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General Opinion of Knights


Martin
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What is your opinion on knights and how they're played throughout the series? Personally, I think they're a little lackluster unless the player is going with a bait and turtle approach, which does not fill me with that sort of omph that I generally play FE for. By omph, I mean the satisfaction of moving your army swiftly, responding to threads efficiently, and having badass back up plans for when something goes wrong (such as a missed attack or an unexpected enemy crit). 

Having a butt load of DEF and HP is alright on paper, but the problem is, the knights are a part of an army of other characters. Their defensive stats generally don't serve well for the other characters and the good of the team. Enemy knights are a pain to deal with since the enemy CPU won't care about losing characters like the player usually does. With wide maps, 2 ranged weapons, and areas exploitable by said weapons, the knight's defensive stats won't come into big play until after the people all around them are downed. In some games, they only have access to one weapon, usually the lance, which does them no favors against the likes of brigands with their already high attack power. 

In your opinion, what changes to the class would you make in terms of skills, stats, and growths? 

For one, I'd give them a sword as a secondary from the un-promoted start. Their high defensive stats already makes them tanky against other lance users, but a sword will help them fulfill their role in absolute; to survive a brawl. The attack bonus gained by an axe user helps to counter act that role that they're supposed to fill. If knights had an axe instead of a sword for a secondary, that would help them against other axe users, yes, but with a sword, knights can be more defensive against the class with some of the highest attack stats over all. Them being effective against lance users don't really serve much purpose in my eyes. 

Second, I'd give them a skill so their HP and DEF also helps other characters. There was a mobile tactical game I played once, that had the tank-like unit with a skill which would have him take most of the damage that his nearby allies took, calculated with his def. It really made an interesting turn of options to consider when approaching an enemy team and it felt awesome to wreck face with my glass cannon while my tank took the majority of the counter-attack damage, which would be deadly for the cannon, but for the tank, it was just a minor issue. Or how about abilities that could temporarily prohibit 2 ranged weapons from hitting any allies except for the person that activates it? 

Third: EXP for tanking. By giving all the exp to characters that lands the finishing blow, it really just accelerates the rate in which supporting characters, whose main function may not be to simply kill everything, gets left in the dust in terms of leveling and growth. The more damage a unit suffers during battle, the more exp he obtains. Many times, a knight might be out ranged or be used as the only obstacle keeping a deadly enemy away from an important character. I think that role should be a tad more appreciated so the knight could keep up with the glass cannons. 

Finally, I'd implement an item in the game that grants a knight immunity to hammers and also make pure water a bit more of a common find. This item would not be abundant, not at all. It will be for that special knight that the player specifically enjoys and allow the class to have just a bit more usability against maps that may feature hammers, armorslayers, and the such. Pure Water would make it so they possess just a bit more utility in special situation where a tanky character that also have high resistance would save the day. 

As for the movement flaw that they have, I'd say just make sure to keep the boots in any fire emblem game, not enough for the player to use on ALL of his knights, but just enough so he could have a few knights that could get to the battles if they desperately need to do so here and there. 

With those additions, I'd say we'd have a fairly useful class, not the OHKO meme-lords that would probably be the only people not to get benched, but a class that provides assistance to the general army in a more stable way. These changes would also effect how much of a danger they could be seen as when they're enemies. I sure as heck wouldn't just charge with my mages like I usually do.

Edited by Martin
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tl;dr but from your first sentence I feel your sentiment.

4 mov is such a bad handicap, unless you have really good combat stats that bench is Metal-coated to hold your weight.

In fact everytime I play FE against generals I usually get them sneak up on me because 5 mov is just that much better, and as for cavs, I already expect them to go far so i expect it. Also the boots isn't good on them, because there is usually a unit with higher mov than them that has stupid good combat, like Rutger or Milady. Actually Percival or Heath.... hmm...

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Still better than Fighters, aka the one class that's most consistent about having damning weaknesses and nothing of note to make up for said weaknesses. I mean, it's pretty telling that Fates actually did something to improve knights and archers, yet didn't do jack nor shit to help fighters.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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55 minutes ago, Martin said:

In some games, they only have access to one weapon, usually the lance, which does them no favors against the likes of brigands with their already high attack power. 

Brigands mostly appear in early game chapters anyway, and aren't usually much of a threat.

