Ranking each game by class: Armour Knights

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

He's not untouchable, but he's still a pretty decent unit from what I can recall. At least compared to your other Dawn Brigade options.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Tauroneo in 3-12 is weird because he'll basically just fight his own little corner of the map (rather than helping out in the area that matters) but it says good things about him that he can do so very well, and his kills still contribute to the win condition. Past that, he's certainly solid in 3-13 (a map which doesn't really penalize low movement much), and then he's almost always good enough to see some use in Part 4. A very respectable unit, especially compared to his "Haar and Geoffrey basically match my only good stat am I doing this right" pathetic showing in PoR.

Actually every one of the three PoR Generals is a better unit in RD and honestly most of the gaps are not small, which says something about what a glowup the class has between the games.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

First off, I will be excluding Great Knights fron these rankings. Only looking at infantry armored units and classes. That said...

1. Fates. Effie is really good, just hitting crazy hard. And Benny can be great with Wary Fighter. The Pair-up system helps overcome the usual movement issues. And even as just a "statpack", they give Strength and Defense, so that's always welcome.

Side note: If I were considering Great Knight, this would stay at (1). I quite like Gunter in CQ, and it's probably the better promotion for Effie.

2. Radiant Dawn. Tauroneo and the Black Knight are absolutely dominant in their Part I appearances. Brom is totally usable, and Gatrie is honestly one of the better Greil Mercs. Matching Mages and Clerics in movement (aside from ledges) is nice, as is having more Speed and Res than usual. Meg sucks, but even she has potential. 

3. Shadow Dragon. Draug is okay at the start, but nobody really uses the other default Armors. It's true strength is as a reclass option. General is arguably the best class for Wolf and Sedgar, giving them huge bulk and Javelins while keeping Bows. Movement, again, is comparable to your healers.

4. Three Houses. Most folks here now the "certify in Armor Knight for 12 Defense" trick, so I won't belablor that. But it's also a class that enables Guard Adjutanting (the best kind of adjutanting), so that's worth a mention. Beyond that, this is a game with a bunch of enemies with high speed and moderate attack power, like Swordmasters and Grapplers. They can double/quad most of your units, tearing them apart... unless you've been defense-stacking, which Fortress Knight is optimal for. Low move sucks, but there are "fixes" for it, like Stride and the repositional arts.

Side note: If I were considering Great Knight, this would jump ahead of SD (but fall behind Awakening), staying at (4). It's slightly less defensive, but the mobility makes a big difference. 

5. FE7. Oswin is a very solid unit, whether you're going with Eliwood or Hector. And nobody talks about Wallace on Lyn Mode. It's an easy mode, but he still provides extra assurance against the last couple bosses. You won't use him in the lategame - and probably will drop Oswin - but they still have their uses.

6. Echoes. It's called the worst class in the game. One you'll never want to put your Villagers into. Even if this is true, it's not a useless class. Lukas is a very competent contributor in Act I, and given a promotion (and a Ridersbane), can stunt all over Act III. Valbar's high defense makes him a good lure for high-offense enemies, like the Necrodragons and Greith. And Forsyth is...a Forsyth to be reckoned with.

7. Awakening. I'm thinking of this class more for the Pair-Up bonuses than anything else. You can use it up front, but I don't see a huge draw to do so. Kellam is just fine, Kjelle... I like to reclass her.

Side note: if I were considering Great Knight here, it would jump to (2). Frederick is good, especially on higher difficulties. 

8. FE6. Bors can be alright against enemy Sword infantry I guess. Barthe shows up at a bad time, and Gwendy is just a 9/10 GameFAQs unit. I do like Douglas, but he joins late, and honestly isn't much special.

9. Path of Radiance. Gatrie is pretty solid in his earlygame appearance, blocking off more threatening foes. When he rejoins, though, there's not much unique he does. Likewise for Brom. Either of them can use the Knight Ward to salvage their Speed, I suppose. Tauroneo, I've never used in this game.

10. Sacred Stones. If I'm only counting Gilliam, he gives... not much. Like, he's usable, but it's an easy game. The low Move is just a really persistent issue.

Side Note: If I were ranking with Great Knight, then this jumps to (7), which would be ahead of Echoes. Duessel is great on Ephraim's route, and still pretty good on Eirika's. Plus, GK is pretty uncontested as Gilliam's better promotion.

11. Genealogy. Arden is widely understood to be the worst unit in Gen I, with poor mobility and inferior combat. Even with a Brave Sword and the Pursuit Band, he's rarely getting further than round 4 of the Arena, and generally does nothing in the field. He gets better on promotion (Bows as an Arena option), but not by much. Hannibal is a late joiner with pretty high stats and ranks, but even so, his low movement hurts in Horse Emblem. He's alright in the Arena, or guarding the castle, but that's about it.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/8/2023 at 10:56 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Tauroneo in 3-12 is weird because he'll basically just fight his own little corner of the map (rather than helping out in the area that matters) but it says good things about him that he can do so very well, and his kills still contribute to the win condition. Past that, he's certainly solid in 3-13 (a map which doesn't really penalize low movement much), and then he's almost always good enough to see some use in Part 4. A very respectable unit, especially compared to his "Haar and Geoffrey basically match my only good stat am I doing this right" pathetic showing in PoR.

Actually every one of the three PoR Generals is a better unit in RD and honestly most of the gaps are not small, which says something about what a glowup the class has between the games.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 5:41 AM, Jotari said:

He's not untouchable, but he's still a pretty decent unit from what I can recall. At least compared to your other Dawn Brigade options.

