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General Opinion of Knights


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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

They have higher HP which helps with their poor defense, effectively the durability of fighters is teh same as other of your units, if a fighter in one FE game is getting 3 shotted it's probably the case that any of your other units also are getting 2 or 3 shotted because although they sport higher defense they sport lower HP. Also in any type of LTC fighters contribute more, you can rig their hits to land if the RNG wouldn't let them hit, which mostly it actually does let them hit, while you can't exactly rig a Knight's movement. In being able to reach enemies faster they can contribute more and also by doing more damage, usually when a Knight gets to the fray the fighting is almost over in that area or it's just enough to where my other units can handle them. There are few instances where choking points would be more beneficial, much to Doga's dismay.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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

Binding Blade fighters suck because of Axes and not necessarily the fighters themselves, if the axes were as accurate as FE7 for example then Lot would be a pretty decent fighter, or maybe Gonzo. But then let's look at other games besides Fates and GBA. FE1, 3, 11 and 12 have Barts. FE5 has Othin and Halvan, who isn't bad in his own right; FE6 has Lot if Axes were good, FE9 has Boyd, FE10 has Nolan and Boyd. You can see that there are plenty of good fighters throughout the series, their class isn't an immediate death sentence, ultimately what matters more are bases and growths and although axes are innacurate, not so much that they don't hit ever or that they rarely hit, something like that would be a FE6 Hand axe, now that sucks.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

This triple damage hangs in the 2% and stuff, the only time it screwed me over was against Ryoma in chapter 12 and Ryoma is a god. You should generally not be afraid of these crits because they are rare and again he usually survives one anyway, now you could argue this puts him in danger of death against another enemy but aside form it being unlikely to happen it's also a pretty bad idea to fight many enemies at once just rushing to the fray. I also mentioned Wendy did I not? Oh but according to you because of classes she is better than Wade or Lot... right? No this is why Bases & Growths > Class unless Class=Mounted. in which case Class > Bases > Growths. And although Wallace is in a game with pathetic stats, these stats are not so pathetic he is one rounding or anything, and even though they sow themselves down it is precisely because of this they are able to put some damage to him, especially when his avoid is ass.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

Yes Evade sucks. Are you tired of evade being ass? if so then you need a decent tank, one that doesn't move like a snail, that dishes a lot of damage in one likely-to-hit hit for your problems...  presenting: Arthur! For just 3 godess icons ninety-nine you can make this unit into a reliable tank to take many hits, but what if you are dirt poor and don't want to pay the full price? well dismay not! for by just paying one godess icon ninety nine you can get a slightly less reliable tank that will still punch out damage and is still capable of taking some good hits to the face, oh and make sure you also buy the Effie pack! and if you call this instance we will give her to you FOR FREE! being helpful to pairing up Arthur and boosting his defense if he proves too troublematic for you to use... for whatever reason scrub :X we also have the Jakob pack if you want swift death, but that will cost you one F!Corrin ninety-nine.

... Lel, but it is true Arthur manages to tank well and better than you think, I would say to help him out with an Effie pair-up early on and in a few levels his defense will grow and then you bench Effie... because she has 4 mov and isn't even fast and also you get a better tank Benny who still suffers from 4 mov.

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The lack of movement is a pain, and their usual statspread means they aren't usually much cop for damage, and are overly vulnerable to magic. But any unit with good stats can contribute from any class. People say bowlock is irrevocably fucked, and yet Snipers throughout the series are generally very solid - the issue is in large part that a given FE's first Archer generally has terrible stats. There's plenty of great armour throughout the series - Oswin, Gatrie (x2), Effie, Lukas - and plenty that are at the very least good due to the situation they're recruited in - Dashin, FE10 Tauroneo.

More subjectively speaking, the aesthetic of armour is incredible, and when they're actually good, nothing feels better. Effie might, in fact, be my favourite unit to use in the series. FE14 has so many fuck-you bullshit player-hating moments and Effie just doesn't give a fuck about any of them because they can't damage her and she one-shots them back. Granted, FE14's probably the game I know least well of the entire series, mine may well have just been incredibly blessed, but you take my point.

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53 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

They have higher HP which helps with their poor defense, effectively the durability of fighters is teh same as other of your units, if a fighter in one FE game is getting 3 shotted it's probably the case that any of your other units also are getting 2 or 3 shotted because although they sport higher defense they sport lower HP. Also in any type of LTC fighters contribute more, you can rig their hits to land if the RNG wouldn't let them hit, which mostly it actually does let them hit, while you can't exactly rig a Knight's movement. In being able to reach enemies faster they can contribute more and also by doing more damage, usually when a Knight gets to the fray the fighting is almost over in that area or it's just enough to where my other units can handle them. There are few instances where choking points would be more beneficial, much to Doga's dismay.

