Faith just needs more offensive spells in general. There's no "go-to" spell for it like Fire/Thunder/etc. Nosferatu is supposed to be that, but it's weight makes it very unwieldly for that purpose...
The thing I hate about holy knight is that it gives no incentive for someone like linhardt and Mercedes to go into it. They have no offensive white magic spells and all it does is hurt their healing
It really needed white magic x2 instead of the terrain based skill. White tome faire + white magic use x2 would have made it worthwhile over bishop. Or else give it healing + 15
Yeah, but where actual gameplay is concerned, promoting her from Bishop to Holy Knight just cripples her healing so much. The only good thing that comes from that is higher Mov, and honestly, if that's what you're going for, Gremory is the better option.
Actually I really like Lysithea as a holy knight (altho she's clearly much better with dark magic classes but that's obvious) just because she has not only Nosferatu but also the anti monster attack and the aura-like spell. I think that's one of the rare cases where White Tomefair is actually kind of interesting, when you can have a genuine use of it.
Who was designing this and thought “yeah this is on the same level as Wyvern Lord” Edit: honestly why not swap out white tomefaire for lancefaire? Then it can be a viable promotion for paladin and magic users get their frozen lance powered up, which is a much better attack than white magic anyway.
It's because greath knight was supposed to be the last class for physical Cavs while Holy knight was supposed to be the mounted version of magical units. Is like IS doesn't even know what's good or what's balanced.
Honestly I think that's a pretty bad idea because most paladin don't want to waste time learning faith. Sylvain or Ferdinand would rather just stay paladin if it already gives Lance faire.
@@Greideren It's really jarring that Great Knight, the only master class with Lancefair, doesn't use lance skill for certification. While it would be a viable sidegrade for Paladins, the required Axe and Heavy Armor investment makes it way too hard to get into for it to be worthwhile. That only leaves Fortress Knights to pursue the class, who will still struggle to get their riding skill high enough because the best tank units in the game have riding weakness. Great Knight isn't a bad class, but accessibility is a huge issue for it.
If I was being honest, do not have lance rank or lancefaire. Have Sword rank requirement and Sword Faire because you can use a Levin Sword that use Magic within both player and enemy phase. Holy Knight shines for Marianne (but not her best class) and maybe Ingrid (Seraphim). But White Magic for Offensive purposes are lackluster but the potential is for Canto. But that crosses into Mortal Savant in terms of Uniqueness and just another sword orientated class. But another problem is just the DLC classes now also outshine Dark Knight and Holy Knight.
Alright, I’ve been waiting for this video. I’m almost done with an all Holy Knight CF run (hard/classic/NG+), here are some of my thoughts. 1. Why would I do this? Taking down the church with a squad of “Holy” knights seemed funny to me (also, unicorn armor) 2. It can be difficult to get all the ranks you need up. Riding, Lance, and faith of course, but also authority. And reason is pretty much a must for any holy knight as you probably won’t be putting physical classes into. This means you won’t be getting any single rank too high, hindering the units potential. 3. Faith magic is somewhat lacking. Except for some cases, most units have a bad faith list. In addition, Holy Knight treats faith as though it is offensive (white tome faire), even though there are only 4 combat faith spells and a unit is lucky to get 2 of them (I can only think of 1 unity with 3, Lysithea, there might be more though). 4. None of the abilities are very great. Canto is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but nearly every master class has it. White tome faire (talked about earlier) should boost non offensive white magic (higher heals/range), it would be way better. Terrain resistance doesn’t come into effect most of the time, although it can be nice on something like CF or VW endgame. Defiant res is just awful. Why would anyone use this? A note about white tome faire, I actually thought this would be a lot worse than it is, it is still bad, but a faire is still a faire. White magic offense is hard to come by (except nosferatu) but the spells are fairly strong. 5. Almost no reason to go into this when you can have gremory , dark knight, or bishop. Gremory and bishop are better at support while dark knight has the better offense with the same mobility. 6. The res is pretty good, I’ve got virtually no problem with mages in my run 7. There are already 2 other mounted magic classes (Dark Knight, Valkyrie) 8. Some ways to improve the class A. Make it a more supportive class: Change white tome faire as I said above, maybe give it white magic uses x2, it could even have something like heal +10 B. Make white magic more offensive and improve everyone’s white spell list: I could see them doing something where reason magic is all about damage and faith has bonus effects (like nosferatu/seraphim), you could include things from other games like freeze, enfeeble, etc. have some of the attacks debuff enemies or strength the user or nearby allies C. Lean more into the physical side of the class: lower the riding rank and raise the lance rank, give it lance range +1, I saw a similar idea on the mortal savant video and thought it would be pretty unique. This might stray too far from the original idea of the class, but it would still be very cool and useful. Also maybe make magic lances easier to get. D. Better class mastery: I’m thinking some kind of powerful magic lance combat art Here are some other ideas I have for more magic spells: Siphon: a more powerful/heavy nosferatu Transfer: move any unit in range to any space in range (range 3) Blink (can’t think of a good name): similar to warp but moves user, smaller range Embolden: a long range rally, smaller stat boost than rally to keep rallies good Can’t think of name: An attack you raises a stat (maybe str, spd, etc.) of all allies within 4 spaces Can’t think of name: An attack that slightly heals all allies within 4 spaces Sorry if there are any typo’s, trying to finish this comment quick EDIT: I’ve watched the video now and I see that you agree with lots that I said 😊, I also think renewal would be a super cool class ability, giving the class a unique identity tl;dr holy knight is pretty bad, skills need a buff and units need better faith magic across the board
I didn't take it this far but I did just like make my Byleth a holy knight for the CF run for the same idea that it's funny to me to take down the church like that lol
Blink reminds of a fe5 staff, I don't remember the name tho and I think it's enemy exclusive but it had a similar effect, it could have the same effect. And the skill to make rallys better would make this a great class for Annette with all her rallies, tho I would be hard to justify it taking even another skill slot when all those rallys already use some
@Dysdaimonia Enlightened one is a free promotion that doesn't need Byleth to have any weapon ranks so it saves you from training him/her on faith magic. Holy Knight in the other hand has a horse but for Byleth I would recommend a good physical class like wyvern Knight
This. It should literally just be Paladin with the benefit being you can use magic. Swap the requirements around so it needs just C in faith and A in lances
Honestly that’s already kinda great knight. Just it doesn’t necessarily seem like it. One person said just turn it into paladin with magic but that’s dark knight. I think the way to change it is to keep the healing concept with just more reason to go into it. Give Holy Knight some really good exclusive faith magic. This might be a little busted but give it a spell that deals as much as you heal using regular heal or something. Cuz right now there’s no offensive reason to go into this class and healing is good but you might as well stay in bishop or go into gremory. Then holy knight would be at least I pretty good with that. Just give something to Holy Knight that no other healing class can bring
i basically just use holy knights as paladins that can use healing spells. Also because most enemy units have high defense but really terrible resistance you can often do more damage with magic then with weapons. Often the difference between your high strength and their high defense is smaller then your terrible magic and their much worse resistance. also magic ignores terrain bonuses so you'll actually be able to hit enemies on forest and stronghold tiles. The basic tomes like fire and thunder are much lighter then javelins and handaxes which lets your units attack from 1-2 range without taking as much of a penalty to AS.
Now that I think about it, a big reason holy knight falls flat is the lack of good White magic offensive spells, so maybe replace defiant res/terrain res with a solid unique spell. Mage and Dark mage give you fire and miasma as an ability already. Just bake a decent combat spell into the Holy knight class
First time I got Flayn, I noticed she already had a pretty decent lance rank so I was like “Oh yeah, the Holy Knight HAS to be perfect for her!” Oh boy was I wrong...
She also had pretty decent flying so i'm pretty sure they wanted us to take her down either the priest or Pegasus knight line. And then we got dark flier from ashen wolves which perfectly mixes her skill sets.
I mean, you're not wrong per se. Flayn makes for an alright Holy Knight. I wouldn't recommend it, but that's not Flayn's fault but a fault with the class itself. As far as Holy Knights go, if you really gotta have one, you could do worse than Flayn. That said, I usually take her down the Dark Knight path. Or, on occasion, I make her a dancer. Whatever lets me use black magic with some other utility on top, really. Flayn has a pretty good black magic spell list and makes for a more fun offensive unit than she does a healer. Mercedes is almost always my go to healer, because her passive allows you to position her much more aggressively than other healers.
I have said this before but will just say it again: Who can go into holy knights generally? The healers What edge does holy knight provide for a healer? Nothing There also the utility faith magic users ie the warpers and holy knight provide nothing for them too. Unlike great knight which provide much needed movement for armored unit, and mortal savant which provides magic for generally strength lacking sword users (easier time against high defense units), holy knight doesn’t even provide anything useful for faith magic users IN THEORY, let alone in actuality. It doesn’t help that dark knight exist too just in case people want magic horse units without dlc. Holy knight is like the worst unit, on paper at least.
Holy knight gives two extra move and canto over gremory, there are also units who lack a reasoning proficency such as Marianne, who has proficencies in both riding and lance which makes it easier to get into holy knight. There is a niche build for Byleth since he has a high strength growth he can often weild nosforatu without being slowed down, using white magice avoid + 20, faith proficency, speed + 2, Movement + 1, white magic range + 1 allows him to nuke units with aura from a massive range, or tank with nosforeatu.
Easier to get into Holy Knight than dark knight is about the only thing Holy Knight over dark knight. All other things you said is achievable as a dark knight. That’s just sad really.
