I know this whole debate has been on how armor knights in the gba games were awful, but it's even worse in the original fire emblem. In Fire Emblem shadow dragon the General class was available, but only as an enemy class. As such, similar to thiefs in fire emblem 6, armored knights could not promote. I know it's on the original nes fire emblem, but it still needs to be mentioned. I feel that if summoners could not use staves they'd be the worst classes. I love using generals btw.