Ranking each game by class: Troubadours / Valkyries

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Healing is great, but if only Healers weren't held back by their two legs. Enter: Troubadours. Always better than infantry healers? Let's take a look. Here are our previous discussions

• Myrmidons / Swordmasters
• Mercenaries / Heroes
• Thieves / Assassins
• Fighter / Warrior
• Brigand / Pirate / Berserkers
• Archers / Snipers
• Nomads / Bow Knights
• Armor Knights / Generals
• Cavaliers / Paladins
• Dancers / Refresh Units
• Pegasus / Falcoknights
• Wyverns
• Lords

Here are my rankings, based on games I've played/replayed since 2017:

Spoiler

1. FE4: FE4 lacks restorative items and each map is really several consecutive fire emblem chapters without HP restoring in between. There’s always health needing to be topped off and Canto lets them do their job and retreat to a safe distance. C staves doesn’t allow for a whole lot, but your unmounted healers would get more out of Physic more anyway. Ethlyn and Nanna are units with a lot of weird idiosyncrasies now that I think of it. Holy Blood grants them A rank swords, but Miracle Sword and all the magic swords are C, so there’s nothing notable added to their kit. Lance access on promotion is totally superfluous too. The light brand does not alter your arena opponent to be the 2 ranged option, so their arena performance is quite awful. Best to hand it to Dew/Patty With a steady stream of gold from thieves, they can level up indefinitely with Return and not fuss over the arena. But even with that trick, getting Ethlyn to promotion and beyond is tricky in an efficiency run because she leaves early. Nanna’s got similar issues, starting as a level 3 unit on Gen 2’s second map, and generally having a rough go of things until the bulk of your army arrives to save them. The substitute version of Nanna is not bad at all. Jeanne’s missing out on inheritance but her performance is almost indistinguishable from Nanna. Definitely not the downgrade that is her brother.
2. FE6: Clarine is definitely my preferred of the unpromoted healers to raise up. Mages get staves on promotion, but staff exp takes forever to raise from E, and none of them will have the canto-aided rescue dropping Clarine does. Her only bad map is the desert. Players raising Saul really benefit there, and it's a bad first impression for Cecilia especially. FE6 Anima magic is really powerful and accurate, but her combat thresholds aren’t quite as high as where Clarine ends up. It would be preferable if she had an A in Staves instead. Cecilia shortcomings aside, this is a very consistently useful class.
3. The Last Promise: Emma’s surviveability stands out with her 10 Base defense and 80% speed growth. Her main competition is the Cleric Tamiko who has some of the best availability in the game. But missing out on Siegfried mode hardly matters when staff experience gain is doubled (22 as an unpromoted unit). Emma starts at level 10 and will have no trouble gaining levels. Her offensive stats and support pool trail behind Tamiko, but I’d still choose Emma if you can’t find deployment slots for both.
4. FE9: It’s a little dubious to talk about Mist, as she only becomes a troubadour upon promotion and there’s no one else with that unique class. But she’s very worthy of raising up and then early promoting. No one else in the game can heal and then canto away except for Elincia in the final maps. I suppose if I were devils advocating against her I’d point out that FE9 Physic is only C rank, and FE9/10 Staff weapon rank builds up 50% faster than FE7/8. There are also at least a dozen physics to potentially steal with Volke. So choosing instead to raise Rhys or pump up the mages can work beautifully even when they lack Canto (and their higher Mag stats will produce better heal amounts and further physic range). Yes Mist is the only healer that can help in the Black Knight battle, but the promotion only allows her one more turn of healing (before cantoing away from reinforcements). I’ve seen people hype up Mist’s performance with the Sonic Sword but good luck getting to B rank swords. Maybe if you train up on the defenseless priests of chapter 22. No Geneva Convention in Tellius so chop away.
5. FE7: Priscilla is easily the preferred choice over Serra. You can raise both, but Priscilla’s class starts and ends better than hers. It’s only with the help of Lyn Mode can Serra match her in staff rank and come out ahead in levels. Late game FE7 relaxes the need for dedicated utility units since Pent can use anything and Renault and Athos are also A rank. In FE7, reaching S rank in staves does absolutely nothing for you besides lock out the possibility of getting S in something else.
6. FE8: She is my favorite character, but L’aRachel is honestly pretty bad, particularly in a No Grinding setting. Her base stats are extremely good for a level 3 unit. She may cap everything but HP and Def at level 20/20, but it’s that low starting level that holds her back in serious play. Not to mention D rank in Staves despite being halfway through the game in either route. And to top it all off, Troubadour and its promotions have 1 less Mov in this game. Moulder may not be as good at Rescue Dropping, but he should be promotable by the time she joins, have B or A rank in staves, and be one rounding monsters in the late game via Slayer with fairly decent bulk (for FE8 standards). As for the Mage Knight and Valkyrie promotion paths for other units, Bishop is too fantastic a choice for Nastasha to ever consider it. But the Mages gain a lot by selecting Mage Knight over Sage.

