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General Opinion of Knights


Martin
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I made an old topic on how to make Knights good, I can retrieve the points if anyone wants?

Anyhow the real problem with Knights is whenever they get a buff as a class, its taken permanently away the next game, sometimes with a new weakness for the class introduced as well.

The best games for Knights are: Radiant Dawn, Fates, Heroes, and Vestaria Saga.

Worst games for Knights are: Genealogy of the Holy War, TearRing Saga, Binding Blade, and Awakening.

10 hours ago, Etheus said:

And with the sole exceptions of Gilliam, Tauroneo, Gatrie, and Ignatius, I don't like their character designs.

I'd argue except for Awakening, character design is one of the best features of Knights.

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My opinion:

As Units:

As a class for a boss or a mini-boss, they have been pretty good, especially in indoor chapters. Their high strength and defence making them good at chokepoints, while also having clear weaknesses to magic and/or fast heavy-hitters such as warriors, allowing for some interesting situations. Plus, they are generally very imposing (with some exceptions that I'll get to later...); making for a good class story-wise for enemy military leaders. 

As a playable unit... they have been a hit-or-miss, and it usually depends on how good wyvern riders and paladins are already at doing a knight's job. In cases where those two classes can easily have similar defense as the knight for most of most of the game, then the knight really has very little to make it stand out. Sure; it doesn't have the wind/bows/anti-cavalry weaknesses, but it does have weak against anti-armour weapons. They also have much lower movement than those two classes, sometimes have low movement even for an infantry unit, and this amount of movement can be reduced to zero in the inevitable desert chapters. Their one niche is their absurd defence, and, if other classes can pull it off just as well and you have plenty of those, then the knight has no real purpose.

Some games have tried to compensate for this: Shadow Dragon gave them bows, Fates gave them that ability that makes it that no one can double-attack, and these somewhat help, but they do not completely fix or even get around the issue. 

For this reason, I almost ironically consider Path of Radiance, the game I think made the least effort to make the knights stand out as units of the games that I've played, handled them the best that I've seen so far. I think this because, while you get six paladins and two wyvern riders, none of them (except maybe Haar) tend to reach that absurd level of defence that knights do, even though some of them can be tanky. So Gatrie, Brom, and (to a much lesser extent) Tauroneo can still find use by being a physical wall, especially since Path of Radiance maps frequently offer lots of chokepoints that the knights can utilize. Every character having access to shove also sometimes helps. 

Class Design:

The recurring design of this class is a big person in plate armour, but with that plate armour then oversized, particularly in the pauldrons. Some games pull off this design for the most part; the Tellius games in particular offering my favourite knight class designs so far. However, because the armour itself is taken up to 11, that means that everything I typically find ridiculous or silly-looking in FE armour design then gets taken up to 11 as well. For example: they're usually given upper leg armour that protects the sides, but not the front of the upper legs; somewhat understandable for the cavalry classes, but nonsensical for an infantry unit. This is then usually combined with what I will refer to as the overcompensating plate that seems to be to protect the groin, but goes down way too far and looks silly. 

But, the worst example, by far, is the knights in Awakening. A lot of the armour in lots of classes in Awakening just look silly and ridiculous (I especially don't like the hero armour), but, like I said before, the knight armour takes the ridiculousness up to eleven: not only are the pauldrons massively oversized, they're big metal domes, with dangling plates that do nothing but add weight and look silly. The chest armour is then even more ridiculous, with the chestplate going so far down that if a knight tried to bend forward, his own chestplate would rip his chin off. And the helmets are so outright ridiculous, that for once, it made me glad that Fire Emblem heroes generally don't wear helmets. It was impossible to take any of them seriously; none of them could be even remotely imposing. I'm sure moustache-guy was never meant to be intimidating, but the head of Regna Ferox's border security clearly was, but I could not take the fight seriously because of that stupid armour. 

Fates' design... was a step in the right direction, with the pauldrons smaller and less dome-like and upper leg armour actually protecting the front of the leg. But it still has the dangling bits under the pauldrons, it still has the ridiculous chestplate, and it still has a hideous helmet. 

