Even Gilbert doesnt really want it since he can actually get into Wyvern Lord rather easily due to only needing to focus on flying. You know a class is bad when not even Gilbert wants it.
The only good thing about Great Knight is that it has the highest HP mod if you wanted to mess around with Vengeance memes. But it's Vengeance so that extra HP is just overkill.
When you change class from Paladin to Great Knight, the bst number turns red, which means GK actually has a lower base stat total than Paladin. While I do know that in 3H you would prefer specialists to generalists like paladin and lower bst doesn't necessarily mean it is bad, but a master class unit having less bst than an advanced class in the same promotion path is just ridiculous to me.
An interesting discussion to have. I agree with the rank requirements for the class. For some reason, it's the only master class that requires three different ranks above B, whereas other flying or mounted master class have their lowest requirement set to C (usually in lances). The skill Wary Fighter from Fates (prevents both attacker and defender from doubling) could be an interesting fit for them. With it they'd be better at surviving than Fortress Knights despite their lower defense and they wouldn't really lose anything because of the Great Knight's low speed. Integrating the Luna skill from PoR and RD is a good idea. Maybe on top of getting Defiant Defense, they could get a Luna combat art when mastered.
I will say that Wary Fighter is a straight downgrade to Quick Riposte on enemy phase, which is when these tanky units can expect to see a lot of combat.
Yeah, it can be useful, but I feel like often most units will just be using one weapon type anyways (except for combat arts) although I have only used Great Knight once or twice, so I could be wrong
It's cool but without the weapon triangle, theres really not a reason to use multiple weapon types, only real incentive is if you're using Breaker skills.
@@chessplayer6632 Well tbf, aside from Smash, Axe Combat arts aren't usually very good so a backup weapon is nice to have, it expands your options. If you aren't using both in some ways it is kind of wasted to go all the way there. Paladin/Wyvern Lord will do the "focus on one weapon" thing a lot better.
@@MrCalexv12 Manuela has a stronger strength than most mages by a Longshot and I have taken advantage of it and she's a mortal servant now and is just amazing
I feel like the class works really well with dedue but he’s like the only one I’d consider putting in that class. Makes him a high defense mobile vengeance spammer.
I found it easier to get Dedue to Wyvern Lord than Great Knight even with the weakness in flying. You sacrifice some defense and better gambits for much better mobility. Honestly imo, fortress knights are better off as adjutants not on the battlefield. The gameplay is so much more favored towards player phase that a high defense tank isn’t typically a good unit. Also, I find dodge-tanking a far more reliable strat than regular tanking which makes units like Ingrid, F Byleth, Petra and Leonie as Falcon Knights with Alert Stance + and high avoid gambits much better at surviving on enemy phase than the Dedues and Gilberts. Regular tanking has its place in the earlygame, however, particularly in Maddening where Dedue can get 12+ def at base, and soak 3-4 hits from enemy units, but midgame this doesn’t work as well, and you really just want to kill enemies on your own turn
I think the best great knights are Ferdinand or Sylvain, because they don't get penalized that much for the negative speed growths as they have swift strikes that works well with lance faire
Fer Méndez Just go Paladin. You get lancefaire, more move, and you don’t waste tutoring heavy armor. If you’re gonna learn another movement type, just learn flying for Alert Stance (+)
How I'd change the class is give it a much bigger strength stat like 4, and change the weapon requirement to be B in lance, axe, armor, and riding. I think it shouldn't just be an upgrade to Fortress Knight, but also to Paladin. As another thing that I think might be cool but might not work is to replace its two faires skills with a new ability that's increases attack with all three weapon types to reference how Great Knights could use all three in previous games. And maybe add a crit +10 or luna since there is an open slot.
I agree that this class is all kinds of messed up. It's so hard to get into and then they just die to magic like the fortress knight does. The movement is nice, but it doesn't make up for the fact that some characters have low accuracy or low speed. So you end up with a character that can move further into danger, but doesn't dodge a lot and hits hard only if it actually connects. With strategic planning and attention to the map and the enemies you come in contact with you can make this work, but it's not worth the effort.
Great Knight, Holy Knight, And Mortal Savant, the three classes that I came into the game with huge expectations and look super cool, but are just ass. Great knight isn’t as much of a tank as it should be, Holy Knight isn’t a bishop on a horse, and mortal savant just sucks
Nah dark flyer was excellent on any female mage. Had it on dorothea and it was great. I use armor classes if I need to patch a units defense. Everyone trashes on caspar. But if you take him through armor knight then into the wyvern classes hes ridiculous. Anybody on a flying unit is ridiculous.
For me I found that I was pretty underwhelmed with all of the class skills for advanced and especially master. Was hoping for more cool abilities to earn, but I lose all motivation to grind it out when I get high defense for my last 7 HP...
I think you're sugarcoating Fortress Knight's movement problems. Sure, there are ways around it that haven't been available in other games, but it's going to take resources to get it done.
Actually a good idea since she is tbh underwheming, just a worse version of Lysithea with far less Dex and Spd for only getting slightly better HP, Str and Def and a little better spell list due her lomg range attacks.
N.I.C.K Im only making her a great knight cuz of the pink armor 🤣 not because she fairly good at it. It’s on maddening and I just have her tank. Lysithea does both their jobs already
I would like to see the Mastery ability change to a buff allies when hit skill. When hit in the enemy attack phase buff near by allies for a small might and an ok crit bonus in your next phase. A kind of inspire your allies with your stalward defense thing.
You're assessment of the great knight I totally agree with for Hard difficulty. But in my experience on maddening you need a really good tank, and everything doubles you unless you are a speed blessed assassin so the speed penalty can be ignored. Also, adding some movement to your fortress knight is really useful, you don't need stride for every map. But you have to plan for great knight from the start of the game, those requirements are crazy. I think Serene's forest is wrong on the stat boost too. I'm looking at the game right now and it says 8 for defense, not 6.
My second play through I used Ferdinand and I took him into Great Knight. He went from one of my best units into a useable unit, but not as good. Two chapters later or so he was back in paladin
Through a bunch of training i got Dedue into great knight with quick reposte to make up for that horrible speed, it took a long time to build this tho but it was totally worth it, he was an unstoppble force
How I’d fix Great Knight. Certification requirements(Two paths): B+ in Axe or Lance, B in Armor or Riding, C in the other. Luna as a mastery combat art only in the class(7 durability and star type), remove both Faires give it a unique skill(Like if attacking with “Weapon triangle advantage” +3 MT), and toss it -7(maybe 5) WT. It becomes a viable Paladin and Fortress Knight promotion with player phase focused strengths.
Hmm if I had to suggest class progression to get into great knight I would do: Commoner/Noble -> Fighter -> Brigand -> Cavalier -> Great Knight. Paladin is optional instead Cavalier if you want to train in lances that much but with all the resources you have to invest in the first place I think Cav is more convenient
I'd much rather have lances than axes on this class. Changing the primary weapon to lances also makes it fit in nicely for the units who seem to be headed that way: Ferdinand and Sylvain (their main advantage for me is swift strikes). I agree that the defiant skills were a disappointment; they seem better placed in earlier classes. You're working harder to master a class that gives you an inferior reward.
Ferdinand and Sylvain are better in paladin, it's a lot less investment and you get more move which helps then get in range to one round things. Granted my Sylvain got speed screwed in my maddening playthrough and a lot of things one rounded him so that may have helped him. But a guard adjacent helped a lot with that by focusing on riding I was able to get him mov +1.
@@twigz3214 I agree with the speed reduction and movement concern. That's especially important in fresh maddening playthroughs. It seems logical, though, for this class to lose some speed due to the armor. Maybe having a combined pavise and aegis skill built in to give you another slot would help make it more worth the investment?
Fun fact: If you're making them a dedicated guard adjutant , they don't need to be a master class. An Armored Knight or Brawler will work as well. PS:Sorry If I sound offensive
@@kaelanmcalpine2011 Maybe because War Master was considered the ultimate offense class because of its +5 STR for class bases , dual faires and innate +20crit , they decided that it won't be guarding anytime soon.
Personally I like Lancefaire on Great Knight. It makes good final class for units with Swift Strikes. On Maddening speed is a lot less relevant, since you want to spam Double-hitting combat arts. And if you master Warmaster, Quick riposte makes speed a non-issue on Enemy phase.