If I put this in tiers, #1 is A tier, 2-5 are B tier, and the last is C tier.

Next week it's time for Dark Mages. And we'll also run a poll to determine the order of remaining classes

[Whisky]

This is a class that isn’t in a lot of Fire Emblem games. Troubadour/Valkyrie is basically the ultimate support class.

Binding Blade

FE6 has two good units in this class. Clarine and Cecilia. Clarine is an early game mounted healer, and her combat isn’t too bad after promoting. Gaining Anima is better than gaining Light magic. Cecilia is a prepromote that joins around half way through the game and is a great support unit that can also deal some chip damage. The class line is great here in general, Staff utility, 7/8 Move, Rescue/Drop/Canto utility, and Anima magic instead of Light. Saul can be worth raising over Clarine for earlier Warping, but you can’t go wrong with Clarine. (And if Saul was a Troubadour he’d be even better)

Blazing Sword

Priscilla is the only unit in this class. The class itself is basically the same as in FE6, with all the same advantages over Cleric. Priscilla is really good. I don’t have anything else to add here.

Sacred Stones

The class itself has been nerfed by having decreased Move. The class line now has 6/7 Move. The only unit that starts in this class line doesn’t join until later in the game and comes very under leveled. Natasha can promote into Valkyrie, but while Valkyrie is kind of just a better Bishop in the last two games, in FE8 you might actually want to make her Bishop instead, for the Slayer ability. Valkyrie still isn’t a bad option for her but the class line is definitely not as good here, nor are the units in the class. Valkyries now use Light magic too, which isn’t as good as Anima.

Mage Knight could be included here since it uses Anima magic like Valkyries used to. It’s a good class for Lute, but it feels more like a mounted Mage to me instead of a mounted healer like Valkyrie generally is. Though I suppose it’s always been both. It’s a good class for Lute.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Whisky

[SnowFire]

I'm assuming this does not include Mage Knight / Dark Knight, but does include Fates Strategist and 3H Holy Knight.  (And also does not include Engage Royal Knight, for all that this class may be off in its own special snowflake land...  weird that a classical "Paladin" that is mostly physical but has healing shows up so rarely.)

Very Good: 3H Valkyrie

Good: FE6, FE7, FE8, Awakening, Fates, [3H overall]

Average: FE9, FE10

Highly Situational, but decent in the rare situation it comes up: 3H Holy Knight

--

All of the GBA Valks are fine.  Clarine is very dodgy (especially with a Rutger support for a cool +15 Avoid) but runs an annoying risk of getting OHKO'd on Hard Mode.  Cecilia is a backup staffer.  Priscilla is generally considered better than Serra for your healer and is good for farming XP tactician rank.  If you only care about beating the game rather than doing Lagdou, promoting Natasha to Valkyrie is probably a solid choice.  L'Arachel loses a bunch of damage going to inferior Light tomes from Valk rather than MK, buuuut she keeps her healer XP boost in Valk which she doesn't in MK, and thus can catch up faster.  And besides, if you're doing Lagdou, wouldn't hurt to have at least one wielder of Ivaldi if you're willing to do some grindanz.

Mist is okay.  FE9 has a reputation of having low damage enemies, but Mist is frail enough to be at risk of dying.  Nevertheless, she's probably the better choice of long-term healer than Rhys given that Rhys is even frailer, slower, and with worse move.  The Sonic Sword hype usually comes with the assumption she eats 2 Arms Scrolls, but what else are you using those on, anyway.  She's pretty similar in RD, although her Str-based attacks really don't keep up there without some shenanigans.

Awakening healers are pretty interchangeable, spamming Physic and Rescue from the backlines.  Precisely because of this, you might as well stick them on horsies.  Valk is definitely the long-term call for the likes of Lissa / post-game Emmeryn.

The class is just fine in Fates.  In particular, the Strategist L15 skill is pretty badass early in the game, which can be gotten quickly by Jakob / Felicia due to how their levelling works.  Otherwise, similar to Awakening - stay in the backlines and use staves, except now it has the cool Inspiration Aura to help baiting units survive.  Dwyer & Forrest are usable enough kids IMO, slotting into any spare support roles you need.

3H Valkyrie is pretty impressive.  Range+ games are abusive combined with Canto, along with 3H not being very chokepointy.  Certain Blow is a very cool skill.

3H Holy Knight is the odd one out of the bunch.  In an absolute sense, it's fine - it's still Canto with "can use magic", just it competes very directly with Dark Knight and the devs didn't really carve out a proper niche for it.  Really needed either Lancefaire or White Magic Uses x2 on it rather than #$%^& Terrain Resistance.  It's also screwed over by many, many mages having only Nosferatu as their sole attack spell, or sometimes Nos + Abraxas when Abraxas is terrible.  And your reward for mastering this is friggin' Defiant Res?  That said, it's certainly still better than the actually bad classes of 3H like Swordmaster.  It has some very niche use for M!Byleth running a Faith build (since he gets Aura, one of the decent spells, and WM Avo +20) or maybe Bernadetta doing Pass + Rescue shenanigans.

