So... why do armorslayers exist?

[Alastor15243]

This question has been bugging me for a while. The way that knights and generals are balanced strikes me as exceptionally odd.

I get why fliers and mounted units get effective weapons against them. It's a balancing thing to compensate for their superior movement.

...But why on earth do knights and generals get a weakness to armorslayers and hammers? They already have the worst move in basically every game they're in, they merely have an average number of weapons they have access to, and their stats aren't significantly above average in most games. So why do they need a weapon weakness? Surely their low move and low to mediocre resistance should be punishment enough for their high defense.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Alastor15243

[X-Naut]

Mainly so that physical units can actually beat them without dogpiling. Without the hammer most physical units would be hard-pressed to damage them.

...Of course, they could stand to be better at their job. A small damage reduction for armored units, putting the clippers to overkill offensive potential, or not treating them as the Goomba in a tin can (I'm looking at you, FE12).

[Jedi]

Because as enemies they are incredibly annoying to deal with, try playing FE6 & FE12 without an armorslayer (more the wingspear in 12's case I suppose) on HM/Lunatic and it'll show in the certain chapters where they are really nice to have when the enemies have them in mass. Or as a boss.

I mean in FE3 there was a Sword that was good against Mercenaries and Heroes too. FE has had effective weaponry against quite a few oddball classes, but generally I think armorslayers have existed more for the player, because Knights & Generals are much more effective as an enemy class.

Plus FE has generally been bias towards swords for quite a number of games, although their general lack of proper 1-2 range (usually anyways) hampers that still, and a common weakness of quite a number of sword users is lower strength, so without armorslayers they probably wouldn't be able to touch them in some of the more stat heavy games.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Because it'd be almost impossible to beat FE6 otherwise.

Have fun with the boss of chapter 7 + 8 without armorslayer.

[henrymidfields]

What would be the problem of using magic attacks against armoured units - that requires usage of Armourslayers?

Edited October 11, 2016 by henrymidfields

[MCProductions]

Because it'd be almost impossible to beat FE6 otherwise.

Have fun with the boss of chapter 7 + 8 without armorslayer.

You'd still have the Rapier, and remember, Roy shines in FE6's early and mid game, so his rapier access renders armorslayers redundant but still occasionally useful. That said, in modern FE, they are quite useful for the player particularly in FE11/12 and Fates. 11 and 12 because dear God those games love armor knights and cavs and Fates because the Lord doesn't get a Rapier.

[Rezzy]

What would be the problem of using magic attacks against armoured units - that requires usage of Armourslayers?

I guess they want to give every weapon type a way of countering armored units, since you usually get more sword wielders than mages.

[Ein]

To slay armor

But seriously, it gives the player more options to dispatch those pesky Knight and General and Great Knight bosses that sit on their +2 Def thrones under various circumstances.

[Shadow Mir]

You'd still have the Rapier, and remember, Roy shines in FE6's early and mid game, so his rapier access renders armorslayers redundant but still occasionally useful. That said, in modern FE, they are quite useful for the player particularly in FE11/12 and Fates. 11 and 12 because dear God those games love armor knights and cavs and Fates because the Lord doesn't get a Rapier.

The problem is, Roy's Rapier only has 12 effective Mt after WTD, meaning he's barely scratching armours with it.

Anyways, as to the question, I'd say it's because sword users tend to not have high Strength.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Augestein]

The problem is, Roy's Rapier only has 12 effective Mt after WTD, meaning he's barely scratching armours with it.

That's still better than a lot of weapons that you could be using against knights.

[Irysa]

Not when Roy has 5 base strength lol.

[henrymidfields]

I guess they want to give every weapon type a way of countering armored units, since you usually get more sword wielders than mages.

That's a good point. Though, I've found it just as easy to use Odin (magic), or Arthur/Beruka (high attack stats with WTA) for Fates. Or even just have Felicia use shrikens and lower the enemy armour's defences. Strangely, Vaike + hammer did make thing a whole lot easier against Raimi in Awakening Chapter 3, but that was the only time I really needed to use a hammer. Other times, there were Chrom's rapier or Miriel's tomes, or Vaike's sheer power and WTA.

[Shadow Mir]

That's still better than a lot of weapons that you could be using against knights.

Except for Roy's 5 base Strength. Yeah, I'm sticking to the Armorslayer, which at least can do something resembling damage.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Topaz Light]

Armorslayers seem more balanced than Hammers as Armorslaying weapons, since the WTD kinda evens out the effectiveness bonus. Meanwhile, Hammers get WTA and effectiveness, meaning that they just absolutely destroy any Knight or General they come in contact with. Unless that Knight or General is on a Throne or Gate or something. Then they have about a 40%~60% chance of not being absolutely destroyed by any given attack from the Hammer wielder.

