How to make Armor Knights more valuable?

[LeaderR Elliot]

Give them equal Move as every other foot unit (assuming GBA FE 6 move, DS FE 6 unpromoted move and 8 promotion)

Without giving them move they will be lame forever.

[Elieson]

Mecha Oswin! Would be a sight to see.

More like Gundam Wallace

Something I considered a while back was a slew of PRF lances that came with defense boosts, limited to Knights/GreatKnights to give them even more defense (+2-6 or so def depending on the lance, and point in the game), while handling hit rates to be near FE6 levels and allowing for Leadership stars as Generals.

Most melee unit-types have a split of 3-5 Speed versus Defense. in FE7 for instance, Generals have 8 less speed compared to defense, and 22 speed is just slightly lower than only a few classes (W.Lord, Bishop, Knight Lord plz eliwood try harder).

Edited December 1, 2014 by Sara.

[General Horace]

Another thing I thought of earlier today, another reason why they're so bad is their strengths are far less pronounced compared to other units. They're supposed to be far more physically durable, but if you look at most knights, their base defence is just really not that much better than other units, and I think they could definately have higher strength as well.

A good example is gilliam, he's 3 levels higher than Franz, but only has +5 HP, +2 Str, and +3 Def, while Franz has +4 speed, and +3 move in return (and Franz again is three levels lower!)

At the same time, I don't think Gilliam would be much more useable if he had 5 more strength and defence.

[BBM]

Actually, FE7 Generals have a 24 SPD cap, the same as Eliwood and higher than male Wyvern Lords. But Heath is going to hit his cap of 23 and Eliwood will probably get close to his too, whereas you could give Oswin every Speedwing in the game and he'd still be lucky to hit his.

And Oswin already has the highest defence in the game afaicr (only Hector comes close) so I don't think that would make any difference at all. The leadership stars + low hit rates are an interesting idea but personally I just hate the idea of low hit rates because it's like fake difficulty.

I think altering mounted stats to make them less durable and boosting enemy stats to make them more accurate and make them hit harder would be better, but this might negatively affect Myrmidons so shrug.

[General Horace]

The thing about Oswin is he could have something like 23-24 defence in endgame and it'd serve more or less the same purpose as his 30 defence ingame. Defence just really isn't an important stat in the GBA games.

Vaida also completely obseletes him in every way, it's saddening because Oswin's probably the closest thing to a thwomp done right.

[Elieson]

Actually, FE7 Generals have a 24 SPD cap, the same as Eliwood and higher than male Wyvern Lords. But Heath is going to hit his cap of 23 and Eliwood will probably get close to his too, whereas you could give Oswin every Speedwing in the game and he'd still be lucky to hit his.

And Oswin already has the highest defence in the game afaicr (only Hector comes close) so I don't think that would make any difference at all. The leadership stars + low hit rates are an interesting idea but personally I just hate the idea of low hit rates because it's like fake difficulty.

I think altering mounted stats to make them less durable and boosting enemy stats to make them more accurate and make them hit harder would be better, but this might negatively affect Myrmidons so shrug.

Oops i looked at F!Generals

Still, you're right. Generals likely aren't hitting that cap regardless. Myrmidons are also lame in part because of locked 1-range offense, but they're still dodging everything that isn't a Silver Lance with ease. Improving hit rates nerf the less durable classes by design, so Myrms (and Thieves/Assassins I guess) would suffer, as well as base Lord classes, but it would make Generals more viable because for the good length of the game, being able to be better survive three attacks would reduce the momentum of the player, and encourage use of Knights

[Jotari]

Give them full movement and remove enemy avoid bonuses when fighting in deserts. Make that armor so thick not even nature can stop it!

[Knight]

My idea was to instead of having cavaliers and knights, split the class into light and heavy knights and have both of them able to mount for movement and dismount for better stats.

Or instead, you could also have more defence chapters and/or for chapters that aren't defence, make it so more reinforcements would come from behind or near the start of the map.

