In which FE game were armor knights at their most useful?

[Slumber]

Yeah, Gatrie definitely blows Brom out of the water in RD. You have to do some work to get Brom anywhere near Gatrie at base.

That said, Brom's still a fine unit. There are just obviously better alternatives.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Probably, but it depends on how much you used him in part II. I've definitely had playthroughs where Brom hasn't even hit B-rank by part III (hm, was I trying to train his Sword rank up from E with the Bronze Sword?). I like the Killer Axe, but you are right to say that Steel Poleaccess is even more significant.

I tend to get much use out of him in part 2, given that he's the only tank in 2-1, and about the only safe unit to send into the fog in 2-2 (that isn't an overleveled unit you don't regain access to until part 4). He can also tank the right side in 2-E to a point (once the Hammer General has been removed from play).

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Not once has that ever been my experience in RD, even without favoritism and before I decided I liked Brom. Not once out of multiple playthroughs.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Not once has that ever been my experience in RD, even without favoritism and before I decided I liked Brom. Not once out of multiple playthroughs.

Well I certainly won't tell you how to play, but these Averages are based on the numbers available from the game. It could be that you've gotten a particularly blessed Brom every time. For the record, I very much like Brom as a character, I'm just saying that in part III, Gatrie usually outperforms him as a unit.

42 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I tend to get much use out of him in part 2, given that he's the only tank in 2-1, and about the only safe unit to send into the fog in 2-2 (that isn't an overleveled unit you don't regain access to until part 4). He can also tank the right side in 2-E to a point (once the Hammer General has been removed from play).

No question, Brom has his uses in part II. Mordecai is also a great tank you get, although Laguz mechanics make him tricky to use. How much Brom grows can also depend on whether you choose to rush chapters like II-1 and II-E, for minimal turncount.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.

[Whisky]

I haven’t played Awakening or Fates, or FE 1-5, or FE12, so I don’t know about those.

 

FE6 - I think Armour Knights are probably at their worst in the series in FE6. Not only does the game’s maps promote high Move units and make it difficult get much use out of Armours. Not only are there a very limited number of Knight’s Crests in the game of which you obviously want to use on Cavaliers. But also the Armours in this game don’t even have good stats. Bors is downright frail against early game Axe users. Wendy has some of the worst bases in the series. Armours can never have good offense due to their low Spd and mediocre Str. The list of their problems goes on and on.

FE7 - This game is arguably the answer to the title question with how good Oswin is. Oswin is great but his low Move and questionable Spd definitely hold him back. He’s still very useful early on and I think he holds up pretty well throughout the game. Someone mentioned earlier that he would be better as another class. Yes, that’s true but it doesn’t make him bad currently. He’s already okay at worst. In a class randomizer, Oswin is probably the best unit in the game.

FE8 - Gilliam is not particularly good but at least he can get a horse when he promotes. That alone makes him better than most Armours. Not the best, but definitely not the worst.

POR - Not sure exactly but they don’t seem very useful here to me. Gatrie is at least useful early on but not as much so once he rejoins. Tauroneo seems to have good bases and a good skill, but I still don’t think he seems very good with his low Move.

RD - They’re actually pretty good here. Gatrie is great in this game and the other two aren’t too bad either. This is a possible candidate for most useful.

SD - Well I’ve heard that Sedgar and Wolf are really good if they reclass to Generals, but that seems to be the only way the Armour classes can be good in this game. That alone does seem to make them among the most useful in this game.

Echoes - I thought they seemed terrible but I’ve heard Lukas is pretty good. I guess he starts out stronger than the villagers but they seem better in the long run, and you get 3 Paladins on Alm’s side, not to mention flyers. Lukas still has low Move, low Spd and is very vulnerable to a witch teleporting behind him and murdering him.

3H - Some people say Armours are good in this game. I’m definitely on the other side of that debate. Why would you make anyone a Fortress Knight when you can make them a Wyvern Rider? With all of the options available in this game, I find Armours mostly rather useless. Any character can be something better like WarMaster, or Wyvern Rider so the argument of Oswin being better as a different class is actually relevant here. You actually can just reclass your Armour Knights into something better.