[Whisky]

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

3H Valkyrie is pretty impressive.  Range+ games are abusive combined with Canto, along with 3H not being very chokepointy.  Certain Blow is a very cool skill.

I never got the DLC but Valkyrie has always sounds very good to me in 3H. it seems like a huge buff for magic users in general just because they can now have a class with more than 4 Move before level 30, but also the Range+ sounds really good. This class sounds like it might actually be better than the Master classes.

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

3H Holy Knight is the odd one out of the bunch.  In an absolute sense, it's fine - it's still Canto with "can use magic", just it competes very directly with Dark Knight and the devs didn't really carve out a proper niche for it.  Really needed either Lancefaire or White Magic Uses x2 on it rather than #$%^& Terrain Resistance.  It's also screwed over by many, many mages having only Nosferatu as their sole attack spell, or sometimes Nos + Abraxas when Abraxas is terrible.  And your reward for mastering this is friggin' Defiant Res?  That said, it's certainly still better than the actually bad classes of 3H like Swordmaster.  It has some very niche use for M!Byleth running a Faith build (since he gets Aura, one of the decent spells, and WM Avo +20) or maybe Bernadetta doing Pass + Rescue shenanigans.

I agree with all of this. Yea, Dark Knight is generally better but Holy Knight is still a good class, but it’s design is weird given how it’s geared to be offensive rather than supportive but as you pointed out, there’s very few good offensive White Magic spells, why not just be a Dark Knight if you want to use offensive magic? Still, I’d consider it under rated since it’s not at all bad like a lot of people say.

I think one of the main uses of it if you really want to utilize it would be as a slightly lower investment Dark Knight. Like that Bernadetta build you suggested could work just as well if not better as a Dark Knight but doing it as a Holy Knight would be slightly lower investment.

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

And besides, if you're doing Lagdou, wouldn't hurt to have at least one wielder of Ivaldi if you're willing to do some grindanz.

There’s always Artur or Moulder for that. Since L’Arachel starts underleveled I’d think giving her Anima magic would help catch her up to par as quick as possible, though you bring up a good point about Valkyrie getting bonus experience. I never thought of that.

[Jotari]

Great class. Even in the non Thracia games, staves are really important. So staves with more movement is just plain better. There is really basically no reason to want to be Cleric/Bishop when you can be Troubadour/Valkyrie, unless the game is trying to balance things with Weapon Ranks (or it's Sacred Stones where Bishops have the only good skill). People will knock on 3H Holy Knight for being bad, but the only reason Holy Knight is poor is because Dark Knight exists with a better personal skill and can do everything better. Holy Knight is still a fine class on its own, just outclassed. The DLC Valkyrie's Tome Range+1 is just loads of fun too.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Jotari

[Samu_77]

Fates:

Yes Elise is that good. 11 base starting magic with a 75% growth, 10 base speed with a 65% growth is very high, and lets her eventually start attacking once she goes into Strategist. Fire isn't ideal but since she's always doubling she'll get to Thunder pretty quickly which is all she needs. Amazing personal skill as well. Also has access to a good amount of Freeze and great availability, free Dragon Vein ability as well. The class skills are the only things that holds her back, but when you eventually get Inspiration it stacks with her personal and gives everyone next to her +3 damage and -5 damage.

You could argue that Jakob/Felicia technically come from this line so should be ranked, in that case they are the main early game healer along with Elise while providing speed and resistance bonuses when backpacks which are great to have. 

FE4:

Admittedly I'm still in the middle of this game so my opinion is incomplete, but Kanto after healing is cracked and no health-restore items makes healing more valuable.

FE6: 

The amount of Status Staves that enemies can have in this game means that flexibility in your ability to move while providing Restore is highly valuable. Admittedly neither of these two units are very good at attacking but in all honesty healing can be a much more pivotal role in this game anyways. Canto Rescue is always nice

FE7:

Basically for the same reason as above but while I find Priscilla does a better job at fighting, it comes much later and the Restore function isn't as vital in this game. Still a very solid unit.

FE8: 

L'Arachel just comes too late with a sad D-Rank in Staves and an even sadder join level. D-Rank means she can't even Restore at base and while you can certainly work that up to the point before Status Staves arrive it's still annoying. Her base and promotion classes also had one point of movement taken away which doesn't help. Natasha also counts for this, for which I guess she's okay? I think Bishop is ultimately a tad better because of Slayer but Valkyrie is certainly a good option. 

3H: 

Haven't played DLC so this is for Holy Knights

It's alright in theory, but losing White Magic x2 in exchange for the ability to move more is... mmm. I just never really felt like this was a super good class to be in. Canto is always nice to have though.