@@broreece All magic units should train reason simultaneously tho. Marianne even learns Thoron which is better than her white magic spell list (I think she learns aura late game).
@@l.n.3372 Marianne has a better Thoron in Levyn Sword+. The only reason(pun unintended) i would ever give her black magic is to qualify for a meme MS build that would still use mostly magic swords and arts. I think that HK would be a good options if a character got both Seraphim and either Aura of Abraxas, while also having a "normal" reason list. Lysithea has both, but has also Luna and Dark spike, so...
Change White tomefaire to White Magic x2, and you’ve made Holy Knight decent enough to be a considered mastery class. Canto + High Mov on a healer is quite useful. While not as offensively-oriented as the Dark Knight or Gremory, the Holy Knight adopts some attributes of both that make it a very good support unit. Of course you can definitely make other changes to make it an actual upgrade to the paladin class (increased strength, speed and/or lancefaire) or decrease certification requirements. But if we’re trying to get it from outclassed to useful, White Magic x2 is the simplest change it needs.
My problem with Holy Knight is that all the classes leading up to it are support/utility classes, but they seemed so intent on making all master classes pure offense that they take away the useful parts of most bishops and try to turn them into attackers. That said, I totally agree with your skill choices. It makes the HK seem so much more like the heroic support unit it feels like it's meant to be.
IMO can be viable from a unit that use Paladin as their final class but have some good Faith spells. Someone like Bernadetta who gets Physic and Rescue or Leonie who gets Physic and Restore. Raising their Reason level won't do much (Bernie can get up to C for Thoron then forget about it). Dark Knight would be too much investment so to use these spells they can have a relatively easy access to Holy Knight instead. They'll lose Lancefaire, 1 move and the slightly better stats of Paladin but if you think these spells could help on a map it can be worth it. Remember that you can go back to Paladin anytime if you want to focus on damage, Holy Knight would be an extra option to switch between.
I really like your suggested changes to master classes so far, they're all pretty reasonable but would make the classes in question so much more appealing
Honestly just replace terrain resistance and white tomefaire with the other two abilities from bishop of white magic heal + 10 and white magic uses x2 Edit: lol thats what you already said
I have my own thoughts on what to do with Holy Knight. Your suggestions would make Holy Knight a great healer, but I would prefer if the Holy Knight was more of a fighter. I like the idea of taking away Terrain Resistance. Instead, I would prefer a new skill, Seraphim. Basically, it gives the user the Seraphim spell if the person does not have the ability naturally. If they do, then they get double the uses out of Seraphim. This turns the Holy Knight into a mage monster killer class.
The way I'd fix it is make it be a straight upgrade of Paladin. Stat mods: Same as Paladin but with +2 Mag and +2 more Res added to it. Abilities: Swap White Tomefaire for Lancefaire Swap requirements to need A in Lances, B+ in riding, and C in Faith. Basically turn it into a physical calvary class that can use utility white magic
Mastery ability idea: Similar to special dance, when you use white magic on an ally unit, they get a small def/res boost for one turn. Could make for some really interesting warp/fortify/physic strats
Your Magic/Speed tradeoff idea sounds a little too extreme, all things considered. I think 1(+2) and 1(-2) would be just fine for such an idea. Likewise I think turning Holy Knight into just "Bishop on a horse" completely re-writes the identity of the class. I'd keep the White Tomefaire, but also replace Terrain Resistance with White Magic Uses x2, turning it into something like a Warlock but for light magic and on a horse. Much more unique. Also make Terrain Resistance the Mastered Ability because why not.
Again, White Magic x2 would essentially eliminate any reason to stay in Bishop. I think Terrain Resistance should be replaced with "Rescue" as a skill (where any character now can use Rescue spells, and anyone who already had it would get double the uses). I think this would fit it much better thematically and make it an interesting but not OP alternative to Bishop and to Dark Knight.
design white tomefaire to work with healing so it boosts heal rate by 5 as well, then replace terrain resistance with white tome range+2 (like a faith version of the bow knight. 3 range recover actually sounds fairly helpful) bishops still has faithx2 and heal+10 so it still isn't just a stepping stone, but Holy knight now is able to fufill a niche role.
I think it would be cool if it had a mechanic where it would add more to your healing the more spaces you moved. Base would be +5 to healing spell then add (spaces moved x2) for a max of +21 to a heal spell. It could be called “Savior” or something like that
I'm sure I'm overlooking, but I genuinely can't think of a reason to have Subdue. Why would you want to keep an enemy alive in 3 Houses? I also don't get why it focuses on swords. It should have been either a Byleth class if it is staying as is, or it should have been split into three unique classes of Axe, Bow, and Lance Lord for the relevant characters. Res +2 is kinda silly but it has to come up somewhere so whatever. As it is, it feels kinda half baked. I wished they'd focused in more on a unit that leans into authority. Aesthetically it's pretty dope though.
It honestly seems like an unfinished idea that they just left in there from an earlier phase of development. It doesn’t even make sense for 2/3 of the characters who can access it.
Scanny524 Res+2 might make sense since magical damage is the achilles heel of all three lords, though you are right that it doesn’t beat other skills like hit+20 and death blow. I feel like Lord is designed to help other units that aren’t as strong as the Lord character. Subdue can make it easier to feed XP to allies, while it also has Hilda and Seteth’s personal skills combined
@@jmagicd9831 Oh yeah I forgot about Charm lol. That just makes me think more and more that Lord is best suited to be a Byleth-unique class that precedes Enlightened One. It works for them a lot better than the other Lords: Sword, Authority, Charm is like EO's mastery skill (Sacred Power I think?). I mean I suppose EXP assistance is the reason for Subdue, which kinda makes sense considering the lords have boosted EXP already so they can help others. I've just literally never felt like that was necessary ever.
@@Scanny524 the only reason I could think for subdue to be in the game would be if they brought back the prisoner mechanic from fates. They probably just couldn't figure out how to implement it properly. As for the class itself, it makes sense that it's exclusive to the house leaders because they're the Lords of their respective territories. And as part of the ruling class they would be expected to learn sword play as part of noble tradition. There's also the fact that they admire Byleth so they would want to learn the sword anyway to become more like the teacher they respect and look up to. And they all benefit from learning swords in some way. In silver snow and verdant wind, Edelgard is seen using the Sword of Seiros in cut scenes, Dimitri's unique classes excel in swords, and Claude obtains a legendary sword in one of his paralogues.
A really cool ability that could be changed is to make all healing and support magic would have higher range this would be based of the the spell for example warp and heal would only have 1 plus range but spells like rescue and pysic would have plus 3-4.
Great fixes. I feel like the mounted/dismounted stat boost mechanic would need to be explained better by the game itself for it to work well though. The game as far as I know doesn't really address mounted/dismounted stat effects beyond the obvious movement change. I'd also consider giving them white tomefare anyway because it barely does anything anyway, but if we are strictly sticking with the 3 ability limit I'd keep that one off.
My first thought was change skills to white magic uses x 2 and heal, but it would also be interesting if they kept white tomefaire and canto and added a skill where you can use Like abraxas or aura when your in the class and it doubles the uses if you already have the spell (similar to fire on mages or miasma on dark mage) and gave white magic uses x 2 upon mastery. This would make it so that you could actually take advantage of offensive white magic without making it a totally broken class.
7:44 The only time I can ever think of a unit in any Dismount game where you'd want them to dismount and mount constantly would be Orphelia in Vestaria Saga Gaiden. Her whole gimmick is she's a normal eagle knight (AKA Pegasus knight but used a different name for copyright), but when she dismounts, she turns into a Princess, which is a class able to use staves. This makes her into the only flier who's also able to use staves, but she has to dismount to do so, which means she'll have a few turns stuck dismounted if you want to heal someone in an otherwise inconvient to reach location for any other healer.
I believe Terrain Resistance also negates movement penalties of terrain, which is actually pretty good for mounted classes. To fix the class I would take out the dex, defense and speed bonus and dump them into strength and resistance. Essentially turn the class into a mage-tank version of great knight. As for skills, I would give them white magic uses x2 and heal +10
Would be cool if HK got a mastery lance combat art that is like a weaker version of Frozen Lance, but can be used in the same turn after casting White Magic (or maybe restrict it to non-offensive White Magic only). Or they could've gone with a more "protector" kind of theme and added something like standing next to a unit grants that unit Guard Adjutant effect where the HK can step in to block enemy's follow-up attack.
Those were just called Paladin. Female Paladins in Genealogy and Thracia 776 were promotions of Troubadour and could use Staffs in addition to Swords and Lances (Female Paladins have a lower Lance rank in exchange for Staff usage). In Thracia, they actually swap Lances for Staffs instead.
@@89ji76 You can nerf wyvern indirectly by just buffing everything else. Kinda like in smash, sometimes buffs are better than nerf. Wyvern is strong mainly because cavalry are underwhelming growth wise and infantry lack movement. Flying has good growths, high movement, no disadvantage with dismounting either. But if you buff everything else then wyvern and flying in general isn't as busted. My recommendation is take away the speed nerf for all cavalry, give cavalry better growths (bow knight gives like charm and HP it's ridiculous), and give every infantry class at least 6 movement plus better infantry master class options
I think making Holy Knight a direct upgrade to bishop kinda ruins the point of the Master Class Tier. Each of them except Wyvern Lord, has Ranks and stats that tie them to two or more classes from the Advance Tier. Grappler + Warrior = War Master. Warlock + Bishop = Gremory. And for Holy Knight, it seems to be Paladin + Bishop. 3H kinda pushes you use multiple classes and switch between them. Just look at Abyss Mode, where each character has two different classes they can be that shake up how you play. Now, a lot of Master Tiers are Paladin + something else which is a tad boring, but it makes the most sense for Holy Knight. I feel like the Master Tier should encompass what makes it's Advance Tier counterparts unique, consolidate it, and in the process lose some of those quirks to keep the Advance Tiers viable. I don't think just because HK is a tier up that it has to be the end all be all best healer class. If I did Holy Knight, I would try to keep the Idea of a Healer (The Bishop part), but can also deal some damage and have great movement (The Paladin bit). Somthing like an inate Seraphim spell, like what Mage does with Fire, would make it stand out, along with a Canto and maybe switch out White Tomefaire for Whit Magic Range +1, making you choose between Maximizing Healing support or going for extra range, moving out of combat, and some extra firepower.
