If I had to guess I'd put each character in these groups. Based on what we know from DOA2 and 3 versions.
Top: Hayate, Jann, Hayabusa, Bass, Ein, Genfu, Hitomi
Mid: Tina, Christie, Ayane, Kasumi, Leon, Bayman, Leifang, Zack
Bottom: Helena, Brad Wong
You can take away all their unique moves and it still wouldn't be enough to make a complete character, hence the term clone. I'm sure they won't be wasting animations, but I hope Mila has a unique style.
In the alpha build each character had an advanced mid punch and mid kick counter. I noticed that some of the characters didn't have them in their movelist in the latest build. Did this concept get killed for everyone, do the alpha demo characters still have them?
The part of me in denial is hoping that Drdogg is taking us for a ride. . . but hey if she doesn't end up the technical character Shimbori and co wanted and just ends up useless I can see her being patched.
It's more akin to saying a character with or without a fireball, because it does go deeper than that. Same with DOA. There's different types of strikers. Chsitie and Kasumi which excel at interupting vs Ayane and Helena which excel at evading/movement to gain their advantage.