[PPPPPPP270]

The 3DS games I think had the most useful armor knights along with Radiant Dawn. 

Awakening especially on lunatic makes armored units good pair up. Frederick gives a solid +1 movement and defense. Kellem is a good pair up bot providing 5 defense and 3 strength. Extremely useful in the early game. Too bad he's mostly worthless as the lead unit like 90% of Awakening's cast in lunatic. 

Fates had Effie who hits hard and can be moved around with pair up making armored units not fall behind. Benny I heard is physically impervious to most enemies but never really used him myself. I've seen someone get a really strong Ignatius with Beruka and Benny when they did a no Nohr royals challenge run. 

Echoes armored knights is technically suboptimal and it's basically only carried by Lukas. Half arrow damage as a passive is nothing if you already take 1 damage. 

Radiant Dawn had a pretty solid armored units if you don't count Meg and Brom. Tauroneo and Gatrie have abnormally high speed growth but not sure if their speed cap harms them later in the game though Tauroneo doesn't care as he can just resolve to boost his speed. 

It's just low movement is a killer in a lot of Fire Emblem games and the armored units you do get have either terrible stats or the maps just don't favor them at all. I can't believe how laughably bad armored units are in Three Houses. Being stuck at 4 movement until great knight is such a terrible thing. They don't even get strength modifiers from fortress knight until great knight and it's only 1 strength. Also nuking your speed even further from armored knight really seals the deal. You just get doubled by everything so the extra defense means nothing in maddening mode.

[Harb1ng3r]

I would say that they're actually pretty alright in Thracia. Or at least one of them is. Xavier can be a pretty decent combat filler due to access to Master Axes and Bows. On the indoor endgame maps his movement is less of an issue, and he can take on a few of the Deadlord rooms at base. He also has great con, which combined with his good physical combat makes him a decent unit for Chapter 24's right side, as he can kill the heroes and then start capturing the silenced Lopt Mages for their staves.

[Gregster101]

4 hours ago, Harb1ng3r said:

I would say that they're actually pretty alright in Thracia. Or at least one of them is. Xavier can be a pretty decent combat filler due to access to Master Axes and Bows. On the indoor endgame maps his movement is less of an issue, and he can take on a few of the Deadlord rooms at base. He also has great con, which combined with his good physical combat makes him a decent unit for Chapter 24's right side, as he can kill the heroes and then start capturing the silenced Lopt Mages for their staves.

He also has a leadership star, which gives all units +3 hit and avoid when he's deployed, so that's also nice

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/9/2020 at 12:40 AM, Whisky said:

FE6 - I think Armour Knights are probably at their worst in the series in FE6. Not only does the game’s maps promote high Move units and make it difficult get much use out of Armours. Not only are there a very limited number of Knight’s Crests in the game of which you obviously want to use on Cavaliers. But also the Armours in this game don’t even have good stats. Bors is downright frail against early game Axe users. Wendy has some of the worst bases in the series. Armours can never have good offense due to their low Spd and mediocre Str. The list of their problems goes on and on.

If you can believe it, they're even worse off in Genealogy of the Holy War. The giant maps favour high move units to an obscene degree, and make it hard to get much use out of infantry units, much less armors.

[Whisky]

On 3/25/2020 at 8:09 AM, Shadow Mir said:

If you can believe it, they're even worse off in Genealogy of the Holy War. The giant maps favour high move units to an obscene degree, and make it hard to get much use out of infantry units, much less armors.

That’s impressively bad. They’re terrible in Binding Blade. What I don’t understand is why they aren’t actually good in combat. It seems obvious that a unit with terrible Move should be very strong in combat to compensate, but Armours in FE6 really aren’t.
 

The game literally tells you that they are “nearly impenetrable”, but Bors dies more easily than most units against early game Brigands, and his offense is garbage. Armoured units in general not only seem to have terrible Move, but bad combat too. If they are going to have low mobility that severely limits their options for contributing, then at least make them super strong, not weak.

[FishyFinThing]

If you're talking not just about Fire Emblem but game like Fire Emblem as well, then sadly the best heavy armored unit's implementation I know isn't a Fire Emblem but from a game called Vestaria Saga.