To be fair, it isn't as evident in 3-12 because of its layout, and because he's starting away from the real action.

On 5/14/2023 at 9:37 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

2. Radiant Dawn. Tauroneo and the Black Knight are absolutely dominant in their Part I appearances. Brom is totally usable, and Gatrie is honestly one of the better Greil Mercs. Matching Mages and Clerics in movement (aside from ledges) is nice, as is having more Speed and Res than usual. Meg sucks, but even she has potential. 

You lost me at the "she has potential" part, honestly. She feels more like a joke character. FFS, Fiona offers more in the long-term despite having a rockier start.

On 5/2/2023 at 10:07 AM, Jotari said:

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

That makes one of us. As I see it, he suffers from late character syndrome in Eirika route, and he's still bogged down by Great Knight being a dumpster fire in Sacred Stones.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

To be fair, it isn't as evident in 3-12 because of its layout, and because he's starting away from the real action.

You lost me at the "she has potential" part, honestly. She feels more like a joke character. FFS, Fiona offers more in the long-term despite having a rockier start.

That makes one of us. As I see it, he suffers from late character syndrome in Eirika route, and he's still bogged down by Great Knight being a dumpster fire in Sacred Stones.

Sure he's late coming in Eirika route...but he's still going to be able to kill things right away.

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Sure he's late coming in Eirika route...but he's still going to be able to kill things right away.

He has pretty serious issues doubling enemies basically from his join time on in Eirika route, which kinda leaves him as a troubleshooter for the really slow ones (like the wyverns weighed down by steel, iirc?). I rarely use him past his join chpater on Eirika's route, since I already have a solid team by then and Ephraim is an easy sell as a pickup since 20/1 Ephraim vastly outclasses Duessel even before considering Siegmund.

He's much better on Ephraim's route because the midgame has a lot more maps for his stat build to shine.

[Quell]

...Am I the only one that thinks Fates armors were extremely underwhelming? I mean not necessarily the characters (hell Benny is decent even if he remains in the General line) but they are by far the worst norian classes and some of the worst in the game. Still I can see that on paper they are good units, they finally get skills that helps them a lot in what they need, pairing up mostly fixes their movement issues, the games encourage good unit balance and niche uses, hell they were even an anti-meta pick back when the PvP existed.

 

But I can't still even remotely say armor is good: first and foremost the games extremely discourage tanking in any shapes and form. This is more an issue with Conquest (but it applies to the others too), the ninja line is by far one of the best in the game, if not outright the best one, and while on paper armor is sold as their counter this fails so spectacularly outside said PvP it's almost comical; the fact daggers are the best type of weapon in the game already speaks volumes about favoritism, let alone the incredible amount of wallbreaking skills ninja gets. What's even more aggravating is the existence of a number of said skills, Inevitable End in particular, that completely shut-down practically all the niches plays the class have.

Which brings me to my second point: the skill tree of the knight/general line helps quite a lot in patching up the weaknesses of the class but doesn't do anything about having said classes catch up with all the others. For example, yes wary fighter is great but it doesn't give them any new tool as it serves exclusively as a way to patch up the poor speed of the class. They don't get inspiration like you would expect a general to, or any other positive skills that would make them worth fielding.

Knights are not unsalvagable but definitely some of the weakest in the 3 games.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Keep in mind this is a rank classes by how good they are in each game; if you feel Fates is being overrated on people's lists, then which games do you think have better armours, and why? It's a class line with a pretty problematic track record, so the fact that Fates is being put at or near the top by many people may say more about said other games.

20 minutes ago, Quell said:

But I can't still even remotely say armor is good: first and foremost the games extremely discourage tanking in any shapes and form. This is more an issue with Conquest (but it applies to the others too), the ninja line is by far one of the best in the game, if not outright the best one, and while on paper armor is sold as their counter this fails so spectacularly outside said PvP it's almost comical; the fact daggers are the best type of weapon in the game already speaks volumes about favoritism, let alone the incredible amount of wallbreaking skills ninja gets. What's even more aggravating is the existence of a number of said skills, Inevitable End in particular, that completely shut-down practically all the niches plays the class have.

I don't particularly agree that the game discourages tanking. In fact, tanking is a pretty darn good way to deal with ninjas; if you can reduce them to 0 damage and have a 1-2 weapon equipped, they won't attack (and thus won't trigger Inevitable End, for the very few battles which even utilize that skill), and then you can take them out on the next player phase at your leisure. Or, if the numbers allign and the ninjas you're facing don't have Inevitable End, you might be able to deliberately get them to deal small, non-zero damage to you, and counter them to death, for all that this does require a fair bit of stacking to one-shot the promoted ones. There are certainly other options, but I've absolutely had Effie be a superstar in the big Conquest ninja map.

Beyond that, yeah, they're armour knights, they have problems. For me, at least, Pair Up letting them actual reach key locations more easily makes them better than they are in most games.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:23 AM, Jotari said:

Sure he's late coming in Eirika route...but he's still going to be able to kill things right away.

Mostly stuff that's either slow or fragile. Also, at that point, I already have a good team, meaning it'd be a tough sell for me to bench someone else for Duessel, especially since doing so might not even improve my team by enough to make it worth it, if at all...

1 hour ago, Quell said:

...Am I the only one that thinks Fates armors were extremely underwhelming? I mean not necessarily the characters (hell Benny is decent even if he remains in the General line) but they are by far the worst norian classes and some of the worst in the game. Still I can see that on paper they are good units, they finally get skills that helps them a lot in what they need, pairing up mostly fixes their movement issues, the games encourage good unit balance and niche uses, hell they were even an anti-meta pick back when the PvP existed.