Pair Up seemed like it was going to help armour Knights a lot, but in combination with reclasses, promoting into great knights and the fact that pair up makes any unit an invincible god, Knights/Generals still weren't too practical in Awakening.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Knight

[Axie]

Or instead, you could also have more defence chapters and/or for chapters that aren't defence, make it so more reinforcements would come from behind or near the start of the map.

The problem with this is that, unless it's a rout chapter, if you are playing even remotely efficiently you are probably better off ignoring those reinforcements until you seize or the defend turncount ends, since the reinforcements are unlikely to catch up to you. And if it is a rout chapter, you'll want to kill those reinforcements, and then you'd need to leave a good combat unit behind since knights usually don't get to double and therefore are unlikely to kill them quickly.

For example, I'm replaying FE12 right now and just finished chapter 6, where they have reinforcements coming from behind. They couldn't reach Frey and Norne, who had just arrived (or Julian, who I left behind to grab chests) before I seized the throne. And I'm not even good at being efficient (20 turns to finish chapter 3 because I'm too chicken to open the bridge lol).

[Paper Jam]

The main problems are (a) that Knights have low Speed, and (b) that in Fire Emblem, Speed is the One Stat to Rule Them All.

Changing either of the above could make Knights more viable. And the former would be easier to change.

The Knights who have the highest Speed growth seem to be Meg (65%) and Gatrie (60%) in FE10 (http://serenesforest.net/radiant-dawn/characters/growth-rates/); are they more useful than their counterparts in other games, who have Speed growths in the 20-40% range?

[Jotari]

Awakening changed the necessary speed to double from three to five. Does this make speed more or less ruling as a stat? On one hand it should mean less things double each other, but on the other hand that kind of means the stat becomes even more necessary to actually pull off the double.

[Elieson]

Awakening changed the necessary speed to double from three to five. Does this make speed more or less ruling as a stat? On one hand it should mean less things double each other, but on the other hand that kind of means the stat becomes even more necessary to actually pull off the double.

When so few enemies reach the speed cap compared to you, it just becomes a matter of who can ram speed the fastest

Would be more balanced if more enemy units reached higher speeds (i.e. Lunatic-ish)

[Jotari]

Well I'm thinking more along the lines of what it means theoretically. In practice the one game we've seen so far negates it because lol pair up and growths inflation.

[Paper Jam]

Another thing that makes Speed such an important stat is that it affects not just your Attack Speed, but also your chance to Dodge; Speed has twice as much of an effect on a character's Dodge ability as Luck, according to http://serenesforest.net/blazing-sword/miscellaneous/calculations/ so maybe changing that would make Speed less of a Ruling Stat too.

From FE4 to FE10, Avoid is calculated by doubling Attack Speed and adding Luck which makes Speed about twice as important for dodging attacks as Luck. FE11 and 12 calculate Avoid as Attack Speed plus half Luck, which also makes Speed twice as important as Luck. FE13 exacerbates this issue, if anything, since Avoid is calculated in that game by tripling Speed and adding Luck.

I think Speed would be a less important stat if it didn't have such an effect on Avoidance. Maybe if Avoidance were calculated by doubling Luck and adding Speed instead...

Of course, the vast majority of enemies have 0 Luck in most of the games, so that would have to be rectified too.

[Erik Twice]

In general, Fire Emblem seems to reward alpha strikes in which the enemy army is completely destroyed before it can counterattack. If your characters are well positioned and powerful enough defense doesn't matter too much because they'll only be hit when they attack and not during the enemy's turn.

Enemy formations big enough so that you are forced to become exposed to them makes high-defense characters better. They also make movement less important as clinging together is vital to avoid being hit from the side.

[dondon151]

The Knights who have the highest Speed growth seem to be Meg (65%) and Gatrie (60%) in FE10 (http://serenesforest.net/radiant-dawn/characters/growth-rates/); are they more useful than their counterparts in other games, who have Speed growths in the 20-40% range?

no. meg is terrible and gatrie has the same problems that all armor knights have. speed is not really the problem.