High HP only means so much when you have shit defenses and can't dodge anything.

53 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Binding Blade fighters suck because of Axes and not necessarily the fighters themselves, if the axes were as accurate as FE7 for example then Lot would be a pretty decent fighter, or maybe Gonzo. But then let's look at other games besides Fates and GBA. FE1, 3, 11 and 12 have Barts. FE5 has Othin and Halvan, who isn't bad in his own right; FE6 has Lot if Axes were good, FE9 has Boyd, FE10 has Nolan and Boyd. You can see that there are plenty of good fighters throughout the series, their class isn't an immediate death sentence, ultimately what matters more are bases and growths and although axes are innacurate, not so much that they don't hit ever or that they rarely hit, something like that would be a FE6 Hand axe, now that sucks.

I agree that axes themselves being inaccurate is the issue with Binding Blade's fighters. But what really doesn't help matters is that they have to compete for a Hero Crest with at least three better units... and there are only two Hero Crests before the secret shop. Also, RD Boyd is mediocre without transfers, since he doesn't double much of anything for a long time.

53 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

This triple damage hangs in the 2% and stuff, the only time it screwed me over was against Ryoma in chapter 12 and Ryoma is a god. You should generally not be afraid of these crits because they are rare and again he usually survives one anyway, now you could argue this puts him in danger of death against another enemy but aside form it being unlikely to happen it's also a pretty bad idea to fight many enemies at once just rushing to the fray. I also mentioned Wendy did I not? Oh but according to you because of classes she is better than Wade or Lot... right? No this is why Bases & Growths > Class unless Class=Mounted. in which case Class > Bases > Growths. And although Wallace is in a game with pathetic stats, these stats are not so pathetic he is one rounding or anything, and even though they sow themselves down it is precisely because of this they are able to put some damage to him, especially when his avoid is ass.

That's still 2% too much chance of it happening. ESPECIALLY if that going off means a reset. Or haven't you realized that this is the same game that has no shortage of ways to fuck you over??? Because it sure seems like it. Also, I mentioned earlier that Wendy was in Horse Emblem, ergo even if her base stats didn't completely suck, she's still in a FE game where movement is more important than usual.

 

53 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Yes Evade sucks. Are you tired of evade being ass? if so then you need a decent tank, one that doesn't move like a snail, that dishes a lot of damage in one likely-to-hit hit for your problems...  presenting: Arthur! For just 3 godess icons ninety-nine you can make this unit into a reliable tank to take many hits, but what if you are dirt poor and don't want to pay the full price? well dismay not! for by just paying one godess icon ninety nine you can get a slightly less reliable tank that will still punch out damage and is still capable of taking some good hits to the face, oh and make sure you also buy the Effie pack! and if you call this instance we will give her to you FOR FREE! being helpful to pairing up Arthur and boosting his defense if he proves too troublematic for you to use... for whatever reason scrub :X we also have the Jakob pack if you want swift death, but that will cost you one F!Corrin ninety-nine.

... Lel, but it is true Arthur manages to tank well and better than you think, I would say to help him out with an Effie pair-up early on and in a few levels his defense will grow and then you bench Effie... because she has 4 mov and isn't even fast and also you get a better tank Benny who still suffers from 4 mov.

You mean the same Arthur who's still likely to eat crits and die because this is Fates, aka Murphy's Law: The Game? HAHAHAHAHA... Hell no. Forget it. Absolutely not. Try harder. Long story short, give up while you're behind and bother me with this "Arthur is good" BS no more. I mean, 3 Goddess Icons for no improvement? Don't tell me you can't see how bad that is.

"Lel" is right, because even a blind man can see through your bullshit. How about you bench Arthur because the only thing he's good for is pair up fodder? That's much better.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Speaking of Fighters in Fates, is Charolette better than Arthur in Conquest? 

Because I promoted her to Berserker an gave her an Killer Axe and literally every third hit has her critting an General on that map where you can kill Iago. And I felt that Arthur was better as an hero because his critical hit rate felt nonexistent.

 

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3 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Speaking of Fighters in Fates, is Charolette better than Arthur in Conquest? 

Because I promoted her to Berserker an gave her an Killer Axe and literally every third hit has her critting an General on that map where you can kill Iago. And I felt that Arthur was better as an hero because his critical hit rate felt nonexistent.

 

In a word: No. And Arthur's already junk, so let that sink in for a while.