Maybe a more interesting idea for the second ability is white magic range +2. That includes offensive spells and support. You can heal from 3 tiles away. It would further their mobility and give them a pro and a con over the bishop. The bishop can heal slightly faster but the holy knight can do so safer and the additional range give them more offensive options too.
At first I was a little concerned with your holy knight changes might just overshadow bishop since the original purpose of bishop vs holy knight is better healing vs better movement for white magic support. But as a whole I am intrigued by the idea of a direct upgrade from bishop to holy knight. I also think that they could have use either more offensive white magic (like maybe 1 or 2 spells) or perhaps make nosferatu a little stronger. A side tangent, I do miss the other abilities like Luna and Sol. I know technically Sol is in the game but that is only when crest effects trigger in battle but I think they should have brought those back
@@catfish8716 that would have added more layers to those classes for sure. Though Hero does have defiant strength so this would also clash with the concept as far as three houses are concerned. But it would be nice to use Sol as an alternative in case you, the player would rather feel safer gaining HP back rather than risking a potential dead unit. Luna for Great Knight would allow them to make up for their otherwise lack of damage since their strength modifier isn’t great to begin with. Astra got gutted this time around and really needs a overhaul
I’ve been saying since the game came out that I think this class is underrated. It’s by no means great, but simply having a high move staffbot is all that’s necessary in my book. I’ve played through the game 4 times now and I only struggled with getting (x white magic user) to the class requirements on my first play through when I didn’t even know the class existed (take with grain of salt, this was just my personal experience). I think that the requirements are too strict, and the skills aren’t that good, but the mount is all that is needed. I think if white magic users had an unmounted alternative class there would be less hate towards this class. As always, great video. Always good to spark some community discussion
I think you made a really good point when you talked about the abilities and went into lysithea, linhardt and others. The lack of white magic uses x2 on holy knight crippled it in comparison to bishop/Gremory and is the biggest reason why I find the class so disappointing and niche. Marianne is my favorite holy knight and it always, always sucks to have minimal aura, physic and silence uses. Really really great stuff on this video. Ps the stat changes w dismounting and stuff would be dope as hell
Also does anyone know why there is such a weird disparity between master and advanced classes? It almost seems like they lean you towards master but don’t give you enough to tip you over from advanced in some cases (ex bishop -> HK wout magic usesx2, or SM-> MS without good speed)
So then what class would you recommend for your dedicated healers? Gremory perhaps? Or just make them a Dark Knight to increase their damage capability?
holy knight is fine as is. it gives your healers extra movement and canto both of which are overpowered. It also lets your physical units use support magic like physic, restore, and ward. Holy knight will also raise your physical units base resistance letting you fix the poor resistance of units like Raph and Ferdinand. Most enemy units have really good defense but really bad resistance. however the difference between your terrible magic and their terrible resistance is often larger then your strength and their defense. magic isn't affected by terrain so being able to cast magic will help your physical units kill enemies on forest and strongholds. The basic tomes like thunder and fire are very light which lets your physical units fight from 1-2 range without taking the AS hit a javelin or hand axe would give them. I generally use dark knight over holy knight as most units get better offensive black magic then white magic and terrain resistance is only useful on a very limited number of maps. I'd swap terrain resistance for lance faire
i really thinks that their mastered abt whould be a kinda renewal but that heal a part of their battalion, that would improve their resistance granted by batalions and stay in fights more consistently (something like, each 2 turns, ur batalion heals 33%) it requires a lot of stats and training to master for non- magical clases and would help poor defensive stats they usually have but no breaking the game , cause they will only have their normal batalion bonus. it would be interesting cause that would help them battling a lot more without loosing their batalion. and as mastered class would do some kind of "ward" skill, but for both def and res (not that big bonuses) for helping them in their support role
Honestly, Marianne is the only unit that can use this class to its fullest cause not only are her stats & weapon affinities build for that, but also because she has access to both Hexblade *&* Frozen Lance, which are fantastic in a unit like Marianne. So whenever i give her Paladin or Cavalier to get her Aegis & Desperation respectively, i use her as a player phase wallbreaker. Go after the high def/low res units, use Hexblade or Frozen Lance with steel or steel + weapons & get out... Saved my ass alot
I definitely agree about there being no direct route to Holy Knight that makes any sense. I am currently doing a my 2nd maddening run and I am using the Golden Deer. I am working on making Marianne a Holy Knight, but I am prepping her to be what I call a 'Holy Knight - Frontline Variant'. One of the things that bothers me about Gremory is the low movement. I can't figure any logical or flavor reason for them to be lacking in this way. It's a master class! To me, Gremory's movement deficiency is the only reason to make a Holy Knight - that and the aesthetics. Anyway, the biggest appeal for Holy Knight is being able to get up to heal your people and get out of the way, but from my previous runs (this is my 6th) I felt like this isn't enough. Sometimes you have to put your Holy Knight in harms way and even though they are little tougher, I found that it wasn't good enough. I know this video is about stat changes, growths and such, however, we gotta work with what we have. LOL This version I am building is a lot more durable. My plan is to: Master: Bishop for Renewal//Paladin for Aegis//Holy Knight for Defiant Res Riding Skill level A+ for Movement +1//Faith Skill level A+ for Faith Prowess level 5 The trick is in the pathing - as in what to train while you are in which class and which weapons to use while in a particular class. The hardest part is having a healer that isn't healing while leveling a the paladin. However, I have my entire team mapped out and when she's not healing, someone else (for instance my intended war master for whom I want to learn renewal) will be.
I've thinking about making a Silver Snow run with all White Magic users, in Maddening NG+, what do you guys think of it? I did it in Azure Moon and they suck but I want to know if it is even posible lol.
The Only thing that I Hate About Enemy Holy Knights in Maddering is Aura, it Crits me Almost Every time specially with Units with Low Luck Growths Like Bernadetta, Even with Imperial Lineage+ Edelgard can't even take a Crit From a White Tomefaire Boosted Aura.
The fact that enemy Holy Knights so consistently have Aura makes me feel like a spell granting Aura skill should be what replaces Terrain Resistance. Keep White Tomefaire with that to back it up and the class can more readily meet its actual goal of being an offensive white magic user. It's called Holy Knight, it's not meant to be a Troubadour, so shoehorning heal+ and general white magic uses+ on it disregards that spells like Rescue and Warp add so much mobility that the unit's base mobility being limited works as a good counterbalance if you want to be able to use them more.
Fully agree. I've scrubbed through a lot of the comments here, and I'm of the opinion now that replacing Terrain Resistance with Grant's Aura, and adjusting White Tome Faire so that the +5 modifier also applies to healing spells would help this class considerably. It maintains its niche as an offensive white magic class while getting a slight boost to healing. Giving this class X2 to white magic casts would completely render Bishop inferior, which is not what Holy Knight is meant to do.
I always thought it weird that a class that's focused on being a supporting role (i.e. Priest and Bishop) progresses into an offensive oriented class?? Adding the Bishop skills to Holy Knight like you said, makes it a much more desired cass for the healers like Linhardt, Mercedes and Flayn, who could use the movement and canto buff, but also really benefit off of the more magic uses and healing bonus. The only remotely viable Holy Knights are the units with attacking white magic spells like Byleth, Marianne and Yuri, who are all better in other classes. I will say, however, that Holy Knight Bernie was fun. She's got Vengeance and everything, but can also use Rescue. Saved many units' lives during my last SS run!
I have 2 characters as Holy Knight right now, in my first Maddening playthrough lelolel. Manuela and Flayne. I also have 4 Great Knights, Dedue, Sylvain, Gilbert and Alois.
give it +5 healing in addition to X2 faith uses so people have the choice of more healing but less mobility e.g. Flayn will appreciate it because she doesn't have physic so she needs to work closely with her group, keep canto and give it a better mastery ability
Dancer + march ring is way better for flayn for move issues and easier for her to class into. She has a bane in riding but u can get there, just needs a lot of work.
