How to make Knights a more viable class without changing their niche?

[Topaz Light]

So it's come to my attention that Knights aren't nearly as good a class as I thought they were when I first played Fire Emblem.

It seems to me that they're mostly helpful in the close-quarters maps of the early chapters, where they don't have to move far and where their high HP, Strength, and Defense makes them well-suited to taking on early-game enemies.

However, later on, when maps start getting bigger and your team starts needing to move further, faster, the usefulness of Knights in most chapters tends to peter out pretty quickly since they can't keep up with the action, and you generally have other characters by that point who are tanky enough to play the role of attack sponge/point-choker when necessary.

FE1 was actually kind of interesting in that it gave Knights access to both Swords and Lances, albeit it was before the Weapon Triangle came into play and made access to multiple weapon types really important. However, I've also heard it said that Lances are the best single physical weapon to be "locked" into, so Knights can't really have it much better, weapon-wise, short of giving them an additional weapon type.

I understand that the obvious solutions here are either to give the Knight and General classes one more point of movement to keep them up to speed with everyone else, or else design the entire game such that less-mobile characters will reliably have something important to be attending to in every chapter.

I'm curious to hear what people think, though, especially people better-versed in more intense playstyles!

[Katie]

Don't give us slow Knights. Don't give us slow units in general. Radiant Dawn Gatrie is a great example of a well done Knight/General. He was fast, strong, and Tammy, and generals and Marshalls had enough move to not be majorly hindered.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

I like what Fates did and give Generals an ability that prevents them from getting doubled

[Ansem]

I like what Fates did and give Generals an ability that prevents them from getting doubled

yeah i think this was the best way to balance the class

also if we give them actual res then i think they would be better

[saisymbolic]

Wary Fighter was a good start.

I always had problems with MOVE and I refuse to sacrifice Boots on a Knight/General. Just give them the same MOVE as other units.

[Emerson]

I think the only thing keeping them back is their Movement. Moving 4 tiles per turn is really slow.

One thing I notice is that everyone above is removing their weaknesses, whereas increasing their movement just makes them less tedious to use.

Pair-Ups fixed it a little bit, since they can get easily carried around without penalty, but just giving them the same movement as normal grounded units would instantly make them better.

EDIT: Sniped!

Edited August 8, 2016 by TrueEm

[Junkhead]

I really like the way you worded it. Couldn't have explained it better, myself. You can only do so much to a class before it stops fulfilling that role (aka, you don't give Wyverns high Spd). With that said, I'd either lock them to Great Knight promotion (solves mobility issues + gives WTControl while keeping them tanky and slow), pretty much.

I like what Fates did and give Generals an ability that prevents them from getting doubled

With a class that's barely supposed to take any damage, it's not that much useful. at worst, it only avoids them from getting doubled by Heroes/SMs with armourslayers (and the like). However, they generally aren't as slow as to get doubled by enemy magic users.

also if we give them actual res then i think they would be better

I was about to point out how Res isn't all that important, but in the end, it'd just give them an extra reason to be using them. Sort of. Keep in mind, while we're not necessarily making them "magic" tanks, some degree of decent amount of Res + high HP would end up giving them a bit of an extra purpose.

[Jiac]

If Pair-up continues to be a serious staple in the Fire Emblem series.

Guard Stance should be active in some form next to a Knight imo. In Attack Stance, you still have the benefit of protecting from Dual Attacks if you're next to a Knight/General, plus have the little guard counter still. In Pair-up stance, the guard counter should increase faster if you have a Knight/General next to you. Maybe a random chance to still protect even if you don't have a full Dual Guard counter.

It would at least make them better support units. As front line units, they should maybe still get Dual Attacks even in Pair-up stance. My only issue with this is that it may make them incredibly overpowered.

[Topaz Light]

I feel like I should've just mentioned this in my first post, but I actually had some kinda vague, general ideas, myself, mainly centering around Class Skills geared for buffing the Knight's abilities to play defensively. Things like...

