I can't believe we're talking about the possibility of Raphael not making it the cut, especially after he was present in both SCV and Lost Swords. Hell, he was a major character in SCII's storymode. There is literally no reason to exclude him at all. You would think Project Soul would learn from that after SCV. This is literally the reason why Leixia, Pyhrra, Xiba, aPat, and Natsu (Yun Seong to a lesser extent) were the most hated characters in the series: they were designed to be clones.
This is just my opinion, but Groh's father is starting to seem like a blight on the roster. From what I've been seeing, there is has been little interest as to who he is and what weapon he will use. Not to get all sjw-ish, but at this point, the roster could use a few more female characters. That was one of the criticisms of SCV's roster and we don't need it here. SCIV had the best gender balence imo. I actually like the idea of Salia as a new character over Groh's father, but not as a replacement, and especially not for Raph.