 

But I can't still even remotely say armor is good: first and foremost the games extremely discourage tanking in any shapes and form. This is more an issue with Conquest (but it applies to the others too), the ninja line is by far one of the best in the game, if not outright the best one, and while on paper armor is sold as their counter this fails so spectacularly outside said PvP it's almost comical; the fact daggers are the best type of weapon in the game already speaks volumes about favoritism, let alone the incredible amount of wallbreaking skills ninja gets. What's even more aggravating is the existence of a number of said skills, Inevitable End in particular, that completely shut-down practically all the niches plays the class have.

Which brings me to my second point: the skill tree of the knight/general line helps quite a lot in patching up the weaknesses of the class but doesn't do anything about having said classes catch up with all the others. For example, yes wary fighter is great but it doesn't give them any new tool as it serves exclusively as a way to patch up the poor speed of the class. They don't get inspiration like you would expect a general to, or any other positive skills that would make them worth fielding.

Knights are not unsalvagable but definitely some of the weakest in the 3 games.

Well, which games do you think armored units are better in?

Anyway, I'd think they're better than Fighters there, as Fighters not only have lackluster units, but still suffer from many of the issues that have hounded them in past games. Also, I'd disagree on it discouraging tanking. If anything, it ENCOURAGES it because evasion is unreliable. I also think ninjas are overrated, but that's neither here nor there.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Quell]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Keep in mind this is a rank classes by how good they are in each game; if you feel Fates is being overrated on people's lists, then which games do you think have better armours, and why?

 

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Well, which games do you think armored units are better in?

Tough question! Honestly I would put FE8, 11 and 12 (with reclassing), and engage knights as better, with Fates' ones that avarage out with FE7 and Echoes. I haven't played the Tellius game in a long time so I can't really comment, for FE5 I would argue they would even be almost top tier usefel if they weren't so much an hassle to get (seriously whoever programmed how to get Xavier needs some Valium). They're still almost at the top but I would rather have Effie and Ignatius in other classes, even Fighter.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't particularly agree that the game discourages tanking. In fact, tanking is a pretty darn good way to deal with ninjas; if you can reduce them to 0 damage and have a 1-2 weapon equipped, they won't attack (and thus won't trigger Inevitable End, for the very few battles which even utilize that skill), and then you can take them out on the next player phase at your leisure.

 

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, I'd disagree on it discouraging tanking. If anything, it ENCOURAGES it because evasion is unreliable. I also think ninjas are overrated, but that's neither here nor there.

I find dodge tanking is more reliable than tanking. Of course if you have the strength benchmark memorized and reach the requirements you can make it work and more reliably but otherwise I find dodge tanking better, as getting some misses usually is still required even in sound and common strategy for quite a few chapter (especially those near the end). There're also the breaker skills, which honestly would work better, but the fact they come so late makes them rarely matter (except for shurikenbreaker which is the best way to tackle Ryoma lunge trains, so we'll worth investing imo). Though I must say I did find some relative success with armor Benny, but he's basically built for it so it doesn't surprise me, yet he still fell short of being able to tank them saws for me, which probably soured me about the class in general in these games.

 

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyway, I'd think they're better than Fighters there, as Fighters not only have lackluster units, but still suffer from many of the issues that have hounded them in past games.

Yesn't. Fighter is better because in and itself is just a better class: yeah it does need some fixing too but Fighters already have something to work with, they don't need their weaknesses to be patched up to be useful. Doesn't help that wary fighter only comes late when already promoted, so the *fix* only happens when Fighters are getting either SoL or Rally Strenght. At the end of the day it's a toss between being an unreliable wall or an unreliable wallbreaker, and with how the game works I find that walls are easy to crumble.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I've got no comments to make on How High the Fates armor knights ought to rank. But I do notice that all but one mention of Wary Fighter was totally uncritical. Entire generations of armor knights in previous games weren't getting doubled to begin with, except by enemies you absolutely would prefer they take on like the killing edge myrmidon or short bow nomads that deal single digit damage even on a crit. Giving most of those guys Wary Fighter, from Oswin to Arden, would not see a change in their performance in the aggregate of matchups, and the outlier matchups would probably be hurtful as often as helpful. Armors sometimes double too! I know Fates lets you take the skill off, but that's on a map by map basis. It's not as free as changing an equipped weapon. What if you level up and get the speed necessary to avoid doubles? Now the skill slot is wasted.

Most equippable skills aren't saddled with such a weighty drawback. It says a lot about the value of armor knight's class skills if you would take it off the moment you reclass. It's true that Wary Fighter drastically reduces damage taken from a poor enemy matchup like a speedy Mage, but between the player having the greatest control over who their units should fight and Pair Up letting you slip an armor knight past such enemies without having to personally face them, I don't see how this skill is making a big difference in practice. And if the ultimate answer is "Well, Wary Fighter really helps Benny, specifically" then that's just one out of 2-5 potential armor knights in a run of Conquest.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Quell said:

Tough question! Honestly I would put FE8, 11 and 12 (with reclassing), and engage knights as better, with Fates' ones that avarage out with FE7 and Echoes. I haven't played the Tellius game in a long time so I can't really comment, for FE5 I would argue they would even be almost top tier usefel if they weren't so much an hassle to get (seriously whoever programmed how to get Xavier needs some Valium). They're still almost at the top but I would rather have Effie and Ignatius in other classes, even Fighter.