• A skill that gives them an advantage during the Enemy Phase, maybe giving all Knights Vantage or something like that
• A skill that increases the terrain bonuses they receive. Maybe something like a x1.5 or x2 modifier, but I was worried that x2 might be getting a little broken, and it'd also make enemy Knights situated on advantageous terrain an absolute chore to deal with. Maybe it only buffs the bonuses up to a cap? Like, maximum Avoid bonus is +30 or so, maximum Defense bonus is +3, etc. etc.
• Admittedly, this is geared for a setup that uses Rescue/Drop instead of Pair Up, but a skill that negates the penalties of Rescuing another unit. The "Knights always give Dual Guard when supporting" idea is probably a better one, though, since Knights aren't actually very good for Rescuing so buffing their ability to do so is kinda pointless.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Topaz Light

[Emerson]

If Pair-up continues to be a serious staple in the Fire Emblem series.

Guard Stance should be active in some form next to a Knight imo. In Attack Stance, you still have the benefit of protecting from Dual Attacks if you're next to a Knight/General, plus have the little guard counter still. In Pair-up stance, the guard counter should increase faster if you have a Knight/General next to you. Maybe a random chance to still protect even if you don't have a full Dual Guard counter.

It would at least make them better support units. As front line units, they should maybe still get Dual Attacks even in Pair-up stance. My only issue with this is that it may make them incredibly overpowered.

There's already something similar that exists. Bold Stance. fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Bold_Stance

In fact, your version is actually even more overpowered.

Edited August 8, 2016 by TrueEm

[Jotari]

I think knights should have the same movement as everyone else at tier 1 but not gain point of movement upon promotion to general, like Hector in FE7. Additionally I'd do something to the Armour status as a whole so it's not completely a weakness with no benefits at all. Right now I'm thinking they receive half damage from Hand Axes and Lances etc when hit at range. Before I was considering making them immune to Shuriken stat reductions but that would sort of defeat the point of the stat reductions since a knight is the one enemy you'd want to actually weaken first since you'd likely kill most other enemies in one or two hits.

Also I'm not quite finished revelations but I'm finding Knights and Generals ridiculously useful in Fates. Like the best class type by a wide margin.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Jotari

[NekoKnight]

I found a lot of use out of knights in Fates. It's really nice to have a high defense unit available, especially when dodge-tanking is so unreliable. Wary Fighter also improves their durability a lot, so they have a good niche. Their lower move is a bit of problem, but with pair up, it's not as big a deal.

[Enaluxeme]

The only real problem of knights is the low movement, but having knights with the same movement as a myrmidon feels off. Usually they have so much defense/hp that taking 1 hit instead of 2 doesn't really make a difference.

I think Knights are mostly fine the way they are. Maps just need to be made with knights in mind, offering choke points and such. Maybe multiple objectives in the same chapter, so that while the other characters go for the first objective the knight(s) already start going for the second.

Other things may beneft knights, but those depend on the game's mechanics: if there are skills, having something like wary fighter, ambush and pavise helps greatly; having movements be 5 for knights and 6 for others instead of 4-5 or 3-4 (damn you tearring knights) reduces the difference; having a mounted promotion removes the movement disadvantage; with forced dismounting in inside chapters you remove mounts, making all foot units better by default, knights included.

[Lord Raven]

You could make the game hard and give enemies pretty strong offense, like they did in Conquest. Effie is a very good unit.

You could make the maps more tight and more about moving in many directions, so there's no one path, which is kind of what FE10 did (but not really, Gatrie was still a pretty good unit).

Boost their speed growth if you don't give them Wary Fighter.

The last option is more defense maps.......

[Batter the Beast]

You could make the game hard and give enemies pretty strong offense, like they did in Conquest. Effie is a very good unit.

Effie is very good because of her sheer ORKOing ability on top of her defensive utility and the defensiveness of earlygame Conquest cause none of your units at that time are good except like Corrin. That being said, high level Fire Emblem is very offensive in nature, which I think is healthy for the genre. Having low mobility and low speed makes most knights horrible offensive wise, with notable knights (Oswin, Gatrie, Effie) either having the game tailored to them with defend chapters or with stupid high parameters overall. Casually, knights are fine since they can do a good amount of damage per hit and can tank a lot, which helps the more turtley nature of casual gameplay. Considering both gameplay styles, knights have their place as the more casual turtle unit.

