So here’s something that’s kinda been bothering me for a while:
People have taken to fixing the usual bad classes in different ways, such as Armor Knights (and to an extent, Generals), and Archers.
But one class always seemed to me like it was in need of a buff- like it wasn’t as bad as them, but at the same time, it feels like no player would turn someone into one if they could help it.
Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the Great Knight.
Less Move than a Paladin (I believe they have like, one less move than a Paladin in modern FE), they get hit with being weak to both Anti-Armor and anti-beast, and while they do get access to Axes alongside lances and swords in modern fe, in practice, they just feel… middling.
Now not to say there haven’t been good units that are Great Knights (Frederick and Duessel, for example)- but those are individuals- and I’m talking about the class as a whole.
It just feels like there’s not really a lot of point to it unless you do something like skills, and even then, it’s not really much of a consolation prize imo.
So what do you think?
Does the Great Knight need a buff (and if so, what do you suggest?), or is it just fine and I’m coping?
There is no real way to traditionally buff great knights without destroying it’s class identity, you can’t raise speed too much it will lose the heavy armour vibe, you can’t remove horse/armour effectiveness, you can’t raise move to paladin for the same reason.
The real way to buff great knights is to make armour status better, either by making it reduce the enemy’s physical attacks or provide some other passive benefit.
Regardless of all this I feel great knight fills a very unexciting role of being good not great but good, it has good move, does good damage, enough speed to not be doubled by most enemies, but has effective weaknesses.
It’s a class that is unexcitingly good and those are valuable in games, not everything needs to be super unique or good, this spectrum of class quality is good, it’s good to have mediocre and even bad classes.
A lot of people see GKs as armors with more movement so they usually come with the statspread of an armor, making their poor speed and resistance make what should be a powerful class feel weak and like a worse version of another class.
Ideally, the horse and armor effective weakness would be utilized well enough such that a GK with overall good combat and durability would be balanced out.
GKs could potentially fill an important role in an army if designed properly, an all around powerhouse unit that can take care of many threats easily while still being balanced out by that effective damage to where they can’t just steamroll the game.
But as of now their role is just an armor on wheels, quite an unimaginative role in my opinion.
See that’s why I didn’t have any suggestions of my own for it.
It’s because the class is in this weird state of being mid- not bad enough to be sucky, but not good enough eith r to stand out.
And while I do agree that there is a need for class variety, I do wish Great Knights got a better rep since I think they have some of the coolest generic art out there.
FE8 great knights are better than paladins. They hit harder and take less physical damage. You just need to use barrier or give them pure water to counter magic users.
Not at all really. I would have to agree the Great Knight class is a little redundant in my opinion.
I haven’t played anything passed FE12 so I’m not sure about modern Great Knights, but I’ve played enough of FE8 to have a good grasp on its strengths and weaknesses. So my opinions will be solely tied to how FE8 designed them. Anyway…
To comment on Great Knight’s access to Axes…yeah that doesn’t feel like a good enough niche, just as -in my opinion-, removing Axes from Paladins wasn’t enough to nerf the class. Due to the quality of the enemies of FE8, having access to Axes doesn’t incentivize the player enough in the Great Knight’s favor. Perhaps in a player focused game it could justify Axe access then we’d all be fine and dandy.
If we’re talking about statlines, let’s take a quick glance at the Great Knight’s Base Stats compared to the Paladin’s base stats via FEBuilder:
Their stats between them seem rather balanced for the most part. Defensive wise, Great Knight has 3 points higher defense then the Paladin class, but the Paladin makes up for it in 2 points of HP.
In terms of speed, the Paladin’s got 1 point more, but the Great Knight makes up for that in 2 points of Constitution. So in conclusion, I’d say their pretty well balanced-
Great Knight:==>Paladin:==>
Great Knight’s having 6 move in my opinion makes them the lesser choice. I suggest giving them 1 point of movement. Thats it really.
Obviously, I’m comparing the Great Knight’s viability versus the Paladins. So yeah.
