Ranking each game by class: Armour Knights

[Whisky]

Armour Knights are often considered bad. They’re one of the consistently worst classes in the series. But in which games are they at their worst, and in which games are they better, or at least less bad?

For this topic I’m going to include Great Knights. I think it makes sense.

Engage

Louis is pretty strong early on. Armour Knights actually have the same Move as other classes in Engage. They also have a few niches with being unbreakable and having some unique emblem bonuses. I don’t think Generals are as good since they still only have 4 Move, but Great Knights have 6, the same as any other Cavalry class. Great Knight seems pretty decent here.

Sacred Stones

Being able to promote to Great Knight is a nice option for Armour Knights. It fixes their Move issue. But even so Gilliam still isn’t as good as Oswin. True but Duessel is actually quite good on Ephraim’s route. Great Knight is a generally superior class than General and Armour Knight is a better class by having access to promoting into it. For the characters in the class, Gilliam isn’t good, but Duessel is.

Blazing Sword

There are some maps in this game where a strong low Move unit can find some uses, mostly early on where Oswin is relatively at his strongest. Oswin is one of your strongest units in the early game. He does fall off later with Move and Spd issues, but even then there’s enemies so slow that he can double so he’s not bad.

Shadow Dragon

I haven’t used Sedgar or Wolf as Generals but I’ve heard it works well. Most of the time when an Armour unit is good it’s despite the class and not because of it, but this is a rare case of a unit actually choosing to reclass into an armored class.

Radiant Dawn

Gatrie is pretty strong in the Greil Mercenaries. Tauroneo is quite strong for the Dawn Brigade. I don’t have much else to say.

Three Houses

I’m really not a fan of armored classes in this game. Three Houses has 8 Move classes with super canto, classes with high powered Combat Arts, and then 4 Move Fortress Knights with poor offense. I think the best use of the classes is to certify for them for the base Def increase and then not actually reclass into it. Great Knight is actually not bad in a vacuum, a huge step up from Fortress Knight, but is the highest investment class in the game and still lacking in a few areas.

Path of Radiance

The game dominates by strong mounted units with super Cantó. By the time armored units get anywhere here everything will all ready be dead most of the time.

Binding Blade

I think most of the classes are actually balanced better here than in most FE games, but not Armour Knights. The class is terrible and the units in the class are terrible. Bors, Wendy, and Barth are all some of the worst units in the game. Douglas is actually quite good in randomizers when he isn’t a General, but when he’s stuck as an armored unit, he’s not good either.

[samthedigital]

Top: FE7, 8, Engage, Conquest

Order doesn't matter so much here. I wouldn't call any of these great necessarily; every single one of these units and/or classes have a shelf life. Oswin is pretty good early on until we get a bigger cast, Duessel is useful for a while, and Louis is useful until roughly chapter 8. I'm not a fan of armored units in Engage past the early game; there are stronger defensive tools than using armoured units while still maintaining a strong offense, and GKs are somewhat limited in that aspect. Effie is a really good unit casually, and that's why Conquest is here. Her long term prospects aren't the best, but there are a lot of neat tools to make units like her useful later on in Conquest. That being said the only reason these are at the top is because there isn't anything better rather than because they're good.

Mid: FE10

It has been too long since I've played FE10, but the shelf life for these units feels a little higher than the ones below. Tauroneo is amazing early on. Brom makes for decent filler, and Gatrie is pretty good for a while until he starts to fall off. The BK is great when he's around if he counts. If I were using a lettering scheme these would be more like C tier units compared to the A tier above.

Lower Mid: FE5, 9

Gatrie is good for a very short period of time and Xavier is a good filler unit if we go through the trouble of recruiting them. It's a bit of a separation between this and the bottom tier units because they have their uses once in a while.

Bottom: FE4, FE6

There's not a lot to say about these. FE4 is horse emblem, and FE6 generals have a lot stacked against them even when trying to tank which is supposed to be the thing they're good at; all of their other attributes (movement, damage, etc) are garbage.

Edited April 30, 2023 by samthedigital

[Issac the Vast]

I was never really a fan of the armored unit designs in Awakening, they looked so weird and bulky, but i loved Kjelle, she's my favorite armored unit in the series. It also helped i S-ranked sully in a playthrough, so I see Kjelle as my daughter.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

GBA Armor knights are so close to being great. Because Rescue supplants their biggest weakness (low movement), but then once your mounted units promote and have less Aid, they can't pick up Generals unless their name is Rath or Shin. It's such an unfortunate blend of mechanics. Promoting means your horse can't pick up this one class that has just a few points more in Con.

Anyway this is going to be a painful topic to write for lol

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm not particularly inclined to include Great Knight in any game outside of Sacred Stones. In SS, it actually has the bad mobility we associate with armour. In other games, it feels more like a cavalry class, so I'd rather talk about them when we talk about Paladins.

1. Fates: Possibly the best game for armours. One reason is Wary Fighter, which helps them negate their major stat weakness. But the bigger thing is that Pair Up lets them get places more easily. Not only that, but they have great synergy with fliers in particular; flier mobility lets them get where they need, and then you can switch to the armour to clown any nearby archers. Effie herself is a pretty solid unit, and Benny has his uses too.

2. Radiant Dawn: Armours are one of the few classes who get two weapons in second tier (not even paladins do!), which is a neat class advantage they don't often have (Hard Mode admittedly negates some of this advantage, RD HM is such a trashfire), and past that they're... actually reasonably speedy as a class? Except Brom. That helps a lot. Gatrie is a very solid unit, Tauroneo and Brom both have at least a map or two where they're show-stealers, Meg is... okay, pretty bad, but overhated IMO.