Knights desperately need a redesign; IS needs to look back at the Tellius games, then look at actual knight's armour, and redesign the class. 

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43 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Class Design:

The recurring design of this class is a big person in plate armour, but with that plate armour then oversized, particularly in the pauldrons. Some games pull off this design for the most part; the Tellius games in particular offering my favourite knight class designs so far. However, because the armour itself is taken up to 11, that means that everything I typically find ridiculous or silly-looking in FE armour design then gets taken up to 11 as well. For example: they're usually given upper leg armour that protects the sides, but not the front of the upper legs; somewhat understandable for the cavalry classes, but nonsensical for an infantry unit. This is then usually combined with what I will refer to as the overcompensating plate that seems to be to protect the groin, but goes down way too far and looks silly. 

Spoiler

latest?cb=20170430083143

This is what you mean right?

I think that both to not restrict the movement of the knees and because the armored kilt protects enough of the upper legs.

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I feel like Knights usefulness is too dependent on how chokepointable the map design is. In other words, indoor maps. When you do wall off a mob of enemies it's like "okay I won't lose a unit here but this is going to take five turns to sift through". Armor knights are unlikely to one round enemies due to their lack of attack speed, and probably not being strong enough to on hit KO on the harder difficulties. And even successfully walling off an area doesn't feel especially rewarding unless you're able to stave off a mob of enemies while your mobile units head for objectives. I can't think of many maps in the series that meet such potential in their design, especially when you consider how little control the player has in where enemy units go. Fire Emblem could use an aggro system of provoking enemies. Perhaps an enemy AI that prioritizes wherever your Lord currently is because it makes sense for enemies to target the leader (and go for that sweet instant Game Over). It would make sense then to field units who act as glorified body guards for your Lord

Edited by Glennstavos
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8 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:
  Hide contents

latest?cb=20170430083143

This is what you mean right?

I think that both to not restrict the movement of the knees and because the armored kilt protects enough of the upper legs.

Yes; that's what I'm talking about. I do admit that the Radiant Dawn version does not look nearly as bad as most examples, but that part of the design still seems silly to me. The biggest offender in Radiant Dawn being Zelgius; just look at this:

Spoiler

Image result for fire emblem zelgius

 

As far as not restricting the movement of the knees, you'd be amazed at what people can do while wearing historical full plate armour. Historical upper leg armour does not restrict the movement of the knees. In fact, the leg armour + knee armour, thanks to being interlocked, actually would've helped prevent opponents from breaking the wearer's legs. 

Another thing about historical plate armour is that the weight was distributed across the whole body, which meant it wouldn't feel heavy when worn by a trained fighter. With that "armoured kilt" all that weight is being taken where the belt is. 

And, if the wearer really was concerned about not restricting movement of the knees, then they could wear something similar to the leg armour of a 16th Century Cuirassier: 

Spoiler

Image result for cuirassier armorImage result for cuirassier armor

 

The hilarious thing is that, in Fire Emblem Heroes, the Black Knight is clearly shown wearing segmented upper leg armour just like these underneath his "armoured kilt", though he lacks said upper leg armour in PoR and RD. 

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They perpetually baffle me from a balance perspective in every game except Heroes. The idea that they felt they needed a slayer weapon for them simply for being good at a stat... the hell? Their stats aren’t even good all-around, and they suffer bad mobility, the opposite of what every other movement type with a slayer weapon has in exchange, and they think their one advantage needs to be given its own weakness in and of itself?

Personally I’d buff them significantly, and make more varied map objectives than most modern games have, if I were to make them viable. I’d give them more weapon choices, some sort of ZOC special ability like the obstruct skill in Heroes, or maybe an innate guard ability for adjacent units, something to make a unit who’s good at surviving but bad at one-rounding a useful asset to have.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

They perpetually baffle me from a balance perspective in every game except Heroes. The idea that they felt they needed a slayer weapon for them simply for being good at a stat... the hell? Their stats aren’t even good all-around, and they suffer bad mobility, the opposite of what every other movement type with a slayer weapon has in exchange, and they think their one advantage needs to be given its own weakness in and of itself?

