While Hercules has all these self buffs, I never really found them as a major reason towards using her. It has always been just for the sake of the -def burst to fill in missing def down debuffs from not having the proper himes and the added bonus that she can use PF on her own, both being effects of her weapon. If she didn't have that, she would lose most of her use, basically how she was when we first got her.