3t. Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones: Both of these games have one armour who is pretty good (Duessel, Oswin) admittedly more for his high base level than his class, and one who is trash (Wallace, Gilliam). It's not a great class past that, low move low speed dodgetanking superior to concrete tanking all add up. But one good unit is enough, I think. I would say SS is probably #3 on Ephraim's route, but Blazing is #3 if we're considering Eirika', so I'll call this a tie..

5. Awakening: See Fates, but Kellam isn't as impressive as Effie. And no Wary Fighter. But still, pairup is nice. If you count Frederick as armour then Awakening moves instantly to the top of the list, Freddy is the best "armoured" unit in the series and it's not close. But with 7 move, I ain't gonna consider him one.

6. Engage: Tricky one. I'll say that I'm not comfortable considering Great Knight here: it's explicitly cavalry, not armour, for class typing. For the true armour classes, they're quite good... in tier 1. Decent move, great def, and break immunity. Unfortunately General is kinda terrible, gaining no move on promotion and break immunity being far less valuable once competing classes can just choose different weapons to avoid being broken. Louis is a good earlygame unit, at least.

7. Binding Blade: I think Bors is pretty underrated. 11 defence at Level 1 is cool, and he grows well enough. But he's still not wonderful, and the other armours all suck. Lances aren't as good weapons as they often are.

8. Three Houses: Do I give credit for armour knight certification? Because armour knight certification is cool. But I'm inclined to say no. Outside that, concrete tanking is valid and they're the best way to do it, but... in practice I find that Armour Knight (the intermediate class) has somewhat overkill durability, a Brigand with Armour certification will tank things just fine, while having +1 move, much better offence, and learning the awesome Death Blow instead of the garbage Armoured Blow. And thereafter, dodgetanks start outclassing concrete tanks pretty badly, for a multitude of reasons. So in practice, armour feels pretty bad in this game. Still better than..

9. Path of Radiance: This is the game of mobile, incredibly durable paladins. Thanks to their evade and speed they're often just literally more durable, on top of +3 move and canto. So armours are just slow without much of a niche. Gatrie's okay for some earlygame maps or I'd seriously consider ranking them last.

10. Genealogy: Horse Emblem leaves these guys struggling to contribute. On top of that class issue, Arden is absolutely wretched on stats/weapons. Hannibal is... less egregious but I still basically only used him like once or twice for castle guarding.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

• In Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones they are quite usable, I liked to use Oswin and Gilliam.
• Radiant Dawn has Gatrie who has incredible bases and a great speed growth for his class, although his cap is poor. Tauroneo is decent whenever he's forced for the Dawn Brigade. Meg is underleveled at the point she joins despite having decent growths.
• Fates has Effie who might be the most valuable armor knight in the series for me.
• In Genealogy Of The Holy War and Binding Blade they pretty much don't exist, but for different reasons. Genealogy is a calvary heavy game whilst lance's accuracy is massively screwed in Binding Blade.
• Path Of Radiance is another calvary heavy game, but the enemies are really bad so it's not hard to train armor knights, even if it requires more time.
• I haven't made any real experiences in Engage since the Louis died to me. Jade was alright, but outclassed as axe user when I decided to make Rosado become an axe paladin.
• As for Thracia 776, there's Dalshin who's good in indoor maps at least (especially in the Manster chapters). And there's Xavier who pretty much doesn't exist for having a superhard recruitment. However if you could recruit him, he serves well, mainly thanks to his great skill he comes with.
• Haven't made any experiences with armor knights in the Archanea series and Gaiden / Echoes.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Lady Hortensia

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Shadow Dragon as the best if we allow Sedgar/Wolf cheese. While it´s only these two characters, reclassing Sedgar/Wolf into Generals erodes any physical threat until way into the late chapters, even on H5 - the only real threat to them is magic.

 

I think Effie carries the good name of Fates Armor Knights on her very large STR stat and if one were to separate the two one would find that Effie good, Armor Knight not so good. Benny is lauded for good point-choking and that´s it and his kid is just a potentially more tanky version of him locked behind a potential hassle of a paralogue. I guess Def +2, WF can be pretty neat as choice skills, but the +3DEF/RES on terrain and Pavise being a procc skill that focuses physical weapons not magic which is the only thing Generals will be vulnerable to... eh. Granted, everything but General!Elise/Nyx will probably have an ok to good attack stance, since General focuses STR/DEF.

Do we count Onis as Hoshidos counterpart? If so, Rinkah bad, give me Guard Naginata Oboro/Hinoka, more at 11. 