How are knights better in Sacred Stones? Because I find that to be one of their worse outings:

On 5/2/2023 at 2:11 AM, 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.

Anyway, I'd consider Fighter a downgrade for both, but more on that later. I also find it hard to agree with knights being good in Thracia.

2 hours ago, Quell said:

I find dodge tanking is more reliable than tanking. Of course if you have the strength benchmark memorized and reach the requirements you can make it work and more reliably but otherwise I find dodge tanking better, as getting some misses usually is still required even in sound and common strategy for quite a few chapter (especially those near the end). There're also the breaker skills, which honestly would work better, but the fact they come so late makes them rarely matter (except for shurikenbreaker which is the best way to tackle Ryoma lunge trains, so we'll worth investing imo). Though I must say I did find some relative success with armor Benny, but he's basically built for it so it doesn't surprise me, yet he still fell short of being able to tank them saws for me, which probably soured me about the class in general in these games.

I find it the other way around, tbf. Other than certain edge cases (and breakers, which come really late), it's hard to knock enemy hit rates down low enough to make dodging reliable.

2 hours ago, Quell said:

Yesn't. Fighter is better because in and itself is just a better class: yeah it does need some fixing too but Fighters already have something to work with, they don't need their weaknesses to be patched up to be useful. Doesn't help that wary fighter only comes late when already promoted, so the *fix* only happens when Fighters are getting either SoL or Rally Strenght. At the end of the day it's a toss between being an unreliable wall or an unreliable wallbreaker, and with how the game works I find that walls are easy to crumble.

What do Fighters have to work with?  High Strength and little else? That's something to work with, all right. Too bad it's meaningless when it's not backed up by much of substance. They're too slow to double, and their weapon and skill makes them a crapshoot on the battlefield; I'd go so far as to say they're an active liability. Also, Sol sucks ass (and is unreliable anyway), and Berserker is the worst promoted class in the game. That's ignoring that because of their hit issues, Fighters have a difficult time leveling up. And the fact that Arthur and Charlotte are both among the worst units in the game.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I've got no comments to make on How High the Fates armor knights ought to rank. But I do notice that all but one mention of Wary Fighter was totally uncritical. Entire generations of armor knights in previous games weren't getting doubled to begin with, except by enemies you absolutely would prefer they take on like the killing edge myrmidon or short bow nomads that deal single digit damage even on a crit. Giving most of those guys Wary Fighter, from Oswin to Arden, would not see a change in their performance in the aggregate of matchups, and the outlier matchups would probably be hurtful as often as helpful.

Getting doubled is certainly an issue for some armour knights from other games. Barth and Gwendolyn suffer from it in a big way, Gilliam gets doubled by the faster axe-users on his join chapter, Meg and RD-Brom can absolutely take serious damage from enemies like tigers and axeusers depending exactly on how their speed is coming along, etc. Louis gets one-rounded by mages on Maddening at various points. It's true that how much Wary Fighter would improve other games' knights varies, and sometimes it's not much (e.g. I think Oswin might only use it for one chapter).

But Benny specifically is improved by it quite a fair deal, as you note - probably Ignatius as well though it might depend on his mom and I'm not pulling out child stat calculators to doublecheck my kneejerk/memory there. Benny just has the type of stat build which slower armours gravitate towards, which is normally quite problematic, but he makes it work, in part because of Wary Fighter. And since the slowest enemies you face in the later stages of Conquest (i.e. Chapter 21 Stoneborn, Chapter 26 Generals) also have Wary Fighter, typically, Benny probably isn't losing any doubles that I can recall, so it's purely positive aside from slowing the filling of the dual guard gauge (which can only prevent one half of a double anyway, making this advantage largely moot). Wary Fighter basically makes the "extra slow armour knight who puts more stat points elsewhere" work better than it does in other games. Meanwhile, Effie, the natural armour knight who benefits from this less (though I still tend to equip it on her, myself. YMMV), is useful for other reasons.

Your point about matchups is well-taken, but for armour knights, bad matchups are more problematic than they are for other classes, at least in my opinion. Fliers have bad matchups against arrows in most games, for instance, but they're also mobile (sometimes even having canter) so they're better able to find places to attack from and avoid facing this weakness, so it doesn't hurt so badly in practice. An armour usually has fewer places they can move to, and their advantage over more mobile units is that they're more able to be plopped down in range of quite a few enemies at once and not die. If I can't do that as soon as there's a mage who can double them in the mix of enemies I want them to bait (a common issue in more recent games, where enemy mages have gotten faster), that definitely impacts the class's usability. When an armour can't take definitively more punishment than my other units, they're bad, because that's their only advantage over other classes/roles.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

18 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Getting doubled is certainly an issue for some armour knights from other games. Barth and Gwendolyn suffer from it in a big way, Gilliam gets doubled by the faster axe-users on his join chapter, Meg and RD-Brom can absolutely take serious damage from enemies like tigers and axeusers depending exactly on how their speed is coming along, etc. Louis gets one-rounded by mages on Maddening at various points. It's true that how much Wary Fighter would improve other games' knights varies, and sometimes it's not much (e.g. I think Oswin might only use it for one chapter)

Well I know Gilliam does not get doubled by anyone in chapter 1. You're thinking of the Ross chapter right afterward. And that's only true if one of them gets the highest speed roll on Hard mode, and Gilliam wasn't fortunate enough to level a single point in speed. But in this specific case, he's still surviving 2 rounds against them despite taking two hits each time. No one on your team but Seth is surviving for longer, Franz and Garcia can't take more rounds, but their potential to avoid is higher, while the rest of your crew will die quicker no matter how you look at it. It's a rough map to be lance locked. If you dropped Gilliam on that fort I bet he survives indefinitely and solos the map on hard mode unless you got the most cursed RNG regarding 7 speed bandits who never miss. This is what I'm talking about when I say outlier examples.