Honestly it's better than Armor Knight and Fortress knight, unless you're just using those for guard adjutants. 4 and 5 move is NOT enough to make any real impact on the battle field. The mild defense drop when switching from fortress knight to great knight isnt that big of an issue, since if you cant tank an enemy with great knight fortress knight probably wouldnt do much better. And it gets 7 move, not 5. Meaning it isnt stuck being sluggish and dragging down the rest of your team. Edelgard's given classes being basically just better versions of armor and fortress knights is why she is easily the worst lord. Dimitri gets to places quicker and hits harder in his base class and tanks decently well, and thanks to often times straight up just one shotting, he doesnt need to worry about taking minimum damage on enemy phase since the only things he isnt tanking are magic hits and hits that would probably do heavy damage to Edelgard anyways. Claude's given classes are flying. Need I say more? If a unit cant get to the battlefield without help (I.E warping, rescuing and using stride) then you have no need to deploy them, they are a liability, not an asset. I put Edelgard in great knight just to test if this theory would check out, and yeah, it does. Now instead of slouching around, she gets to places by herself, makes better use of the built in galeforce from her combat art, and has canto. To put it bluntly, if you're a fan of growths, yeah this class isnt for you. But if you realize the reliability it can have as a mobile tank, you should use it. It is not a bad class. It is a better class than fortress knight.
@@mars3725 yeah, it's just relegated to guard adjutant fodder tbh. Only use fortress knight if it's on their natural promotion path and I think it gives pavise apon mastery so theres also that, I know paladin gives Aegis, so mastering both of those could help with an extremely hard to kill great knight.
Edleguard does have the worst personal class but she does have the single most broken art in the entire game. Wyvern lord edleguard can go toe to toe with the other two lords ( those are limited to one kill per turn edleguard can use as many as she has durability to use her relic’s personal art)
Novel Incoming So, Great Knight is obviously a very lacklustre class. The negative speed growth combined with the pretty high ride requirement means you have to invest very heavily into lectures and the weekly 'tasks' for horses to really improve the rank. Also, the lack of an upgrade on Paladin kinda sucks. Again like Mortal Savant, it'd like they tried to combine the Paladin upgrade and Armored knight upgrade into 1 class and failed. I have 2 ways I'd improve the class. 1 way is to make it an actual upgrade on paladin while the other is to keep it in the same vein as a heavy armored mounted unit. *WAY 1* - Upgrade on Paladin. Let's face it, there really isn't a clear upgrade on just the Paladin class. Most of the Master classes require riding yet no upgrade clearly on paladin? why? Here's my fix. Rename it from Great Knight into something like, I don't know, Joust Knight. First I'd remove the Axe requirement altogether and replace it with an Authority requirement, Make Lance an A req, Ride an A, and Authority a B/B+. Then remove Axefaire, and give it the ability Pass instead. Change master ability from Defiant Def to Pavise for a chance to take less damage from physical units. For Stat growths, I'd raise it and do 30 HP, 20 Strength, -10 Speed, 5 Luck, 5 Dex, 5 Defense, 5 Res, 5 Charm. For stat boosts, I'd go 5 HP, 3 Strength, 3 Defense, 3 Res. This class would basically be your actual horseback knight. with the build I made it could still be fairly tanky, while also dealing some decent damage. It would be like a totally different class yes, but well, I think we'd all MUCH prefer an upgrade on paladin than a great knight 'fix'. *WAY 2* - this would be the actual armored knight on a horse fix. First off, as you mentioned, I'd lower the ride req to a C+, raise Axe to A. replace Lancefaire for an auto Weight -10 on the class. then change the Defiant Def master ability to something similar to Darting Blow, essentially increasing its attack speed during combat, so there's less of a chance to get doubled by magical units. AND then give it a mastered COMBAT ART where it gets to attack 2 times guaranteed, so that it CAN double, but at the cost of 4 uses of the axe per hit. so 8 total uses. For stat growths I'd keep it the same except raise strength to +15 and raise Dexterity from 0 to 5. For stat boosts when certifying into the class, I'd raise strength by 2, and increase dexterity by 1. Oh and raise the defense by 10 again just like Fortress knight. I've put over 550 hrs into 3 Houses with different play through's and specific class runs. Great Knight I only ever had done 1 time in all my runs and that was in my 1st playthrough, and Great Knight always felt like such a letdown of a class.
I have a question, In order to make the most of cerain characters I like to optimize builds, in this case that character is Sylvain (and Ferdie), as they have access to Swift Strike, thus I feel like the Lancefair skill from the class could help them a lot. Tho I am not sure if it's just better to stay Paladin or make them this class.
Paladin gives 2 Strength, if you plan on spamming Swift Strikes Paladin will be better compared to GK's 1 Str. It's also a lot easier reach meaning that you can focus on raising Lance to S+ for another Lancefaire or raising their Authority for better battalions.
Speed Demons like Leonie have no problem going Bow Knight, and I’d honestly say it’s one of Leonie’s best classes besides Falcon Knight. Canto lets her snipe from four spaces away and GTFO, her high Dex and Hit +20 means she’ll generally have better accuracy from that distance than most other BKs save for maybe Ignatz (who actually does want Sniper more than BK because he really needs Hunters Volley to kill on Player Phase) and her proficiencies let her reach those Skill thresholds very easily. Defiant Speed is kinda whatever, but she’ll do really well in the class, especially if she goes the Paladin route for the better Strength at a very marginal Speed cost.
They need to improve BKs growth rates, they are totally underwhelming and unfit for the main archers Ashe, Ignatz and Bernadetta who already havent a overwhelmig growth at all to beginn with. The only boosts are +10% for HP, -5% for SPEED and +5% for CHARME. So I usually dont take the class because of that. I would make the growth Boosts like that: +10% HP +10% STR +15% DEX +5% SPEED +5% DEFENSE -5% RESSISTENCE Aditionally, I would give the class a new ability that makes the class better in combat besides speeding already fast caracters up.
N.I.C.K Growths aren’t particularly a big worry for Master classes since by the time you get there, your units are likely already decked out in good stats and skills and mostly just want whatever utility the class in question can let them offer. For that, Bow Knight growths are almost superfluous compared to the ridiculous Bow range, Canto, and the good stat modifiers. Who needs an extra 5% growth when most BKs are already going to be plenty fast by the time they get to the class? The best BKs in the game (Felix, Leonie, Bernadetta) will have a range of Speed growths between 45% to 55%, which are still quite good by this game’s standards. Bow Knight is a good class. Not everyone wants it necessarily, just like not everyone absolutely wants Gremory, but it’s a way fucking better class than the meme lords Mortal Savant, Great Knight, or Holy Knight.
Poison Strike Ignatz is a monster as a Bow Knight. spamming Break Shot and the occasional Ward Arrow to give easy kills to anyone on the team. Leonie and Cyril can do Bow Knight as well thanks to PBV. Bernadetta can work but she'll more or less be an Encloser bot which isn't bad but it's not something that is going to be useful consistently. Basically, it boils down to if you have a good Bow Combat Art to use.
@@cartooncritic7045 They are, but fall quickly behind in every stat but dex and speed. And even in speed Bernadetta is ... tbh, bad. She is in my 7th play at lvl 50 and has around 25 speed, even Dedue is faster. And lets just not talk about the poor stats Ashe, Ignatz and Bernadetta have in defensive (HP, Def, Res) and attacking stats (Str, Mag, Cha). Bernadetta additionally suffers from her poor luck stats.
Generally, I have a problem with amored classes in 3H. There are a few issues Only 4 movement, Great Knight 7, to much efforts needed to put in, especially for Dedue who loses a few months and is bad at riding. Non-existent speed and ressistence growth making them an easy target for mages. Generally poor growths in this class, Dedue does better as warrior or fistfighter as do Raphael and Balthus while Gilbert is tbh the wort unit in the game. Abilities that dont make the classes really better, I only go into the first amor-class to get the +6 def if I start combat for fragile units sometimes The good stats arent even good, my Dedue ended up dieing 3 times in the same level despite being lvl 37 beaten by sword masters due his not that good defense and non-existant speed. During level ups, usually only 2 stats increase, even with good units such as Bernadetta, Caspar or Ferdinand.
They could have acted like a Great Knight is a Fortress Knight putting more armor on the horse so dismounting is sacrificing some defense for speed, but with the ability to be mounted. So speed would be -1 (-3), defense +4 (+6), and movement just +1. So going from the advanced class to the mastered gives you a less effective defensively knight when dismounted, but one that might not get doubled, and the option to be mounted to get rid of the Fortress Knight's movement penalty.
I definitely think people sleep on great knight. Defense sorta has a soft cap when you think about it. A point where you're already taking 0 damage. Any def above that is pretty useless. Damage doesn't really work that way, which is why I don't think it's as important to min/max defense like str, mag, and spd.
