I rember seeing a YouTube video where someone tried to argue that kyle and forde were better than franz because of higher bases and better projects like arthur being avaliable for pre route split however i cant see the reasoning. The way i see it is that franz essentially gets a few free levels from all the axe users (assuming you dont steamroll with seth) as nobody else for the first few chapters is very good at it aside from seth. Gilliam is a lace user with accuracy inconsistencies and vannesa getting 2 shot and being inacurate. Erika can do it but she is frail and potentially at risk of dieing if left to fight too many at once. Even garcia, ross, nemi, and colm are all pretty mid to bad. Colm and Garcia can do decently but nemi and ross need babysitting and neither are particularly worth it. Once again franz is the best candidate for exp here. At this point you should have a good understanding of your franz at this point and if hes below average, bench him and train other projects but if he’s doing well then keep him and he will likley end up better than the Christmas cavs. The only logic i can see for Kyle or forde is that they have 5x and on erika route you dont need to level Ephraim so the cavs are the only other options, this combined with how on erika route she doesn’t get autoleveled meaning you need to level erika taking exp away from franz. This mitigates the level lead but id say franz will still likley be higher level and just better. Idk is there something im missing in this debate here, a missing piece of the puzzle?
It’s generally accepted that Franz is the best of the cavs, so I guees what you just saw was a hot take by the video’s maker.
I think Amelia is the best cavalier in FE8. She can support Franz (cavalier, paladin, GK). She can also support Neimi (ranger) and Ewan (mage knight).
Talk about hot takes. Maybe stat wise assuming same level but damg is Amelia a pain sometimes
I typically find Franz to just have “bleugh” unit feel. With Kyle, if he gets lucky speed levels or you give him a speedwing he can start one-rounding a lot of enemies with his higher strength. I usually still use Franz for most of the game, but I’ll always prefer Kyle. Forde is actual ass though.
All three cavs do similar things, Franz has more chapters but more competition for the exp. The more recent discussions have put Kyle over Franz but the differences are negligible.
Honestly this nitpicky rating of units is kinda pointless, just go with Kyle or Franz depending on who you’re training. As long as it’s not Amelia the cav differences genuinely are irrelevant.