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2 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Even against Hinoka and the occasional ninja?

 

Yes, even against Hinoka and the occasional ninja.

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Knights' biggest flaw is really their low movement. So unless you're going for slower gameplay, knights for the most part don't see much action because other units with higher movthe will likely have dealt with most of the enemies. They also usually have sucky speed, but they're armor knights so its kind of a trait, I guess, and doesn't matter as much considering their high defense.

Increasing their movement is probably the best way to go about making them more usable. Its not like its impossible either, since someone mentioned RD increases their movement to 5 (which is the same as other infantry units).

Boots can be used to increase their movement, but that would really depend on whether you want to invest on your knight. I think more people would be inclined to give boots to a unit with already high move.

 

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Well, in FE6-10, the class is always a detriment to the unit in it. Low movement, often paired with increased terrain penalties, with no advantages whatsoever that are intrinsic to the class. In the GBA games they have to compete with the cavaliers for their promotion item. There's still a couple of decent or even good characters of that class, but in every single case, that's despite their class, not because of it, and it usually makes them bad choices long-term:

Oswin is great in the earlygame, but becomes less and less useful as your own units' growths outpace the enemies'. Once it's promotion o'clock, the three cavaliers make better use of the promotion than he does.
PoR!Gatrie is definitely a valuable unit before he leaves, but honestly pretty bad once he rejoins, since Horse Emblem is almost in full effect by that time.
RD!Gatrie has phantastic growths, but his caps both pre- and post-promotion are awful, which does hamper his combat quite a bit.
Gilliam is a weird case in that he actually gains quite a bit from promotion (quite a bit being +2 movement and canto), but is, at least in my experience, not that great in the earlygame.

In the DS games, it's actually situationally useful to reclass into General - Wolf/Sedgar make pretty good use of that class, and there's quite a few situations where the bulk is super useful to have. I haven't played either of the games on their highest difficulties, but even on the H1 and H2 level of NMotE, I occasionally found myself reclassing a Falcoknight or Dracoknight into a General - even DK has five less Def than General.

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About fighters:

We are discussing the class chassis, not really the stats, and the fighter chassis is solid: locked into a weapon with 1-2 range options and normal infranty movement makes for a better chassis than archer, knight, mercenary(mercenary, not hero), and myrmidon that either miss 1-2 range or mobility. The only thing that screw fighters is their individual stats, not the class. If you make seth a warrior with the same bases and growths he will be much stronger than if you make him a swordmaster,general, or sniper.

Fighters imo feel bad to use because they are prone to negative feedback: you see the big hp pool and assume that they can take hits, so it's disheartening when they lose an huge chunk of that big bar in a single hit. And their early hit rate means that they will eventually miss in an important moment. 

That said, when the fighters get serviceble bases, they are great. Barst and the thracia guys are excellent, and most other fighters can be made strong with a litle training. Their hitrate and low defence eventually get fixed, while being locked in 1 or 2 range never get fixed.

 

About improving knights

Many other SRPGs managed to balance movement, usually all you need to do is to value it enought when balancing stats. Why i should use a 25 def general when a 22 def wyvern lord or 21 def paladin can tank as well? Even a 30 defense and 6 movement general would be worse than the 21def paladin if the latter can meet the benchmark . You can't just buff the weakest classes, paladins and fliers has been the best classes for 15 games straight, they have to be toned down unless we want an huge power creep. I'd leave some suggestions:

-make difficult terrain fuck over horses, or bring back dismounting and have knight only having normal infranty penalties. And make forests and the like more common, so that horses have less effective movement compared to footsies in many maps.

- better terrain bonus. Something like a +2 defense on plains that became +4 on forests(I am basing this numbers on the 15% and 30% bonus of Shining Force games). This way fliers suffer a disadvantage for their superior movement and wyvern lord just cannot tank as well as generals no matter how much you invest into them.

- Just make maps where the objective does not require to move too much or reinforcement attack you from the back. Arden for example would suck less if enemies actually tries to conquer your base while everyone else is fighting elsewhere (not by much because return staff exist, but it would be something)

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45 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Arden for example would suck less if enemies actually tries to conquer your base while everyone else is fighting elsewhere (not by much because return staff exist, but it would be something)

It is really the main purpose Arden has, and is stated in the beginning of the prologue as well. So its unfortunate that there aren't that many instances where enemies are actively trying to conquer your castle (the only one that really comes to mind is in Chapter 2 with the pegasus knights).  

Perhaps in a FE4 remake they may do more instances of enemies trying to take any castles you conquered. That way Arden, and other footies, can get some action.