[X-Naut]

Awakening changed the necessary speed to double from three to five. Does this make speed more or less ruling as a stat? On one hand it should mean less things double each other, but on the other hand that kind of means the stat becomes even more necessary to actually pull off the double.

As I have stated before I think narrower AS to double requirements would be more beneficial to Knights. Fast enemies double them regardless, but when the mid-speed units can't get away with avoiding the double either their high Defense is more important.

Another thing that makes Speed such an important stat is that it affects not just your Attack Speed, but also your chance to Dodge; Speed has twice as much of an effect on a character's Dodge ability as Luck, according to http://serenesforest.net/blazing-sword/miscellaneous/calculations/ so maybe changing that would make Speed less of a Ruling Stat too.

From FE4 to FE10, Avoid is calculated by doubling Attack Speed and adding Luck which makes Speed about twice as important for dodging attacks as Luck. FE11 and 12 calculate Avoid as Attack Speed plus half Luck, which also makes Speed twice as important as Luck. FE13 exacerbates this issue, if anything, since Avoid is calculated in that game by tripling Speed and adding Luck.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Speed giving more Avoid than Luck, but I agree that its impact should be lessened. IMO just take the GBA Hit and Avoid formulas but drop the AS multiplier from 2 to 1.5.

[dondon151]

As I have stated before I think narrower AS to double requirements would be more beneficial to Knights. Fast enemies double them regardless, but when the mid-speed units can't get away with avoiding the double either their high Defense is more important.

i don't think this is a good idea. non-knight units who get doubled become useless, and units who double become more abundant. knights are worse off because there are more units who double and are therefore better deployment options. probably fighters are hurt the most, and fighters are traditionally one of the worst classes in the series.

AS requirements for doubling aren't going to have a substantial impact on how good knights are. the one mechanic change that could substantially improve knights relative to the rest of the cast is the re-introduction of the pursuit skill, and the developers have to take extreme discretion with who they give the skill to. it could be a class-locked skill instead of a personal skill, for example.

the complaint about spd being too strong because it contributes to avo is pretty weak, i think. the people who are most likely to label dodgetanks as overpowered are the same kind of people who view knights as overpowered. there are definitely ways around the dodgetank problem without significantly changing calculation mechanics. one is obviously to use stronger enemies (with or without +hit forges). another is to do as FE12 H3 did and give a passive hit bonus to all enemy units. a third is to use an existing avo or hit calculation such as FE11 and FE12 where avo was basically halved or FE9 and FE10 where luk contributes more to hit (and therefore all enemies have slightly higher hit). a fourth, which applies to more casual players, is to reduce the amount of avo that can be gained from supports.

Edited December 2, 2014 by dondon151

[Paper Jam]

IMO just take the GBA Hit and Avoid formulas but drop the AS multiplier from 2 to 1.5.

It would have to be a whole number, because the weapon's uses are strictly whole numbers, and each attack subtracts one use from the equipped weapon.

Unless you want it to work like Astra.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Paper Jam

[Klokinator]

Let them take off some armor for a def penalty and speed bonus, then just be soldiers.

Hahahaha

I like this, honestly.

[Axie]

It would have to be a whole number, because the weapon's uses are strictly whole numbers, and each attack subtracts one use from the equipped weapon.

Unless you want it to work like Astra.

I'm pretty sure X-Naut meant 1 point of Attack Speed should give the unit 1.5 point of Avoid, not that a double attack should deal 1.5x damage :P

[BBM]

Dondon, do you think knights would be better if they were given no terrain penalties and pegs/wyverns didn't exist?

[Ownagepuffs]

Paladins are still a thing tho. Removing the existence of Pegs and Wyverns wouldn't help them much. For an SRPG Knights are a fundamentally poor class. Low movement is a death sentence. Their niche is durability, yet every other unit tends to have enough HP to take 2-3 hits anyway and if they player is smart they won't get swarmed.