I don't use my healers for offense 99% of the time. So for any healer that gets physic holy knight is amazing IMO as you can cover most of the map with physic
honestly, i dont understand why being mounted lowers speed. even more so when the class has terrain resistance. whats making them slower DX unless its just "balance"
The speed/magic trade-off between being mounted or not could maybe be interesting, but I don't think it really works with the rest of your class design. I rarely attack with my bishops and would probably rarely attack with your version of holy knight, since they are intended to be a bishop on a horse. If all I'm doing is healing or warping, then I will always want more magic, because speed would do nothing for me. There's lots of directions that you can take with a redesign idea for holy knight, but my personal favourite would be to keep their niche as a faith magic damage dealer but make them be less terrible. I'd keep canto, but ditch the other skills. The lack of faire would be compensated by putting the class bonus in magic to something like +3 or +4. Then, for their other two class skills, I would give them two totally new skills. First, I would give them a low might, low weight, high accuracy white magic spell. Think something like wind or fire for the stats. Their third skill would be "whenever you deal damage with white magic, you heal for half the damage dealt". Finally, on mastery, I would give them a lance combat art that deals magic damage and heals for half damage dealt.
i usually make byleth a holy knight. Seems worth it to me. He gets away not needing +10 healing since he learns recover and he learns aura. Has enough speed to not be hindered by nosferatu unless he goes against speed specialized classes. The downgrade in move from paladin hurts tho. I would rather be able to keep lancefaire from paladin instead of terrain resistance imo. But then again maybe that doesnt fit the idea of a "mounted support" as much as it does "paladin that also has some white magic" which is what i wanted the class to be
I think the class should have the abilities canto white tomefaire and white magic used x2 and get a bigger magic stat bonus. This would keep it as an offensive white magic user while just kinda improving on white it was lacking
I wonder what goes into making these advanced classes. Are they worried they’d be too op so they lean more towards making them kind of lame? It’s a bummer when advanced classes aren’t as good as classes before them
I think all it needs is inbuilt Renewal over Terrain resistance, give them Support Magic Range +2 letting them cast basic heals from a distance over White Tomefaire. Maybe move a point from somewhere to Defense, and give it a point or two in Luck. Renewal takes the place of Terrain Resistance in practice, while also, y'know, healing you the rest of the time while your unit isn't on fire. It's a more support oriented tank class at heart, that helps the whole team while not requiring fissing itself. With both inbuilt Renewal, and the skill, it's restoring 40% per turn, up to 60% with some relics, and beyond with some personal or niche skills, which is pretty much the gimmick of this class. Holy Knights hold the line, turn after turn, and have their own healing to help others. The synergy is already there, the class just has underwhelming features.
Just an idea, what if holy knight is never meant to be an upgrade for the white mages? What if the concept behind holy knight is an upgrade to those knights who are faithful Sothis believers. Imagine a knight who believes in the gods and started to pray to the gods and go to the church everyday. Yes the knight may not have talent in magic which is why he/she needs white magic tomefaire and only a b+ in faith.
I like these ideas a lot. I really hate the skills of Holy Knight as well. I don't mind the master bonus so much as I don't think I've ever had a playthrough where I actually got the mastery skill/art from a master class (it tends to be too late game). I think it might have happened once. But the other major skills of the class are just awful...White Tomefaire is so useless. I agree completely with replacing White Tomefaire with Healing up. I also like your ideas of trade-offs for dismounting, as it would make Holy Knight feel more unique. Do you want to be a quicker crusader on the ground or a more powerful and mobile magic blaster on a horse? That distinction would help make the class stand out. However...I don't think it should have white magic uses x2, and the reason for that is I feel like it would make gremory weaker relatively speaking. I think what might be interesting is if they buffed Terrain Resistance so that it also negated penalties for horse movement, meaning you could move onto tiles like stairs, etc. without incurring any penalty to your mobility. Another possibility is to make it improve bonuses to tile spaces that offer them.
The main problem of Holy Knight lies on three things: 1. With White Tomefaire, they are design as offensive faith spell class. HOWEVER, the only character who has 3 offensive faith spells is Lysithea (Nosferatu, Seraphim, Abraxas) while others mostly only have Nosferatu or just 2 (combination of Nosferatu with Aura/Abraxas/Seraphim). 2. The class itself LITERALLY reduces supportive capabilities because most faith users would go Bishop with 2x White Magic Use. Which mean they sacrifice their utility for combative in Faith spells, which most of dedicated Faith users don't have. 3. Dedicated Faith users starts as non riding class from the begining until intermediate class, then when they wanted to go Holy Knight, they suddenly need to have A rank in Ridding. Not to mention not all of the dedicated Faith users have boon in Ridding.
I think I would have added White Magic Range +2 over white Magic heal +10 just so it's more of a utility support than a direct healing support and to br an alternative to Bishop rather than just being a straight Bishop Upgrade. Class mastery could be like a passive restore status and heal 10% at start of turn I think would work.
Changes: Class Abilities Become Lancefaire, White Magic Heal +5 (not +10 to keep Bishop in it’s niche), Canto Reqs: Identical Modifiers: A higher strength mod (not quite sure yet) Mastery: Terrain Resistance seems cool, or maybe some custom Lance combat art that’s magical and 1-2 range (like Pneuma Gale)
You don't really want it to be mixed: the mixed offensive classes are generally worse overall. It should be fully magic based so Lance faire isn't a good incentive. It's better to stack healing aka heal +10, white magic uses x2 plus white tome faire Edit: bishop is already good because it allows x2 warp uses combined with extra healing/uses on physic. That doesn't mean bishop needs to have any niche. Give that to holy knight and it's basically how wyvern Lord outclassed wyvern rider (or falcon knight outclassed Pegasus knight).
I understand not liking hybrid classes and I feel like that’s just a personal preference thing. Personally i designed it around fun and also to not completely trivialise Bishop, not to be absolutely perfect. Your changes would definitely work too! Note: Canto takes up an ability slot, so you’d only be able to have 2 of White Tomefaire/Uses/Heal +10. I personally don’t like keeping White Uses/Heal +10, once again because I want Bishop and Holy Knight to have their own uses.
I think something like White magic range +2 could be more interesting. It would allow heals from 2 tiles away which combined with canto gives you physhic for those that don't have it. Also additional range on offensive magic makes it easier to use. It would help set them apart from Bishop who can do stronger heals. Bishop would still have a strong value for it's better heals and extra support uses but holy knight would be for the healers without physic or warp or who actually do want to have some offense. I think the final slot could be a strong white magic offensive spell.
I will try Anette, lysithea and constance as holy knight. Even if they have 1 best holy spell, i can still add black/dark tome fair skills in addition. And for Annette it will be axe fair skills + bolting axe. I am pretty sure I can do things with it even if it's not the best but I play for me first 😁
White tomefaire doesn't do much for most healers. That said, I do understand that they were going for offensive white mage here. The only problem is there aren't enough characters who can pull off the offensive white mage role. The only compromise I could see here is having both tomefaire and uses x2, but that still doesn't incentivise your healers promoting to this class. It just sucks because the class is both a great idea and really cool in my opinion.
Perso for holy knight I would go this way: Skill(ability): Canto, White magic faire, Spear fair (you could give it white use 2 insteed of the white tome faire tho I guess) Growth perfect Basse bonus: 2HP, 2 ATK, 2 MAG, 0DEX, 1 (-2) SPD, 1Luck, 0DEF, 4 RES, 0 Cha, 1 (+2) (I just don't like that the mount give 1 move it weird...) I like the idea of you got for dismounted mounted / mounted big change to there stats. The master skill could be a sacrifice skill for sure only for the holy knight but I would give them that only if they don't got White tome x2. else it kinda pointless. Else I would say give them... I don't know HOLY or what every a crazy good magic faight spell.
I think it’s so funny that the best Holy Knight, Bernadetta, only uses the bare minimum amount of magic support necessary for her to even work in that class thanks to Rescue + Pass, and even then her potential is more limited than it could be thanks to the lack of White Magic Uses x2. She’s still better off nuking people with Vengeance, which she can easily do better as a Paladin or Falcon Knight.
I think the mounted/dismounted idea would be a great way to make all mounted units more interesting. Mounted units in FE3H feel so much more superior compared to infantry units because the dismount mechanic pretty much lets you get around all of their inherent weaknesses. Plus, the difference between a unit mounted compared to dismounted should be much greater than the game currently portrays it. Regarding Holy Knight changes, the class only needs either White Magic Uses x2 or Heal +10 for it to be the best endgame healer class. Having both plus canto puts it in a broken tier. As an aside, I really dislike Terrain Resistance and I feel like the should have turned it into a skill that eliminates all terrain penalties (movement and damage). Basically it'll give units the same movement as fliers except for the ability to go over walls/mountains.
I’m surprised that I wasn’t able to find any comment about seraphim, a white magic spell that’s effective on monsters. This spell would make Holy Knight into a Monster Killer because of it’s class ability, White Tomefaire. So I would rather keep that ability and have Terrain Resistance replaced with White Magic Heal +10. The only characters who can learn Seraphim are Lysithea, Sylvain, Ingrid, Edelgard, Balthus, and Hapi. Of course Lysithea would be the best Holy Knight.
The reason that white tomefaire not raise the night of healing magic is because they don’t want to overcreep the almighty Recover, the best weapon in this game. Lfmao
For a unit like Marianne that has a boon in riding, good healing and some pretty offensive damaging spells, holy knight isn’t too bad for her. She’s a more offensive healer than the other healing units
She’s also way better in other classes like Dark Knight, Gremory, Valkyrie, or even Falcon Knight with Frozen Lance. And her “offensive” white magic consists of the underpowered Nosferatu and the low-use, almost too heavy to use effectively Aura. None of that is good enough to justify putting her in Holy Knight.
Cartoon Critic I said offlensive spells. Not “offensive” white magic. She gets some pretty strong spell unlocks for a “healing unit” if you raise her reason. I’m not saying holy knight is her best class but if anyone’s going holy knight Marianne is usually the only one worth investing in for that class in general
Keep White Tomefaire BUT replace Terrain Resistance with White Magic Range +1 and Seraphim with Defiant Resistance for the Class Mastery. This will make Holy Knight an offensive threat and be more attractive for Units with poor support spells and good magic growths so characters like Byleth and Annette would like this. Lysithea may even consider it over Gremory and Dark Knight with her mostly offensive Faith List, in exchange for 1 Warp. This kind of Holy Knight would be less of a "Bishop on a horse" and more like a monster slaying Dark Knight with respectable range. I agree with everything else. Good idea with mounting/dismounting, the larger trade off would make for some interesting options.
