Also, fan favorite villains? You mean Ilia and Raven? And Neo?
Sorry I missed this part of your comment. I didn't mean any particular villain or villains, just in general villains. The way I imagine it going if I ran the show is this:
- >You have three factions that your villains fall into
- 1) Grimm
- 2) White Fang
- 3) Human criminals
- Each of these factions have a three to four tier power level system when determining the amount of credible threat they pose to the main girls
- 1) Low level jobbers/mob creatures (standard Grimm such as Beowolves or Ursas, Roman's nameless henchmen, White Fang mooks) these are threats which are individually only really a threat to civilians but in a large group can create a danger of being overwhelmed or create a battle of attrition.
- 2) Officer level threats (Neptune and Mercury, Roman and Neo, that one White Fang guy with the chainsword, Nevermore and Nightstalker) these are threats which are individually strong enough to require at least two MCs to create a fair fight but are weak enough that if the entire team gangs up on them they can hold their own for a bit but have little to no realistic chance of actually winning.
- 3) Boss level threats (Adam, Cinder, Nuckalavee, Wyvern, or similar Grimm) These are threats that can not only individually challenge the entire combined might of Team RWBY but also have a 50/50 or greater chance of if not winning then at least forcing a draw/withdrawal. In order to guarentee victory against these threats our girls need to fight very cleverly or call in backup in the form of other teams or even teachers/licensed huntsman.
- 4) The Big Bad. This is Salem, she is the End Game villain and to stop her our heroes will need to enlist the help of some of the aforementioned (non-Grimm villains) in order to achieve victory. Also in my version Salem is purely on the side of the Grimm and has no humans or Faunus working for her. She is the Wicked Witch and the Grimm are her Army of Darkness. Cinder is Roman's boss/benefactor.
- Team WTCH can be repurposed as fresh later season Boss or Officer level threats, Hazel could be Adam's boss or a sort of lieutenant for him who doesn't agree with Adam on everything, setup that later he'll work with the heroes against Salem since he's more open to peaceful solutions and isn't a diehard extremist. Watts is an obvious shoe-in for the mad scientist techie enemy. Tyrion is just a fucking crazy psycho, that's all he really needs to be. And like I said above, Cinder is Roman's boss and/or benefactor and Neptune and Mercury would work as her liasions/personal toadies.
The Silver Eyes can also work within this framework very easily without that stupid ass "Oh well they'd be overpowered without a cost attached" bullshit. Ruby used them
once on a powerful Grimm and ended up in a two month coma, their cost is that they require a lot of stamina/constitution/fortitude/strength to use and if you use them too much you start to become fatigued and eventually pass out. They also have built in limitations because they
only work on Grimm so any human or faunus bad guys are immune to the MC's Ultimate Technique:tm: This is devastating to any fighter but especially for RWBY's style of fast paced spectacle fighting where a single missed beat can and will lose you a fight. So the Silver Eyes
can kill an entire pack of Grimm without the user needing to lift a finger, but doing so takes a lot of energy and the energy requirement increases exponentially with the size and power level of the Grimm it's being used on, so something like the Wyvern or Nuck
can be killed by them but it would also kill the user as well, if not through outright overexertion then by being killed when they are too weak to move or knocked unconscience by the strain. Salem cannot be killed by them, severely weakened yes, but not outright killed. She isn't actually a Grimm, just a human woman who has suffused herself with the Grimm's power, and that will be our "Oh shit!" moment when the girls try the Silver Eyes on her during their first run in and she still trounces them because they cannot sufficiently weaken her, that will be our Darkest Moment where they then need to train and gather their strength for the final showdown at the series finale.
TL;DR: Fuck I don't know man, I'm basically just remaking Teen Titans at this point.