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1 hour ago, Flere210 said:

About fighters:

We are discussing the class chassis, not really the stats, and the fighter chassis is solid: locked into a weapon with 1-2 range options and normal infranty movement makes for a better chassis than archer, knight, mercenary(mercenary, not hero), and myrmidon that either miss 1-2 range or mobility. The only thing that screw fighters is their individual stats, not the class. If you make seth a warrior with the same bases and growths he will be much stronger than if you make him a swordmaster,general, or sniper.

Fighters imo feel bad to use because they are prone to negative feedback: you see the big hp pool and assume that they can take hits, so it's disheartening when they lose an huge chunk of that big bar in a single hit. And their early hit rate means that they will eventually miss in an important moment. 

That said, when the fighters get serviceble bases, they are great. Barst and the thracia guys are excellent, and most other fighters can be made strong with a litle training. Their hitrate and low defence eventually get fixed, while being locked in 1 or 2 range never get fixed.

 

Having a solid chassis doesn't mean a damn if you're let down by poor stats or other detrimental factors. Just look at Dorcas (abysmal speed growth, and no promotion bonus to fix that), Bartre (abysmal speed base, and like Dorcas, he's forced to rely entirely on his growth because he gets no speed on promotion), Arthur (easily critted), Charlotte (struggles to stay alive on the frontlines due to poor defense, in addition to joining underleveled)...

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20 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Having a solid chassis doesn't mean a damn if you're let down by poor stats or other detrimental factors. Just look at Dorcas (abysmal speed growth, and no promotion bonus to fix that), Bartre (abysmal speed base, and like Dorcas, he's forced to rely entirely on his growth because he gets no speed on promotion), Arthur (easily critted), Charlotte (struggles to stay alive on the frontlines due to poor defense, in addition to joining underleveled)...

Flere is making a distinction between things that are linked to a class (weapon choice, movement, promotion item, promotion gains, stat caps, weaknesses to effective weaponry) and those that aren't (base level, base stats, growths).

Dorcas and Bartre are bad (well, the former is at least somewhat useful in the earlygame) mostly because of their speed growth and base, respectively - i.e. something that isn't really linked to their class, although the class-linked lack of +Spd upon promotion is indeed making that problem worse.

It's more convoluted once reclassing is a Thing, since this does tie stats (and, later, skills) to classes and can lead to stuff like the Warrior class in the DS game which (as far as I know) is almost always inferior to the Hero class. However, it should also be noted that otherwise, pretty much every class has some situational use - even Sniper can be worth picking for a bow user in NMotE thanks to its higher class bases, although I don't think there's ever a good reason to keep a character as an archer before promotion.

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I appreciate the idea behind them but ultimately they decided to give too many disadvantages to make up for their limited advantages. 

Knights are tedious to use thanks to their low mobility but they are also hard countered by mages and although more rare armor slayers will do them in as well. For an unstoppable tank there are just too many things that can stop knights. 

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10 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

People say bowlock is irrevocably fucked, and yet Snipers throughout the series are generally very solid

This. Not only is a strong archer/sniper from the start like HM Klein or PoR Shinon (early-game) actually pretty good, but there are ways to go around their lack of one range by fighting through walls, mountains, peaks etc. for their enemy phase.

Edited by This boi uses Nino
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I'm pretty biased against knights, in both the main series and Heroes. 

 

I don't like their low movement. I don't think that their defense makes up for it. I don't find them fun to use.

 

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

 

I would rather use archers and fighters, and that says a lot. 

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

This. Not only is a strong archer/sniper from the start like HM Klein or PoR Shinon (early-game) actually pretty good, but there are ways to go around their lack of one range by fighting through walls, mountains, peaks etc. for their enemy phase.

It's less "they are always useless" and more "they are held back by their class and are never top tier."

A traditional top tier fe unit can be thrown into 10 enemies and will kill them all on enemy phase, while a sniper can only pull that trick on specific maps and is mostly limited to one kill per turn. If seth was a sniper, then he would have so much more trouble soloing half of SS.

No one is saying that shinon sucks, we are saying "good luck soloing a map with Shinon in less than 50 turns"

I hate the concept of super powerful juggernauts soloing maps, but as long as they will be meta in efficient runs, being bowlocked will be suboptimal.

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From a conversation on the 'What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?' thread from a couple of weeks ago.
User henrymidfields and I were talking about how to discourage the use of 'backpack' units, hence the mention of unpaired units.
 