100% on that holy knight should just be a mounted bishop for move movement. The AoE sacrifice would be amazing on Mercy with her live to serve. Infinite heals!
Also I wish the Mastery classes were just at least on par with each other. I think it’s nice that not all Mastery classes work for every unit and would much rather use Advanced classes instead, but by god there’s literally only 4 Mastery classes I bothered even using in any of my playthroughs which were Wyvern Lord, War Master, Gremory, and Falcon Knight. I regret ever using Holy Knight, never again. Dark Knight was like a trial run on my first playthrough on BL and I put it on Sylvain, but he didn’t perform as well as I thought (he looked cool though). Great Knight is a decent class in a game that just doesn’t do tanks enough justice; the only character viable for Great Knight is Dedue since: Edelgard gets her unique; Raphael is much better as War Master; Hilda clearly destroys as a Wyvern Lord. Mortal Savant is a class I really wanted to use, but the only unit I could think of using it on is Felix and his spell list was kind of lackluster. Bow Knight was one I was always on the fence about because I would gain mobility but lose Hunter’s Volley.
Mortal savant is hilarious on Ignatz, he doesn't have too huge of magical might, but his high dex and luck paired with blizzard, Fimbulvetr, and cutting gale ensures him having at least base 50 crit with magic by endgame. I know he's better as an assassin, but it's just too funny loading him into that class.
half of master classes feel terrible to me only war master on certain characters,gremory,wyvern lord,and falcon knight feel any good to me the rest are either garbage or are so frustrating to get the requirements for like great knight that I honestly dont want to bother with them in future playthroughs
Honestly, if White Tomefaire was reworked to boost the range of utility spells and healing of healing spells as well as the damage it already boosts, it would’ve been fine. Instead, we get this mess of a class who seems to focus more on offense... using the weapon type with the least amount of attacks.
Honestly... I always plan to make my healers holy knights because of utility. They're not the most mobile units as bishops n stuff and terrain resistance really comes in clutch. Plus I love mounted units because of how much I end up using canto and planning around it.
I wish they kept the offensive holy knight idea, but gave the class a skill that gives a spell like aura.
That’d actually be pretty sick, maybe the class mastery could be a strong magic lance combat art too
Faith just needs more offensive spells in general. There's no "go-to" spell for it like Fire/Thunder/etc. Nosferatu is supposed to be that, but it's weight makes it very unwieldly for that purpose...
Holy knight just needed the right white list that no character happens to have.
Heal,Nosferstu, Seraphim, Rescue, Abraxas.
Ernesto Amatruda
That’s basically Lysithea but swap rescue for warp
@@UnlimitedMrX If only holyknight grant weight -5. It could mitigates this issue.
The thing I hate about holy knight is that it gives no incentive for someone like linhardt and Mercedes to go into it. They have no offensive white magic spells and all it does is hurt their healing
It really needed white magic x2 instead of the terrain based skill. White tome faire + white magic use x2 would have made it worthwhile over bishop. Or else give it healing + 15
@@l.n.3372 terrain resistance is pretty good, I would have replaced white tomefaire instead with white magic x2
A C Terrain resistance is needed on like 4 maps lol. 10+ healing is needed on every map
But look at the huge range you get between cav movement and physic for your healing
@@The_Evening_Sun
If white magic spells were buffed to be better, than white tome faire would have had more use.
I like having Marianne as a holy knight because the class was practically made for her
Mattinsula and only her, they should have replaced lance levels with sword for her relic
I put mine into Valkyrie because of uncanny blow
Yeah, but where actual gameplay is concerned, promoting her from Bishop to Holy Knight just cripples her healing so much.
The only good thing that comes from that is higher Mov, and honestly, if that's what you're going for, Gremory is the better option.
Actually I really like Lysithea as a holy knight (altho she's clearly much better with dark magic classes but that's obvious) just because she has not only Nosferatu but also the anti monster attack and the aura-like spell. I think that's one of the rare cases where White Tomefair is actually kind of interesting, when you can have a genuine use of it.
@@osvaldoalcala9151 I made mine a sword master because it was funny. It made her paralogue a breeze at least...
I mean, Dark Knight even does healing better than Holy Knight, that extra point of Mag helps out Physic users
Who was designing this and thought “yeah this is on the same level as Wyvern Lord”
Edit: honestly why not swap out white tomefaire for lancefaire? Then it can be a viable promotion for paladin and magic users get their frozen lance powered up, which is a much better attack than white magic anyway.
It's because greath knight was supposed to be the last class for physical Cavs while Holy knight was supposed to be the mounted version of magical units. Is like IS doesn't even know what's good or what's balanced.
Honestly I think that's a pretty bad idea because most paladin don't want to waste time learning faith. Sylvain or Ferdinand would rather just stay paladin if it already gives Lance faire.
Leigh Needleman even if it’s only for mages, lancefaire for frozen lance would still do more good than white tomefaire.
@@Greideren It's really jarring that Great Knight, the only master class with Lancefair, doesn't use lance skill for certification. While it would be a viable sidegrade for Paladins, the required Axe and Heavy Armor investment makes it way too hard to get into for it to be worthwhile. That only leaves Fortress Knights to pursue the class, who will still struggle to get their riding skill high enough because the best tank units in the game have riding weakness.
Great Knight isn't a bad class, but accessibility is a huge issue for it.
If I was being honest, do not have lance rank or lancefaire. Have Sword rank requirement and Sword Faire because you can use a Levin Sword that use Magic within both player and enemy phase. Holy Knight shines for Marianne (but not her best class) and maybe Ingrid (Seraphim). But White Magic for Offensive purposes are lackluster but the potential is for Canto. But that crosses into Mortal Savant in terms of Uniqueness and just another sword orientated class. But another problem is just the DLC classes now also outshine Dark Knight and Holy Knight.
Alright, I’ve been waiting for this video. I’m almost done with an all Holy Knight CF run (hard/classic/NG+), here are some of my thoughts.
1. Why would I do this?
Taking down the church with a squad of “Holy” knights seemed funny to me (also, unicorn armor)
2. It can be difficult to get all the ranks you need up. Riding, Lance, and faith of course, but also authority. And reason is pretty much a must for any holy knight as you probably won’t be putting physical classes into. This means you won’t be getting any single rank too high, hindering the units potential.
3. Faith magic is somewhat lacking. Except for some cases, most units have a bad faith list. In addition, Holy Knight treats faith as though it is offensive (white tome faire), even though there are only 4 combat faith spells and a unit is lucky to get 2 of them (I can only think of 1 unity with 3, Lysithea, there might be more though).
4. None of the abilities are very great. Canto is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but nearly every master class has it. White tome faire (talked about earlier) should boost non offensive white magic (higher heals/range), it would be way better. Terrain resistance doesn’t come into effect most of the time, although it can be nice on something like CF or VW endgame. Defiant res is just awful. Why would anyone use this?
A note about white tome faire, I actually thought this would be a lot worse than it is, it is still bad, but a faire is still a faire. White magic offense is hard to come by (except nosferatu) but the spells are fairly strong.
5. Almost no reason to go into this when you can have gremory , dark knight, or bishop. Gremory and bishop are better at support while dark knight has the better offense with the same mobility.
6. The res is pretty good, I’ve got virtually no problem with mages in my run
7. There are already 2 other mounted magic classes (Dark Knight, Valkyrie)
8. Some ways to improve the class
A. Make it a more supportive class:
Change white tome faire as I said above, maybe give it white magic uses x2, it could even have something like heal +10
B. Make white magic more offensive and improve everyone’s white spell list:
I could see them doing something where reason magic is all about damage and faith has bonus effects (like nosferatu/seraphim), you could include things from other games like freeze, enfeeble, etc. have some of the attacks debuff enemies or strength the user or nearby allies
C. Lean more into the physical side of the class: lower the riding rank and raise the lance rank, give it lance range +1, I saw a similar idea on the mortal savant video and thought it would be pretty unique. This might stray too far from the original idea of the class, but it would still be very cool and useful. Also maybe make magic lances easier to get.
D. Better class mastery:
I’m thinking some kind of powerful magic lance combat art
Here are some other ideas I have for more magic spells:
Siphon: a more powerful/heavy nosferatu
Transfer: move any unit in range to any space in range (range 3)
Blink (can’t think of a good name): similar to warp but moves user, smaller range
Embolden: a long range rally, smaller stat boost than rally to keep rallies good
Can’t think of name: An attack you raises a stat (maybe str, spd, etc.) of all allies within 4 spaces
Can’t think of name: An attack that slightly heals all allies within 4 spaces
Sorry if there are any typo’s, trying to finish this comment quick
EDIT: I’ve watched the video now and I see that you agree with lots that I said 😊, I also think renewal would be a super cool class ability, giving the class a unique identity
tl;dr holy knight is pretty bad, skills need a buff and units need better faith magic across the board
I didn't take it this far but I did just like make my Byleth a holy knight for the CF run for the same idea that it's funny to me to take down the church like that lol
Blink reminds of a fe5 staff, I don't remember the name tho and I think it's enemy exclusive but it had a similar effect, it could have the same effect.