In that game, you start with 2 Guardians which is technically armor knight in FE. One of them is Bonacel which is basically an Oswin with good base, decent grow. The other is Prody with lower base but grown + earn exp faster and able reduce damage by 3-5 for adjacent allies which is one of the best support skill in the game. When I first look at the game, I want to test if they are any better than what people give them credit for. So I give them some chance and to my surprise, they never disappoint me.

They are very well designed in term of level and function. The pacing is usually long enough for armor knight to catch up. The objective and opportunity for them aren't left forgotten either.

For example, I found that there are maps in which enemy reinforcement coming from behind, so I left my armor guys there to block them.

There is a chapter in which you have to defend your base so deploy them isn't a bad option either.

There are chapters which you are 5 times out numbered and have to face enemy head on in the open. Again, I deployed armor to be the vanguard and it worked.

Still have one free slot and need some more exp for armor knight? There are some place with a lot of reinforcement that they can solo as well.

Snowballing the game? No problem, just deploy Prody with 4 other units in a tight formation and he will save you 3-5 damage every time his squad got attacked. Because you can tank more, you can fight more, and in the end, result in better training for unit that are under-leveled.

Weak against magic? It is also patch able, they have enough HP to tank a few hit. On top of that, if you are experienced, you can get 2 items in which just holding them in a unit's inventory boost their resistance by 6 each. Which mean, if needed, you can have a 12 RES armor knight, that's mean he can tank almost if not everything in a turn.

[Emperor Hardin]

On 4/5/2020 at 11:24 AM, Whisky said:

That’s impressively bad. They’re terrible in Binding Blade. What I don’t understand is why they aren’t actually good in combat. It seems obvious that a unit with terrible Move should be very strong in combat to compensate, but Armours in FE6 really aren’t.
 

The game literally tells you that they are “nearly impenetrable”, but Bors dies more easily than most units against early game Brigands, and his offense is garbage. Armoured units in general not only seem to have terrible Move, but bad combat too. If they are going to have low mobility that severely limits their options for contributing, then at least make them super strong, not weak.

Actually they have some use in Genealogy of the Holy War, mainly netting the player rare items and the class itself has incredible weapon ranks and an OP skill ,its just the enemy gets to use them more them more then the player.

They're worse in Awakening and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, the latter made the class even worse then Gaiden for NES by taking out all their advantages and refusing to remove their disadvantages like being three move behind regular infantry units.

8 hours ago, FishyFinThing said:

If you're talking not just about Fire Emblem but game like Fire Emblem as well, then sadly the best heavy armored unit's implementation I know isn't a Fire Emblem but from a game called Vestaria Saga.

In that game, you start with 2 Guardians which is technically armor knight in FE. One of them is Bonacel which is basically an Oswin with good base, decent grow. The other is Prody with lower base but grown + earn exp faster and able reduce damage by 3-5 for adjacent allies which is one of the best support skill in the game. When I first look at the game, I want to test if they are any better than what people give them credit for. So I give them some chance and to my surprise, they never disappoint me.

They are very well designed in term of level and function. The pacing is usually long enough for armor knight to catch up. The objective and opportunity for them aren't left forgotten either.

For example, I found that there are maps in which enemy reinforcement coming from behind, so I left my armor guys there to block them.

There is a chapter in which you have to defend your base so deploy them isn't a bad option either.

There are chapters which you are 5 times out numbered and have to face enemy head on in the open. Again, I deployed armor to be the vanguard and it worked.

Still have one free slot and need some more exp for armor knight? There are some place with a lot of reinforcement that they can solo as well.

Snowballing the game? No problem, just deploy Prody with 4 other units in a tight formation and he will save you 3-5 damage every time his squad got attacked. Because you can tank more, you can fight more, and in the end, result in better training for unit that are under-leveled.

Weak against magic? It is also patch able, they have enough HP to tank a few hit. On top of that, if you are experienced, you can get 2 items in which just holding them in a unit's inventory boost their resistance by 6 each. Which mean, if needed, you can have a 12 RES armor knight, that's mean he can tank almost if not everything in a turn.