Personally I’d buff them significantly, and make more varied map objectives than most modern games have, if I were to make them viable. I’d give them more weapon choices, some sort of ZOC special ability like the obstruct skill in Heroes, or maybe an innate guard ability for adjacent units, something to make a unit who’s good at surviving but bad at one-rounding a useful asset to have.

Funfact, FE1 Knights had swords and Lances just like Cavaliers, but this disappeared forever after the game unfortunately. 

The playable Knight in Vestaria has a skill like that innate guard ability, though its not a class skill, Vestaria Saga is considered to have some of the best armor knights in any Fire Emblem/related game.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Personally I’d buff them significantly, and make more varied map objectives than most modern games have, if I were to make them viable. I’d give them more weapon choices, some sort of ZOC special ability like the obstruct skill in Heroes, or maybe an innate guard ability for adjacent units, something to make a unit who’s good at surviving but bad at one-rounding a useful asset to have.

I like that idea of an innate guard ability. It would be very fitting for the class. The only problem I can potentially see with it is that enemies might be able to exploit it; for instance, a mage that can't reach the knight could target a mage next to the knight to intentionally trigger the ability. But this is assuming that the knight takes the damage in the adjacent unit's place; if you're saying that they both take no damage, then that's not an issue (though it could perhaps be a bit too OP). 

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10 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I like that idea of an innate guard ability. It would be very fitting for the class. The only problem I can potentially see with it is that enemies might be able to exploit it; for instance, a mage that can't reach the knight could target a mage next to the knight to intentionally trigger the ability. But this is assuming that the knight takes the damage in the adjacent unit's place; if you're saying that they both take no damage, then that's not an issue (though it could perhaps be a bit too OP). 

In Vestaria Saga, one of the playable armor Knights increases the defense and resistance of adjacent units by +3 which becomes +5 after promotion.

The other Armor Knight has really good personal defensive skills and high stats, making him hard to kill.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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13 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

In Vestaria Saga, one of the playable armor Knights increases the defense and resistance of adjacent units by +3 which becomes +5 after promotion.

The other Armor Knight has really good personal defensive skills and high stats, making him hard to kill.

That look's like a good skill set for Knights. Heroes Obstruct would also be great as a commons skill.

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13 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

In Vestaria Saga, one of the playable armor Knights increases the defense and resistance of adjacent units by +3 which becomes +5 after promotion.

The other Armor Knight has really good personal defensive skills and high stats, making him hard to kill.

Oh; that's what he meant. I thought he meant an ability where the knight steps in when an adjacent unit is attacked. Thanks. 

In retrospect, I don't know why that's what I first thought he meant.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, did you see my earlier reply to what you said about the upper leg armour?

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9 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Oh; that's what he meant. I thought he meant an ability where the knight steps in when an adjacent unit is attacked. Thanks. 

In retrospect, I don't know why that's what I first thought he meant.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, did you see my earlier reply to what you said about the upper leg armour?

I was thinking about that personal skill at the time, but I did really mean either.

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3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I was thinking about that personal skill at the time, but I did really mean either.

Oh; okay. Thanks.

In any case, I agree that an ability that would help knights protect other units in battle would definitely make them more useful. 

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17 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Oh; that's what he meant. I thought he meant an ability where the knight steps in when an adjacent unit is attacked. Thanks. 

In retrospect, I don't know why that's what I first thought he meant.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, did you see my earlier reply to what you said about the upper leg armour?

I saw it, I was going to respond, but I lost my post.

There wasn't much else I was going to say, other then what did you think of several other armor designs I was going to link.

Oh that and I suppose Zelgius would make more sense with kneepads like other armor knights, as well as chainmail under garments.

17 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

That look's like a good skill set for Knights. Heroes Obstruct would also be great as a commons skill.

LPers of the game say they are both very good, though you only need to use one.