And the skill to make rallys better would make this a great class for Annette with all her rallies, tho I would be hard to justify it taking even another skill slot when all those rallys already use some
Greideren
I was thinking it would be a white magic spell, rather than a skill
@Dysdaimonia Enlightened one is a free promotion that doesn't need Byleth to have any weapon ranks so it saves you from training him/her on faith magic.
Holy Knight in the other hand has a horse but for Byleth I would recommend a good physical class like wyvern Knight
@Dysdaimonia also you can customize outfits anyways from your journal so you can be the enlightened one class but not have that class outfit
Make it the upgrade to Paladin. Move the point of magic into strength and change its faire to Lancefaire.
Honestly considering what Paladins ARE in concept, this'd make a ton of sense.
This. It should literally just be Paladin with the benefit being you can use magic. Swap the requirements around so it needs just C in faith and A in lances
Honestly that’s already kinda great knight. Just it doesn’t necessarily seem like it. One person said just turn it into paladin with magic but that’s dark knight. I think the way to change it is to keep the healing concept with just more reason to go into it. Give Holy Knight some really good exclusive faith magic. This might be a little busted but give it a spell that deals as much as you heal using regular heal or something. Cuz right now there’s no offensive reason to go into this class and healing is good but you might as well stay in bishop or go into gremory. Then holy knight would be at least I pretty good with that. Just give something to Holy Knight that no other healing class can bring
i basically just use holy knights as paladins that can use healing spells. Also because most enemy units have high defense but really terrible resistance you can often do more damage with magic then with weapons. Often the difference between your high strength and their high defense is smaller then your terrible magic and their much worse resistance. also magic ignores terrain bonuses so you'll actually be able to hit enemies on forest and stronghold tiles. The basic tomes like fire and thunder are much lighter then javelins and handaxes which lets your units attack from 1-2 range without taking as much of a penalty to AS.
Just give it x2 white magic easy fix
white magic heal +10 is honestly much stronger than this.
Now that I think about it, a big reason holy knight falls flat is the lack of good White magic offensive spells, so maybe replace defiant res/terrain res with a solid unique spell. Mage and Dark mage give you fire and miasma as an ability already. Just bake a decent combat spell into the Holy knight class
First time I got Flayn, I noticed she already had a pretty decent lance rank so I was like “Oh yeah, the Holy Knight HAS to be perfect for her!”
Oh boy was I wrong...
She also had pretty decent flying so i'm pretty sure they wanted us to take her down either the priest or Pegasus knight line. And then we got dark flier from ashen wolves which perfectly mixes her skill sets.
I mean, you're not wrong per se. Flayn makes for an alright Holy Knight. I wouldn't recommend it, but that's not Flayn's fault but a fault with the class itself. As far as Holy Knights go, if you really gotta have one, you could do worse than Flayn.
That said, I usually take her down the Dark Knight path. Or, on occasion, I make her a dancer. Whatever lets me use black magic with some other utility on top, really. Flayn has a pretty good black magic spell list and makes for a more fun offensive unit than she does a healer. Mercedes is almost always my go to healer, because her passive allows you to position her much more aggressively than other healers.
I have said this before but will just say it again:
Who can go into holy knights generally? The healers
What edge does holy knight provide for a healer? Nothing
There also the utility faith magic users ie the warpers and holy knight provide nothing for them too.
Unlike great knight which provide much needed movement for armored unit, and mortal savant which provides magic for generally strength lacking sword users (easier time against high defense units), holy knight doesn’t even provide anything useful for faith magic users IN THEORY, let alone in actuality. It doesn’t help that dark knight exist too just in case people want magic horse units without dlc.
Holy knight is like the worst unit, on paper at least.
I think it can be useful for healers to alternate between it, Bishop, and gremory because mounts and extra movement is always at least decently good
Holy knight gives two extra move and canto over gremory, there are also units who lack a reasoning proficency such as Marianne, who has proficencies in both riding and lance which makes it easier to get into holy knight.
There is a niche build for Byleth since he has a high strength growth he can often weild nosforatu without being slowed down, using white magice avoid + 20, faith proficency, speed + 2, Movement + 1, white magic range + 1 allows him to nuke units with aura from a massive range, or tank with nosforeatu.
Easier to get into Holy Knight than dark knight is about the only thing Holy Knight over dark knight. All other things you said is achievable as a dark knight. That’s just sad really.
@@broreece
All magic units should train reason simultaneously tho. Marianne even learns Thoron which is better than her white magic spell list (I think she learns aura late game).
@@l.n.3372 Marianne has a better Thoron in Levyn Sword+. The only reason(pun unintended) i would ever give her black magic is to qualify for a meme MS build that would still use mostly magic swords and arts.
I think that HK would be a good options if a character got both Seraphim and either Aura of Abraxas, while also having a "normal" reason list. Lysithea has both, but has also Luna and Dark spike, so...
Change White tomefaire to White Magic x2, and you’ve made Holy Knight decent enough to be a considered mastery class.
Canto + High Mov on a healer is quite useful. While not as offensively-oriented as the Dark Knight or Gremory, the Holy Knight adopts some attributes of both that make it a very good support unit.
Of course you can definitely make other changes to make it an actual upgrade to the paladin class (increased strength, speed and/or lancefaire) or decrease certification requirements. But if we’re trying to get it from outclassed to useful, White Magic x2 is the simplest change it needs.
Forget Holy Knight, just go Valkyrie
Yea.
It fits Marianne so well.
Valkyrie and Dark Knight are just so much better
My problem with Holy Knight is that all the classes leading up to it are support/utility classes, but they seemed so intent on making all master classes pure offense that they take away the useful parts of most bishops and try to turn them into attackers. That said, I totally agree with your skill choices. It makes the HK seem so much more like the heroic support unit it feels like it's meant to be.
IMO can be viable from a unit that use Paladin as their final class but have some good Faith spells.
Someone like Bernadetta who gets Physic and Rescue or Leonie who gets Physic and Restore. Raising their Reason level won't do much (Bernie can get up to C for Thoron then forget about it). Dark Knight would be too much investment so to use these spells they can have a relatively easy access to Holy Knight instead. They'll lose Lancefaire, 1 move and the slightly better stats of Paladin but if you think these spells could help on a map it can be worth it.
Remember that you can go back to Paladin anytime if you want to focus on damage, Holy Knight would be an extra option to switch between.
I really like your suggested changes to master classes so far, they're all pretty reasonable but would make the classes in question so much more appealing
Honestly just replace terrain resistance and white tomefaire with the other two abilities from bishop of white magic heal + 10 and white magic uses x2
Edit: lol thats what you already said
I have my own thoughts on what to do with Holy Knight. Your suggestions would make Holy Knight a great healer, but I would prefer if the Holy Knight was more of a fighter. I like the idea of taking away Terrain Resistance. Instead, I would prefer a new skill, Seraphim. Basically, it gives the user the Seraphim spell if the person does not have the ability naturally. If they do, then they get double the uses out of Seraphim. This turns the Holy Knight into a mage monster killer class.
The way I'd fix it is make it be a straight upgrade of Paladin.
Stat mods: Same as Paladin but with +2 Mag and +2 more Res added to it.
Abilities: Swap White Tomefaire for Lancefaire
Swap requirements to need A in Lances, B+ in riding, and C in Faith.
Basically turn it into a physical calvary class that can use utility white magic
Mastery ability idea: Similar to special dance, when you use white magic on an ally unit, they get a small def/res boost for one turn. Could make for some really interesting warp/fortify/physic strats
Your Magic/Speed tradeoff idea sounds a little too extreme, all things considered. I think 1(+2) and 1(-2) would be just fine for such an idea.
Likewise I think turning Holy Knight into just "Bishop on a horse" completely re-writes the identity of the class. I'd keep the White Tomefaire, but also replace Terrain Resistance with White Magic Uses x2, turning it into something like a Warlock but for light magic and on a horse. Much more unique. Also make Terrain Resistance the Mastered Ability because why not.
Again, White Magic x2 would essentially eliminate any reason to stay in Bishop. I think Terrain Resistance should be replaced with "Rescue" as a skill (where any character now can use Rescue spells, and anyone who already had it would get double the uses). I think this would fit it much better thematically and make it an interesting but not OP alternative to Bishop and to Dark Knight.
design white tomefaire to work with healing so it boosts heal rate by 5 as well, then replace terrain resistance with white tome range+2 (like a faith version of the bow knight. 3 range recover actually sounds fairly helpful) bishops still has faithx2 and heal+10 so it still isn't just a stepping stone, but Holy knight now is able to fufill a niche role.
I made Byleth a Holy Knight for maximum Sigurd.
Isn't holy knight Oifey's thing?
I don't know about giving +5 speed to unmounted knights, when swordmasters/Assassains don't get more than 4/5
I think it would be cool if it had a mechanic where it would add more to your healing the more spaces you moved. Base would be +5 to healing spell then add (spaces moved x2) for a max of +21 to a heal spell. It could be called “Savior” or something like that
I will make Marianne Holy Knight and you cannot stop me.
I know this isn’t a master class, but I’m interested in your thoughts on Lord as a class.
I'm sure I'm overlooking, but I genuinely can't think of a reason to have Subdue. Why would you want to keep an enemy alive in 3 Houses?
I also don't get why it focuses on swords. It should have been either a Byleth class if it is staying as is, or it should have been split into three unique classes of Axe, Bow, and Lance Lord for the relevant characters.
Res +2 is kinda silly but it has to come up somewhere so whatever.
As it is, it feels kinda half baked. I wished they'd focused in more on a unit that leans into authority.
Aesthetically it's pretty dope though.
It honestly seems like an unfinished idea that they just left in there from an earlier phase of development.