Grand Guard is also called Armored Knight in the Japanese text.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Emperor Hardin

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Actually they have some use in Genealogy of the Holy War, mainly netting the player rare items and the class itself has incredible weapon ranks and an OP skill ,its just the enemy gets to use them more them more then the player.

They're worse in Awakening and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, the latter made the class even worse then Gaiden for NES by taking out all their advantages and refusing to remove their disadvantages like being three move behind regular infantry units.

Like I said earlier, I'm sure that's tied to the character, not the class, ergo, if you hacked the game to make Arden any other class, that wouldn't preclude him from getting the Pursuit Ring (of course, you'd need to know about it first). Also., having good weapon ranks is fluff because of the laughable weapon balance - having the ability to use swords, lances, axes and bows doesn't help much when swords are head and shoulders above the other weapons.

That's bull. At least those games had means to get Generals to the front lines. What can I do to get Arden (Hannibal in Gen 2) to the frontline in Genealogy? Move at a snail's pace?

Edited April 7, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Whisky]

28 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Like I said earlier, I'm sure that's tied to the character, not the class, ergo, if you hacked the game to make Arden any other class, that wouldn't preclude him from getting the Pursuit Ring (of course, you'd need to know about it first). Also., having good weapon ranks is fluff because of the laughable weapon balance - having the ability to use swords, lances, axes and bows doesn't help much when swords are head and shoulders above the other weapons.

That's bull. At least those games had means to get Generals to the front lines. What can I do to get Arden (Hannibal in Gen 2) to the frontline in Genealogy? Move at a snail's pace?

Before Shadow Dragon, all units are a combination of character and class. The only game where you could maybe separate the class from the character is Sacred Stones with the branching promotions.

If all units that are in the Armour Knight class had super good personal stats then we would consider Armour Knights better in those games. Class stats are basically irrelevant in games without re-classing (unless you are playing a randomizer).

Oswin, as an Armour Knight, is a pretty good unit. The class itself offers very little to him. As any other class, Oswin becomes arguably the best unit in the game, but in the vanilla game, that doesn’t really matter. Evaluating Armour Knights in FE7 means evaluating Oswin as an Armour Knight (and Wallace).

What I’m trying to say is that in terms of unit balance, it doesn’t really matter if the class offers nothing special and is a terrible class, if all characters that happen to be in that class have high enough personal stats to compensate. Unless we are talking about a game with re-classing like Shadow Dragon or 3H. 

Edit: Without hacking the older games, we wouldn’t know if the high Def is from the class or the character.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Whisky

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Whisky said:

Before Shadow Dragon, all units are a combination of character and class. The only game where you could maybe separate the class from the character is Sacred Stones with the branching promotions.

If all units that are in the Armour Knight class had super good personal stats then we would consider Armour Knights better in those games. Class stats are basically irrelevant in games without re-classing (unless you are playing a randomizer).

Oswin, as an Armour Knight, is a pretty good unit. The class itself offers very little to him. As any other class, Oswin becomes arguably the best unit in the game, but in the vanilla game, that doesn’t really matter. Evaluating Armour Knights in FE7 means evaluating Oswin as an Armour Knight (and Wallace).

What I’m trying to say is that in terms of unit balance, it doesn’t really matter if the class offers nothing special and is a terrible class, if all characters that happen to be in that class have high enough personal stats to compensate. Unless we are talking about a game with re-classing like Shadow Dragon or 3H. 

Edit: Without hacking the older games, we wouldn’t know if the high Def is from the class or the character.

Perhaps.

Given the emphasis people tend to put on movement, not really; Genealogy is Exhibit A as to this. Even in a hypothetical case where you got a Baron with the best caps in the game and the ability to use every weapon type, they'd most likely still be considered nigh useless simply because they take too long to get from Point A to Point B. 

Fair enough.

See my point about Genealogy and people putting a lot of emphasis on movement. Part of the reason knights and generals tend to be looked down on is that other units, namely paladins and wyverns, tend to be almost as good as them defensively, except they can actually get to the frontlines. Why do you think a ton of topics about how to improve armors get made, especially compared to topics on how to improve, say, myrmidons? Or fighters, which I personally consider to be a class that has a tendency to get shafted even harder than knights?