Awakening: 

Valkyrie just doesn't do anything in this game. Marriable isn't a super amazing unit but she's serviceable enough. Bad class skills, okay enough stat backpacking but it takes a shockingly long time to get to promotion in a game where you want your units to be able to attack with pair up for better offense. She doesn't cut it for what needs to be good in this game, and other units can replace her much sooner in her roles.

 

Amazing: FE14, FE4

Good: FE6-8

Mediocre: 3H

Bad: Awakening

[SnowFire]

16 hours ago, Samu_77 said:

Awakening: 

Valkyrie just doesn't do anything in this game. Marriable isn't a super amazing unit but she's serviceable enough. Bad class skills, okay enough stat backpacking but it takes a shockingly long time to get to promotion in a game where you want your units to be able to attack with pair up for better offense. She doesn't cut it for what needs to be good in this game, and other units can replace her much sooner in her roles.

To be sure, if you are Nos tanking everything, staff users aren't that important, but any other strategies tend to appreciate at least one or two staffers.  If we're running a staffer, your options are Valkyrie, Sage, War Monk, Trickster, and Falcon Knight.  FK is cool but generally learned by characters with physical stat spreads (your Cordelias).  Of the rest, Valkyrie has the best movement and 2nd best Speed (behind Trickster), but can use Tomes rather than being stuck with Levin Swords like Trickster.  That makes it pretty firmly the best long-term option for any staffer on the team, IMO.  (Which is not THAT important in Awakening, sure, but it's something.)

[Samu_77]

22 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

To be sure, if you are Nos tanking everything, staff users aren't that important, but any other strategies tend to appreciate at least one or two staffers.  If we're running a staffer, your options are Valkyrie, Sage, War Monk, Trickster, and Falcon Knight.  FK is cool but generally learned by characters with physical stat spreads (your Cordelias).  Of the rest, Valkyrie has the best movement and 2nd best Speed (behind Trickster), but can use Tomes rather than being stuck with Levin Swords like Trickster.  That makes it pretty firmly the best long-term option for any staffer on the team, IMO.  (Which is not THAT important in Awakening, sure, but it's something.)

I can see the argument but my problem is that Movement isn't really that important in Awakening in my opinion when even if you aren't Nos Tanking a lot of times your play is still going to be throwing one Paired Up unit into a fray to go and destroy a whole group of enemies. I find Sage to usually be doing Valkyries job better because it's higher magic allows for more range with distance staves, more healing (Although Magic Pair Ups usually give you plenty) and can do much more offensively with a higher magic, usually better weapon ranks allowing stronger tomes and eventually tomefaire, even though they have worse movement. Getting around in Awakening by using dancing, rescue staves and pairing up into another unit also just gives you a lot of ways to circumvent your movement issues. The speed is very nice to be sure but I generally don't like the idea of Valkyries fighting because from my experience using them tends to get them blown up pretty fast by things like forged Silver weapons late game, speed is also fairly easy to fix in this game by just slapping an Assassin or Swordmaster Backpack on a unit. The availability of the class is also just too poor for my tastes and the skills are dreadful.

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/26/2023 at 5:46 PM, SnowFire said:

3H Holy Knight is the odd one out of the bunch.  In an absolute sense, it's fine - it's still Canto with "can use magic", just it competes very directly with Dark Knight and the devs didn't really carve out a proper niche for it.  Really needed either Lancefaire or White Magic Uses x2 on it rather than #$%^& Terrain Resistance.  It's also screwed over by many, many mages having only Nosferatu as their sole attack spell, or sometimes Nos + Abraxas when Abraxas is terrible.  And your reward for mastering this is friggin' Defiant Res?  That said, it's certainly still better than the actually bad classes of 3H like Swordmaster.  It has some very niche use for M!Byleth running a Faith build (since he gets Aura, one of the decent spells, and WM Avo +20) or maybe Bernadetta doing Pass + Rescue shenanigans.

I'd disagree-it's hard for me to consider Holy Knight worth it for anyone. Except in Three Hopes, that is. And I am not sold on Holy Knight being better than Swordmaster. For all the effort it takes to qualify for it, it's, to be blunt, shit. It's "raise Bartre to get Karla" levels of effort for something that is so bad. From the perspective of Bishop, you sacrifice extra healing and white magic uses for... a horse. Whoopee. "Worse Dark Knight" sums it up perfectly. And Dark Knight is already too much work for me to consider it worth it.

As to Byleth: How is Aura "decent"? If anything, it's worse than Abraxas, being almost as heavy, and not very accurate either, with its sole redeeming feature being high crit. Color me unimpressed. 

[Whisky]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

And I am not sold on Holy Knight being better than Swordmaster.