In my current re run of blue lions maddening I changed Gilbert into a paladin and he got so much more speed and he almost has as much speed as Annette, Annette having 23 speed at level 30
I would have liked for them to have a combat art like Luna. I know that Warmaster has it's own Axe combat art so maybe having it's own Lance combat art would be cool
I ran Great Knight Edelgard and it wasn't awful because she hardly took damage and had canto, so she could hit an enemy and then hard block another. Smite canto is also nice. What Fortress/Great Knights could have to better capitalize their strengths is the Echoes ability for Barrons that always weakens ranged attacks. Taking half magic damage to make up for their bad Res would be incredibly useful (although in Echoes I think it only applied to bows which isn't that great)
I made my Sylvain into one in the lategame. It was alright. Since he was already slow as a paladin, I figured that a great knight would be better. While he got doubled often, he was still useful with a brave weapon.
i suggest trying sylvain as a wyvern lord. in my run, he wasn't slow, he had a lot of strength, a lot of defense, and arrows just didn't do anything to him even though he was a flying unit.
I'd lower the Axe requirement, and maybe up the Lance requirement to compensate. I see Great Knight as the Master Class for both the Fortress Knight line and the Paladin line, but I almost never have my Paladins go into it because needing to take Riding and Armor lessons is already a lot, but on top of that they have to train up a whole new weapon class. Even if Great Knight was a strong Master class it'd be a lot to ask, but as is it's simply not worth the hassle.
Great Knight, it's kinda interesting, has dual faires, defiant defense is ddisappointing and I'd like something else like a combat art, Great knight's mostly an upgrade for the armored class I guess, if you are working towards both paladin and fortress knight, you are probably going to have those high requirements and if you master either you have either aegis or pavise... As for weapon requirements if you are going to fortress knight, all you need is tutoring in riding I guess. Great knight is the only guard adjutant in the master class line... As for fixing it, It needs a class exclusive combat art, like you said luna or anything else that's pretty good and maybe more strength
I know supposedly Great Knight is bad but would this ability build make it pretty decent? Great Knight - Death Blow - Axe Prowess 5 - Aegis - Axefaire - Axe Critical
I've played around with this idea in my head, as a way to make the great knight/fortress knight more viable WITHOUT severely nerfing dodge tanks (who tank better than the formerly mentioned units, because you can't hit them and mages don't destroy them); allow great knights/fortress knights to taunt enemies. When I think of what a great knight/fortress knight has classically been good at doing, it is controlling the map (if the map allows for it) via bottlenecks and whatnot; allowing for a (perhaps limited?) amount of taunts allows these units to sometimes create artificial bottlenecks in a more open map design, or at least some form of crowd control. there would have to be tweaks around it, but outside of a nerf to dodge tanks or just a buff to the unit statistics and movement wise, I don't see any other way of making them "viable" again
I think armors are fine for the moment they become available. Dodge tanking is more viable but that is farther into the game (with Sword Prowess 5 and Alert Stance requiring a lot of tutoring). You have to watch out for Poison Strike though.
I still think its better than Mortal Savant since at least Great Knight works for Gilbert even if its literally only good in one route, I cannot think of a good example who uses Mortal Savant well. Maybe I'm just being shortsighted but I don't believe there is a good user of Mortal Savant.
Wyvern Lords do Great Knight’s job, sometimes better and offers far more options. I don’t think there’s really a good way to make the Great Knight a viable player option.
liukangstoupee That’s basically just Gilbert. And even with Gilbert, I’d rather keep him as an adjutant. If I actually want him on the field, honestly I’d just solely tutor him in flying. You can get him to Wyvern Rider before the second chapter of the timeskip. I honestly see no point in ever going Great Knight. I did it with Sylvain and Dedue my first playthrough. I just changed Sylvain back into a Paladin because GK was so awful.
The class is incoherent in 3h for a few reasons: 3h allowing you to use all weapons. In previous games I think a selling point of great knight was that it expanded access to more weapons. Secondly weapon triangle being reduced to breaker skills makes it somewhat unlikely that you care about having 2 faires. Third defense tanking is a meme in 3h, except early on ironically, due to evade tanking and more importantly skills like impregnable wall. And speed often matters more than or as much as defensive stats for tanking anyways. Great Knight has never been great, despite the name, so there is no way to make it "great again," but they should consider giving it some other niche to make it more viable, such as +1 gambit use, or wary fighter so that while they will never double, they could at least avoid getting doubled. Anything to make the class stand out instead of copypasting aspects of other, better classes is sorely needed.
Not saying better. Fortress Knight is just an easier class to certify into. The extra benefits of Great Knight don’t make up for the extra work needed to qualify for it.
The biggest issue w/ this class is that it’s impossible to get to Just lowering the reqs to get to it would make it significantly better. If they want to keep the class difficult to master just jack up the stats to make it a true “ultimate” class for both paladins and Forretress Knights. Increase the modifiers for each stat to make it a direct upgrade to both classes.
Some of the skill level requirements on some classes is pretty ridiculous. Like for Wyvern Lord (correct me if I'm wrong) you need C in Lance, A in Axe AND A in riding? What if I'm not using lance and don't want to use lance? Should be C in Lance OR A in Axe with A in riding. That's a lot more reasonable to me imo. For Great Knight, I get the high skill level for heavy armor and riding cause that's what the class is at it's core. But the extra weapon skill requirement is a bummer. But I guess this is also what NG+ is for. Well played, creators.
I know it's hard to get into, but great knight is my favourite class in the series, and I still like it in 3h. Cyril is actually really good with both Armoured blow, and vengeance for massive damage, and using pbv for doubling. Also I wish this was a true mix between an Paladin and Fortress knight. Keep the lancefaire and make it so you need something like c lances and axes, and having b riding and armour.
The entire class system in 3 houses kinda sucks. Great Knight is supposed to be a hybrid between armor and calvary, but without master classes that serve as direct upgrades to paladin and fortress knight, great knight's role as a hybrid falls flat. Also, I think great knight should keep Lancefaire and not axefaire. There are only 2 other master classes with lancefaire, one is gender locked, and the other is Dimitri locked.
If you are a video gamer like me any class can work to your advantage all you have to do is feed some of your unit some fresh kills and work hard on tutoring them on the fields they need to improve on
For the classe requirement I would say B+ Axe, B+ Armor, B Riding. For the master classe It could be Rescue (not the rescue form Staff the rescue form old game where you carry someone else whit a penality to SPD or something) that would be nice. any way I think it would (tho I also think it could be a ability 4 if they wanted too) Any way I think rescue fit 100% the classe since it a horse unite is also a heavy armor unite it also the personal want of Ferdinand (because he like to protect ppl and help them it totally fit him too) Any way I think it fit the classe the and the 2 or 3 character that want it.
I'm currently on my third playthrough. First time I made a great knight. Now it's my ultimate character. Why haven't I done a great knight before? The only class who can't die on hard mode, if there's no mages (and there aren't that many anyway).
I'm not here saying that great knight is the best class or anything, in fact i think that in normal/hard is pretty much useless. But in maddening you can find some use thanks to his pv, defense and 7 movement. In my black eagles, base ng, maddening run i did Ferdinand a great knight from paladin, with A at lance for swift strike, because his speed was already too low while the defensive stats boosts were enough to make him a good tank.
Okay, I'm going to be the one defending great knight. The fortress knight obviously doesn't deal well with magic damage, but that just means you have to keep them away from mages. They other major weakness is mobility, which is harder to deal with. In maddening, I'm looking for a unit that can stand at the front and bait out fast physical enemies like flyers without getting killed. Putting all my defence boosting consumables on one great knight and just using them as my army's spearhead to lure enemies out of formation, turn after turn, on their own without needing backup, so all my other units can focus on one-shotting the enemies from last turn. Maybe not the best strat, but I beat maddening crimson rose on non new game plus with Ferdinand the unbreakable more-so than any other unit. That last fight would have been impossible without him acting as bait.
If this class is supposed to be a boost for Fortress Knights (since Paladin is a better option for Cavaliers), the Riding requirement should be low, about C+, since other master classes only require C+ in their tertiary skill. Also, the inherent skills of Great Knight and its mastery skill are pretty poor. You don't need both Axefaire and Lancefaire, and Defiant Defence is terrible. (I also never use Fortress Knights or even regular Knights outside of adjutants, there's no point in a tank after the early game)
I don’t know man. I made iggy a great knight as a joke in my azure moon and ain’t no physical unit could touch him. Hell it would take like 3 mages to take him down and if you pair him with a healer then he’ll be completely fine
This class is hard to sold to any given character for given role. For a cavalry, paladin has way better distribution of stats modifier and better growth rate, even 1 move. For a physical tank, Fotress Knight is easier to get, overall better growth rate and even more defense, which is critical. I distributed lots of resource to GK Sylvain in a NG+ play and even give him quick reposte. He can now catch up and made better use of its 5 HP stats bonus, but that definitly is not owing to GK. This class just need more love, as do Mortal Savant...