Edited April 7, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[PyroPlazma]

Not counting great knights...

Shadows of Valentia, that's about it.... 

Fire Emblems are design from the player perspective is antithetical to how armor knights work. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by PyroPlazma

[Whisky]

10 minutes ago, PyroPlazma said:

Not counting great knights...

Shadows of Valentia, that's about it.... 

Fire Emblems are design from the player perspective is antithetical to how armor knights work. 

What made them good in SoV? I used Lucas and Valbar and I thought they weren’t very good. Lucas has low Movement, and gets destroyed by magic. His high Def is never necessary and he isn’t invincible to physical attacks. Sabre has really good Def too and way better Spd and offense and Move. 

[PyroPlazma]

20 minutes ago, Whisky said:

What made them good in SoV? I used Lucas and Valbar and I thought they weren’t very good. Lucas has low Movement, and gets destroyed by magic. His high Def is never necessary and he isn’t invincible to physical attacks. Sabre has really good Def too and way better Spd and offense and Move. 

I honestly don't remember, it's been over 2 years since I played the game lol. 

[Ether]

In terms of actually using armour knights as units without reclassing them out of it, either Radiant Dawn or Fates Conquest. Gatrie is a decent combat unit with a small bit of investment, Tauroneo shines for a few maps, as does the Black Knight if you choose to count him, and Brom is decent if unspectacular and is useful in part 2 since you're crunched for units. Meg is awful but the others have their niche uses. As for Conquest, Effie carries the class on her very broad shoulders. She's important for early game and can promote into Great Knight to escape the awful mess of the General class while still being in the knight line, and be useful for the whole game.

As for what game the knight class itself is the most useful? Three houses due to easy access requirements and a quick boost to your base defense that sticks around after you immediately reclassified out of it. If you're certifying for armour knight you'll likely also pick up weight -3 which is a nice side bonus. Fortress is a bit more investment than most units probably want to do, but it offers another bump in base defense if you're already training axes and have time to do more armour.

 

[Emperor Hardin]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Perhaps.

Given the emphasis people tend to put on movement, not really; Genealogy is Exhibit A as to this. Even in a hypothetical case where you got a Baron with the best caps in the game and the ability to use every weapon type, they'd most likely still be considered nigh useless simply because they take too long to get from Point A to Point B. 

That wouldn't be the case, a Baron with Reptor's stats would easily outclass Claud due to superior stats, skills and weapon ranks. For a reminder, High Priests(well as Shamans and the unplayable Bishops and Dark magic classes) have the same movement as armored units.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Like I said earlier, I'm sure that's tied to the character, not the class, ergo, if you hacked the game to make Arden any other class, that wouldn't preclude him from getting the Pursuit Ring (of course, you'd need to know about it first). Also., having good weapon ranks is fluff because of the laughable weapon balance - having the ability to use swords, lances, axes and bows doesn't help much when swords are head and shoulders above the other weapons.

That's bull. At least those games had means to get Generals to the front lines. What can I do to get Arden (Hannibal in Gen 2) to the frontline in Genealogy? Move at a snail's pace?

You can't reclass in FE4 without breaking the game and if you're using AR to change classes, then you may as well do whatever you want, so that is irrelevant.

Bows are light and get an automatic critical against flying weapons in a game where the ability to critical is rare and when there is a lot of interests in passing down bows to offspring. Lances are nice to have as well.

Generals can use the arena and as mentioned before are automatically deployed along with all your other units. You move them and use them to pick off enemy stragglers.

3 hours ago, Ether said:

As for what game the knight class itself is the most useful? Three houses due to easy access requirements and a quick boost to your base defense that sticks around after you immediately reclassified out of it. If you're certifying for armour knight you'll likely also pick up weight -3 which is a nice side bonus. Fortress is a bit more investment than most units probably want to do, but it offers another bump in base defense if you're already training axes and have time to do more armour.

I wouldn't say that. In the DS remakes, not only are Knights/Generals one of the best leveling classes, but the game has small maps that favor strength/defense or making pre promotes Generals when the movement difference is less notable. Knight is even the best starting class for the Avatar, albeit you reclass out of it once the eight prologue chapters are done.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Emperor Hardin