Another important distinction is that I'm not just looking at Hard Modes. There a whole spectrum of more-casual playthroughs of fire emblem that I like to consider, and in those normal mode runs, armor knights are not typically getting doubled. Not in your examples anyway. Probably true of Fates as well. There's 'Outlier' examples, and then you have outliers examples of an outlier's playthrough. That's not to dismiss the perspective of hard mode, just a reminder that there's more than one way to play these games, and those difficulty settings also run on a numbers-based reality.

[Quell]

13 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I've got no comments to make on How High the Fates armor knights ought to rank. But I do notice that all but one mention of Wary Fighter was totally uncritical. Entire generations of armor knights in previous games weren't getting doubled to begin with, except by enemies you absolutely would prefer they take on like the killing edge myrmidon or short bow nomads that deal single digit damage even on a crit. Giving most of those guys Wary Fighter, from Oswin to Arden, would not see a change in their performance in the aggregate of matchups, and the outlier matchups would probably be hurtful as often as helpful.

Honestly good point, I hadn't thought at it like that. Still, it being a tool instead of being forced makes wary fighter downside much more manageable.

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

How are knights better in Sacred Stones? Because I find that to be one of their worse outings:

The game is easy, you can get away with much more. Yes Seth is busted, 8 mov paladins, JAVELINS etc. etc. etc. and all that but General and GK have their decent niches. The maps are also smaller and reward tanking, with some of the peskiest ones getting almost trivialize by high def units.

 

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

What do Fighters have to work with?  High Strength and little else? That's something to work with, all right. Too bad it's meaningless when it's not backed up by much of substance. They're too slow to double, and their weapon and skill makes them a crapshoot on the battlefield; I'd go so far as to say they're an active liability. Also, Sol sucks ass (and is unreliable anyway), and Berserker is the worst promoted class in the game. That's ignoring that because of their hit issues, Fighters have a difficult time leveling up. And the fact that Arthur and Charlotte are both among the worst units in the game.

I don't want to derail this thread but this is wrong though, I understand personal preferences influence gameplay quite a lot but Fighters are definitely better than knights: first and foremost they have more movement, which, while pair-up, rescue dancing and yada yada Yada, is still a boon. Second they're middling but not bad stat wise, can act very well as walls thanks to HP being one of their selling point, or as wall-breakers, boss killers, or, most commonly, as support partners. Hell I would argue they're the second best tag/pair-up class line, with Berserker being one of the best partner in crimes. They do miss a lot of benchmark for being this useful though, but unlike knights usually you can reach those thresholds with little to no investment. You can give them enough skill to hit but it's extremely hard to give enough speed to Benny to not get doubled, let alone double itself. They are arguably the second worst nohrian class, but by far not the worst class in the game (Blacksmiths are unsalvagable, pun fully intended).

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Getting doubled is certainly an issue for some armour knights from other games. Barth and Gwendolyn suffer from it in a big way

Surprised this is still a quite diffused belief, yeah they have a low base speed and, for Barthe, growth but most of the "early" game enemies are slow enough to not being able to double them. In particular Barthe is famous for being a common early promote wall, as 9 speed is enough to not get doubled by almost anything before chapter 13 (I'm talking about hard mode here). In fact both Wendy and Bors, while having a terrible 3 spd base stat, have a decent 40% growth that plus the busted general promotion can make them surprisingly effective dodge walls. Nothing I would advise using, at all, but speed is not the biggest concern of FE6 knights.

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Well I know Gilliam does not get doubled by anyone in chapter 1. You're thinking of the Ross chapter right afterward. And that's only true if one of them gets the highest speed roll on Hard mode, and Gilliam wasn't fortunate enough to level a single point in speed. But in this specific case, he's still surviving 2 rounds against them despite taking two hits each time. No one on your team but Seth is surviving for longer, Franz and Garcia can't take more rounds, but their potential to avoid is higher, while the rest of your crew will die quicker no matter how you look at it. It's a rough map to be lance locked. If you dropped Gilliam on that fort I bet he survives indefinitely and solos the map on hard mode unless you got the most cursed RNG regarding 7 speed bandits who never miss. This is what I'm talking about when I say outlier examples.

 

You're right, I was thinking of Chapter 2, my bad. Not sure what it says that I forgot Gilliam existed in Chapter 1.

The brigands absolutely can 2RKO Gilliam though. Their atk stats vary from 13 to to 17; at 15 or higher they will kill in two rounds, while at 13-14 they kill in three. Only at exactly 14 atk is Franz also killed in three rounds; at every other atk threshold he can survive one more. Garcia can take one more hit at any atk stat (13-14 will 4HKO him, 15+ will 3HKO him).

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Another important distinction is that I'm not just looking at Hard Modes. There a whole spectrum of more-casual playthroughs of fire emblem that I like to consider, and in those normal mode runs, armor knights are not typically getting doubled.

That's very fair. I definitely think the community too readily dismisses discussion of lower difficulties, and I can be guilty of that too. I'll also absolutely concede that armour knights being doubled is largely only an issue on higher difficulties.