I say give Great Knight Pavise and Aegis for its innate abilities. It is a hefty investment getting the skills needed to get into the class. It is not too practical to get both abilities in the game and reclass into a Great Knight. This would make the grind less tedious and fit the class better in my opinion. The Great Knight is supposed to be a juggernaut that slams into the strongest enemies.
I like the great knight class but I do not like how it has been handled in it's appearances after Thraccia 776. Great Knight originally was basically a Fighter on Horseback so I do not like this change in direction for the Great Knight, if they wanted a mounted armor unit than come up with a new class for that don't redefine what Great Knight is. As such I really diagree with how it's been handed the only games that had something like great knight that I did like were Radiant Dawn and the Gold Knight class in Echoes those are the only exceptions that have handeld great knight well. I did like however the battle sprite of great knight in Sacred Stones I thought it had a great design just this massive, clydsdale of a horse and this giant on top. Great look! Great Knight originally was an axe cavalier I think they should keep that theme. Now I am not saying they should remove the current applications of great knight entirely just come up with a class that would be more appropriate for the mounted armor class maybe what they used in FE4 Binary the Iron Knight class. If it were up to me I would take Great Knight back to it's roots and have it be a mounted fighter type class with a proficency in axes, boosts in hp and attack, Give it the Vantage skill, maybe a crit bonus? Have it maintain it's high move, skill and speed are decent maybe not as high as say Paladin but still good with defense being a little higher. I would give them either Sol or Luna as a mastery skill this is all off the top of my head I should come up with something more concrete and flushed out but still that's roughly how I would do it. As awlays great video and excellent observations Adam. Keep doing what you're doing I'd love to see you cover all the classes in Three Houses including those that aren't bad maybe even cover classes in other Fire Emblem games and the Tear Ring and Berwick saga games. This is a cool series I'm really enjoying it.
@FED My someone is bashing great knight senses went off and i had to jump in. Great Knight is so Slept on. The Double Faire is great for Maddening, to offset breaker+ skills. Anybody in that chain of classes is going to get doubled and everyone gets wrecked by magic especially if doubled, so a lack of actual speed means very little. Yea Defiant def does suck but half of the game's mastered abilities are bad. 6 def to 10 def is pretty much the trade off for canto. Plus when it comes mentioning Stride you only really get 2 per map and there are most likely other units to move with it IE a dancer. To fix it change it's Mastered ability get rid of defiant def no one uses it, and boost the 6 def to 8 you kinda do need a bit of give to get canto. Ferd, sylvain, Hilda, even Ingrid before I Did a Maddening with her as a Magic unit Ran Great Knight Pretty well.
I wouldnt suggest it, mainly cause his best strengths is his stength and speed. Great Knight will definitely kill his Speed. But you can still try it, but I recommend next time to try Wyvern Lord or even War Master, Ferdie turns into a powerhouse
I made Ferdinand a Great Knight in one of my runs. I didn't like the results, I ended up not deploying Ferdinand as often and regretting not having made him a Wyvern Lord instead.
I managed to get Sylvain into Great Knight twice (CF and GD), mostly just because, that's his enemy class and I originally wanted a Cain and Abel thing with him and Ferdie. In both routes he was a little bit underperforming and I didn't even get him too GK in CF until the last few chapters of the game since I didn't realize you needed armor to be up for it to work (I had the same problem with FalconDetta but despite the sword weakness, I got her up faster than Sylvain). In BL though I did switch him to Dark Knight and he did a lot better even if he was not as tanky and just as slow.
Shame great knight is so terrible. I love great knights, it's always been one of my favorite classes in fire emblem. It's a shame that it's so damn bad
The great knight should've have luna as a mastery i don't get why it doesn't it is the worst master class currently in the game. Cause all the defiant skills are trash. I always liked the class but in 3h it sucks I'm sorry
There are just too many mount based units in the game really wish heavy knight tree evolved properly and didnt turn into another mount class really dislike it.
Let me guess he's gonna say "If you're going to bother learning two unit type skills you'd be better off going armour/flying or riding/flying so you can get Wyvern Lord because it's so good it makes literally every other physical master class utterly pointless"
They nerfed it because Frederick was eating souls as a great knight.
@Chris Lightnight mostly on lunatic +
As someone who loves medieval nobility, I'm a bit saddened by the Great Knight class.
The Great Knight class has always sucked in FE games. Always go Paladin class trust me.
ZackSNetwork only exception is Frederick
I misread this as "medieval mobility", but it still worked out.
@@ZackSNetwork Effie is best at great knight after getting wary fighter from General.
Paladin, bow knight and dark knight are the best horse units in the game
the only character that has no issue to get into this is Gilbert, and thats Gilbert.
Hahaha well said
Even Gilbert doesnt really want it since he can actually get into Wyvern Lord rather easily due to only needing to focus on flying.
You know a class is bad when not even Gilbert wants it.
Sylvain maybe?
Laughing At You he’s canonically a Great Knight despite his Dark Knight undertones
@@pn2294 And the fact DK is better in basically every way
The only good thing about Great Knight is that it has the highest HP mod if you wanted to mess around with Vengeance memes.
But it's Vengeance so that extra HP is just overkill.
And IIRC, Lancefaire means that Paladin still does more damage
The only good thing about Great Knight is the fact that Gwendal’s model is just a general plopped on a horse
There's something cosmically hilarious about Arden giving his opinion about an armored class.
When you change class from Paladin to Great Knight, the bst number turns red, which means GK actually has a lower base stat total than Paladin. While I do know that in 3H you would prefer specialists to generalists like paladin and lower bst doesn't necessarily mean it is bad, but a master class unit having less bst than an advanced class in the same promotion path is just ridiculous to me.
same. it's just dumb.
i mean GK is basically just a fortress knight on a horse
What is bst?
@@Kromeleon1Base stat total.
An interesting discussion to have.
I agree with the rank requirements for the class. For some reason, it's the only master class that requires three different ranks above B, whereas other flying or mounted master class have their lowest requirement set to C (usually in lances).
The skill Wary Fighter from Fates (prevents both attacker and defender from doubling) could be an interesting fit for them. With it they'd be better at surviving than Fortress Knights despite their lower defense and they wouldn't really lose anything because of the Great Knight's low speed.
Integrating the Luna skill from PoR and RD is a good idea. Maybe on top of getting Defiant Defense, they could get a Luna combat art when mastered.
Not to mention two of the requirements are movement skills which you can't grind out via combat interactions simultaneously.
I will say that Wary Fighter is a straight downgrade to Quick Riposte on enemy phase, which is when these tanky units can expect to see a lot of combat.
I like the double Faires tbh, not a lot of classes have that.
Yeah, it can be useful, but I feel like often most units will just be using one weapon type anyways (except for combat arts) although I have only used Great Knight once or twice, so I could be wrong
It's cool but without the weapon triangle, theres really not a reason to use multiple weapon types, only real incentive is if you're using Breaker skills.
@@chessplayer6632 Well tbf, aside from Smash, Axe Combat arts aren't usually very good so a backup weapon is nice to have, it expands your options.
If you aren't using both in some ways it is kind of wasted to go all the way there. Paladin/Wyvern Lord will do the "focus on one weapon" thing a lot better.
@@davidtarnawski9904 Every weapon has it's pros and cons so I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.
@@davidtarnawski9904 It's to Offset Enemy Breaker+ skills in Maddening
Idk bro I sent Claude through armor knight for a meme in hard mode and in the endgame he was deadass untouchable
Some of the experiences I hear of are amazing. Im planning on my current run to make Sylvain a mortal servant or something.
I also made Dedue into Great Knight and he was unstoppable against physical attackers
@@MrCalexv12 Manuela has a stronger strength than most mages by a Longshot and I have taken advantage of it and she's a mortal servant now and is just amazing
Have you guys tried warrior Mercedes?
I see, you people are trying the forbidden fruit...
I think a skill that lets the grant imprgnable wall on themselves as a sort of combat art would be a cool and useful class mastery skill.
I got Dedue to great knight.
There were literally 4 chapters before the game ended but still.