Enemy knights are a pain to deal with since the enemy CPU won't care about losing characters like the player usually does

Yes, because it's not as though mages can target their weaker Res stat or anything, right? Oh, wait...

For one, I'd give them a sword as a secondary from the un-promoted start. Their high defensive stats already makes them tanky against other lance users, but a sword will help them fulfill their role in absolute; to survive a brawl. The attack bonus gained by an axe user helps to counter act that role that they're supposed to fill. If knights had an axe instead of a sword for a secondary, that would help them against other axe users, yes, but with a sword, knights can be more defensive against the class with some of the highest attack stats over all. Them being effective against lance users don't really serve much purpose in my eyes.

As someone who enjoys having Generals one-shotting Pegasus Knights with axes, this idea of yours is a hard no.

Third: EXP for tanking. By giving all the exp to characters that lands the finishing blow, it really just accelerates the rate in which supporting characters, whose main function may not be to simply kill everything, gets left in the dust in terms of leveling and growth. The more damage a unit suffers during battle, the more exp he obtains. Many times, a knight might be out ranged or be used as the only obstacle keeping a deadly enemy away from an important character. I think that role should be a tad more appreciated so the knight could keep up with the glass cannons. 

Since knights have a huge defense stat, they probably won't take much in the way of damage anyway, which means they'll often get little to no EXP tanking hits. In fact, there are numerous times I've had a General take no damage at all from weaker units such as Swordmasters or Falcon Knights (You clearly didn't think this one through very well).

 It will be for that special knight that the player specifically enjoys and allow the class to have just a bit more usability against maps that may feature hammers, armorslayers, and the such.

Hammers and armourslayers aren't all that common to begin with (unlike bows, which Pegasus Knights have to deal with), so I feel that this is nothing but a waste.

As for the movement flaw that they have, I'd say just make sure to keep the boots in any fire emblem game, not enough for the player to use on ALL of his knights, but just enough so he could have a few knights that could get to the battles if they desperately need to do so here and there.

Or we could do what Radiant Dawn did, and give them 5 move, which increases to 6 on promotion (you know, the same as most other infantry classes).

 

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Still better than Fighters, aka the one class that's most consistent about having damning weaknesses and nothing of note to make up for said weaknesses.

Man you really hate fighters don't you? I still think it's better for them than knights who can't reach the enemy unless yu turtle or rescue drop them, meanwhile fighters are innacurate but can still hit, and hard when they do so.

Also just like Fates improved archers with the Quickdraw skill and Knights with Wary Fighter and a possible promotion to Great Knight, Axe fighters have a promotion to Hero, AKA usually the best combat class in any FE game.

Still if I had to do a ranking of all classes the bottom 3 would be, from worst to not the worst but still bad: Archers, Knights and Fighters.

Also this topic is about Knights not axe infantry, you don't need to needlessly derail every topic into a "I hate fighters" thread, I have already seen you do it three times.

EDIT: @NinjaMonkey Great you enjoy killing Pegasus Knights with your general, it's not like anyone else can do that hmm? Also those games that give them 5 mov also give the rest of the cast 6 for infantry so not much of a good argument.

Edited by This boi uses Nino
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5 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Man you really hate fighters don't you? I still think it's better for them than knights who can't reach the enemy unless yu turtle or rescue drop them, meanwhile fighters are innacurate but can still hit, and hard when they do so.

The 10% of the time when they actually manage to hit their target does in no way make up for the rest of the time when they don't.

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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2 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Man you really hate fighters don't you? I still think it's better for them than knights who can't reach the enemy unless yu turtle or rescue drop them, meanwhile fighters are innacurate but can still hit, and hard when they do so.

Also just like Fates improved archers with the Quickdraw skill and Knights with Wary Fighter and a possible promotion to Great Knight, Axe fighters have a promotion to Hero, AKA usually the best combat class in any FE game.

After Fates, I'm kinda justified since the fighters said game offered are honestly among the worst yet. Also, the few times they can hit don't make up for the many times when they don't, and worse yet, any attack they take does massive damage because they have suck for defenses and tend to have suck for speed too.

Which is nothing new, and that assumes I'm willing to invest enough in a fighter to get them there, which is a tall order when they're a massive pile of failure.

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20 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

it's not like anyone else can do that hmm? 

Apart from RD!Shinon, archers are complete and utter garbage, so...

