Yeah for me it depends on whether I'm doing an enhanced start or a rise from the ashes start. With a rise start I find that I get a better overall character going with no skill classes at all even though it means I can't have Deadly Strike. I can get almost all of the other good ones that way.I've found myself happier with characters for whom I skipped the Expert level as 120 points on the traits and attributes pages is a lot. There's no expert perk as useful long term (and even short term in many cases) as having those points to spend on 'Deadly Strike' and then maxing Charm and Manipulate and be a lady-killer from the get-go.
If I'm doing an enhanced start I don't have to make that sacrifice since I can use Adonis to pick up Deadly Strike without needing any levels in soldier. So I can get all of the traits I want no matter which skill class I choose. Having high starting charm and manipulate is definitely nice but I find those relatively easy to boost so I'd be more likely to pump copulation and kissing instead.
Well most of the other expert options that I would consider start with enough influence that I can just grab Ayden literally on day 1 and he's so strong in the early game that the free combat suits and early access to Einar are not that big of a deal to me. Still nice, but I can buy duraplate pretty quickly with Ayden anyway at which point the combat armor is just for respect training on people who are not my A team.I find the window of advantage a little longer as with Einer, Doyle and two other cheapos you can quickly take down all the easy-to moderate targets and get to the higher end ones faster which gets me a workshop more quickly. All without much in expenses.
I tend to burn through stims pretty fast early on so the free heals are nice for me. Once you get a workshop up and running you can make stims and doctors kits for a lot less so the advantage of the free heals diminishes somewhat then. It also partly depends on who the advanced tactics AI decides is going to tank. I haven't figured out how that works yet in the current version. Sometimes I'm always the tank. Sometimes one of my mercs is, and I haven't really found a pattern that explains why yet compared to previous versions.I've not tried it yet, but while I still end up in a tendstim-expense crunch at some point in the game, I know as soon as I've everyone in Duraplate wielding coilguns or Greatswords and starting in the first row I won't be needing much healing anymore.
Yeah if I'm looking to dive into the academy classes and books immediately then getting the right skill classes to boost my starting academics and science skill to more than 50 each is nice. Without that I usually end up waiting til I have unlocked the palace so I can boost them via drinking at the palace bar. It's expensive but fairly high probability.It's also about the only place (outside Doctor above) where you can pick up much Sci skill. That can be especially useful if you plan on much early hacking or crafting the fun stuff.
Intelligence is really the only stat I find unreasonably grindy to raise so I always start with 90 in that unless it's a rise start, and even then I'd be tempted to skip a trait or two that I normally like so I can start with 90 there.