Totally worth seeing Dedue on a horse.
I feel like the class works really well with dedue but he’s like the only one I’d consider putting in that class. Makes him a high defense mobile vengeance spammer.
I found it easier to get Dedue to Wyvern Lord than Great Knight even with the weakness in flying.
You sacrifice some defense and better gambits for much better mobility. Honestly imo, fortress knights are better off as adjutants not on the battlefield. The gameplay is so much more favored towards player phase that a high defense tank isn’t typically a good unit. Also, I find dodge-tanking a far more reliable strat than regular tanking which makes units like Ingrid, F Byleth, Petra and Leonie as Falcon Knights with Alert Stance + and high avoid gambits much better at surviving on enemy phase than the Dedues and Gilberts.
Regular tanking has its place in the earlygame, however, particularly in Maddening where Dedue can get 12+ def at base, and soak 3-4 hits from enemy units, but midgame this doesn’t work as well, and you really just want to kill enemies on your own turn
I think the best great knights are Ferdinand or Sylvain, because they don't get penalized that much for the negative speed growths as they have swift strikes that works well with lance faire
Dedue has a bane in Riding though doesn't a he? Better just to make him a fortress knight
Fer Méndez Just go Paladin. You get lancefaire, more move, and you don’t waste tutoring heavy armor. If you’re gonna learn another movement type, just learn flying for Alert Stance (+)
@@NoNameTheFirst I think that Dedue is most effective as a War Master.
How I'd change the class is give it a much bigger strength stat like 4, and change the weapon requirement to be B in lance, axe, armor, and riding. I think it shouldn't just be an upgrade to Fortress Knight, but also to Paladin. As another thing that I think might be cool but might not work is to replace its two faires skills with a new ability that's increases attack with all three weapon types to reference how Great Knights could use all three in previous games. And maybe add a crit +10 or luna since there is an open slot.
I agree that this class is all kinds of messed up. It's so hard to get into and then they just die to magic like the fortress knight does. The movement is nice, but it doesn't make up for the fact that some characters have low accuracy or low speed. So you end up with a character that can move further into danger, but doesn't dodge a lot and hits hard only if it actually connects. With strategic planning and attention to the map and the enemies you come in contact with you can make this work, but it's not worth the effort.
Great Knight has to be the least used class in the game by far. I’d love to see the stats on that.
Great Knight, Holy Knight, And Mortal Savant, the three classes that I came into the game with huge expectations and look super cool, but are just ass. Great knight isn’t as much of a tank as it should be, Holy Knight isn’t a bishop on a horse, and mortal savant just sucks
Holy knight skills are fucking trash why not white magic x2 and +10 heal but no we got white magic fair bruh
I know holy knight is ass, but does white tomefaire make nosferatu tanking any more viable?
@@mars3725 not really, most units that want to go HK just don't have the health/def or speed to tank. And most you can have a res tank
@@kingjunabou4910 Also, who except Marianne has the stats and proficencies to become a Holy Knight?
Mysterium no one I think but it doesn’t matter that much
Getting into Great Knight requires you to climb a mountain... I put Cyril into Gk and the result was Ok but took forever.
Great Knight requires riding, but gives no riding experience while in use.
GK needs 3 str instead of 1. Why the hell is an armored unit with an armored horse as strong as a Falcoknight?
@liukangstoupee Units going into War Master are going to have high strength too, but they get +5.
Because GK job is to soak hits not dish it out? Still has 1 more strength than Fortress knight.
@@jonunciate7018
Play the older FE games, Great Knight packs good strength. This one screwed up on the stats department, and it is a fact
Your basically trading growths for a horse
Most master classes in a nutshell
@@mudjumper even non master classes. I'd argue being a 6 mov footie is better than riding a horse in 3H
@@mr.sellout6284 I agree, except for Wyvern Rider/Lord and Pegasus-Knight.
Nah dark flyer was excellent on any female mage. Had it on dorothea and it was great. I use armor classes if I need to patch a units defense. Everyone trashes on caspar. But if you take him through armor knight then into the wyvern classes hes ridiculous. Anybody on a flying unit is ridiculous.
@@nick3805 yes, that why I said Horse. Flying is meta in every FE and that goes double for 3H
For me I found that I was pretty underwhelmed with all of the class skills for advanced and especially master. Was hoping for more cool abilities to earn, but I lose all motivation to grind it out when I get high defense for my last 7 HP...
I think you're sugarcoating Fortress Knight's movement problems. Sure, there are ways around it that haven't been available in other games, but it's going to take resources to get it done.
Great Knight has a lower Strength boost than Paladin. Seriously!? That's just awful...
I’m making Constance one currently
👏
Actually a good idea since she is tbh underwheming, just a worse version of Lysithea with far less Dex and Spd for only getting slightly better HP, Str and Def and a little better spell list due her lomg range attacks.
@@nick3805 she's still a lot better in mage, just because Lysithea is better than her it doesn't make her worst, you can just use both.
N.I.C.K Im only making her a great knight cuz of the pink armor 🤣 not because she fairly good at it. It’s on maddening and I just have her tank. Lysithea does both their jobs already
N.I.C.K
Also she is free in every route, while Lysithea is not
people: Great Knight sucks
Great Knight Gilbert with Brave Axe and Brave Lance and Annette A support and strong battalion equipped: TO YOU!
I have this on Maddening, he only died in the final map because to be fair everyone in my run died there except Dimitri, Byleth, Ingrid, and Manuela.
I would like to see the Mastery ability change to a buff allies when hit skill. When hit in the enemy attack phase buff near by allies for a small might and an ok crit bonus in your next phase. A kind of inspire your allies with your stalward defense thing.
You're assessment of the great knight I totally agree with for Hard difficulty. But in my experience on maddening you need a really good tank, and everything doubles you unless you are a speed blessed assassin so the speed penalty can be ignored. Also, adding some movement to your fortress knight is really useful, you don't need stride for every map. But you have to plan for great knight from the start of the game, those requirements are crazy. I think Serene's forest is wrong on the stat boost too. I'm looking at the game right now and it says 8 for defense, not 6.
It says 6+2 due to you losing 2 defense from dismounting.
I totally called this in the mortal savant video 😂
*Insert Oblivion Horse Armor joke*
My second play through I used Ferdinand and I took him into Great Knight. He went from one of my best units into a useable unit, but not as good. Two chapters later or so he was back in paladin
Through a bunch of training i got Dedue into great knight with quick reposte to make up for that horrible speed, it took a long time to build this tho but it was totally worth it, he was an unstoppble force
I only realized after promoting Dedue that being a mounted class hindered his Gauntlet use.
WesNohathas yeah that kinda sucks buuut Dedue also has the vengeance combat art for lances which works really well on a great knight
How I’d fix Great Knight. Certification requirements(Two paths): B+ in Axe or Lance, B in Armor or Riding, C in the other. Luna as a mastery combat art only in the class(7 durability and star type), remove both Faires give it a unique skill(Like if attacking with “Weapon triangle advantage” +3 MT), and toss it -7(maybe 5) WT. It becomes a viable Paladin and Fortress Knight promotion with player phase focused strengths.
Hmm if I had to suggest class progression to get into great knight I would do: Commoner/Noble -> Fighter -> Brigand -> Cavalier -> Great Knight. Paladin is optional instead Cavalier if you want to train in lances that much but with all the resources you have to invest in the first place I think Cav is more convenient
I'd much rather have lances than axes on this class. Changing the primary weapon to lances also makes it fit in nicely for the units who seem to be headed that way: Ferdinand and Sylvain (their main advantage for me is swift strikes). I agree that the defiant skills were a disappointment; they seem better placed in earlier classes. You're working harder to master a class that gives you an inferior reward.
Ferdinand and Sylvain are better in paladin, it's a lot less investment and you get more move which helps then get in range to one round things. Granted my Sylvain got speed screwed in my maddening playthrough and a lot of things one rounded him so that may have helped him. But a guard adjacent helped a lot with that by focusing on riding I was able to get him mov +1.
@@twigz3214 I agree with the speed reduction and movement concern. That's especially important in fresh maddening playthroughs. It seems logical, though, for this class to lose some speed due to the armor. Maybe having a combined pavise and aegis skill built in to give you another slot would help make it more worth the investment?
Fun fact: Great Knight is the only Master Class that can be a Guard Adjutant, Gilbert.
Fun fact: If you're making them a dedicated guard adjutant , they don't need to be a master class. An Armored Knight or Brawler will work as well.
PS:Sorry If I sound offensive
I mean if you're using a unit as a guard adjutant it really doesn't matter what class they're in as long as it gives guard.