[Kruggov]

I'd say:

Top: Blazing Blade/The Sacred Stones (Oswin and Duessel great, Gilliam is meh but usable in a pinch and can become a GK to fix his move issues, Wallace sucks and Amelia is a meme), Fates (Wary Fighter! Plus Pair-up fixes movement issues), Engage (Great earlygame, transitions well into GK midgame, best users of smash weapons)

Great: Gaiden (Infinite range warp and Speed Ring exist, plus Lukas has the time to get ahead of other characters, other two are meh though and making any of the villagers into one is a really bad choice), Radiant Dawn (Caps matter, and RD armors have them in spades, helps that they are faster and more resistant than usual), Shadow Dragon/New Mystery (they are good because you are not stuck with them and only need to use them when you need them, plus Bows are surprisingly useful on them), Awakening (Pair-up shenanigans, i'd also count Fred but it would be cheating)

Meh: Mystery of the Emblem (Indoor lance use is the main reason to train one, plus Sheena is a surprisingly fun character to use), Binding Blade (Too many axes in the early chapters, plus magic shreds them. Gwendolyn also shows how bad a knight can be), Path of Radiance (Gatrie does decent earlygame, while Brom can serve as a decent tank even on maniac, they have problems killing stuff though)

Bad: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (just use a Paladin or Dracoknight, they can't even promote), Genealogy of the Holy War (Gigantic maps vs 5-move armors), Thracia 776 (Dalsin is good for 3 chapters then gets benched, hammers everywhere, Why the F Xavier has E in Lances), Echoes (Warp is no longer infinite, Speed Ring nerfed, armored weakness added for whatever reason, much worse than Gaiden), Three Houses (good for certification, otherwise terrible because 4 move, GK is the worst Master class of them all)

[ping]

Actually not half bad: Radiant Dawn

I don't particularly like the RD Knights/Generals as growth units because the class's Spd cap is pretty sad, both in tier 2 and tier 3. But even then, you have Tauroneo and the BK as completely OP (but with no availability) units, and it's not like Brom and Gatrie don't have their short-term use.

Okay: Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones, Shadow Dragon

Ehhhh: New Mystery

General is a pretty decent, if situational swap for lance users in chapters with especially hard-hitting enemies (read: dragons). It has +6 HP / +7 Def over Paladin, and +8 HP / +5 Def over Dracoknight (and if it wasn't for the merged class set, this could've been an small, but interesting advantage for the female class set). Enough to rise above 'bad', but I think the representation in the three 'okay' games is still better.

Bad: Binding Blade, Path of Radiance

Bors can become decent, but I find that he's very dependant on his Spd growth proccing a few times in his early level-ups. PoR!Gatrie has some utility before he goes awol, but you really don't need his unit profile anymore when he returns.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Like usual, a useful image to convey my viewpoint.

 

S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game

Shadow Dragon: Perhaps a controversial take, but the General class is what lets Wolfe and Sedgar break this game even on the highest difficulties. Sure a big part of that is Sedgar and Wolf, but the General Class's defense growths are what push it over the edge.

 

A Tier: A Good Class

Fates: Armored Knights, and their varied promotions, are good in this game. They hit hard, can take massive hits, gets the wary fighter skill to remove the normal weakness of low speed, and the pairup-switch-transfer-seperate mechanics let them overcome their normal weakness of low move, and they can even take the great knight path to mitigate those weaknesses in more traditional ways as well.

Radiant Dawn: Meg does her best to undermine how good this class is with her pegasus like stats, as Armored units in this get the right stats for this game's late game. They hit the right sort of physical benchmarks, and stat cap, even in speed, to be a class that you might consider for endgame, and that makes them a good class to use.

 

B Tier: An OK Class

Engage: This is mostly based on Louis performance, where in the first half his stats, and unbreakable feature of the armored knight class make him really good, but unlike the early game good examples in the C tier, it takes til well into the midgame for them to drop, and they settle back down into an OK unit, instead of a bad one, which bring them into a higher B tier for me than most.

 

C Tier: There is a niche for this class

Echoes: While the armored units in this game see their usefulness fall off a cliff later in the game, in the early game the class is rather useful. It also has another mixed blessing in that I most often hear Armored units in this game being the best units to use the pitchfork reclass on, as the class gets really good stats let down by its normal weaknesses, and it hits both trend for the tier, both being rather good early game, and being in the class for training purposes.

Blazing Sword: Oswin does a good enough job in the early game to get armored knight into this tier. Marcus overshadows him from the start, and once more units catch up to his early level lead he falls off a fair bit, but there are quite a few chapters where he shines in.

Sacred Stones: Similar to Blazing Blade above, this one is carried into this tier by one unit, Duessel. Truth be told I almost let him carry this game to B tier, but he is a lot less impressive in Eirika's route.

New Mystery: Having your Kris in this class early for its high defense growth, and thus long term defensiveness is common enough practice in the highest difficulties to give this class line a clear niche. More often than not you will transition people away from this class with all units, but there are times where you will be here for growth reasons.

Three Houses: Certifying this class for a massive defense bump is really useful, and that earns it a place in this tier here for me.

Awakening: The main reason I bring it to this tier is due to finding its pairup bonuses kinda useful. Now I am not counting Fredrick as a Armored Knight here, as the skills he has makes it clear he was a cavalier to begin with, but if I do count him, I can see this getting bumped up at least a tier.

 

D Tier: A Bad Class

Genealogy of the Holy War: Arden is a joke for a reason. This game is the most horse emblem a game can get, and armors can't even keep up with the infantry.

Thracia 776: The only thing this class does is combat, and it isn't even great at that. It does have the funny feature of once promoted it is the only class that can wield Lances indoors, but all of them start with E rank lances, and with how slow, and how late this feature arrives, I can't even consider that a useful niche for C tier...

Path of Radiance: Another Horse Emblem game, and even during the time before Gatrie leaves, he isn't that impressive.