JP tier lists have the one with the adjacent ability in the top 5 best units.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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17 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I can't think of many maps in the series that meet such potential in their design, especially when you consider how little control the player has in where enemy units go. Fire Emblem could use an aggro system of provoking enemies.

What about giving armoured units a skill that provokes the enemy AI? For example, when an armoured unit and an adjacent ally are within a common enemy's range, then the enemy is forced to attack the armoured unit, ignoring any damage optimisation calculations. The skill could be locked to armoured units (like Beastbane or the Ballistician's skills), and the provoking effect could be more specific, say, to activate only when both the ally and the armoured unit are unpaired, or only against physical attacks, or only when the ally's health is low, etcetera.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

They perpetually baffle me from a balance perspective in every game except Heroes. The idea that they felt they needed a slayer weapon for them simply for being good at a stat... the hell? Their stats aren’t even good all-around, and they suffer bad mobility, the opposite of what every other movement type with a slayer weapon has in exchange, and they think their one advantage needs to be given its own weakness in and of itself?

Personally I’d buff them significantly, and make more varied map objectives than most modern games have, if I were to make them viable. I’d give them more weapon choices, some sort of ZOC special ability like the obstruct skill in Heroes, or maybe an innate guard ability for adjacent units, something to make a unit who’s good at surviving but bad at one-rounding a useful asset to have.

I'd assume the weakness is more for the player to help defeat enemy armors, since for the most part, sword users don't have great strength, and thus would struggle to dent them with conventional weapons. Case in point: Binding Blade. The earlygame has 4 armor bosses, and three of those are on thrones, making the primary anti-armor tactic (mages) not as useful against them (the last one is faced before you have a mage of your own).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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The only thing that would improve Knights is give them only a -1 point of difference to their movement when compared to the other foot units like the mercenary.

This also applies to "Armor" cavalry as well.

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On 3/1/2019 at 8:52 PM, JimmyBeans said:

@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).

That's something I'd credit Shadow Dragon, not Fates, for since it was the first game to do that. Though fighters were generally better off in SD than in Fates.

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21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's something I'd credit Shadow Dragon, not Fates, for since it was the first game to do that. Though fighters were generally better off in SD than in Fates.

Have you thought of creating a general opinion on Fighters/Warriors topic, I'd visit it.

Anyhow here's my past ideas for improving the class that no one asked for.

Spoiler

''Combat''

  • Give them the weapon triangle, why should Cavaliers be the only class with two weapons before promotion when Armor Knights could use two weapons in FE1 too. RD had a good idea making it so Paladins could use one weapon, while Generals got two.

  • Give them higher resistance then most other physical classes just like in Radiant Dawn.

  • Introduce Armor Equipment which increases their defense, similar to large shields in Berwick Saga.

  • If Mounted units get canto and Flying units get the ability to go over tiles, Armored units should have a similar advantage.

  • Make the defense of armored classes significantly higher then the mounted classes, at least 10 points higher then the cavalry cap.

  • Armored units get a classic Pavise/Great Shield that nullifies all damage, or just magic considering its their biggest weakness. Generals nullifying magic damage was helpful in the Jugdral titles and Sacred Stones, while nullifying melee damage in Awakening was particularly useless, especially as Generals had low skill which effected the activation rate.

  • In games where Armor knights gain a bunch of weapon ranks upon promotion to General, and weapon EXP grinding is difficult, and time consuming, the General class should have at least a Base Rank of C in each of these weapon types. Looking at you Thracia 776.

''Movement''

  • Have their movement increase during indoor chapters similar to Mages in the Desert.

  • Like Hector, the Armor Knights could start out at the same movement as other infantry units, only to lag behind one point after promotion.

  • Speaking of deserts, Armors shouldn't lose movement as their move is already bad, it cripples them beyond belief. Instead Armored Move should stay the same, so every non mage/flier, has move just as bad, or worse then Armored units. An InUniverse explanation can be the classes fortitude isn't results in them being able to tough out a mere sandstorm.

  • I noticed in FE2 that Armored units benefited greatly from Desert chapters were all non flying/magic units have their movement reduced to 1, yet in other games, Armored Units have no such advantage in the desert, and are even worse. This is because Armored Units already have bad movement, so losing as much move(3), the same as a horse unit, is very harmful in those games.