Also, in regards to taking out Knights in FE6's early-game... Y'know, Lugh is also a thing that exists. He's present to help with every single enemy Knight in the game aside from Ruud. I get that he can't be everywhere at once, and his attack power isn't the greatest, but it's not like Armorslayers are your only option for Knight-busting. Besides, Lot and Wade can do decent damage to regular Knights even with just regular axes, although good luck getting Wade, at least, to do jack to boss Knights with that accuracy of his.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Topaz Light

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Knights is one of those things that is what the fuck in enemy side and quite meh in your side

Like the 2 most annoying enemy in Conquest is really undoubleable general who 3HKO anything but your bulkiest unit and Crit Spammin Zerker

[NekoKnight]

A lot of enemy generals can 2HKO your units AND take next to no damage from non-magical attacks. For a player who wants to keep all of their units alive and need to take out generals fast, armor breaking weapons are critical. Magic can also be used but sometimes enemy unit placement and/or the general having ranged weapons makes that too risky.

[Florete]

I think the question shouldn't be why armorslayers exist, but why armor as a unit type comes with no real advantages, only disadvantages. The idea is supposed to be that they have a lot of defense, but every FE game has a non-armored unit that at least has almost-as-good defense as the best armored unit, sometimes even better (RD Haar and Aran, anyone?). And then it comes with worse movement and effective weakness.

Armor just needs to be given some kind of real advantage.

[Kirie]

I think the question shouldn't be why armorslayers exist, but why armor as a unit type comes with no real advantages, only disadvantages. The idea is supposed to be that they have a lot of defense, but every FE game has a non-armored unit that at least has almost-as-good defense as the best armored unit, sometimes even better (RD Haar and Aran, anyone?). And then it comes with worse movement and effective weakness.

Armor just needs to be given some kind of real advantage.

I actually think that some of the changes made to the 3DS games have helped mitigate this. Armoured classes provide the best +Def pair-ups and are less hampered by their low movement, and reclassing into an armoured class is a good way to boost the defensive growths of a character that could use help in those areas. It's not perfect, but Armoured classes are certainly more worthwhile now than they were in previous eras of FE.

[henrymidfields]

I think the question shouldn't be why armorslayers exist, but why armor as a unit type comes with no real advantages, only disadvantages. The idea is supposed to be that they have a lot of defense, but every FE game has a non-armored unit that at least has almost-as-good defense as the best armored unit, sometimes even better (RD Haar and Aran, anyone?). And then it comes with worse movement and effective weakness.

Armor just needs to be given some kind of real advantage.

Or, sometimes, as what I've experienced in the 4 games I played before Fates, high defense isn't as valuable when: a) for defending, avoid tank was a thing back then; b) the offensive side can still offset some of the defensive's high defense with follow-ups - and let's not forget that Binding Blade especially had higher-stat enemies in general; c) also for Binding Blade, two certain classes have ridiculous crit boosts (and one also have ridiculously high attack power essentially rendering your Defense jack shit). Really, in the 5 FE games that I've played, I could make effective use of Armours in only Fates (thanks to Pair Ups, Effie's good stats, and Skills) and Shadow Dragon (as avoid tank was significantly nerfed).

Edited October 11, 2016 by henrymidfields

[Michelaar]

Pretty much to just make extra weapons for us to enjoy

[Zelgius]

I think the question shouldn't be why armorslayers exist, but why armor as a unit type comes with no real advantages, only disadvantages. The idea is supposed to be that they have a lot of defense, but every FE game has a non-armored unit that at least has almost-as-good defense as the best armored unit, sometimes even better (RD Haar and Aran, anyone?). And then it comes with worse movement and effective weakness.

Armor just needs to be given some kind of real advantage.

I would agree with this. I think in forthcoming games they could do away with armour slaying weapons/armour unit type and it wouldn't have that much of an impact. The advantages of the knight class are balanced by the disadvantages.

[Alastor15243]

I think the question shouldn't be why armorslayers exist, but why armor as a unit type comes with no real advantages, only disadvantages. The idea is supposed to be that they have a lot of defense, but every FE game has a non-armored unit that at least has almost-as-good defense as the best armored unit, sometimes even better (RD Haar and Aran, anyone?). And then it comes with worse movement and effective weakness.

Armor just needs to be given some kind of real advantage.

That was kinda what I was trying to get at. I just find it puzzling that even in Fates, the game that makes generals more useful than ever, the strengths and weaknesses just don't add up. The game just seems to think their one strength requires yet another weakness as if the other ones didn't already do the job, It's like if there were an inventory item, think the iron rune, that halves the strength of fighters and berserkers when attacking just because they're otherwise really strong, even though they already pay for that with shit defense and sometimes accuracy.

[Thinks Their Own Way]

Considering General's now have the Wary Fighter ability (no more getting doubled on), A weapon that does more damage to them comes in handy.

[Rezzy]

For Armor, an idea to make it have an advantage would be to make crits less effective say x2 instead of x3 damage, and maybe give them an innate critical avoid, like Sword masters and Berserkers get an innate critical. As is, Armor Knights as playable units don't bring much to the table.

[vanguard333]

I myself have not really had a problem with the Armourslayer gameplay-wise (though I do agree that there could be better ways to implement it). Really my problem has been their aesthetics. I always found the idea of using a massive sword to combat armour a little... silly (for lack of a better adjective). One idea I have for a different style of armourslayer is this:

In the actual middle ages, one technique that was used to combat plate armour was to hold the sword by the blade and strike with the guard or pommel to deliver blunt force onto the opponent. It was called a "Mordhau". Ever since I found out about this, I thought it would be really cool if the armourslayer was a sword used in this way.