It doesn’t even make sense for 2/3 of the characters who can access it.
Scanny524 Res+2 might make sense since magical damage is the achilles heel of all three lords, though you are right that it doesn’t beat other skills like hit+20 and death blow. I feel like Lord is designed to help other units that aren’t as strong as the Lord character. Subdue can make it easier to feed XP to allies, while it also has Hilda and Seteth’s personal skills combined
@@jmagicd9831 Oh yeah I forgot about Charm lol. That just makes me think more and more that Lord is best suited to be a Byleth-unique class that precedes Enlightened One. It works for them a lot better than the other Lords: Sword, Authority, Charm is like EO's mastery skill (Sacred Power I think?).
I mean I suppose EXP assistance is the reason for Subdue, which kinda makes sense considering the lords have boosted EXP already so they can help others. I've just literally never felt like that was necessary ever.
@@Scanny524 the only reason I could think for subdue to be in the game would be if they brought back the prisoner mechanic from fates. They probably just couldn't figure out how to implement it properly. As for the class itself, it makes sense that it's exclusive to the house leaders because they're the Lords of their respective territories. And as part of the ruling class they would be expected to learn sword play as part of noble tradition. There's also the fact that they admire Byleth so they would want to learn the sword anyway to become more like the teacher they respect and look up to. And they all benefit from learning swords in some way. In silver snow and verdant wind, Edelgard is seen using the Sword of Seiros in cut scenes, Dimitri's unique classes excel in swords, and Claude obtains a legendary sword in one of his paralogues.
A really cool ability that could be changed is to make all healing and support magic would have higher range this would be based of the the spell for example warp and heal would only have 1 plus range but spells like rescue and pysic would have plus 3-4.
Great fixes. I feel like the mounted/dismounted stat boost mechanic would need to be explained better by the game itself for it to work well though. The game as far as I know doesn't really address mounted/dismounted stat effects beyond the obvious movement change.
I'd also consider giving them white tomefare anyway because it barely does anything anyway, but if we are strictly sticking with the 3 ability limit I'd keep that one off.
My first thought was change skills to white magic uses x 2 and heal, but it would also be interesting if they kept white tomefaire and canto and added a skill where you can use Like abraxas or aura when your in the class and it doubles the uses if you already have the spell (similar to fire on mages or miasma on dark mage) and gave white magic uses x 2 upon mastery. This would make it so that you could actually take advantage of offensive white magic without making it a totally broken class.
7:44 The only time I can ever think of a unit in any Dismount game where you'd want them to dismount and mount constantly would be Orphelia in Vestaria Saga Gaiden. Her whole gimmick is she's a normal eagle knight (AKA Pegasus knight but used a different name for copyright), but when she dismounts, she turns into a Princess, which is a class able to use staves. This makes her into the only flier who's also able to use staves, but she has to dismount to do so, which means she'll have a few turns stuck dismounted if you want to heal someone in an otherwise inconvient to reach location for any other healer.
No wonder Rodrigue got killed by a little girl, he picked a terrible class
I believe Terrain Resistance also negates movement penalties of terrain, which is actually pretty good for mounted classes. To fix the class I would take out the dex, defense and speed bonus and dump them into strength and resistance. Essentially turn the class into a mage-tank version of great knight. As for skills, I would give them white magic uses x2 and heal +10
It doesn't negate movement penalties. I wish but unfortunately, it doesn't.
The biggest issue is that nobody gets a great offensive white magic spell list except Lysithea, who would rather go Gremory
12:31
“bring your HP to 1”
defiant skills:
bernadetta:
*you’re gonna have a bad time*
I got a couple good level ups with leonie, and decided to put her into this class. She was an absolute monster.
Would be cool if HK got a mastery lance combat art that is like a weaker version of Frozen Lance, but can be used in the same turn after casting White Magic (or maybe restrict it to non-offensive White Magic only).
Or they could've gone with a more "protector" kind of theme and added something like standing next to a unit grants that unit Guard Adjutant effect where the HK can step in to block enemy's follow-up attack.
FED: "fIxInG h0ly Kn1gHt iN fIrE eMbLeM tHr33 H0uSeS"
Me: "Example A... Marianne."
Ethlyn from Genealogy of the Holy War started the concept of Holy Knight. It existed as a tier 2 class.
Those were just called Paladin. Female Paladins in Genealogy and Thracia 776 were promotions of Troubadour and could use Staffs in addition to Swords and Lances (Female Paladins have a lower Lance rank in exchange for Staff usage). In Thracia, they actually swap Lances for Staffs instead.
Would be nice to see what class you like or think is strong. Recently it's kinda just been X is trash and y sucks
Its more so like things are being based on process of elimination
It's pretty obvious which 3H classes are strong tho. Flying based, or a strong combat art based (aka sniper)
Honestly a video on how busted Wyverns are and how to nerf them would be cool
It's obv. Wyvern Lord being absurdly OP but somehow becoming the golden standard every other class should strive for somehow.
@@89ji76
You can nerf wyvern indirectly by just buffing everything else. Kinda like in smash, sometimes buffs are better than nerf. Wyvern is strong mainly because cavalry are underwhelming growth wise and infantry lack movement. Flying has good growths, high movement, no disadvantage with dismounting either. But if you buff everything else then wyvern and flying in general isn't as busted.
My recommendation is take away the speed nerf for all cavalry, give cavalry better growths (bow knight gives like charm and HP it's ridiculous), and give every infantry class at least 6 movement plus better infantry master class options
I think making Holy Knight a direct upgrade to bishop kinda ruins the point of the Master Class Tier.
Each of them except Wyvern Lord, has Ranks and stats that tie them to two or more classes from the Advance Tier. Grappler + Warrior = War Master. Warlock + Bishop = Gremory. And for Holy Knight, it seems to be Paladin + Bishop. 3H kinda pushes you use multiple classes and switch between them. Just look at Abyss Mode, where each character has two different classes they can be that shake up how you play.
Now, a lot of Master Tiers are Paladin + something else which is a tad boring, but it makes the most sense for Holy Knight. I feel like the Master Tier should encompass what makes it's Advance Tier counterparts unique, consolidate it, and in the process lose some of those quirks to keep the Advance Tiers viable. I don't think just because HK is a tier up that it has to be the end all be all best healer class.
If I did Holy Knight, I would try to keep the Idea of a Healer (The Bishop part), but can also deal some damage and have great movement (The Paladin bit). Somthing like an inate Seraphim spell, like what Mage does with Fire, would make it stand out, along with a Canto and maybe switch out White Tomefaire for Whit Magic Range +1, making you choose between Maximizing Healing support or going for extra range, moving out of combat, and some extra firepower.
What if the master skill was basically Amaterasu from Fates? Maybe lower on the amount of healing tho lol
Maybe a more interesting idea for the second ability is white magic range +2. That includes offensive spells and support. You can heal from 3 tiles away. It would further their mobility and give them a pro and a con over the bishop. The bishop can heal slightly faster but the holy knight can do so safer and the additional range give them more offensive options too.
At first I was a little concerned with your holy knight changes might just overshadow bishop since the original purpose of bishop vs holy knight is better healing vs better movement for white magic support. But as a whole I am intrigued by the idea of a direct upgrade from bishop to holy knight. I also think that they could have use either more offensive white magic (like maybe 1 or 2 spells) or perhaps make nosferatu a little stronger.
A side tangent, I do miss the other abilities like Luna and Sol. I know technically Sol is in the game but that is only when crest effects trigger in battle but I think they should have brought those back
Sol and Luna should have been combat arts like Astra. Sol from mastering Hero and Luna from mastering Great Knight.
@@catfish8716 that would have added more layers to those classes for sure. Though Hero does have defiant strength so this would also clash with the concept as far as three houses are concerned. But it would be nice to use Sol as an alternative in case you, the player would rather feel safer gaining HP back rather than risking a potential dead unit.
Luna for Great Knight would allow them to make up for their otherwise lack of damage since their strength modifier isn’t great to begin with.
Astra got gutted this time around and really needs a overhaul
I’ve been saying since the game came out that I think this class is underrated. It’s by no means great, but simply having a high move staffbot is all that’s necessary in my book. I’ve played through the game 4 times now and I only struggled with getting (x white magic user) to the class requirements on my first play through when I didn’t even know the class existed (take with grain of salt, this was just my personal experience). I think that the requirements are too strict, and the skills aren’t that good, but the mount is all that is needed. I think if white magic users had an unmounted alternative class there would be less hate towards this class.
As always, great video. Always good to spark some community discussion
I think you made a really good point when you talked about the abilities and went into lysithea, linhardt and others. The lack of white magic uses x2 on holy knight crippled it in comparison to bishop/Gremory and is the biggest reason why I find the class so disappointing and niche. Marianne is my favorite holy knight and it always, always sucks to have minimal aura, physic and silence uses. Really really great stuff on this video. Ps the stat changes w dismounting and stuff would be dope as hell
Also does anyone know why there is such a weird disparity between master and advanced classes? It almost seems like they lean you towards master but don’t give you enough to tip you over from advanced in some cases (ex bishop -> HK wout magic usesx2, or SM-> MS without good speed)
So then what class would you recommend for your dedicated healers? Gremory perhaps? Or just make them a Dark Knight to increase their damage capability?
holy knight is fine as is. it gives your healers extra movement and canto both of which are overpowered. It also lets your physical units use support magic like physic, restore, and ward.
Holy knight will also raise your physical units base resistance letting you fix the poor resistance of units like Raph and Ferdinand.