5 Move vs 8 Move and combat Cantó

I should elaborate a little. Sniper has 5 Move and is a lot better than Swordmaster. Hunter’s Volley is a very powerful tool and can attack 2-4 spaces. It’s a powerful class. Swordmaster is not. I think it’s easily one of the worst classes in the game and much worse than Holy Knight.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Whisky

[samthedigital]

I find that the class is just in an awkward spot in Awakening. Maribelle can do her job for a few maps, but I've never deployed her in the desert maps for obvious reasons. After this we get quite a few healers with more magic, and I value the rescue range much more than the movement. Eventually units will start snowballing and don't need the support (on Lunatic), so I find bringing healers along to be a liability at that point with ambush spawns being what they are. A Falcon Knight would seem far more desirable anyway (after getting Tomefaire) for the cheese possibility on boss kill maps and better movement. The skills don't seem that useful outside of the level 15 promoted one either.

Healers seem to be a lot better on Luna+ (at least so far; I'm working my way through it slowly), but it seems like the class runs into the same two issues: Maribelle isn't the best showing, and it doesn't seem like a strong reclass option even if I want a handful of units with Rescue.

I guess a positive is that in a vacuum the class isn't terrible; staff access is good. It's just that I find the other options to be better.

Overall I'd go with FE4>FE5=FE6=FE7>FE9>Awakening=FE10>FE8

I'll keep this short since people have covered my thoughts on the class already. Everything I rated above FE9 is really good at the very least. Mist has kind of niche utility in both of her games while not being particularly useful, and L'Arachel just joins far too late at a low level in an unprompted class.

[Eltosian Kadath]

 

Time for another of my class tier lists to show my opinions on the matter. I was a bit surprised but this one, as when I really got to looking at it, with the exception of Fates, I kept finding very clear flaws in this class to try and balance them out with their dismounted counterparts.

 

S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game

Fates: This class just gets some of the best support skills in the game, after promotion becomes imo the second best combat magic class in Conquest (ignoring DLC), and has mounted movement on top of all that, and that is all before talking about how useful staff are in Fates. Oh, I almost forgot, the class can also promote into Maid/Butler as well, which is an interesting side grad to Strategist, getting better debuffing power in Shuriken access, is the S rank staff class (which can help in the last map as the fastest way to clear the otherwise overwhelming staff savant inevitable end enfeeble staff spam on lunatic), and Tome Breaker. I could  probably rant for a long time about this class, but I think this casual overview of how powerful it is probably does enough.

 

Thracia 776: Staff are king in Thracia, and don't be surprised if every class with staff use to get into S tier, but this one was kind of a close call, because of how hard it is to get their staff rank to where you want; as the class doesn't gain staff rank on promotion, the late game prepromote in the class only starts with C rank in staff, and it doesn't have tomes (another excellent feature for Thracia) to make up for the difficulty increasing staff rank. Now being mounted has a fair bit of nice utility to it, and this class doesn't change weapon ranks when dismounting, so the dismounting penalty isn't as harsh as it is for most combat focused classes. Add to that the extra utility Nanna gets thanks to her personal Earth Sword, which has a nosferatu effect and ranged magic damage (making her an especially good user of the Wrath scroll), and the Charm skill, and I think the class sneaks its way into S tier despite the difficulty of reaching high staff rank.

 

A Tier: A Good Class

Genealogy of the Holy War:  While I find the utility staff of this game kind of underwhelming, the more basic ability to heal is surprisingly useful on such long maps, with no healing items (although there are still full heal churches around), and being able to keep up with the cavs to heal them all up is enough to get into A tier.

 

B Tier: An OK Class

Binding Blade: Mounted units, and staff are especially useful in Binding Blade, but both of the units that get the class have frustratingly underwhelming stats attached to them. Both are definitely usable, but Clarine has the lowest magic (on average) of all the units that have magic, and Cecillia doesn't come with excellent stats either, but she at least gets some excellent weapon and staff ranks attached to her. It is still tempting to see it get into A tier, because restore, ranged staff, and movement staff are really useful in this game.

 

Blazing Sword: If any of the Binding Blade Troubadours got the stats of Priscilla, that class would have easily made A tier, and I might have been arguing for whether or not it should get into S tier, but staff have been seriously debuffed in this game to keep them in the same tier here. All the range staff lost 5 range (exchanging it with a minimum 5 range instead), enemy status staves are less prevalent, and often hidden away in gaiden chapters, and the movement staff are far later game, and far less useful than in Binding Blade (where every map is seize).

 

Radiant Dawn: Mist being a lot more usable on the path to promoting to horsehood brings it up a tier from the Path of Radiance iteration. It is still a lot of work to get the best out of this class, but it is more managable

 

Awakening: There comes a point in Awakening, where I feel healing really drops off in value, but for a fair bit of the early game it is useful, so if healing was all this class did, it would be struggling to get a C tier position. What gets it up to B tier is just how available, and buyable the rescue staff is. You can luck into merchants offering them (or just wait til it happens if you NEED it for a map) as soon as that is an option, and you get one for free by chapter 8, and getting them from shops is no longer RNG based after chapter 12. If Awakening wasn't the game that starts breaking in half all over the place after the midway point, or if this game had warp staff, this would have been enough to bring it to A tier.