However, a problem arises when units can fulfill both offensive and tank roles, being amazing in both high level and casual FE play. Such units include every early prepromote paladin/great knight, Dagdar, Haar, and Xander. Note that no knights fill this area except perhaps Effie for the reasons stated above. For just about every other class, I can easily name a unit who is good in both levels of play. So, there is no reason that knights should not also be a unit used in high level play. While Effie is a very good knight, I don't want her to be the staple on how to make knights good. She has earlygame almost tailored to make her strong with the enemy phase heavy chapters 9 and 10, while the other knight, Benny, is chump tier since all he has is defense at the moment the game transitions into high movement and ORKOs.

There is no denying that knights can be useful enemy phase in theory. With the ability to tank multiple enemy hits due to high HP and defense and their good damage setting up kills for next round, what could go wrong? Well, it's the fact that most knights can't ORKO on enemy phase, and the attacking unit takes up the space that other units could take for the knight to tank, meaning that they tank maybe 2 enemies a turn, which most units can do anyway. I said I didn't want Effie to be the model for other knights, with the game being tailored to her in terms of map and unit design, but the overall stats of units is also tailored to make her good. With the overall low HP of most units in Fates in general and the higher damage output of most enemies, knights could stand out as the high HP and high defense unit, with the defense aspect being much, much higher than any other units. Since knights normally get doubled, their defense needs to be that much higher to compensate. This would make magic the go-to answer to them since knights have low res, and I don't see a reason to change that. It's a nice buff to the often crappy mages. The current weapon triangle needs to change for that, though, since lances beat magic in the new weapon triangle. Knights should also be able to OHKO frail units, so that they have a lot more offensive presense than they generally do. That might sound overpowered, but fighters could be the answer to that. With their insanely high damage output, low accuracy, and high HP, they could get through that tough defense while surviving a hit from the knight. This unit balance is what I think the knight > myrm > fighter triangle is in theory, but it needs to be emphasized a little more, and mounts are used a lot more than the other two. So just nerf mounted dudes already, they're consistently overpowered. Speaking of which...

Knights have another glaring flaw. Movement. Knights and generals have, in general, 1 less move than their fellow footies. Over the course of 4 turns, thats a 4 tile difference, which means they practically skip a turn of movement every 4 turns. That's pretty terrible, so just get rid of it. There's no real reason to have that and it cements knight as the turtle class. Knights should be trained and physically capable to be able to move in their bulky armor just fine, so it can work thematically as well. The great knight promotion is a great way to address the movement problem, which is something that Effie normally does, but it leaves no real reason to use General. General Effie dies about as easily as great knight Effie. Other Fates characters may have a dilemma when choosing what class to stay in. While malig knight skills are great, Camilla might want immediate access to lances for a certain chapter. Leo might want to have far better offense at the cost of movement. Great knight is just a better general, especially with full WT control on top of movement. Wary fighter is not a good answer to the "turtle unit" problem. If anything, it makes it worse. Generals have even less potential offense, and can tank even harder. Going with the previous assertion, it's possible to make great knights have about the same defense as a knight would while gaining more speed so they're the more high risk offense unit, but generals get a huge boost in defense and HP and strength, solidifying them as the tank that can ORKO frailer units like myrmidons while not being able to ORKO bulkier units like fellow knights and fighters.

I've ran through a bunch of ideas in my head, like having a prepromote general as the Jagen with access to every melee weapon type and having no knights, making knights enemy only since making them even more defensive might make them a roadblock to a lot of LTC strategies, but I just sort of wanted to rant about the topic.

tl;dr: give knights more movement, str and defense, nerf mounted units

Edited August 8, 2016 by Batter the Beast

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I like the skill in FE14 where knights can neither double nor get doubled.

Alternative give us FE10 Gatrie II.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[Junkhead]

When does Effie 1RKO if she can't double? Her SPD growth is good, albeit rather standard by post FE10 standards. Her base SPD is sucky, though. That really kills it. With that in mind, I'd actually argue even Kellam has an easier time doubling, given how dumb FE13 Pair-Up is.