  • Give them shield equipment which increases dodge chance, or just a secondary dodge like effect which either nullifies or decreases damage.

  • Shields could also greatly increase defense for armored units, similar to the point of armor knights having significantly higher defense then other classes.

  • Another thing that really helps Armors is enemy reinforcements from the start of the map, and choke points. While not great as a Final class for Wi-Fi, Generals had a lot of utility in the DS Games for this reason in addition to very high base stats.

  • If Dismounting exists, give dismounted cavalry the same movement that Armor Knights usually get.

  • ''Worthy Skills''

  • Armor Knights could have a skill where nearby ally units have increased defense and resistance like in Vestaria saga.

  • A skill for Generals that reduces the critical rate of enemy units attacking them in a reverse of the Berserker's skill. This could be explained storywise by their armor leaving little vital spots to hit.

  • Giving them sort of provoke skill, this worked wonders in PoR for Gatrie. It would be a command skill rather then a passive skill, like the provoke skill in Berwick Saga.

  • Alternatively give them a skill, that creates a chance that when an enemy attacks a nearby ally, there is a chance they'll end up facing the armor Knight instead. This would be similar to the Guard skill in Berwick saga.

Feel free to add more, yes I know this is unorganized.

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Ive found them useful personally. depends on the game on whether or not they actually end up effective, but more often than not I have uses for them.

Fates and Tellius were probably the most kind to them imo, helps that Effie and Benny were great, as is Gatrie in Tellius at least, and Tauroneo is helpful in early RD.

I think they fill the role they are meant to well. The moveable walls to fill a gap somewhere. Ninja Cave comes to mind where I had Benny close one of the gaps and tank all the ninjas while everyone else picked them off. I dont think I ever had to even heal him through that.

I think they are fine balance wise tbqh. I know a lot of people follow the LTC format for balance, and so they dont fit in quite well, but I think outside of that line of thinking for strategy, they are good for what they do. Especially for anykind of indoor map.

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On 3/1/2019 at 5:26 PM, Martin said:

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. 

Like was stated before, I don't see any conceivable way this could be implemented well - knights mostly only really take any damage worth noting from effective weapons or magic. If I have to expose them to either of those to get any noteworthy exp for tanking... let's just say it's obvious you didn't think this one through at all.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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On 3/1/2019 at 9:01 PM, Martin said:

 

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. 

@Shadow Mir

 

 

About the other points from what I've seen, I can't say I disagree with most of the points made. I would say just actually design the game while keeping them in mind. Make defensive maps, have more creative reinforcements areas, or design maps where knights can show a good deal of utility. 

 

If IS don't really go with the team buff or even the normal movement range boost, the  I think a fun way of balancing them out is to just give a sh*t ton of attack power to them along with their defense. Make them an actual threat that the player would HAVE to take out quickly with mages, a type of terrifying juggernaut that may make it to the battle slowly, but cause massive havoc upon reaching it. 

 

Also, give them more hp to boost their survivability against mage by a small amount. I think that would warrant a movement nerf that they currently have, not an "okay" def boost that other classes will reach similar levels of. 

Edited by Martin
Being stupid and spelling "their" wrong
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Ok heres whats the real issue with Knight

If their durability lead isn't meaningful their just a big deadweight. So you want to have them have meaningful durability and enough ways to make use of it which can be achieved through map design. If a horse can reach a specific point, but not handle the mission there, you rescue drop an Armor Knight and done.

A good example of a good use of Knight was FE12 Chapter 1 - few units could handle 2 mobs at once so you use General Arran 32 HP and 17 Defense to keep the heat out of everyone and make it work

 

Legitimately speaking their movement demerit should really be gone at this point though lol. Its a theming that clearly doesn't work

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2 hours ago, Martin said:

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. 

Bosses are only one unit. Reinforcements... that would depend on the reinforcements to begin with. Anyway, I'm just not convinced that this would work nearly as well in practice as it would in theory.

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