Binding Blade: My love of the triangle attack tempts me so much to bring them up to C tier, but even with that, this is still one of the worst classes in this game.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

I forgot about Shadows of Valentia entirely. Armour knights suck in that game, they're the worst class line and it's not close IMO. There's a meme I've seen about ranking things and it sums up how I feel about class balance in SoV, it goes something like this:

1. You can't
2. rank classes
3. they each fill
4. different
5. valuable
6. niches
7. Armour Knight

Every other class has a lot more move, a lot more utility, a lot more range, or multiple of these. As mentioned they're vaguely okay earlygame though I can't even imagine wanting to turn a villager into one. i'd probably rank them similarly to PoR.

[SnowFire]

I think people have covered things pretty well.

• Shadow Dragon: A decent number of maps are nearly mono-physical, or have just a few mages you can snipe.  As such, on those maps, Generals become nigh-unkillable mega-tanks.  They won't completely clown the game because there are some maps with escaping thieves and the like, but given how hard SD on the higher difficulties can be, this is a hell of a relevant niche to have.
• Fates (especially Conquest): This is a game with some absolutely evil formations to bait, and Generals with Wary Fighter (and Xander) are often some of the best choices to do it and possibly survive.  Generals are also one famous way to survive Kitsune hell where Xander's horsey would get devoured.  Pair-Up taxis mitigate a traditional weakness.
• Radiant Dawn: Unsure how much this is the characters rather than the class, but Generals don't have THAT much less movement than other infantry, and randomly great all-around stats.  Notably, the traditional weakness in Speed and Resistance isn't actually that bad -   I took Brom to the tower and he was perfectly serviceable, and he isn't even the best one.
• Awakening: Pair-up Taxis return.  The main issue is that if you want concrete tanks, Generals are probably still worse at it than Manaketes, and you can get 3 (or even 4) Manaketes.  But...  that doesn't mean Generals are BAD, they're still usable, it just means Manaketes are tuned to a pretty high power level.  Kjelle should probably promote to Great Knight rather than General, though, which is a bad sign.
• Engage: Louis is very good for the first half of the game, and usable with investment in the back half...  although probably via switching to Great Knight.  Still, being good for half the game is better than being good for none of the game.
• New Mystery of the Emblem (?): Honestly, not THAT great, especially if playing on Normal or Hard.  FE12 has some puzzle maps that require high move where armor is really out of place.  That said, enemy offense is so high on the higher difficulty levels that there's some enemies that practically only generals can survive baiting them, so they get a niche by dint of having no other choice when you need every point of defense you can scrounge up.
• GBA (FE6/7/8): Not so good.  Oswin can hard-check chokepoints if you're willing to wait for him to catch up and you're just playing casually, but FE7 also has other strats that break the game casually like low-manning, and very strict Tactics turn count expectations if playing for rating.  FE8 doesn't have ratings but Gilliam is a real slow starter.  FE6 does have ratings, but the turn count expectation is very generous and easy to hit, so while Bors is less good on paper than Oswin, in practice there's less "punishment" for using him.  Scary FE6 pre-promotes also really reward early tanks - usually Marcus or Zealot, but Bors will also do in a pinch.
• Echoes: Okay, Lukas is fine in Chapter 1.  And Valbar has a genuine niche in surviving stuff like the archer fort, Boss Deen's swarm, and Grieth in Celica C3.  Once you get to post-Grieth Celica C3 and C4, there are hordes of dark mages & cantors that despise Valbar and everything he stands for.  Lukas & Forsythe, meanwhile, just stop impressing as units, and Alm and the Merc/Myrm/DF classline for Villagers are both tankier and deadlier in Alm's C3 and beyond.  Maybe if there were lategame maps like the archer fort that featured tons of Bow Knights with jacked attack stats there'd be a purpose for Barons?  But nope.
• Three Houses: Per Elf, I'm ignoring the "certify as an armor solely for the stat minimums" trick, which is good but also doesn't really require you to use the class.  If you want to concrete tank, AK / FK is how you do it!  But this gets hard to sustain even on Hard mode, and on Maddening, its worth just isn't that high.  It's easier to player-phase 3H, and if you enemy phase it, to use either dodge tanking or Vantage.  If surviving multiple rounds of enemy combat is so hard, then I'd rather have a unit like a Grappler that merely might have to survive one or two rounds of enemy combat, but is also way better at blowing up enemies on player phase, and needs similar Rescue / Warp / Reposition babysitting (but less due to more move + ignore terrain).
• Path of Radiance: PoR maps are very open, without many chokepoints.  Several of them feature rewards for moving fast, like intercepting thieves.  And unlike RD, armored units stats just are unusually unimpressive anyway for the series, meaning they aren't even notably better if allowed to "catch up".  Gatrie is okay on Chapter 5 I guess, and Tauroneo comes with the excellent Resolve (but that's Resolve being good), but there's just no reason to build Brom or the like other than sheer favoritism.

Not listing Heroes because you really have to specify things like "what patch" and "level of investment", but I will say that Armors throughout the first year were garbage, with even the best ones like Hector merely usable.  The addition of Bold/Vengeful Fighter helped some and caused some to complain armors were OP, but really, that was just table stakes for relevance.  It made them decent for awhile, and they started tailing off again.  Then Save skills were added, and they were very good.  Here we are in modern Heroes, where nukes have to be able to crack through defense-optimized saver Armors, with unfortunate implications for normal units who want to survive without the aid of a Save unit.  Still not great outside of either having a Save skill, or having some sort of ability that essentially negates the "Armor" side (e.g. how Brave Edelgard has great movement as long as her HP > 25%, but that also makes her feel more like an infantry unit).