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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5 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

The 10% of the time when they actually manage to hit their target does in no way make up for the rest of the time when they don't.

10%? Excuse me but if I were to load up a FE7 HHM save file right now my axe fighters usually have ~70% hit which is more like ~85%. with true hit so I don't know where you are getting your numbers from... oh I know! You're specifically looking at a single case where a Fighter of yours was trying to hit Henning in FE6... sorry bud, but your lies are easy to spot. Try harder :P:

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

After Fates, I'm kinda justified since the fighters said game offered are honestly among the worst yet. Also, the few times they can hit don't make up for the many times when they don't, and worse yet, any attack they take does massive damage because they have suck for defenses and tend to have suck for speed too.

Which is nothing new, and that assumes I'm willing to invest enough in a fighter to get them there, which is a tall order when they're a massive pile of failure.

tl;dr Fighters hit more than they miss, their numbers are 70% not 2%, they are better than knights for having enough more mov to contribute where as it's hard to get knights in position to begin with.

Yes Fates has pretty meh fighters I'll give you that, but they are only one game fighters, take a look at IDK Othin for example, or Barts. I remember your quote "most of the time the good fighters are good because of themselves and not because of their class" and I would agree except that this is true with any other unit like Raven or Seth. Also again, their hitrates are usually hanging in the 70s and with true hit that goes from ~82 to ~91 which is pretty respectable, with hand axes they hang around in the 60s and it's not so great there but one look at those numbers will tell you that you will hit more than miss, the reason you probably think they hit less than they miss is because of confirmation bias, where the brain only looks at specific cases to formulate a thought, in this case you are probably remembering with rage all the times fighters missed but when you did hit with them in one of your playthroughs you went "Meh" and moved on, because it went as you wished.

In FE14 I already said how Arthur is tanky enough because his defenses are way better than you give him credit for and especially for Fates we are talking about, as for speed he does have pretty low speed but he won't be getting doubled by anything bar Samurai and Ninjas. And really the only other units that are constantly doubling are Corrin, Niles, Samurai!Odin and Elise if you early promoted her, as for the rest you would have to get very lucky. The one with bad defense is discount Arthur AKA Charlotte, I consider her wrse because by her join time everyone does things better than her, they can usually double like she "might" but the others won't be taking 36 damage from a Wendy at base. Talking about knights again, look at the worst units in any tier list, you will usually see those are Knigths or archers like Wil, Wendy, Rebecca, Bors and Wallace. Where as fighters usually hang in the low mid tier and knights in the low/mid trash tier.

Fair enough, but their high damage is useful for earlygame, suually being enugh to feed kills to whoever you wish, in Fates their hit problems can be reduced by having units next to them, as that gives bonuses to hit as well as a free hit to more likely than not finish off an enemy.

8 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Apart from RD!Shinon, archers are complete and utter garbage, so...

Path of radiance Shinon in early game is good too. But I'm not talking about archers, I'm talking everyone in general like literally anyone else can poo poo on them if they can double them when they come at you with Steel Lances and 5 con LOLWUT.

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11 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

But I'm not talking about archers, I'm talking everyone in general like literally anyone else can poo poo on them if they can double them when they come at you with Steel Lances and 5 con LOLWUT.

Except I've only played the Tellius games and Awakening, games where AS either based on unit strength, unit speed and weapon weight, or just unit speed alone (and where CON isn't used except for rescuing).

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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10 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Except I've only played the Tellius games and Awakening, games where AS either based on strength, speed and weapon weight, or just speed.

That explains it then, emulators are out there go play them before acting like Generals are super good. Because the only notable knights in those games are Kellam, Gatrie, Brom, Tauroneo and Kjelle. All of which except for maybe Gatrie suck ass.

If you can't be bothered to play GBAemblem then let me tell you that pegasus knigths there are very weak. Even then in the Telius games, very VERY powerful units can kill them easily.

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8 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

If you can't be bothered to play GBAemblem then let me tell you that pegasus knigths there are very weak. Even then in the Telius games, very VERY powerful units can kill them easily.

In which game? FE6 they aren't that weak, Shanna can survive an arrow on normal difficulty in her joining map. In FE7 the REALLY aren't that weak, x2 effectiveness screws archers over big time, and makes the fliers in that game neigh untouchable. FE8 slightly depends on the flier, but most if not all of them can survive the few arrow enemies in that game. It's especially easy for survival in FE7 and 8, since the enemies all such and don't scale in the slightest there. Pegasi are one of the best classes in GBA FE, only slightly worse than Wyverns and Paladins, which are both so good that being only slightly worse than them is quite the achievement. 