 

C Tier:  A Subpar Class

Sacred Stones: Much as I find L'archel to be one of my favorite characters in Sacred Stones, she comes really low level, with frustratingly bad staff rank for when she arrives, and her class isn't keeping her afloat here. Even looking at other units that can promote into mounted healers, I consider Bishop the far better promotion on one side due to the value of slayer on the monster heavy end game, although Mage Knight is rather good. I am considering letting this sneak into B tier thanks to Mage Knight...

 

Engage: I am counting the Royal Knight for this entry, as a horse mounted class with staff access is what I consider the defining feature of the troubadour line. I find the cavalry class type to be really underwhelming in this game, and if I wanted a mounted staff unit, I would go with a flying one. Although Mauvier's performance in the class is enough to keep it out of D tier, as he is perfectly functional filler as soon as he arrives.

Path of Radiance: I considered putting this into D tier, but if you do actually bother to grind up the under-leveled Mist, a mounted healer is kind of useful. It earns its C tier due to it taking a lot of resources to basically get access to this class.

 

D Tier: A Bad Class

 

Three Houses: Why be in the Holy Knight class? If you want a mounted magic user, go with Dark Knight, if you want a good healer, chose a class that gets double the white magic uses. Maybe if someone started in this class, so you didn't have to spend resources getting access to it, or it was in a class tier where it was less thoroughly overshadowed, I might see it in a better light. I will also add that I don't generally get DLCs so this is the only class I am talking about.

 

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Whisky said:

5 Move vs 8 Move and combat Cantó

I should elaborate a little. Sniper has 5 Move and is a lot better than Swordmaster. Hunter’s Volley is a very powerful tool and can attack 2-4 spaces. It’s a powerful class. Swordmaster is not. I think it’s easily one of the worst classes in the game and much worse than Holy Knight.

More like 7 move and in a game where having a horse is not all boon. Canter can only do so much, and it is not nearly enough for me to absolve Holy Knight of being shit in just about every conceivable metric. Especially because again, Holy Knight takes a shitload of effort to get into. If it was actually decent, I might be inclined to forgive this transgression, but as it is, it's a fucking joke.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

More like 7 move and in a game where having a horse is not all boon. Canter can only do so much, and it is not nearly enough for me to absolve Holy Knight of being shit in just about every conceivable metric. Especially because again, Holy Knight takes a shitload of effort to get into. If it was actually decent, I might be inclined to forgive this transgression, but as it is, it's a fucking joke.

There is literally no downside of having a mount in Three Houses.

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, Jotari said:

There is literally no downside of having a mount in Three Houses.

There is. It's called "being slowed down to a crawl by terrain that isn't plains".

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

There is. It's called "being slowed down to a crawl by terrain that isn't plains".

Well in the three maps out of 50 where that is a thing, just get off your horse. That is a much bigger issue for mounts in almost every other game in the series. What maps are you even thinking of? Verdant Wind's finale is basically the only one with difficult terrain.

[Samu_77]

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Awakening: There comes a point in Awakening, where I feel healing really drops off in value, but for a fair bit of the early game it is useful, so if healing was all this class did, it would be struggling to get a C tier position. What gets it up to B tier is just how available, and buyable the rescue staff is. You can luck into merchants offering them (or just wait til it happens if you NEED it for a map) as soon as that is an option, and you get one for free by chapter 8, and getting them from shops is no longer RNG based after chapter 12. If Awakening wasn't the game that starts breaking in half all over the place after the midway point, or if this game had warp staff, this would have been enough to bring it to A tier.

 

First of all Merchants isn't a realistic factor for ranking a unit. Merchants offer stat boosters and reclass options, so I could theoretically say that Virion is equally as viable as every other character in the game cause merchants exist. 

The ease of access of the Rescue Staff is a detriment to Valkyrie more then a benefit. The magic that Sages have over Valkyries is too good to justify them. If you want to go a step further and really analyze everything, then you can also buy Physic staves from Spotpass and make the movement advantage that Valkyries have moot. They may not have the rank required to use them at base but you spam the rescue staff SO much in this game it barely matters, and it gives so much EXP that it's arguably beneficial. Valkyries can do this too, but there's no reason to ever be a Valkyrie when you can be a Sage, other then post-game Rally Resistance.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Samu_77

[Whisky]

52 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

More like 7 move and in a game where having a horse is not all boon. Canter can only do so much, and it is not nearly enough for me to absolve Holy Knight of being shit in just about every conceivable metric. Especially because again, Holy Knight takes a shitload of effort to get into. If it was actually decent, I might be inclined to forgive this transgression, but as it is, it's a fucking joke.

7 Move, my bad. Still 2 more than Swordmaster and combat Cantó is really good in 3H. I don’t see how it’s a shit class. It’s a high move class with combat Cantó and ranged combat and some utility. That’s several advantages over an actually shit class like Swordmaster that doesn’t seem to have anything going for it at all.

it also doesn’t really take that much investment to get into. A bit more than most classes maybe but not unreasonable.

