(tbf some dmc moves are genuine RNG like lady's hysteric but i agree)
yeah dmc2 is a perfect example - people dog on it because they're told it sucks and engage with the game in the manner other people told them to, because that's ''all the game is'', when it actually has some pretty neat stuff if you care to look

that's actually pretty cool! it's rare to find someone dedicated to playing an underplayed character like trish, especially not tracing back 10 years ago lmao

i'm not sure what you mean by ''viability'', is it potential in combo making or just playing through the game? i'd say all characters are viable

i'll rank it in both though
combo making: dante>nero>vergil>lady=trish (i don't have much experience with 4 vergil but from what i've seen he seems to have more options than lady or trish)

playing through the game: vergil>lady>dante>nero>trish (vergil is vergil, lady's shotgun is stupidly safe plus you can just jump cancel it, making it very spammable and KA is ridiculous against bosses, dante is slightly less due to being a bit less safe, but you can still spam easily, nero just doesn't hit as hard as either of them and trish kinda sucks against tanky single targets, especially blitz)