Unless you meant enemy pegasus units, which I think you might've been upon re-reading that. Skimmed the post on my first go around when I saw this. Yeah enemy pegasi suck. Steel lances that kill their speed and other fun stuff you can show your friends.

44 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Apart from RD!Shinon, archers are complete and utter garbage, so...

They're pretty good in FE2 and Echoes with their large range. FE6 some of them, namely Shin, are great due to the wyvern hell of that game. FE14 fixed a lot of Archer's issues, or at least made a broken archer by proxy of Takumi being a royal. RD!Shinon isn't the only exception to the archers are trash statement.

 

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I do like knights as a concept, but in terms of gameplay, I do rarely use them. The notable ones I've used are Amelia, Gilliam, Gatrie, Draug, Kellam, Kjelle, and Effie. And using Gilliam, Kellam, Kjelle, and Effie are one time things like first playthrough or until I got a better unit or maxing out stats for Apotheosis.

This may just be me but I love Pegasus Knights and I do use them more than Knights. I always have at least One I use (sometimes 3-4 depending on the game). But that's just me.

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Ha, I see what you did there with the title. GENERAL Opinion of Knights... sorry. Anyway....

I like knights for how helpful they can be for tanking damage and getting enemies down to low enough HP for another unit to come in and take out that enemy and get the EXP for it. That aside, I think it depends on which game you're playing, because knights are better in certain games compared to others. Knights are pretty good in Gaiden due to the warp staff existing in that game and how you can warp a character anywhere on the map, which can lead to some pretty cheeky strategies where you warp a knight behind enemy lines and have them take out the enemy or draw their fire. It still technically works in Echoes, but the warp staff was nerfed pretty hard, so it's a lot harder to pull off, but Echoes has overclassing, so maximum tanking potential can be achieved if you aren't doing the dread fighter loop.

Outside of Gaiden, Echoes, and Gatrie, knights are alright. I still like them, though.

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10 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Unless you meant enemy pegasus units, which I think you might've been upon re-reading that. Skimmed the post on my first go around when I saw this. Yeah enemy pegasi suck. Steel lances that kill their speed and other fun stuff you can show your friends.

Yeah I meant enemy pegs... why didn't you erase the other psrt of the post? It's possible one of my opponents is only going to read that and feel as if more people are on their own side than mine, thus making them harder to convince... anyways... Pegs are nice when they are under my control, that is true.

10 minutes ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

This may just be me but I love Pegasus Knights and I do use them more than Knights. I always have at least One I use (sometimes 3-4 depending on the game). But that's just me.

I like them as early game units but I find myself dropping them a bit later, with the exception of really good ones like Shanna, for others like Wyvern Knights/Riders/Lords. 

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1 minute ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Yeah I meant enemy pegs... why didn't you erase the other psrt of the post? It's possible one of my opponents is only going to read that and feel as if more people are on their own side than mine, thus making them harder to convince... anyways... Pegs are nice when they are under my control, that is true.

I like them as early game units but I find myself dropping them a bit later, with the exception of really good ones like Shanna, for others like Wyvern Knights/Riders/Lords. 

I do think good units is all up to the taste of the player. For example I use Amelia a lot, which by most is seemingly hated as a Knight, or RD Astrid who I did use until endgame and had to go with Shinon. I do think Wyverns are good,  Minerva,  Cormag, Jill, Cherche, and Beruka do come to mind (especially Jill, gods 86 damage on a dragon enemy before skills or crit is insane in RD endgame) but it is my personal preference to usually use Peg Knights more.

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8 minutes ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

I do think good units is all up to the taste of the player.

The rest of your post is fine but this is a bit weird, I think no matter the player, Marcus is still just as needed to not grow gray hair over FE6 HM. Or that no matter the player Miledy is a good unit and that no matter the player Wolt is a bad unit. Sure all bad units can be compensated for by babying and handing most resources to them but those that only require the least of those 2 things to be useful make what is considered a good unit.

Edited by This boi uses Nino
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1 hour ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Brigands mostly appear in early game chapters anyway, and aren't usually much of a threat

I said, "The likes of Brigands", referencing any class that hits hard and hits with an axe. There's usually no shortages of berserkers, warriors and heroes in the late game of most FE games.