In order for knights to be good, I think a portion of each map would have to be designed around the use of your knights (or in other words, give them a situation that they are far more suited for than your other units). Or the knights will need such high base durability that they have more value than just the first three chapters (Oswin).

How about this, what if Knights had a passive guard skill? Whenever a Knight hits end turn, they go into a defensive stance that halves incoming physical damage and negates critical hits. And what about a skill to draw enemy aggro? Like, it forces 1 enemy within 10 tiles to focus on them for 3 turns. This would be a way to deal with high profile targets. And a "cover" command (straight from Final Fantasy 4), it let's them take damage for an adjacent ally for 1 turn. To make all this actually applicable, Knights should have 5 move instead of 4 at base and, like Hector, not get more upon promo. Knights should be able to literally act as a shield for the other units.

[Mufanda]

With reclassing? That's easy. Give them the best growths all around. That makes them literally the most desirable class to be in if they have something like that for at least a couple of levels. If these units were rocking 15% extra strength and def growths over other units, I would be willing to put up with a movement penalty for a couple of chapters especially if the class had good bases as well. Consequently, mounted classes should have inferior growths to go along with the fact that they themselves are good classes with high movement and for some reason a ton of weapons as well. It'd also probably help if they stopped allowing you to basically max out weapons on everything and go back to the Fire Emblem 4 method of classes. Sure, a Paladin might have Swords and Spears, but he can only B rank in both, while a Swordmaster and Halberdier can go to S rank. If Knights could be one of the classes that got good lance rank or perhaps high weapon ranks in all of their weapons, this could make them more valuable as well.

Otherwise, they have skills that let them guard other people that are standing next to them ala Bleach Third Phantom where the other unit would block the attack of another one in their stead and reduce the incoming damage. It shouldn't be Awakening's NO DAMAGE levels of blocking, but they should have a skill that let's them... You know... GUARD PEOPLE sense that is the purpose of the class. IE, the more defense the knight has the more it provides for the unit it's blocking for.

Low movement isn't necessarily the problem with the knight class, as low movement ISN'T a death wish in games (just like high movement isn't necessarily a boon either). The issue is that developers never seem to make up for movement loss in games which is the problem. Knights aren't "high defense" units because Fire Emblem growths are based off of the character rather than the class, and the class doesn't have a single skill that makes the class good. Big Shield in FE8 was a good idea, but it 1) didn't activate enough, and 2) isn't worth putting up with the knight class for it. The game doesn't give you a reason to have to slow down. Take something like say... XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within most people would say that Supports are the worst class in the game, and they have the highest movement in the game. Meanwhile, Snipers, one of the least mobile units in the game (unless one goes for Snap Shot or Gunslinger builds that ignore using the movement bonuses, are one of the best classes in the game.) The issue is that pretty much every map in Fire Emblem rewards high movement, high evade and attack. It rarely ever favors defense and seems to love the whole dodge or die mentality, which is why knights are a really terrible class.

Knights as a class cannot continue to exist if we have Awakening style skills again because there's no reason to EVER be that class outside of skills (I mean the same can be said for a lot of classes, but it's especially true for this one because it literally has no merit).

tl; dr

1) Nerf mounted class growths

2) Buff knight growths

3) Give them a passive skill that only the knight class can use to shield other units as well as itself.

[Topaz Light]

Well, but raising the Knights' growth rates won't really make them better for actual use.

It'll make them better to level up in, certainly, but ultimately Knights would just be used as a transient "training class" until the character's stats were sufficiently raised and they were changed into another class that was better for actual use.

Anyway, as others have said here, the low movement really is kind of a big issue in many maps. Sure, Knights do have their moments, but by and large there's little that only Knights can do, so they're often not worth the effort.

Eliminating the movement gap would certainly help matters, as would constructing more situations in the game where Knights are considerable assets. I want to say that making the specific Knights who join your party statistically better would also help matters, but perhaps it wouldn't do as much for them as I'm thinking it might.