Quote

A way to improve armoured units could be to give them skills that affect their surrounding teammates instead of just making them bulkier. Say, give a General a skill that has percentage chance (based on the Skill of the General or combined with the other unit's Luck) of halving or blocking the attacks made to adjacent (unpaired) units. Or a skill that raises the Hit and Avoid of (unpaired) surrounding teammates, acknowledging that the mere presence of a General improves the morale of the group.

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57 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

It's less "they are always useless" and more "they are held back by their class and are never top tier."

A traditional top tier fe unit can be thrown into 10 enemies and will kill them all on enemy phase, while a sniper can only pull that trick on specific maps and is mostly limited to one kill per turn. If seth was a sniper, then he would have so much more trouble soloing half of SS.

No one is saying that shinon sucks, we are saying "good luck soloing a map with Shinon in less than 50 turns"

I hate the concept of super powerful juggernauts soloing maps, but as long as they will be meta in efficient runs, being bowlocked will be suboptimal.

I know this? It's common knowledge. But I will mention that Soloing the game is like one way of playthrough and only one. 

But I have heard a fair share of people say they have NO enemy phase or something dumb like that and that's what I'm tearing at here. What you said is basically YAWN I already know this, again it's common sense.

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

I know this? It's common knowledge. But I will mention that Soloing the game is like one way of playthrough and only one. 

But I have heard a fair share of people say they have NO enemy phase or something dumb like that and that's what I'm tearing at here. What you said is basically YAWN I already know this, again it's common sense.

I don't solo map either, but i don't play efficiently. I do believe that the efficiency rules used in the comunity are arbitrary and does not account for different play styles and challenges(i consider them like tiering pokemons solely on how they perform in nuzlelockes), but those are the parameters currently used, and so i judge units on those when debating.

Edited by Flere210
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3 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

I do believe that the efficiency rules used in the comunity are arbitrary and does not account for different play styles and challenges

Well I don't believe that, eficiency if anything is the best way to account for different playstyles because it's not either LTC or Turtling. Efficiency means you can play a bit faster than average and with the added challenge of having to move faster you can see which units are more useful, which is why movement is the best stat: because it defines how much a unit can move and therefore be useful, not just in combat but in side objectives as well and is why Knights are the worst class, their combat isn't even any good with that low speed of theirs since Moderate attack x 2 > Strong attack x 1. Efficiency does however not account for Turtling ever, because it's the one that makes the game the easiest and also the one that mostly ignores side objectives, which efficiency doesn't and assumes you fulfill every side objective but don't turtle forever until enemies dissappear.

An example of efficiency would be beating Chapter 20: Dragon's Gate in 11 turns, whilst an average one might take 17 and an LTC one takes 8/9.

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I am not talking about turtling vs LCT, i am talking about LTC vs 0% growths, LTC vs Ranked, LTC vs multiplayer, LTC vs Echoes Thades Runs and so on. Every non casual run has either self imposed challenges, additional objectives such as an S rank, or both. The nature of those objectives and limitation determinate who is good and who is not.

If you want to bring an army into multiplayer or post game contents, then caps and growths became very important, while they are worthless in a 0% growth and are a secondary factor in LTC.  

You won't use frederick in apotheosis, or at least, not as the heavy hitter.

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7 hours ago, ping said:

Flere is making a distinction between things that are linked to a class (weapon choice, movement, promotion item, promotion gains, stat caps, weaknesses to effective weaponry) and those that aren't (base level, base stats, growths).

Dorcas and Bartre are bad (well, the former is at least somewhat useful in the earlygame) mostly because of their speed growth and base, respectively - i.e. something that isn't really linked to their class, although the class-linked lack of +Spd upon promotion is indeed making that problem worse.

It's more convoluted once reclassing is a Thing, since this does tie stats (and, later, skills) to classes and can lead to stuff like the Warrior class in the DS game which (as far as I know) is almost always inferior to the Hero class. However, it should also be noted that otherwise, pretty much every class has some situational use - even Sniper can be worth picking for a bow user in NMotE thanks to its higher class bases, although I don't think there's ever a good reason to keep a character as an archer before promotion.

Perhaps, but stats, for the most part, are the main thing that determines how easy or hard a unit is to use. Class does have a part in that too, but imo, it usually takes a backseat to stats. Like we've said, Dorcas and Bartre are hard to use because they're crippled by their speed issues. I consider Effie easier to use than Arthur despite her move problems because she's not facing crit chances that could lead to frustrating and/or annoying resets from everything under the sun. On the other hand, I consider Wendy hard to use not just because of her poor base stats, but also because she's in a FE game where movement is more important than usual (thanks to big maps).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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