53 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

There is. It's called "being slowed down to a crawl by terrain that isn't plains".

Even dismounted the class still has 6 Move which is still +1 over Swordmaster and +2 over Warlock/Bishop.

[Jotari]

8 minutes ago, Whisky said:

7 Move, my bad. Still 2 more than Swordmaster and combat Cantó is really good in 3H. I don’t see how it’s a shit class. It’s a high move class with combat Cantó and ranged combat and some utility. That’s several advantages over an actually shit class like Swordmaster that doesn’t seem to have anything going for it at all.

it also doesn’t really take that much investment to get into. A bit more than most classes maybe but not unreasonable.

Even dismounted the class still has 6 Move which is still +1 over Swordmaster and +2 over Warlock/Bishop.

I think its class requirements are one of the biggest knocks against it. Lance, riding and faith are not something you can naturally train up at once, and the only character that naturally trends towards these three is Marianne. Linhardt and Manuela are neutral in lances and riding, Mercedes and Lysthia are actively weak in lance and Flayn are weak in riding. But that isn't the real biggest issue, it's that you really need to train four weapon ranks to use Holy Knight, because you need to train your reason as well for offensive spells. That puts a lot of strain on wexp. As Eltosian Kadeth said, if someone started in the class (Rodrigue!) it would be a much nicer class. It's not bad in isolation, but the existence of Dark Knight, which has a batter skill and easier requirements (as you can get away with low level faith spells easier than low level reason spells) does make it mostly obsolete.

[Whisky]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think its class requirements are one of the biggest knocks against it. Lance, riding and faith are not something you can naturally train up at once, and the only character that naturally trends towards these three is Marianne. Linhardt and Manuela are neutral in lances and riding, Mercedes and Lysthia are actively weak in lance and Flayn are weak in riding. But that isn't the real biggest issue, it's that you really need to train four weapon ranks to use Holy Knight, because you need to train your reason as well for offensive spells. That puts a lot of strain on wexp. As Eltosian Kadeth said, if someone started in the class (Rodrigue!) it would be a much nicer class. It's not bad in isolation, but the existence of Dark Knight, which has a batter skill and easier requirements (as you can get away with low level faith spells easier than low level reason spells) does make it mostly obsolete.

Yes, it’s basically a worse version of Dark Knight, I agree with that. But I also think it wouldn’t be a terrible alternative to Dark Knight. Swordmaster is a lot worse than several better physical classes and I would argue would make a worse alternative to those classes.

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Yes, it’s basically a worse version of Dark Knight, I agree with that. But I also think it wouldn’t be a terrible alternative to Dark Knight. Swordmaster is a lot worse than several better physical classes and I would argue would make a worse alternative to those classes.

Likewise I'd say Holy Knight is quite a bit better than Mortal Savant, though at least you can get into Mortal Savant a lot more easily.

[Whisky]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Likewise I'd say Holy Knight is quite a bit better than Mortal Savant, though at least you can get into Mortal Savant a lot more easily.

Yeah Mortal Savant is kind of weird. It does also have Black Tome Faire so it’s a bit stronger offensively, but Holy Knight has higher Move and Cantó. I think of Mortal Savant as sort of an upgrade to Warlock, trading Black Magic x2 for +2 Move. Dark Knight would be higher investment but otherwise a lot better. And Holy Knight is kind of somewhere in the middle.

Basically I think that Holy Knight is basically just a worse version of Dark Knight, but is still not a bad class. There are several other classes that I would call a lot worse.

Just having a better alternative doesn’t make a class bad. Wyvern Lord is mostly better than Falcon Knight for most units and Falcon Knight is rarely worth using over Wyvern Lord, but that doesn’t mean Falcon Knight is bad at all. It’s pretty much the second best class in the game.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Yeah Mortal Savant is kind of weird. It does also have Black Tome Faire so it’s a bit stronger offensively, but Holy Knight has higher Move and Cantó. I think of Mortal Savant as sort of an upgrade to Warlock, trading Black Magic x2 for +2 Move. Dark Knight would be higher investment but otherwise a lot better. And Holy Knight is kind of somewhere in the middle.

Basically I think that Holy Knight is basically just a worse version of Dark Knight, but is still not a bad class. There are several other classes that I would call a lot worse.

Just having a better alternative doesn’t make a class bad. Wyvern Lord is mostly better than Falcon Knight for most units and Falcon Knight is rarely worth using over Wyvern Lord, but that doesn’t mean Falcon Knight is bad at all. It’s pretty much the second best class in the game.