Also seconding Gatrie 2.0

Edited August 8, 2016 by Soul~!

[quasimopho13]

General with Draconic Hex was a lot of fun. Stick a general against an army so that they're all weakened to be defeated on the next turn. Went well with Wary Fighter

Really helpful in Nohr where enemies and bosses were really strong

Wary Fighter made them tough opponents on Nohr.

But, going back on topic, maybe negating critical hits on generals?

Edited August 8, 2016 by quasimopho13

[The DanMan]

I found a lot of use out of knights in Fates. It's really nice to have a high defense unit available, especially when dodge-tanking is so unreliable. Wary Fighter also improves their durability a lot, so they have a good niche. Their lower move is a bit of problem, but with pair up, it's not as big a deal.

Basically this.

In general, the only people I really see complaining about knights are LTC'ers, where slow units are the antithesis of the playstyle.

[Katie]

Basically this.

In general, the only people I really see complaining about knights are LTC'ers, where slow units are the antithesis of the playstyle.

Even Knights can be useful in LTC if the game is designed right. Gatrie, for instance, is Upper Mid tier in RD. The reason for this is that not only are his stats amazing, his movement is 6, which is the same as most of the promoted magic classes, and only 3 behind that of your promoted mounts, so he generally won't be lagging too far behind.

Regarding Wary Fighter, I'm not a fan. I especially don't like how it prevents you from doubling as well. I'd rather they just make sure your units are fast enough to not get doubled in the first place. Awakening did a good job of this. In Awakening, the lowest speed growth possible is 35%, and that's only if you have a -speed avatar in the Knight or General class.

[Junkhead]

Not sure if he's Upper Mid by LTC standards, but he's actually monster mode otherwise. Give him Celerity and a Crown (assuming he caps Spd in HM) and he'll just rampage for all of his career.

[Troykv]

It's a little bit sad this class were designed more as enemy units.

Some people would be scare if they see the Knight arrive sooner... The Class has lower movement to give the beginner a (undeserved?) mercy. Using the other units to atract his allies and defeat them, focusing now in the Knight in the next Turn; because the Knights are always Three Steps Behind XD.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Even Knights can be useful in LTC if the game is designed right. Gatrie, for instance, is Upper Mid tier in RD. The reason for this is that not only are his stats amazing, his movement is 6, which is the same as most of the promoted magic classes, and only 3 behind that of your promoted mounts, so he generally won't be lagging too far behind.

Regarding Wary Fighter, I'm not a fan. I especially don't like how it prevents you from doubling as well. I'd rather they just make sure your units are fast enough to not get doubled in the first place. Awakening did a good job of this. In Awakening, the lowest speed growth possible is 35%, and that's only if you have a -speed avatar in the Knight or General class.

Maybe it is just me, but I never had Effie fast enough to double anything... with the exception of other armor knights, unless they had wary fighter.

Personally, I don't like the idea of Generals having a high speed growth. I also don't think they should have increased movement. I think they should be able to wield a 2nd weapon at their base class. And Effie may not benefit but so much from wary fighter, but Benny does

[Shadow Mir]

• A skill that increases the terrain bonuses they receive. Maybe something like a x1.5 or x2 modifier, but I was worried that x2 might be getting a little broken, and it'd also make enemy Knights situated on advantageous terrain an absolute chore to deal with. Maybe it only buffs the bonuses up to a cap? Like, maximum Avoid bonus is +30 or so, maximum Defense bonus is +3, etc. etc.

Fates already came up with something like that (to an extent), it's called Natural Cover.

I found a lot of use out of knights in Fates. It's really nice to have a high defense unit available, especially when dodge-tanking is so unreliable. Wary Fighter also improves their durability a lot, so they have a good niche. Their lower move is a bit of problem, but with pair up, it's not as big a deal.

Agreed.

[NekoKnight]

Basically this.

In general, the only people I really see complaining about knights are LTC'ers, where slow units are the antithesis of the playstyle.

I'll never understand people who rate units/classes in general threads based on their usefulness in LTC. By the way they argue, you'd think they wanted the game balanced around a play style that only a small minority of the fan-base play.