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Only looking at games I've played since 2017. Though I definitely think that excludes some of the better showcases for this class. With armor knights, I'm reminded of a good thing to keep in mind - Use units when and where they're good. If they don't have a place being in that map, don't deploy them. Players tend to think if they're raising a unit or if a unit is considered "good" then that means they need perfect attendance in every map, no exceptions. But It's still your call to make. And look how your deployment slots open up when you start making these decisions!

1. Three Houses: You bet I'm counting the armor knight certification. 12 base defense is nearly guaranteed to be at least one free point for any physical unit that can spare the skill exp to train some Armor after they're finished with Axes and the saint statues have unlocked. Even mages might consider the detour depending on their priorities. As for actually using the class, Stride and Reposition are all you need to get these guys into position early. And being an Axe-using class means a unit could reclass to an armor, brigand, or Wyvern to match the map layout and objective priorities. Defense stacking would be very effective in Maddening if not for those poison strike archers. But take the Ingrid paralogue for instance. Infinite reinforcements that can only deal single digit damage to an armor knight's 16 base defense. None of the enemies are mages or possess axebreaker so it's a good ecosystem for them. And I'd be remiss not to mention my maddening Gauntlets only run, where nearly all my units spent time in this class and found room for the Armored Blow skill (did you know armor knights have unique punching animations? I didn't). Fortress Knight is a great choice for Batallion Wrath degeneracy, especially if there's no terrain to pad out your avoid. Your priority will be reducing the damage you take directly, and the innate Weight -5 makes up for the speed drop. And finally Great Knight is only something I've used to salvage a Ferdinand that wasn't cutting it as a wyvern. Not the worst class in the game, but definitely begging for a justification to use.
2. The Last Promise (Romhacks whaaaa?): Kevin has the best availability of any unit. 13 defense at level 3. Siegfried mode is loaded with mage-less maps and chokepoints where he can contribute without needing to heal. Then you get him back as the bodyguard of Anakin mode to train the next wave of dorks that need the help way more. The biggest issue he has is just that this game's fliers can't carry him. Your first flier of each route are both women with 7 con, they can't carry Kevin regardless of promotion status. Only Ben and Lirin can carry Kevin, but Kevin should be hitting level 20 soon. Frederick is also great. Not Athos-level good, but he can survive against the final boss gauntlet no problem.
3. FE11: Probably the most complicated game to rank classes in general (heh). Draug is a bad unit who is facing ORKOs as early as Chapter 2 on H5. But judging FE11 classes by the units that join in them feels like the wrong approach for FE11. Some of your best units might have tantalizing results when reclassed as a General, like Wolf/Sedgar, famously. Lances are way more viable compared to FE1/3, and they buffed the General's Mov to 6. Giving them bow access is a little superfluous though. An unforged steel bow won't one shot wyverns even on the easiest difficulty. Not unless it's held by a trained Wolf/Sedgar but that's more a statement about those units than the class. And at some point I want them to set up kills, not sponge all the best exp.
4. FE8: Gilliam's got Oswin's availability, but five levels under him. The General class re-introduces Great Shield, but its activation rate is far below FE4's. It does indeed activate on magic attacks - even critical hit magic attacks as seen in this video of Gilliam solo-ing the game. In a standard playthrough I would pick Great Knight not so much because of the extra move but because his Con doesn't change. He can still be rescue dropped by Paladin Franz/Forde, L'aRachel, and Falcoknight Vanessa/Tana. Bear in mind that Gilliam's Aid stat actually drops from 13 to 11, so he's not able to pick up a fair chunk of your units. When he does he will of course have canto. Also Duessel is pretty good. If we're talking Ephraim route, these two units enjoy much better maps. If it's Eirika route, let's say it's below FE7. 
5. FE7: Oswin's a pretty big lifeline in hard mode. And in Normal Mode his high level is supplanted by an EXP formula that doesn't level scale as hard. He can be rescue dropped into a key position and chunk enemies to set up kills for your weak units that Marcus might just outright kill. On the pirate ship, the entire right ship is only physical units and you'll find that the FE7 armorslayers don't outpace his vulnerary healing. Oswin certainly feels like the best GBA armor knight, but I'd offer that FE7 also has the best GBA cavaliers as long term projects. And knights crests come as late as in FE6. I usually leave Oswin in his base class, especially since promoted mounted units can no longer carry a General Oswin. His purpose is more like training wheels. But even if he's not a long term prospect he's contributing a lot where and when I need it. As for Wallace, I'm a bit less inclined to drag this ranking down because of him since he's technically not in every FE7 playthrough. 
6. FE9: Gatrie is a big help for feeding Boyd and Oscar kills in the early maps, and keeping us all alive in his hectic rejoin chapter. When he's not taking up a deployment slot, he's great! Brom not so much. Even with his lack of Canto, armor knights still help your wall formations plenty. And can be rescued easier here than in GBA FE. They're just not attractive long term units since Generals don't get any notable bonus and Gatrie/Brom both lack a personal skill. Tauroneo (Resolve :0) makes for decent filler in the late game because FE9 is all over the board with its amount of deployment slots. 
7. Echoes: I don't think it's controversial to say that this is the worst classline. But when there are just five of them, somebody has to be #5 at the end of the day, and I don't think it's far behind cavs. No villager sees soldier as an attractive choice, but I haven't ever considered benching the ones we do get like I bench later joining units. Valbar annoyingly joins right after the boat maps are over. Alm Route Knights can lure and one shot enemy horses with a ridersbane, but Paladins can do the same if you forge it a bit. And you should forge effective weapons in Echoes. The only unique point to make about these guys is that since they have a ton of health to spend, they can spam combat arts every turn. It's also a fun project finding spaces where you can warp them in once the witches have been lured out.
8. FE6: I've got some experience with the Bors and Bars dream team. But both units are constantly struggling with hit despite their support. And can only kill with a killer lance crit. What I should have done is raise Wendy too and check out the triangle attack. We know it's a gauranteed crit with a weapon of your choosing, but is it a gauranteed hit in the first place? That'd be some good boss killing in a game where that really matters. Unfortunately, thrones typically have just one adjacent space to attack from so your triangle attacks are with javelins. Anyway, not a great showing for this class individually. Use Bors in early game to help feed kills to Allen/Lance and Roy. Use Barth on the bridges of chapter 13. And if you're going Sacae route consider Douglas for luring the Nomads safely.
9. FE4: In maps where I decide to split the party between footies and horses, Arden is valuable in just being the foot unit that can most safely bait a squad of enemies into range. Gen 1 has extremely few mages and mostly 1 range enemies, so when somebody says Arden can solo the game, I believe it. He just doesn't build a lot of confidence, starting the game with a dinky iron sword. If he's locked to any weapon, he should be glad it's swords. And his promotion comes with some awesome perks. I don't think a lot of this translates to standard FE4 play, but I think the idea that he's the worst unit of Gen 1 is fairly antiquated. Jamke is standing right there, and Tiltyu is at risk of dying any turn she's near enemies.
10. FE3 Book 1: Armor Knights promote into Generals now, but both classes lost their access to swords. They're actually the only units that can wield lances in indoors maps, but it's hardly an advantage. The Javelin is 20 weight and will likely get you killed if you try to fight mages with it. What is an advantage is keeping your promotion bonuses in indoor maps. Draug is no longer securing the double in early game, and his stat growths are still just as bad. Roger was blipped from the game. Lorenz was given an almost capped Defense stat, making him fairly attractive for the following Macedon map. He will likely die since every enemy is aggroed from Turn 1, but better him than the units you've been working on since the start right? God that map is brutal.
11. FE1: Individually, I think the unpromoted armors are contributing more here than in FE3 despite not being able to promote and continue leveling up past 20. Draug with a sword can double and set up kills in the earliest maps for units you do care about. Roger helps wall off infinite reinforcements in his join chapter. The big issue here is that armor knights are not the best tanks - manaketes are. Bantu has 18 defense and infinite weapon durability. His defense growth may be 0, but with stat boosters it can surpass the 20 cap all the way to 35. 
12. FE3 Book 2: I'll be honest, I forgot Draug was in Book 2. For early game wyverns, he does have just enough weapon level to hold the silver lance as you bait them (so do Aran and the pegasus knights). He's no help at all against mid game dragons that pierce his defense. There's no dragon killer lance. And some early maps are functionally Escape chapters with promoted enemies chasing you from starting position. He may not keep up. Then there's Sheema who is outrageously bad.