Of course, I'm generally not typically a big fan of armour knights on lower difficulties either, because now the number of units I have who can reliably survive several enemies at once goes up significantly, and armours still have lower mobility and offence than their competition. 

2 hours ago, Quell said:

Surprised this is still a quite diffused belief, yeah they have a low base speed and, for Barthe, growth but most of the "early" game enemies are slow enough to not being able to double them. In particular Barthe is famous for being a common early promote wall, as 9 speed is enough to not get doubled by almost anything before chapter 13 (I'm talking about hard mode here). In fact both Wendy and Bors, while having a terrible 3 spd base stat, have a decent 40% growth that plus the busted general promotion can make them surprisingly effective dodge walls. Nothing I would advise using, at all, but speed is not the biggest concern of FE6 knights.

Binding Blade enemy stats are quite random but looking at enemy stats I see quite a large number of enemies in 8x who can hit 9 speed (including the mages and armourslayer user), and an extremely large number who hit 7. But then Chapter 9 enemies are actually slower (a mercy thanks to the fog) and okay yeah, I see your point. I haven't actually used Barthe on HM (just NM, where he's not doubled much as you say), so I'll take your word that it's not that common until 13.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

16 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I've got no comments to make on How High the Fates armor knights ought to rank. But I do notice that all but one mention of Wary Fighter was totally uncritical. 1) Entire generations of armor knights in previous games weren't getting doubled to begin with, except by enemies you absolutely would prefer they take on like the killing edge myrmidon or short bow nomads that deal single digit damage even on a crit. Giving most of those guys Wary Fighter, from Oswin to Arden, would not see a change in their performance in the aggregate of matchups, and the outlier matchups would probably be hurtful as often as helpful. Armors sometimes double too! 2) I know Fates lets you take the skill off, but that's on a map by map basis. It's not as free as changing an equipped weapon. What if you level up and get the speed necessary to avoid doubles? Now the skill slot is wasted.

Most equippable skills aren't saddled with such a weighty drawback. It says a lot about the value of armor knight's class skills if you would take it off the moment you reclass. It's true that Wary Fighter drastically reduces damage taken from a poor enemy matchup like a speedy Mage, but between the player having the greatest control over who their units should fight and Pair Up letting you slip an armor knight past such enemies without having to personally face them, I don't see how this skill is making a big difference in practice. And if the ultimate answer is "Well, Wary Fighter really helps Benny, specifically" then that's just one out of 2-5 potential armor knights in a run of Conquest.

1) Draug on SD H5 (I don´t know when his stats become more suited for the difficulty), the bald dudes from Aurelis palace, Kellam not being a unit beyond statpack, basically any armor in SOV when a witch dares to have half a braincell and in my personal preference the best TH tank being Dedue because he´s the only one who really doesn´t take much damage.

Haven´t engaged enough with older FE to know about the rest of the lot.

2) One would think the player with the foresight to plan their armors route so as to not deal with mages would have the foresight to pop a tonic for speed. 

16 hours ago, Quell said:

I find dodge tanking is more reliable than tanking.

I for one wonder how you dodgetank anything in CQ, beyond very early promoting tomfoolery (and the only things that comes to mind pre CQ 17 would be Weaponbreaker-skill Jacob) aside from lategame builds involving many iterations of Weaponbreaker skills.

20 hours ago, Quell said:

But I can't still even remotely say armor is good: first and foremost the games extremely discourage tanking in any shapes and form. This is more an issue with Conquest (but it applies to the others too), the ninja line is by far one of the best in the game, if not outright the best one, and while on paper armor is sold as their counter this fails so spectacularly outside said PvP it's almost comical; the fact daggers are the best type of weapon in the game already speaks volumes about favoritism, let alone the incredible amount of wallbreaking skills ninja gets. What's even more aggravating is the existence of a number of said skills, Inevitable End in particular, that completely shut-down practically all the niches plays the class have.

Ninjas are probably the weakest (as in low STR) enemies in CQ not using magic, they are onyl dangerous for their skills (Poisonous Strike/Grizzly Wounds, the eventual weapons debuff) and they only get one map where not getting attacked (due to 3 range) by them is impossible. Equipping a Handaxe alone drops their dmg by what 4-6 points depending if they are MN or regular Ninja on a class that has a STR cap of 17/27.

 

On another note, and this is something I can´t really judge but perhaps what has held armors back to some degree isn´t their ability to tank but to dish out the pain in return, in one hit I mean? That´s something Effie is quite good at with PS active and a Steel Lance in hand.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/23/2023 at 6:01 AM, Quell said:

The game is easy, you can get away with much more. Yes Seth is busted, 8 mov paladins, JAVELINS etc. etc. etc. and all that but General and GK have their decent niches. The maps are also smaller and reward tanking, with some of the peskiest ones getting almost trivialize by high def units.

Unfortunately, not only does Seth exist, Gilliam (the one armored knight you get) is also pretty bad. Also, Great Knight is good for Gilliam alone.

On 5/23/2023 at 6:01 AM, Quell said:

I don't want to derail this thread but this is wrong though, I understand personal preferences influence gameplay quite a lot but Fighters are definitely better than knights: first and foremost they have more movement, which, while pair-up, rescue dancing and yada yada Yada, is still a boon. Second they're middling but not bad stat wise, can act very well as walls thanks to HP being one of their selling point, or as wall-breakers, boss killers, or, most commonly, as support partners. Hell I would argue they're the second best tag/pair-up class line, with Berserker being one of the best partner in crimes. They do miss a lot of benchmark for being this useful though, but unlike knights usually you can reach those thresholds with little to no investment. You can give them enough skill to hit but it's extremely hard to give enough speed to Benny to not get doubled, let alone double itself. They are arguably the second worst nohrian class, but by far not the worst class in the game (Blacksmiths are unsalvagable, pun fully intended).