 

1 hour ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Since knights have a huge defense stat, they probably won't take much in the way of damage anyway, which means they'll often get little to no EXP tanking hits. In fact, there are numerous times I've had a General take no damage at all from weaker units such as Swordmasters or Falcon Knights (You clearly didn't think this one through very well).

They're not at all invincible, especially early game. They can get damaged by bosses, numerous attacks, and in from suprise reinforcements. If used as a meat sheild, a good amount of damage can steadily add up to a noticeable exp gain. 

1 hour ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, because it's not as though mages can target their weaker Res stat or anything, right? Oh, wait...

I'll concede to that point. 

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10 minutes ago, Martin said:

I'll concede to that point. 

You can still use "that" point to your advantage, as this is true of your own knights as well, sure there are less enemy mages but in most maps there's atleast one and if your strategy is to just turtle then these mages can be troublesome. It's not a lie that other units usually have low res too but this problem, atleast from your units, is just overblown since you will usually be ok against them.

Edited by This boi uses Nino
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Knights make an good roadblock for me, and they're pretty useful for rotating characters once I'm stuck in enemy traffic in Awakening and Fates.

But by the end of the day, their low movement gets in the way of blitzing an map. That and I can't use them against mages.

But if everything was perfect in an strategy game, it wouldn't be a strategy game.

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2 hours ago, This boi uses Nino said:

tl;dr Fighters hit more than they miss, their numbers are 70% not 2%, they are better than knights for having enough more mov to contribute where as it's hard to get knights in position to begin with.

Yes Fates has pretty meh fighters I'll give you that, but they are only one game fighters, take a look at IDK Othin for example, or Barts. I remember your quote "most of the time the good fighters are good because of themselves and not because of their class" and I would agree except that this is true with any other unit like Raven or Seth. Also again, their hitrates are usually hanging in the 70s and with true hit that goes from ~82 to ~91 which is pretty respectable, with hand axes they hang around in the 60s and it's not so great there but one look at those numbers will tell you that you will hit more than miss, the reason you probably think they hit less than they miss is because of confirmation bias, where the brain only looks at specific cases to formulate a thought, in this case you are probably remembering with rage all the times fighters missed but when you did hit with them in one of your playthroughs you went "Meh" and moved on, because it went as you wished.

In FE14 I already said how Arthur is tanky enough because his defenses are way better than you give him credit for and especially for Fates we are talking about, as for speed he does have pretty low speed but he won't be getting doubled by anything bar Samurai and Ninjas. And really the only other units that are constantly doubling are Corrin, Niles, Samurai!Odin and Elise if you early promoted her, as for the rest you would have to get very lucky. The one with bad defense is discount Arthur AKA Charlotte, I consider her wrse because by her join time everyone does things better than her, they can usually double like she "might" but the others won't be taking 36 damage from a Wendy at base. Talking about knights again, look at the worst units in any tier list, you will usually see those are Knigths or archers like Wil, Wendy, Rebecca, Bors and Wallace. Where as fighters usually hang in the low mid tier and knights in the low/mid trash tier.

Fair enough, but their high damage is useful for earlygame, suually being enugh to feed kills to whoever you wish, in Fates their hit problems can be reduced by having units next to them, as that gives bonuses to hit as well as a free hit to more likely than not finish off an enemy.

Which doesn't mean much when, again, anything hits them hard, and they're a crapshoot on the battlefield because they're so damn inaccurate.

Except it's not just Fates - the GBA games had some awful fighters, especially Binding Blade.

And you overrate Arthur to holy hell and back - his defensive ability isn't so great when he stands a chance of taking triple damage from cannon fodder, and he doesn't have good enough defenses to make up for this crippling weakness. As for those units you mentioned being in the lower end of tier lists, two are in Horse Emblem, and the rest are in a game with enemies with pathetic stats.

IF they hit. Speaking of Fates, I'd say knights are more useful there since evade was nerfed to hell, and someone who can take hits well is always appreciated.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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@Shadow Mir Fates gave fighters free hit when they get weapon level ups at least. I'm not saying they are good because of this in any way but they did try to do something with them, even though the gamble skill cancels that out to an extent (which is why I take that skill off of fighters in the early game).

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