If I put this in a tier list format, 1-3 are B tier, 4-8 are C tier, the rest are D

Edit: Somehow forgot Arden and Added rankings for FE11

Edited June 13, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Jotari]

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Shadow Dragon as the best if we allow Sedgar/Wolf cheese. While it´s only these two characters, reclassing Sedgar/Wolf into Generals erodes any physical threat until way into the late chapters, even on H5 - the only real threat to them is magic.

. 

Even in endgame H5 General Wolf is fairly goddamn tanky, so much so that you can just leave him at a choke point for several turns and he'll be fine. Particularly with physic and fortify existing. H5 is intimidating, but it actually follows the old Fire Emblem habit of getting easier to further into the game you get.

On something no one else has mentioned, Old Mystery Boo 1. Lorenz comes one point away from max defense, which makes him basically invincible to almost every physical enemy remaining in the game. You can literally have him solo the Michalis chapter with Gradivus. To be able to do that with a new recruit and zero investment other than inventory is pretty insane. Though it's a much bigger testament to how easy Book 1 is than how great generals are.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

On something no one else has mentioned, Old Mystery Boo 1. Lorenz comes one point away from max defense, which makes him basically invincible to almost every physical enemy remaining in the game. You can literally have him solo the Michalis chapter with Gradivus. To be able to do that with a new recruit and zero investment other than inventory is pretty insane. Though it's a much bigger testament to how easy Book 1 is than how great generals are.

I actually did point out Lorenz's buffed defense (though I didn't give any numbers. It's 16 to 19). However, this is not sufficient to make him basically invincible. In FE1 Michalis and his puny javelin does 21 damage. But remember that FE3 Book 1 is functionally a Hard mode, especially with its boss characters. FE3 Michalis with his silver lance has 30 damage and his defense is capped at 20, so he would double base level Lorenz for 22 damage, and Lorenz would do 11 in response with gradivus. Michalis also has 7 crit on both swings while Lorenz has 0 (they gave Michalis a Luck stat). The other enemies would not deal nearly as much damage, but Michalis is a ruthless killer and you're fighting in a canyon that is mostly 1 space wide. Use Lorenz to lure him to a spot a mage can reach. Linda's Aura tome can ORKO him if she leveled up speed seven times. Excalibur has a decent chance to score a crit too.