@@wronghouse5833 The fact that you're right makes me confused as to why the same treatment wasn't given to War Master.
@@kaelanmcalpine2011 Maybe because War Master was considered the ultimate offense class because of its +5 STR for class bases , dual faires and innate +20crit , they decided that it won't be guarding anytime soon.
Personally I like Lancefaire on Great Knight. It makes good final class for units with Swift Strikes. On Maddening speed is a lot less relevant, since you want to spam Double-hitting combat arts. And if you master Warmaster, Quick riposte makes speed a non-issue on Enemy phase.
Heavy knights and fortress knights are my favorite classes in the game. But I agree that great knights are terrible.
Honestly it's better than Armor Knight and Fortress knight, unless you're just using those for guard adjutants. 4 and 5 move is NOT enough to make any real impact on the battle field. The mild defense drop when switching from fortress knight to great knight isnt that big of an issue, since if you cant tank an enemy with great knight fortress knight probably wouldnt do much better. And it gets 7 move, not 5. Meaning it isnt stuck being sluggish and dragging down the rest of your team. Edelgard's given classes being basically just better versions of armor and fortress knights is why she is easily the worst lord. Dimitri gets to places quicker and hits harder in his base class and tanks decently well, and thanks to often times straight up just one shotting, he doesnt need to worry about taking minimum damage on enemy phase since the only things he isnt tanking are magic hits and hits that would probably do heavy damage to Edelgard anyways. Claude's given classes are flying. Need I say more? If a unit cant get to the battlefield without help (I.E warping, rescuing and using stride) then you have no need to deploy them, they are a liability, not an asset. I put Edelgard in great knight just to test if this theory would check out, and yeah, it does. Now instead of slouching around, she gets to places by herself, makes better use of the built in galeforce from her combat art, and has canto. To put it bluntly, if you're a fan of growths, yeah this class isnt for you. But if you realize the reliability it can have as a mobile tank, you should use it. It is not a bad class. It is a better class than fortress knight.
I think fortress knight still has 4 mov. I can't believe how bad it is
@@mars3725 yeah, it's just relegated to guard adjutant fodder tbh. Only use fortress knight if it's on their natural promotion path and I think it gives pavise apon mastery so theres also that, I know paladin gives Aegis, so mastering both of those could help with an extremely hard to kill great knight.
Edleguard does have the worst personal class but she does have the single most broken art in the entire game. Wyvern lord edleguard can go toe to toe with the other two lords ( those are limited to one kill per turn edleguard can use as many as she has durability to use her relic’s personal art)
Novel Incoming
So, Great Knight is obviously a very lacklustre class. The negative speed growth combined with the pretty high ride requirement means you have to invest very heavily into lectures and the weekly 'tasks' for horses to really improve the rank. Also, the lack of an upgrade on Paladin kinda sucks. Again like Mortal Savant, it'd like they tried to combine the Paladin upgrade and Armored knight upgrade into 1 class and failed.
I have 2 ways I'd improve the class. 1 way is to make it an actual upgrade on paladin while the other is to keep it in the same vein as a heavy armored mounted unit.
*WAY 1* - Upgrade on Paladin. Let's face it, there really isn't a clear upgrade on just the Paladin class. Most of the Master classes require riding yet no upgrade clearly on paladin? why? Here's my fix. Rename it from Great Knight into something like, I don't know, Joust Knight.
First I'd remove the Axe requirement altogether and replace it with an Authority requirement, Make Lance an A req, Ride an A, and Authority a B/B+. Then remove Axefaire, and give it the ability Pass instead. Change master ability from Defiant Def to Pavise for a chance to take less damage from physical units.
For Stat growths, I'd raise it and do 30 HP, 20 Strength, -10 Speed, 5 Luck, 5 Dex, 5 Defense, 5 Res, 5 Charm.
For stat boosts, I'd go 5 HP, 3 Strength, 3 Defense, 3 Res. This class would basically be your actual horseback knight. with the build I made it could still be fairly tanky, while also dealing some decent damage. It would be like a totally different class yes, but well, I think we'd all MUCH prefer an upgrade on paladin than a great knight 'fix'.
*WAY 2* - this would be the actual armored knight on a horse fix.
First off, as you mentioned, I'd lower the ride req to a C+, raise Axe to A. replace Lancefaire for an auto Weight -10 on the class. then change the Defiant Def master ability to something similar to Darting Blow, essentially increasing its attack speed during combat, so there's less of a chance to get doubled by magical units. AND then give it a mastered COMBAT ART where it gets to attack 2 times guaranteed, so that it CAN double, but at the cost of 4 uses of the axe per hit. so 8 total uses.
For stat growths I'd keep it the same except raise strength to +15 and raise Dexterity from 0 to 5.
For stat boosts when certifying into the class, I'd raise strength by 2, and increase dexterity by 1. Oh and raise the defense by 10 again just like Fortress knight.
I've put over 550 hrs into 3 Houses with different play through's and specific class runs. Great Knight I only ever had done 1 time in all my runs and that was in my 1st playthrough, and Great Knight always felt like such a letdown of a class.
Combining Aegis and Pavise? So you mean like an FE4 Great Shield where it just prevents all damage?
I have a question, In order to make the most of cerain characters I like to optimize builds, in this case that character is Sylvain (and Ferdie), as they have access to Swift Strike, thus I feel like the Lancefair skill from the class could help them a lot. Tho I am not sure if it's just better to stay Paladin or make them this class.
Paladin gives 2 Strength, if you plan on spamming Swift Strikes Paladin will be better compared to GK's 1 Str. It's also a lot easier reach meaning that you can focus on raising Lance to S+ for another Lancefaire or raising their Authority for better battalions.
A lot of people tend to stay in sniper for hunter's volley rather than go into Bow Knight. What are some ways the class could be worth switching to?
Speed Demons like Leonie have no problem going Bow Knight, and I’d honestly say it’s one of Leonie’s best classes besides Falcon Knight. Canto lets her snipe from four spaces away and GTFO, her high Dex and Hit +20 means she’ll generally have better accuracy from that distance than most other BKs save for maybe Ignatz (who actually does want Sniper more than BK because he really needs Hunters Volley to kill on Player Phase) and her proficiencies let her reach those Skill thresholds very easily. Defiant Speed is kinda whatever, but she’ll do really well in the class, especially if she goes the Paladin route for the better Strength at a very marginal Speed cost.
They need to improve BKs growth rates, they are totally underwhelming and unfit for the main archers Ashe, Ignatz and Bernadetta who already havent a overwhelmig growth at all to beginn with. The only boosts are +10% for HP, -5% for SPEED and +5% for CHARME. So I usually dont take the class because of that.
I would make the growth Boosts like that:
+10% HP
+10% STR
+15% DEX
+5% SPEED
+5% DEFENSE
-5% RESSISTENCE
Aditionally, I would give the class a new ability that makes the class better in combat besides speeding already fast caracters up.
N.I.C.K Growths aren’t particularly a big worry for Master classes since by the time you get there, your units are likely already decked out in good stats and skills and mostly just want whatever utility the class in question can let them offer. For that, Bow Knight growths are almost superfluous compared to the ridiculous Bow range, Canto, and the good stat modifiers. Who needs an extra 5% growth when most BKs are already going to be plenty fast by the time they get to the class? The best BKs in the game (Felix, Leonie, Bernadetta) will have a range of Speed growths between 45% to 55%, which are still quite good by this game’s standards.
Bow Knight is a good class. Not everyone wants it necessarily, just like not everyone absolutely wants Gremory, but it’s a way fucking better class than the meme lords Mortal Savant, Great Knight, or Holy Knight.
Poison Strike Ignatz is a monster as a Bow Knight. spamming Break Shot and the occasional Ward Arrow to give easy kills to anyone on the team. Leonie and Cyril can do Bow Knight as well thanks to PBV. Bernadetta can work but she'll more or less be an Encloser bot which isn't bad but it's not something that is going to be useful consistently.
Basically, it boils down to if you have a good Bow Combat Art to use.
@@cartooncritic7045 They are, but fall quickly behind in every stat but dex and speed. And even in speed Bernadetta is ... tbh, bad. She is in my 7th play at lvl 50 and has around 25 speed, even Dedue is faster. And lets just not talk about the poor stats Ashe, Ignatz and Bernadetta have in defensive (HP, Def, Res) and attacking stats (Str, Mag, Cha). Bernadetta additionally suffers from her poor luck stats.