That's a laugh. Last I checked, you yourself said that walls crumble easily in Fates. Now you're just contradicting yourself by turning around and trying to say Fighters can function as a wall. If knights have issues functioning as walls according to you, how the hell do you think a Fighter will do as a "wall"? Spoiler alert: Even worse, because their high HP does jackshit to make up for their poor defenses. Also, many of the other stuff you say they can do? They're bad at it thanks to two words: Crippling Overspecialization. I'm not gonna choose Arthur or Charlotte for my bosskiller or wallbreaker when Camilla is RIGHT THERE (to say nothing of the abundance of other units that are prolly gonna be better at one or the other than either). About the only thing they're good at is being pair up partners... but that isn't something I consider to be that much of a positive. Rather, I see it as more of a damning indictment, because for them to be "useful" I have to waste two units' turns at once. Now, you're right about Benny being hard to get to the point he can double... but Wary Fighter makes that moot. And even if one did try, the slowest enemies you see in Conquest tend to have Wary Fighter as well.

On Blacksmith: It's bad, I agree, but to be honest, the Oni Savage class line was an afterthought.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 5/22/2023 at 5:16 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I've got no comments to make on How High the Fates armor knights ought to rank. But I do notice that all but one mention of Wary Fighter was totally uncritical.

Just wanna chime in, that Wary Fighter synergizes tremendously well with Fates' take on Javelin-type weapons. You can't double with them, so Wary Fighter's penalty becomes redundant. And they make you much more susceptible to being doubled, but Wary Fighter makes that impossible. On some level, it feels as though these tools were made to work together. Whereas, in other games, if an Armor Knight could double some foes with their Javelin, they may prefer to keep Wary Fighter on the sidelines.

Interesting mention of Arden - if it cancels out the effect of the Pursuit Band, then Wary Fighter probably would be a net negative for him. Vanishingly few foes actually have the Pursuit skill, after all. Conversely, if it doesn't block the Pursuit Band, then it's a clear (niche) positive. A skill like Wary Fighter would make very little sense, though, in a game where the mere ability to double is safeguarded do tightly.

On 5/23/2023 at 10:09 AM, Imuabicus said:

I for one wonder how you dodgetank anything in CQ, beyond very early promoting tomfoolery (and the only things that comes to mind pre CQ 17 would be Weaponbreaker-skill Jacob) aside from lategame builds involving many iterations of Weaponbreaker skills.

Obviously, you just have to hack 2RN into the game.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Interesting mention of Arden - if it cancels out the effect of the Pursuit Band, then Wary Fighter probably would be a net negative for him. Vanishingly few foes actually have the Pursuit skill, after all. Conversely, if it doesn't block the Pursuit Band, then it's a clear (niche) positive. A skill like Wary Fighter would make very little sense, though, in a game where the mere ability to double is safeguarded do tightly.

That's why I brought it up. Most enemies in FE4 don't double you because they lack pursuit, therefore Arden's another example of an armor knight who wasn't getting doubled in the first place. 

But even if Wary Fighter doesn't hurt, it's a skill obtained as a level 5 general. Surely Fates has some skills gotten at that level of other classes that are more helpful than Wary Fighter. And with no drawback tied to it. Those classes get a real boost at the same time Effie gets Wary Fighter. That should say something about General as a class right?

Edited May 27, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:42 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Obviously, you just have to hack 2RN into the game.

Lifehack: don´t like something? Just alter reality.

On 5/27/2023 at 6:59 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

But even if Wary Fighter doesn't hurt, it's a skill obtained as a level 5 general. Surely Fates has some skills gotten at that level of other classes that are more helpful than Wary Fighter. And with no drawback tied to it. Those classes get a real boost at the same time Effie gets Wary Fighter. That should say something about General as a class right?

good unit in a class that makes her even better

maybe Rallies: STR, MAG, SKL, SPD, DEF, RES become available, Nohrian Hex the Corrin+kids exclusive, Adventurer Lucky Seven, Savage Blow but I don´t think it´s that great, couple Seal Skills, notably Seal SPD for Spear Master. I guess +40hit from Sniper which is helpful against Kotaro and the fox chapter, +20crit from Oni who don´t exist in CQ and maaaaaaaybe Air Superiority from Kinshi?

Irrelevant but Xander dreams about WF in his join chapter. And a Res tonic *coughs* Beyond that it´s good cause of the modestly mixed nature of enemy groups starting CQ chapter 18 middle room comes to mind and the potentially dangerous enemy inventories and the fact that around chapter 22 you start seeing a bunch of hybrid enemies with both physical and magic weapons on top of that. Also a bunch of Magic weapons in there that´d deal significant dmg, Hinokas chapter has a whole bunch of Bolt Naginata Falcons. Havin WF could help not getting doubled while also chucking Javelins at 1-2 range magic enemies. 

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/27/2023 at 11:59 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

But even if Wary Fighter doesn't hurt, it's a skill obtained as a level 5 general. Surely Fates has some skills gotten at that level of other classes that are more helpful than Wary Fighter. And with no drawback tied to it. Those classes get a real boost at the same time Effie gets Wary Fighter. That should say something about General as a class right?