[Jotari]

5 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I actually did point out Lorenz's buffed defense (though I didn't give any numbers. It's 16 to 19). However, this is not sufficient to make him basically invincible. In FE1 Michalis and his puny javelin does 21 damage. But remember that FE3 Book 1 is functionally a Hard mode, especially with its boss characters. FE3 Michalis with his silver lance has 30 damage and his defense is capped at 20, so he would double base level Lorenz for 22 damage, and Lorenz would do 11 in response with gradivus. Michalis also has 7 crit on both swings while Lorenz has 0 (they gave Michalis a Luck stat). The other enemies would not deal nearly as much damage, but Michalis is a ruthless killer and you're fighting in a canyon that is mostly 1 space wide. Use Lorenz to lure him to a spot a mage can reach. Linda's Aura tome can ORKO him if she leveled up speed seven times. Excalibur has a decent chance to score a crit too.

Oh you did. D'oh. I only skimmed the other comments.

As far as Lorenz vs Michalis goes, don't forget Michalis moves (which is great for showing his personality and he should have in Shadow Dragon on DS too, and also makes his survival mechanically possible and not part of an endless parade of ass pulls), so you can safely park Lorenz on a fort and heal. Boo 1 might be a hard move version of FE1, but it's still laughably easy.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

28 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh you did. D'oh. I only skimmed the other comments.

As far as Lorenz vs Michalis goes, don't forget Michalis moves (which is great for showing his personality and he should have in Shadow Dragon on DS too, and also makes his survival mechanically possible and not part of an endless parade of ass pulls), so you can safely park Lorenz on a fort and heal. Boo 1 might be a hard move version of FE1, but it's still laughably easy.

They all move in FE3. Every enemy is aggroed to your position from the first turn except for the wyvern that sits on the throne. So the battle with Michalis happens outside in the canyon rather than inside the building like it did in FE1. I do not recall how it plays out in FE11. 

And then you've got that thief heading for the village with Gotoh. In FE1 it's easy to beat him there with no enemies in the way, but now there's a Knight-Filled Sky directly in your path. To get Starlight I had no choice but to Warp Marth ahead to kill the thief while the battle with Michalis and his cronies was still going on. All the while stressing out about whether the back line of units could kill Marth and end the ironman. He was fine, they killed Abel instead. And Michalis went straight for the ORKO on his sister. At least we didn't need to travel for their funerals.

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

They all move in FE3. Every enemy is aggroed to your position from the first turn except for the wyvern that sits on the throne. So the battle with Michalis happens outside in the canyon rather than inside the building like it did in FE1. I do not recall how it plays out in FE11. 

Unless you warp in immediately and they all aggro onto a unit they struggle to damage.

20 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And Michalis went straight for the ORKO on his sister. At least we didn't need to travel for their funerals.

Ha XD

Edited May 1, 2023 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

Oh hey, armor knights! I actually have opinions about these.

Despite OP's instructions, I will not be counting Great Knight. I don't know, they just seem like cavalry to me.

I will only be ranking those games which I have played extensively and recently enough to have a confident opinion.

Actually Good:

1. Shadow Dragon. Before Engage, there was never an intrinsic advantage to being armored, you would also prefer to have the same stats in a different class type. FE11 works around this by giving the class a very high defense base. Out of all the games here ranked, this is the one where I would be most likely to reclass someone to armor knight. It's not just for Sedgar and Wolf either, the high defense base and growth makes it generally useful. Characters who start in armor knight aren't so great in the class because they have such low personal defense, but characters like Barst have enough to be actually tanky in it.
2. Conquest. Wary Fighter isn't as good as people have said, but pair up helps a lot with their mobility and guard gauge helps them tank. You can challenge this rating depending on how much you separate character and class- I wouldn't usually reclass someone to knight in this game. Effie is really good though, owing to her massive strength and personal skill, and Knight has enough strength to compliment that. It also gives her enough defense to tank decently early on, and the class strength base makes it good for dual strikes. Benny is more situational but still useful to choke points, something the map design in Conquest actually rewards.
3. Engage. Louis is very useful, and I actually would reclass someone to an armor knight in this game, but I don't think he's as useful as Effie is. Great Knight being basically as good at tanking while having more mobility makes it relatively (but not absolutely) worse, I think the lower ranking is just because it doesn't pack as much offense as Conquest armors. They still have an insane defense base that makes them actually useful.

Okay:

• I am sure these games exist, but I don't know them off the top of my head.

Bad:

• FE7/FE8. I'm just going to use the opposite idea behind my "Actually Good" picks, where I would consciously want one on my team. Sure, Oswin is cool, but I never think to myself that I'd rather have another armor knight. This list also excludes Duessel from consideration. I think the weak enemies make the class so bad here- you don't need the extra defense so you just miss the extra movement.
• Three Houses. I know that, objectively, they're better here than in FE6, especially because you have things like Stride and per-map warp. However, I just can't help but feel like I'd rather use an FE6 armor knight. Possibly because I would rather play FE6.
• FE6. Bors is actually okay, but he is balanced more around normal mode than hard mode (as I'm sure much of the game is). The fact that they're so slow and you have so many paladins that are "good enough" at their roles (and complete for the same resources) makes them a hard sell. FE6 has the opposite problem as FE8 for armor knights. While FE8 enemies were too weak to hurt paladins, here they're so fast and strong that they bust through armor knight's defenses.

[Shadow Mir]

IMO...