It kind of depends on how you want to judge things, like on a relative spectrum or with some kind of objectivity. I think the character version of Holy Knight would be Radiant Dawn Renning. He is by no means a bad unit, but you get him at the same time that you get a bunch of royal laguz that significantly outclass him. So there isn't a huge motivation to deploy him other than "I want to", and if you do, he'll be fine, not as good as others, but fine. Likewise, Holy Knight will be worse than others, but if you do use it, it'll be fine.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Hadn't considered the Three Houses situation. Actually didn't know it was called "Valkyrie", but looking at it, seems like a combat class is it not? No Faith requirement. No support related skills. Then again Three Houses is not the sort of game that restricts weapon access on a class by class basis (unless you're a mage trying to use gauntlets. Seriously why?). It would never have had the traditional Troubadour or Priest class to begin with. Well a name's a name, I just have no experience to comment on its place in the game.

As for Holy Knight, it feels a little sadistic to be making that (dis)honorable mention.  Among the level 20 and 30 tiers, it's absolutely the class I'm least likely to get some use out of. Class skills are awful. Support capabilities fall off hard compared to Bishop or even Gremory. Stat are bad for no theoretical reason. Yes I know Aura and Abraxas exist on a couple characters, for just 3 and 2 uses per map. Honestly the biggest spell that I think justifies Holy Knight would be Recover. Late game health bars are in the 40s and 50s. The Bishop's +10 heal is a massive loss, but Recover+Canto is a great combo. Not any less effective as a Dark Knight though. Take it from a Lorenz enthusiast.

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Samu_77 said:

First of all Merchants isn't a realistic factor for ranking a unit. Merchants offer stat boosters and reclass options, so I could theoretically say that Virion is equally as viable as every other character in the game cause merchants exist. 

Half the maps before you get a free one have the chance of rescue staff; every time a merchant is rolled they get three possible items, so before chapter 8 there is roughly a 15% chance of one appearing every time a merchant is rolled, and there are numerous random chances to randomly get a rift door as well which can be more strategically used to double those odds. The odds are good enough that I have literally never seen someone so unlucky on a run as to not have been able to buy at least one rescue staff before Maribelle shows up. Stat boosters (assuming you want a specific one) on the other hand are far rarer (3%).

Getting a second seal is common enough if you want to spend the money on it, so having the second seal for Virion seems perfectly reasonable, it is just cost about double a full Rescue staff, so a notable use monetary resources (like giving Virion a forge to make him more viable), and exp to use it on him, and other units could use it (or the money you spent on it), so it isn't exactly a perfect fix for the guy.

 

3 hours ago, Samu_77 said:

 

The ease of access of the Rescue Staff is a detriment to Valkyrie more then a benefit. The magic that Sages have over Valkyries is too good to justify them. If you want to go a step further and really analyze everything, then you can also buy Physic staves from Spotpass and make the movement advantage that Valkyries have moot. They may not have the rank required to use them at base but you spam the rescue staff SO much in this game it barely matters, and it gives so much EXP that it's arguably beneficial. Valkyries can do this too, but there's no reason to ever be a Valkyrie when you can be a Sage, other then post-game Rally Resistance.

First off, I am betting Sage will get an equal or higher ranking when we get to it. Second off, Sages only get staff rank after promotion, and by then the values of staff are already on the decline, and troubodour have had a fair bit of time to use their high move rescue shenanigans. Third off 2 more magic, or 1 staff range more than Valkyrie, at the cost of 2 move, is no where near as disparate a trade as you imply. Sage definitely gets more useful skills in the long run, but with those sticking around once learned, reclassing from Sage to Valkyrie doesn't sound awful, given most magic oriented females get access to the Troubadour classline. Finally Troubadour/Valkyrie have at minimum equal magic growth to any classes path-line that become a sages, and if you get to Sage via Cleric (like Lissa), Troubodour literally has a higher magic growth. These rankings are supposed to be looking at classes, not simply units; so while Maribelle having a low magic base for her level is a blemish on the class, it isn't the death nail in a game where you can reclass people into it, and basically every female magic based unit has easy access to it.

 

4 hours ago, Whisky said:

That’s several advantages over an actually shit class like Swordmaster that doesn’t seem to have anything going for it at all.

Swordmaster has one massive advantage over Holy Knight, that Catherine starts as one, so it has a much lower opportunity cost to use one, and with Catherine being usable straight out of the box in spite of her class, there is even a reason to deploy a Swordmaster for a few maps while you are spending resources on unit that actually need them.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

It kind of depends on how you want to judge things, like on a relative spectrum or with some kind of objectivity. I think the character version of Holy Knight would be Radiant Dawn Renning. He is by no means a bad unit, but you get him at the same time that you get a bunch of royal laguz that significantly outclass him. So there isn't a huge motivation to deploy him other than "I want to", and if you do, he'll be fine, not as good as others, but fine. Likewise, Holy Knight will be worse than others, but if you do use it, it'll be fine.

I find the comparison a little lacking, because you have to jump through a lot more hoops to get to Holy Knight. If using the class was something I could simply do on a whim, like with Renning, I would definitely be ranking it higher. Its more like deciding to actually get and use Karla (which I actually have done, and she might be too terrible a unit to be a fair comparison), or Lehran (who is too good a unit to be a fair comparison).