Here me out. Great Knights should be like mobile tanks right? Then in that case:
-Atk
=Skl
-Spd
++Def
+Res
7 Move
=Con
Im bad at numbers so this is more of a guideline. In general though, I think they should feel like a lighter hitting but longer range general making it an actual counterpart instead of the lame third wheel to otherwise great classes
Id personally give them bows over axes, but that’s just me being stoopid
I would argue that GKs, as a mounted class, sucks at generally rescuing compared to its counter part. If they are meant to be essentially a mounted general I definitely feel like they should maintain the same amount of attack, but lower their con instead
on the contrary outside of fe8 vanilla, Great Knights are hella great to use for me personally. like Serif said you can give them +1 move and not much else to make them viable. They might not be as efficient as paladins but there’s something to be said about a power house unit that hits hard with an axe, admittedly that’s not gameplay related but I like armors a lot as well so they’re in my ball park. Access to triangle control in most hacks are also hella cool, they might have a lot of weaknesses but i think it’s part of what makes them interesting to run and they’re not as fragile as pegs where putting them in range of effectives kills them over most of the time so that’s another benefit.
Great Knights are not a bad class but in vanilla they get heavily outshined by Paladins in such a simple way. 9 time out of 10 enemy quality doesn’t justify picking more defense over more movement its just that simple. In a romhack setting though the “Mobile Armor” route makes them feel like the worst parts of 2 classes. Less mov/spd/res than Paladins, less Def/HP than Knights, the weaknesses of both its just not that good for the class. They do have one thing though: Weapon Triangle control. In most cases this also means very little but in games with larger weapon triangles(mine) it can be a deciding factor. A WT of 3/15 can help mitigate damage enough to warrant using a great knight if enemy quality is good enough. Also it can GREATLY mitigate effective damage, if a Ridersbane has 10 mt and x3 effectiveness a paladins can take normal or extra damage( 10 x 3 or 13 × 3) but a Great Knight can take less effective damage and survive much better(7 x 3) due to higher Hp/Def while still being able to move almost as far. Any scenario where a Paladin is using less than full move could be a moment to use a Great knight because of how much more survivability they have. Personally its a system issue rather than the class itself.
I will also add that the “triangle control” part is kinda questionable in practice:
Paladins already have 2/3 weapon types so they already get advantage against 2/3 of melee units and neutrality vs lance users, meaning triangle disadvantage is simply not a threat to them. Slap in a lancereaver and they will also get full triangle advantage.
This is another system thing. If having 2/3 is good enough then yeah it doesn’t matter, but this is argument exists in a vacuum. There a many thing that need to be taken into account when you say something like “in practice” such as “why would I give a paladin any reaver weapon when there are classes with only one weapon type?” or “Is 2/3 WT control good enough?” or “Are reavers even in this game?” For a practical scenario lets imagine a game with a weapon triangle of +2/+10 and room with 5 lance enemies with overlapping ranges. If the unit I send, lets say a Paladin, takes 6 damage from each fight then he takes 30(or 40) damage. If I send a Great Knight and he takes 4 damage he’ll take 20 (and if he has an axe 10). In this scenario you COULD give the paladin a lancereaver but assuming those are uncommon you may want to save uses, and even then he still takes more damage. “In practice” is neat because so many things can change, like what if the Paladin is Seth and just kills everything anyways. In which case it doesn’t matter what he has…
except they’re not. 6 movement makes them worse than even cavaliers AND promoted foot units because they still have cav penalties for terrain like forests. Also, in reality the difference in promotion bonuses between paladin and GK is so small that the movement alone makes paladin the better class.
their extra weapon type is also in reality quite questionable as they start with E rank. Making that rank essentially useless compared to their other rank(s) without significant weapon exp.
FE8 is honestly GKs worst game, they essentially have no redeeming qualities over paladin and the only unit that would want to go GK is Gilliam who has an even worse alternate option, general.
E Axes aren’t so bad as you have Steel Axe and Hand Axe access straight away. The bigger issue is that Great Knight does not enable you to reach any new stat benchmarks over Paladin. The only use case is if you want an under statted cavalier to reach stat benchmarks without the use of a stat booster.
ya just need to buff their move by one and make sure they have good enough weapon ranks, otherwise GK are GREAT bros, you telling me you wouldn’t appreciate a strong reliable axe unit, yea I really like axe GKs okay
Great Knights should be styled as Shock Cavalry - heavy armor, heavy offense, trampling over their foes… at least when they’re initiating combat.
High Str, High Def, give them Sturdy Impact and something like Lunge/Pivot, swapping them to the other side of the foe they battle. This gives them closer to Paladin movement if they initiate battle against a foe and gives them extra sturdiness to distinguish themselves in the role their armor is intended for.
Paladin:==>