E tier in Holy War (is anyone even surprised? No, no they're not). Blah blah blah, Horse Emblem, blah blah blah, low move, blah blah blah, biggest maps in the series. Moving on.

E tier in Binding Blade (again, this should surprise absolutely nobody). While they at least had a niche in Holy War, they have absolutely nothing going for them in Binding Blade whatsoever. Much like in Holy War, they have to contend with big maps, and ALSO much like Holy War, the armored units in that game are all among the worst units in the game. Special mention to Wendy, who's possibly the worst unit in the entire series!

B tier in Blazing Blade. Oswin starts out much stronger than everyone not named Marcus. While he does taper off, enemies in this game are pathetic, and they often weigh themselves down, so he may still get some doubles.

D tier in Sacred Stones. Gilliam is a huge step down from Oswin, and the Great Knight class is underwhelming in this game, as despite being mounted, it has foot unit move for some reason. General does get Great Shield, but it's unreliable, especially against the stuff that actually threatens a General.

B tier in Radiant Dawn. All the armored units are useful (Especially Gatrie). Except Meg, that is.

C tier in Awakening. Pair up helps mitigate the movement issues they face.

A tier in Fates. The above still applies, and Wary Fighter mitigates their main weakness. Good durability is also a plus in a game where dodgetanking is unreliable.

C tier in SoV. They're the worst class in the game, but the way the game is set up (ergo, the lack of deployment limits for most of the game) means they they can still put in work.

C tier in 3H. Their tankiness exceeds most other classes, and this game has options to mitigate their low move.

A tier in Engage. Their lower movement is mitigated by the fact that most classes only have 4 movement before promotion, and the immunity to break gives them a niche. Also, much like in Fates, good durability is appreaciated.

On 4/30/2023 at 9:20 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

They all move in FE3. Every enemy is aggroed to your position from the first turn except for the wyvern that sits on the throne.

Sounds like the Macedonian army learned Close Combat.

On 4/30/2023 at 12:30 PM, SnowFire said:

FE7 also has other strats that break the game casually like low-manning

I ain't sure I'd have mentioned low-manning, because what game does it NOT break???

Edited May 2, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 4/30/2023 at 2:48 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

We know it's a gauranteed crit with a weapon of your choosing, but is it a gauranteed hit in the first place?

It is a guaranteed hit as well.

 

On 4/30/2023 at 2:48 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Unfortunately, thrones typically have just one adjacent space to attack from so your triangle attacks are with javelins.

Also you need to be adjacent to trigger the triangle attack, its not enough to simply be in 1-2 range with a Javelin.

 

Edit:

8 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

D tier in Sacred Stones. Gilliam is a huge step down from Oswin, and the Great Knight class is underwhelming in this game, as despite being mounted, it has foot unit move for some reason. General does get Great Shield, but it's unreliable, especially against the stuff that actually threatens a General.

No comment on the excellent Duesse?

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Eltosian Kadath

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

No comment on the excellent Duesse?

He's only particularly good on Ephraim route. And he suffers from Great knight being underwhelming as a class.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

He's only particularly good on Ephraim route. And he suffers from Great knight being underwhelming as a class.

His base stats are virtually endgame ready. He's great on both routes.

[SnowFire]

On 5/2/2023 at 3:11 AM, Shadow Mir said:

I ain't sure I'd have mentioned low-manning, because what game does it NOT break???

I think we've had this discussion before, but games that favor player phase + that are "harsh" on gaining XP when overlevel.  So New Mystery of the Emblem & Three Houses for the biggest examples.  Yes, you CAN do low-man strats on 3H anyway, but if you don't know what you're doing and don't go for some very specific builds, you're going to make the game way, way harder on yourself, which is the reverse of breaking the game.  And low-manning FE12 is just suicide on the hardest difficulties.  Meanwhile, FE7 is one of the games most broken by low-manning, because enemy phase focus + XP penalties not that harsh on being overlevel, and unlike 3H, no need to focus on specific builds, pretty much any character capable of hefting a Javelin can do it given enough extra levels, barring maybe the likes of Isadora.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:42 PM, SnowFire said:

I think we've had this discussion before, but games that favor player phase + that are "harsh" on gaining XP when overlevel.  So New Mystery of the Emblem & Three Houses for the biggest examples.  Yes, you CAN do low-man strats on 3H anyway, but if you don't know what you're doing and don't go for some very specific builds, you're going to make the game way, way harder on yourself, which is the reverse of breaking the game.  And low-manning FE12 is just suicide on the hardest difficulties.  Meanwhile, FE7 is one of the games most broken by low-manning, because enemy phase focus + XP penalties not that harsh on being overlevel, and unlike 3H, no need to focus on specific builds, pretty much any character capable of hefting a Javelin can do it given enough extra levels, barring maybe the likes of Isadora.

I don't remember if we did, but this is enlightening nonetheless. Also, where does Fates fit in this discussion?

On 4/30/2023 at 12:30 PM, SnowFire said:

Notably, the traditional weakness in Speed and Resistance isn't actually that bad -   I took Brom to the tower and he was perfectly serviceable, and he isn't even the best one.

Prolly because mages - which are generally supposed to be the bane of armored units - are pretty bad in this game. Even on the enemy side.

On 4/29/2023 at 8:32 PM, Whisky said:

Tauroneo is quite strong for the Dawn Brigade.

For two chapters. When you get him back in 3-12, the enemy's power level has caught up to him, and he's no longer the nigh invulnerable god he was in part 1.