so this argument may be null, but hayato can reach it much easier compared to heroes because of just two skills.

* Hp sustain = hayato (1500 h/p/s for heroes will not be enough when bossing. Hayato's heals on crits (40% chance) is significantly better, and is further increased with hitokiri strike's cdr hyper.) But, let's be serious for a moment; when you take a large hit from a boss and manage to survive, you'll probably press that potion button before your natural healing abilities take effect. I'm a pretty daring player, but even I wouldn't bank on hayato's high dodge chance if I'm down to 2k hp and the next hit I take within the next 2 seconds will decide my fate. I'd be a lot more comfortable if I hadn't commonly failed 90% chance advanced potential scrolls.

* Tankiness = hayato (high dodge chance and higher status resistance [can even be immune for 30 seconds] than hero)
- Although I gave the tankiness title to hayato, heroes do have a 30% damage reduction skill. When hayato's dodge fails, he takes a lot of damage, but heroes will take a consistently lower amount. Big hits are a problem for hayato if he can't dodge them, but a smaller problem to heroes. Also, heroes have higher base hp, allowing them to soak in bigger hits that hayato may have issues with.
- Another thing to note is that if either one gets dispelled, heroes will be in more of a pickle than hayatos. Without rage, heroes lose their damage reduction skill, which means they take the full amount of damage that bosses dish out, making them very susceptible to the stupid 1/1 + seduce + random hit combo. However, even if hayato is dispelled, in which he loses his superior status resistance, he is not completely without defenses due to his high passive avoidance.

Significantly better, as far as I can tell. Having a 20% multiplicative damage-taken debuff on bosses is very nice. Shinsoku has no windup anymore and they're superior in the defense department (85% dodge chance on top of a raw % damage reducer and 50% minimum status/ele resist at all times is very nice).

I haven't played a Hero in a very long time (deleted mine years ago), so I'm not 100% sure honestly.