Generally, I have a problem with amored classes in 3H. There are a few issues
Only 4 movement, Great Knight 7,
to much efforts needed to put in, especially for Dedue who loses a few months and is bad at riding.
Non-existent speed and ressistence growth making them an easy target for mages.
Generally poor growths in this class, Dedue does better as warrior or fistfighter as do Raphael and Balthus while Gilbert is tbh the wort unit in the game.
Abilities that dont make the classes really better, I only go into the first amor-class to get the +6 def if I start combat for fragile units sometimes
The good stats arent even good, my Dedue ended up dieing 3 times in the same level despite being lvl 37 beaten by sword masters due his not that good defense and non-existant speed. During level ups, usually only 2 stats increase, even with good units such as Bernadetta, Caspar or Ferdinand.
get dedue riding rank B+ in ONE run and you can just buy B+ in subsequent new game plus runs
They could have acted like a Great Knight is a Fortress Knight putting more armor on the horse so dismounting is sacrificing some defense for speed, but with the ability to be mounted. So speed would be -1 (-3), defense +4 (+6), and movement just +1. So going from the advanced class to the mastered gives you a less effective defensively knight when dismounted, but one that might not get doubled, and the option to be mounted to get rid of the Fortress Knight's movement penalty.
Truly a shame that GK is only master class with lancefair for males
paladin is a totally fine endgame class for some units. sylvain specifically
@@mars3725 Paladin also actually has better Growths, 1 more Move and Terrain resistance over axefaire
@@mars3725 Are you guys playing maddening?? 👀
I definitely think people sleep on great knight. Defense sorta has a soft cap when you think about it. A point where you're already taking 0 damage. Any def above that is pretty useless. Damage doesn't really work that way, which is why I don't think it's as important to min/max defense like str, mag, and spd.
Am I the only one who thinks Sylvain was built for Great Knight? Kinda funny when considering it’s bad so he does better elsewhere.
he definitely does better as a wyvern lord tbh
In my current re run of blue lions maddening I changed Gilbert into a paladin and he got so much more speed and he almost has as much speed as Annette, Annette having 23 speed at level 30
I tried the same, but unfortunatly I didnt have this Luck. My Gilbert is at Lvl 50 and has exactly 11 speed and is my weakest unit
I got extremely lucky and got Dedeu in as soon as I got him post timeskip and he completely slayed haha
I would have liked for them to have a combat art like Luna. I know that Warmaster has it's own Axe combat art so maybe having it's own Lance combat art would be cool
I ran Great Knight Edelgard and it wasn't awful because she hardly took damage and had canto, so she could hit an enemy and then hard block another. Smite canto is also nice.
What Fortress/Great Knights could have to better capitalize their strengths is the Echoes ability for Barrons that always weakens ranged attacks. Taking half magic damage to make up for their bad Res would be incredibly useful (although in Echoes I think it only applied to bows which isn't that great)
I made my Sylvain into one in the lategame. It was alright. Since he was already slow as a paladin, I figured that a great knight would be better. While he got doubled often, he was still useful with a brave weapon.
i suggest trying sylvain as a wyvern lord. in my run, he wasn't slow, he had a lot of strength, a lot of defense, and arrows just didn't do anything to him even though he was a flying unit.
I'd lower the Axe requirement, and maybe up the Lance requirement to compensate. I see Great Knight as the Master Class for both the Fortress Knight line and the Paladin line, but I almost never have my Paladins go into it because needing to take Riding and Armor lessons is already a lot, but on top of that they have to train up a whole new weapon class. Even if Great Knight was a strong Master class it'd be a lot to ask, but as is it's simply not worth the hassle.
Great Knight, it's kinda interesting, has dual faires, defiant defense is ddisappointing and I'd like something else like a combat art, Great knight's mostly an upgrade for the armored class I guess, if you are working towards both paladin and fortress knight, you are probably going to have those high requirements and if you master either you have either aegis or pavise...
As for weapon requirements if you are going to fortress knight, all you need is tutoring in riding I guess.
Great knight is the only guard adjutant in the master class line...
As for fixing it, It needs a class exclusive combat art, like you said luna or anything else that's pretty good and maybe more strength
I know supposedly Great Knight is bad but would this ability build make it pretty decent?
Great Knight
- Death Blow
- Axe Prowess 5
- Aegis
- Axefaire
- Axe Critical
I've played around with this idea in my head, as a way to make the great knight/fortress knight more viable WITHOUT severely nerfing dodge tanks (who tank better than the formerly mentioned units, because you can't hit them and mages don't destroy them); allow great knights/fortress knights to taunt enemies. When I think of what a great knight/fortress knight has classically been good at doing, it is controlling the map (if the map allows for it) via bottlenecks and whatnot; allowing for a (perhaps limited?) amount of taunts allows these units to sometimes create artificial bottlenecks in a more open map design, or at least some form of crowd control. there would have to be tweaks around it, but outside of a nerf to dodge tanks or just a buff to the unit statistics and movement wise, I don't see any other way of making them "viable" again
I think armors are fine for the moment they become available. Dodge tanking is more viable but that is farther into the game (with Sword Prowess 5 and Alert Stance requiring a lot of tutoring). You have to watch out for Poison Strike though.
Great Knight is for : Ferdinand and Sylvain.
I still think its better than Mortal Savant since at least Great Knight works for Gilbert even if its literally only good in one route, I cannot think of a good example who uses Mortal Savant well. Maybe I'm just being shortsighted but I don't believe there is a good user of Mortal Savant.
Wyvern Lords do Great Knight’s job, sometimes better and offers far more options. I don’t think there’s really a good way to make the Great Knight a viable player option.
liukangstoupee That’s basically just Gilbert. And even with Gilbert, I’d rather keep him as an adjutant. If I actually want him on the field, honestly I’d just solely tutor him in flying. You can get him to Wyvern Rider before the second chapter of the timeskip. I honestly see no point in ever going Great Knight. I did it with Sylvain and Dedue my first playthrough. I just changed Sylvain back into a Paladin because GK was so awful.
If only they could be as good as lex.
The class is incoherent in 3h for a few reasons: 3h allowing you to use all weapons. In previous games I think a selling point of great knight was that it expanded access to more weapons. Secondly weapon triangle being reduced to breaker skills makes it somewhat unlikely that you care about having 2 faires. Third defense tanking is a meme in 3h, except early on ironically, due to evade tanking and more importantly skills like impregnable wall. And speed often matters more than or as much as defensive stats for tanking anyways. Great Knight has never been great, despite the name, so there is no way to make it "great again," but they should consider giving it some other niche to make it more viable, such as +1 gambit use, or wary fighter so that while they will never double, they could at least avoid getting doubled. Anything to make the class stand out instead of copypasting aspects of other, better classes is sorely needed.
So you're saying +2 def is better than getting +3 mov and canto?
Not saying better. Fortress Knight is just an easier class to certify into. The extra benefits of Great Knight don’t make up for the extra work needed to qualify for it.
The biggest issue w/ this class is that it’s impossible to get to Just lowering the reqs to get to it would make it significantly better.
If they want to keep the class difficult to master just jack up the stats to make it a true “ultimate” class for both paladins and Forretress Knights. Increase the modifiers for each stat to make it a direct upgrade to both classes.
Some of the skill level requirements on some classes is pretty ridiculous. Like for Wyvern Lord (correct me if I'm wrong) you need C in Lance, A in Axe AND A in riding? What if I'm not using lance and don't want to use lance? Should be C in Lance OR A in Axe with A in riding. That's a lot more reasonable to me imo. For Great Knight, I get the high skill level for heavy armor and riding cause that's what the class is at it's core. But the extra weapon skill requirement is a bummer.
But I guess this is also what NG+ is for. Well played, creators.
Right, having a single high weapon requirement for a class that can utilize two weapon types just as well is ridiculous.
I know it's hard to get into, but great knight is my favourite class in the series, and I still like it in 3h. Cyril is actually really good with both Armoured blow, and vengeance for massive damage, and using pbv for doubling. Also I wish this was a true mix between an Paladin and Fortress knight. Keep the lancefaire and make it so you need something like c lances and axes, and having b riding and armour.
The entire class system in 3 houses kinda sucks. Great Knight is supposed to be a hybrid between armor and calvary, but without master classes that serve as direct upgrades to paladin and fortress knight, great knight's role as a hybrid falls flat. Also, I think great knight should keep Lancefaire and not axefaire. There are only 2 other master classes with lancefaire, one is gender locked, and the other is Dimitri locked.