Out of the other level 5 skills, the only notable ones imo are Draconic Hex, Seal Speed, and Renewal. That's one exclusive skill and two others from Hoshidan classes...

[Quell]

Super late reply but there's a reason, I hope the moderators won't kill me for doing a bit of necromancy since the topic is still at the top of page 2.

So anyway I noticed that a big reason why we're disagreeing on who are the best knights comes down to our personal definition of usefulness. For me it's how "good" they're compared to the game, as in how well they can contribute to completing the main story, but I noticed that for most of you is how good they're in the army, if they have a niche or an utility compared to other units. Both definitions seems interchangeable at first but in reality that's far from the truth, because a bad unit can still be able to stand and solo a game even under harsher circumstances while units that have a niche will still struggle if the game is mostly rigged against them. In other words, Gilliam, for example, can easly clear FE8 without too much trouble but a knights solo of Cq is impossible already on Hard, yet while Gilliam is useless in a LTC or Speedrun the Effie, Benny and knight!Corrin can be great in a raise them all! challenge. Which bring me to the reason why I'm so late:

I attempted to clear Sacred Stones with Gilliam, and honestly? It was quite easy, I breezed through it in two day, completing the run on the weekend after my last message. On the other hand I also tried doing a knight solo of Conquest, and well, it's impossible, chapter 10 is unwinnable so you never even get to play much with Benny. So yes, by my definition Gilliam is a much better knight than Effie or Benny.

On 5/23/2023 at 4:09 PM, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

I for one wonder how you dodgetank anything in CQ, beyond very early promoting tomfoolery (and the only things that comes to mind pre CQ 17 would be Weaponbreaker-skill Jacob) aside from lategame builds involving many iterations of Weaponbreaker skills.

Fates is definitely one of the games where it's the easiest to dodgetank, even besides gimmicky builds and skills and while most weapons are accurate the base mechanics are simply made to work well in tandem with it. Again still, jaggernauting is discouraged heavily by the map and enemy design but, for example, dual guard is made for dodgetanking: if you're attacked by 4 enemies with ~60%hit and you get three rounded you just need to dodge one to survive since you'll guard the other one, for a chance of death that's 12%, which is high but a surprising standard for even FE6 (where dodgetanking is at times a necessity). And again all of this without factoring eventual skills and supports that can help making that CoD 0%. But knights are too slow to take advantage of this, they have too low avoid and the small movement will at times leave them surrounded by enemies that they have no chance to beat.

On 5/23/2023 at 4:56 PM, Shadow Mir said:

That's a laugh. Last I checked, you yourself said that walls crumble easily in Fates. Now you're just contradicting yourself by turning around and trying to say Fighters can function as a wall. If knights have issues functioning as walls according to you, how the hell do you think a Fighter will do as a "wall"? Spoiler alert: Even worse, because their high HP does jackshit to make up for their poor defenses. Also, many of the other stuff you say they can do? They're bad at it thanks to two words: Crippling Overspecialization. I'm not gonna choose Arthur or Charlotte for my bosskiller or wallbreaker when Camilla is RIGHT THERE (to say nothing of the abundance of other units that are prolly gonna be better at one or the other than either). About the only thing they're good at is being pair up partners... but that isn't something I consider to be that much of a positive. Rather, I see it as more of a damning indictment, because for them to be "useful" I have to waste two units' turns at once. Now, you're right about Benny being hard to get to the point he can double... but Wary Fighter makes that moot. And even if one did try, the slowest enemies you see in Conquest tend to have Wary Fighter as well.

Walls crumble easy, it's just that big damage sponges like Fighters and 'serkers works better as walls in this game than Knight do. Effie, for example, has shaky HP base and growth, I would much more prefer her to be in a class that can use her strength well and can give her some HP for survivability, so yeah Effie is just much better as a Fighter. Not her best class, I give you that, but as a Fighter she gets so many more tools, especially as a Berserker, as while a general!Effie gets a patch at level 5 at the same time 'zerkers get Rally Strength, definitely a much more coveted skill. You're right in thinking that overspecialization cripples Fighters but I don't understand how can you not see how that fucks armors even more in a game where again walling is heavily discouraged. And yes, in a big part that's due to the low movement, you can patch it up with smart use of pair-ups but if you lament that doing so for Fighters is wasting two units turns I don't see it being better or even different for Knights.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, Quell said:

I attempted to clear Sacred Stones with Gilliam, and honestly? It was quite easy, I breezed through it in two day, completing the run on the weekend after my last message. On the other hand I also tried doing a knight solo of Conquest, and well, it's impossible, chapter 10 is unwinnable so you never even get to play much with Benny. So yes, by my definition Gilliam is a much better knight than Effie or Benny.

That's fair, of course, but by your definition, pretty much every class is better in FE8 than they are in Conquest, just because the former is a significantly easier game. At that point it feels more like you're ranking game difficulty than how useful armour knights are in the game.

A similar argument could probably put Heath or Cormag above RD Haar or Camilla in a wyvern ranking, yet very few people would actually consider the former two to be better units than the latter two.

[Use the Falchion]

My gut reactions are Sacred Stones due to Gilliam and Amelia (who while bad is still pretty usable IMO), Awakening (obscene stat caps, access to multiple skills if needed, and Javelins & Hand Axes are OP), and Engage (Louis is considered one of the best units in the game to quite a few from what I've seen, and Jade with Ike* is a BEAST in my experience.)

 

*Granted, Ike makes nearly everyone a beast, but the +5 Def for Great Aether goes a long way when it comes to tanking through Chain Attacks and regular attacks.