If you are a video gamer like me any class can work to your advantage all you have to do is feed some of your unit some fresh kills and work hard on tutoring them on the fields they need to improve on
For the classe requirement I would say B+ Axe, B+ Armor, B Riding. For the master classe It could be Rescue (not the rescue form Staff the rescue form old game where you carry someone else whit a penality to SPD or something) that would be nice. any way I think it would (tho I also think it could be a ability 4 if they wanted too)
Any way I think rescue fit 100% the classe since it a horse unite is also a heavy armor unite it also the personal want of Ferdinand (because he like to protect ppl and help them it totally fit him too)
Any way I think it fit the classe the and the 2 or 3 character that want it.
I'm currently on my third playthrough. First time I made a great knight. Now it's my ultimate character. Why haven't I done a great knight before? The only class who can't die on hard mode, if there's no mages (and there aren't that many anyway).
I did a GK Ferdie in my last CF run just for fun and I had to reclass him back to Paladin for the final boss because the class was so bad :(
that's exactly what happened to me :(
They should bring back the older classes from the older games and overclassing.
I'm not here saying that great knight is the best class or anything, in fact i think that in normal/hard is pretty much useless. But in maddening you can find some use thanks to his pv, defense and 7 movement. In my black eagles, base ng, maddening run i did Ferdinand a great knight from paladin, with A at lance for swift strike, because his speed was already too low while the defensive stats boosts were enough to make him a good tank.
Okay, I'm going to be the one defending great knight.
The fortress knight obviously doesn't deal well with magic damage, but that just means you have to keep them away from mages. They other major weakness is mobility, which is harder to deal with. In maddening, I'm looking for a unit that can stand at the front and bait out fast physical enemies like flyers without getting killed. Putting all my defence boosting consumables on one great knight and just using them as my army's spearhead to lure enemies out of formation, turn after turn, on their own without needing backup, so all my other units can focus on one-shotting the enemies from last turn.
Maybe not the best strat, but I beat maddening crimson rose on non new game plus with Ferdinand the unbreakable more-so than any other unit. That last fight would have been impossible without him acting as bait.
If this class is supposed to be a boost for Fortress Knights (since Paladin is a better option for Cavaliers), the Riding requirement should be low, about C+, since other master classes only require C+ in their tertiary skill.
Also, the inherent skills of Great Knight and its mastery skill are pretty poor. You don't need both Axefaire and Lancefaire, and Defiant Defence is terrible.
(I also never use Fortress Knights or even regular Knights outside of adjutants, there's no point in a tank after the early game)
I don’t know man. I made iggy a great knight as a joke in my azure moon and ain’t no physical unit could touch him. Hell it would take like 3 mages to take him down and if you pair him with a healer then he’ll be completely fine
This class is hard to sold to any given character for given role. For a cavalry, paladin has way better distribution of stats modifier and better growth rate, even 1 move. For a physical tank, Fotress Knight is easier to get, overall better growth rate and even more defense, which is critical.
I distributed lots of resource to GK Sylvain in a NG+ play and even give him quick reposte. He can now catch up and made better use of its 5 HP stats bonus, but that definitly is not owing to GK. This class just need more love, as do Mortal Savant...
I say give Great Knight Pavise and Aegis for its innate abilities. It is a hefty investment getting the skills needed to get into the class. It is not too practical to get both abilities in the game and reclass into a Great Knight. This would make the grind less tedious and fit the class better in my opinion. The Great Knight is supposed to be a juggernaut that slams into the strongest enemies.
I like the great knight class but I do not like how it has been handled in it's appearances after Thraccia 776. Great Knight originally was basically a Fighter on Horseback so I do not like this change in direction for the Great Knight, if they wanted a mounted armor unit than come up with a new class for that don't redefine what Great Knight is. As such I really diagree with how it's been handed the only games that had something like great knight that I did like were Radiant Dawn and the Gold Knight class in Echoes those are the only exceptions that have handeld great knight well. I did like however the battle sprite of great knight in Sacred Stones I thought it had a great design just this massive, clydsdale of a horse and this giant on top. Great look! Great Knight originally was an axe cavalier I think they should keep that theme. Now I am not saying they should remove the current applications of great knight entirely just come up with a class that would be more appropriate for the mounted armor class maybe what they used in FE4 Binary the Iron Knight class. If it were up to me I would take Great Knight back to it's roots and have it be a mounted fighter type class with a proficency in axes, boosts in hp and attack, Give it the Vantage skill, maybe a crit bonus? Have it maintain it's high move, skill and speed are decent maybe not as high as say Paladin but still good with defense being a little higher. I would give them either Sol or Luna as a mastery skill this is all off the top of my head I should come up with something more concrete and flushed out but still that's roughly how I would do it. As awlays great video and excellent observations Adam. Keep doing what you're doing I'd love to see you cover all the classes in Three Houses including those that aren't bad maybe even cover classes in other Fire Emblem games and the Tear Ring and Berwick saga games. This is a cool series I'm really enjoying it.
@FED My someone is bashing great knight senses went off and i had to jump in. Great Knight is so Slept on. The Double Faire is great for Maddening, to offset breaker+ skills. Anybody in that chain of classes is going to get doubled and everyone gets wrecked by magic especially if doubled, so a lack of actual speed means very little. Yea Defiant def does suck but half of the game's mastered abilities are bad. 6 def to 10 def is pretty much the trade off for canto. Plus when it comes mentioning Stride you only really get 2 per map and there are most likely other units to move with it IE a dancer. To fix it change it's Mastered ability get rid of defiant def no one uses it, and boost the 6 def to 8 you kinda do need a bit of give to get canto. Ferd, sylvain, Hilda, even Ingrid before I Did a Maddening with her as a Magic unit Ran Great Knight Pretty well.
I still have not beat three houses but I'm making ferdi a great knight
I wouldnt suggest it, mainly cause his best strengths is his stength and speed. Great Knight will definitely kill his Speed. But you can still try it, but I recommend next time to try Wyvern Lord or even War Master, Ferdie turns into a powerhouse
@@yansantiago8309 but he seems like an overachiever so great knight it is
I made Ferdinand a Great Knight in one of my runs. I didn't like the results, I ended up not deploying Ferdinand as often and regretting not having made him a Wyvern Lord instead.
@@swhawk well considering I bought day one and still haven't beaten it I might change my mind in a few months before I beat it
@liukangstoupee Gilbert comes with stats that basically pass the certification already
Great Knight with Quick Riposte is not bad.
I managed to get Sylvain into Great Knight twice (CF and GD), mostly just because, that's his enemy class and I originally wanted a Cain and Abel thing with him and Ferdie. In both routes he was a little bit underperforming and I didn't even get him too GK in CF until the last few chapters of the game since I didn't realize you needed armor to be up for it to work (I had the same problem with FalconDetta but despite the sword weakness, I got her up faster than Sylvain). In BL though I did switch him to Dark Knight and he did a lot better even if he was not as tanky and just as slow.
Great knight is awsome for defense stacking.
Gilbert is the only great Knight I had.
COLONY 9 MUSIC
The only thing I disagree with is taking away lancefaire. It’s the only master class that has Lancefaire available, that’s not gender locked.
Shame great knight is so terrible.
I love great knights, it's always been one of my favorite classes in fire emblem.
It's a shame that it's so damn bad
A Great Knight is literally just a worse Paladin. Really you only want to use the class if you want to give an armor unit higher Move and Canto.
you only say all of this cuz you dont know our lady and saviour Mercedes von Martritz the Great Knight!
imagine putting a dedicated healer in a class that cant use magic
@@whimsicalchronicles8798 Swordmaster Lysithea
Aside from making Ingrid my falcon knight in all routes, I never use any master classes since they are all low-key ass 😂
Dark Knight, Wyvern Lord and War Master want to know your location
The great knight should've have luna as a mastery i don't get why it doesn't it is the worst master class currently in the game. Cause all the defiant skills are trash. I always liked the class but in 3h it sucks I'm sorry
There are just too many mount based units in the game really wish heavy knight tree evolved properly and didnt turn into another mount class really dislike it.
Correct, Heavy Armor is the most worthless stat in the game and can be ignored.
great knight?
more like lame knight
am i right XD
Tomatoes ready to throw
Great Knight animations are absolute hot garbage in this game. (Crit animations for swords and axes while mounted)
It is bad but I personally dislike mortal savant more
Let me guess he's gonna say "If you're going to bother learning two unit type skills you'd be better off going armour/flying or riding/flying so you can get Wyvern Lord because it's so good it makes literally every other physical master class utterly pointless"
Great Knight doesn't seem all that great.
Great knights are decent adjutants..... I guess lol they're trash
But fortresses knight also sucks