Most enemy units have really good defense but really bad resistance. however the difference between your terrible magic and their terrible resistance is often larger then your strength and their defense.
magic isn't affected by terrain so being able to cast magic will help your physical units kill enemies on forest and strongholds.
The basic tomes like thunder and fire are very light which lets your physical units fight from 1-2 range without taking the AS hit a javelin or hand axe would give them.
I generally use dark knight over holy knight as most units get better offensive black magic then white magic and terrain resistance is only useful on a very limited number of maps. I'd swap terrain resistance for lance faire
i really thinks that their mastered abt whould be a kinda renewal but that heal a part of their battalion, that would improve their resistance granted by batalions and stay in fights more consistently (something like, each 2 turns, ur batalion heals 33%) it requires a lot of stats and training to master for non- magical clases and would help poor defensive stats they usually have but no breaking the game , cause they will only have their normal batalion bonus. it would be interesting cause that would help them battling a lot more without loosing their batalion.
and as mastered class would do some kind of "ward" skill, but for both def and res (not that big bonuses) for helping them in their support role
Honestly, Marianne is the only unit that can use this class to its fullest cause not only are her stats & weapon affinities build for that, but also because she has access to both Hexblade *&* Frozen Lance, which are fantastic in a unit like Marianne. So whenever i give her Paladin or Cavalier to get her Aegis & Desperation respectively, i use her as a player phase wallbreaker. Go after the high def/low res units, use Hexblade or Frozen Lance with steel or steel + weapons & get out... Saved my ass alot
I definitely agree about there being no direct route to Holy Knight that makes any sense. I am currently doing a my 2nd maddening run and I am using the Golden Deer. I am working on making Marianne a Holy Knight, but I am prepping her to be what I call a 'Holy Knight - Frontline Variant'. One of the things that bothers me about Gremory is the low movement. I can't figure any logical or flavor reason for them to be lacking in this way. It's a master class! To me, Gremory's movement deficiency is the only reason to make a Holy Knight - that and the aesthetics.
Anyway, the biggest appeal for Holy Knight is being able to get up to heal your people and get out of the way, but from my previous runs (this is my 6th) I felt like this isn't enough. Sometimes you have to put your Holy Knight in harms way and even though they are little tougher, I found that it wasn't good enough. I know this video is about stat changes, growths and such, however, we gotta work with what we have. LOL This version I am building is a lot more durable.
My plan is to:
Master: Bishop for Renewal//Paladin for Aegis//Holy Knight for Defiant Res
Riding Skill level A+ for Movement +1//Faith Skill level A+ for Faith Prowess level 5
The trick is in the pathing - as in what to train while you are in which class and which weapons to use while in a particular class. The hardest part is having a healer that isn't healing while leveling a the paladin. However, I have my entire team mapped out and when she's not healing, someone else (for instance my intended war master for whom I want to learn renewal) will be.
all it needs is more white magic spells and a extra white magic uses
I've tried this class before during my blue Lions playthrough I was impressed although I made sure that I tutored Marianne in reason Magic
I spent all game making Mercedes a Holy Knight. I had fun with it, but I also realize the class is objectively flawed.
I've thinking about making a Silver Snow run with all White Magic users, in Maddening NG+, what do you guys think of it? I did it in Azure Moon and they suck but I want to know if it is even posible lol.
The Only thing that I Hate About Enemy Holy Knights in Maddering is Aura, it Crits me Almost Every time specially with Units with Low Luck Growths Like Bernadetta, Even with Imperial Lineage+ Edelgard can't even take a Crit From a White Tomefaire Boosted Aura.
The fact that enemy Holy Knights so consistently have Aura makes me feel like a spell granting Aura skill should be what replaces Terrain Resistance. Keep White Tomefaire with that to back it up and the class can more readily meet its actual goal of being an offensive white magic user.
It's called Holy Knight, it's not meant to be a Troubadour, so shoehorning heal+ and general white magic uses+ on it disregards that spells like Rescue and Warp add so much mobility that the unit's base mobility being limited works as a good counterbalance if you want to be able to use them more.
Fully agree. I've scrubbed through a lot of the comments here, and I'm of the opinion now that replacing Terrain Resistance with Grant's Aura, and adjusting White Tome Faire so that the +5 modifier also applies to healing spells would help this class considerably. It maintains its niche as an offensive white magic class while getting a slight boost to healing.
Giving this class X2 to white magic casts would completely render Bishop inferior, which is not what Holy Knight is meant to do.
I always thought it weird that a class that's focused on being a supporting role (i.e. Priest and Bishop) progresses into an offensive oriented class?? Adding the Bishop skills to Holy Knight like you said, makes it a much more desired cass for the healers like Linhardt, Mercedes and Flayn, who could use the movement and canto buff, but also really benefit off of the more magic uses and healing bonus. The only remotely viable Holy Knights are the units with attacking white magic spells like Byleth, Marianne and Yuri, who are all better in other classes. I will say, however, that Holy Knight Bernie was fun. She's got Vengeance and everything, but can also use Rescue. Saved many units' lives during my last SS run!
I have 2 characters as Holy Knight right now, in my first Maddening playthrough lelolel. Manuela and Flayne. I also have 4 Great Knights, Dedue, Sylvain, Gilbert and Alois.
give it +5 healing in addition to X2 faith uses so people have the choice of more healing but less mobility e.g. Flayn will appreciate it because she doesn't have physic so she needs to work closely with her group, keep canto and give it a better mastery ability
Dancer + march ring is way better for flayn for move issues and easier for her to class into. She has a bane in riding but u can get there, just needs a lot of work.
I don't use my healers for offense 99% of the time. So for any healer that gets physic holy knight is amazing IMO as you can cover most of the map with physic
honestly, i dont understand why being mounted lowers speed. even more so when the class has terrain resistance. whats making them slower DX
unless its just "balance"
The speed/magic trade-off between being mounted or not could maybe be interesting, but I don't think it really works with the rest of your class design. I rarely attack with my bishops and would probably rarely attack with your version of holy knight, since they are intended to be a bishop on a horse. If all I'm doing is healing or warping, then I will always want more magic, because speed would do nothing for me.
There's lots of directions that you can take with a redesign idea for holy knight, but my personal favourite would be to keep their niche as a faith magic damage dealer but make them be less terrible. I'd keep canto, but ditch the other skills. The lack of faire would be compensated by putting the class bonus in magic to something like +3 or +4. Then, for their other two class skills, I would give them two totally new skills. First, I would give them a low might, low weight, high accuracy white magic spell. Think something like wind or fire for the stats. Their third skill would be "whenever you deal damage with white magic, you heal for half the damage dealt". Finally, on mastery, I would give them a lance combat art that deals magic damage and heals for half damage dealt.
Maybe if there was a lightweight white magic spell that had some utility instead of black/dark magic spells being the only effective offensive magic.
i usually make byleth a holy knight. Seems worth it to me. He gets away not needing +10 healing since he learns recover and he learns aura. Has enough speed to not be hindered by nosferatu unless he goes against speed specialized classes. The downgrade in move from paladin hurts tho. I would rather be able to keep lancefaire from paladin instead of terrain resistance imo. But then again maybe that doesnt fit the idea of a "mounted support" as much as it does "paladin that also has some white magic" which is what i wanted the class to be
I think the class should have the abilities canto white tomefaire and white magic used x2 and get a bigger magic stat bonus. This would keep it as an offensive white magic user while just kinda improving on white it was lacking
The only change I would make is to switch terrain resistance for white magic X2. That alone would make it far more viable for faith based units.
I’m trying to make Sylvain a holy knight, so I’m not sure if the stats are for him.
Why would you choose Holy Knight over Dark Knight?
Black Tomefaire will serve him sooo much better and compliments his budding talent.
I wonder what goes into making these advanced classes. Are they worried they’d be too op so they lean more towards making them kind of lame? It’s a bummer when advanced classes aren’t as good as classes before them
I think all it needs is inbuilt Renewal over Terrain resistance, give them Support Magic Range +2 letting them cast basic heals from a distance over White Tomefaire.
Maybe move a point from somewhere to Defense, and give it a point or two in Luck.
Renewal takes the place of Terrain Resistance in practice, while also, y'know, healing you the rest of the time while your unit isn't on fire.
It's a more support oriented tank class at heart, that helps the whole team while not requiring fissing itself. With both inbuilt Renewal, and the skill, it's restoring 40% per turn, up to 60% with some relics, and beyond with some personal or niche skills, which is pretty much the gimmick of this class.
Holy Knights hold the line, turn after turn, and have their own healing to help others.
The synergy is already there, the class just has underwhelming features.
What website is he using?
Just an idea, what if holy knight is never meant to be an upgrade for the white mages? What if the concept behind holy knight is an upgrade to those knights who are faithful Sothis believers. Imagine a knight who believes in the gods and started to pray to the gods and go to the church everyday. Yes the knight may not have talent in magic which is why he/she needs white magic tomefaire and only a b+ in faith.
Lance fair instead of terrain and heal +10 instead of white tome fair then can use for physical unit that can also heal like trickster class
I like these ideas a lot. I really hate the skills of Holy Knight as well. I don't mind the master bonus so much as I don't think I've ever had a playthrough where I actually got the mastery skill/art from a master class (it tends to be too late game). I think it might have happened once. But the other major skills of the class are just awful...White Tomefaire is so useless. I agree completely with replacing White Tomefaire with Healing up. I also like your ideas of trade-offs for dismounting, as it would make Holy Knight feel more unique. Do you want to be a quicker crusader on the ground or a more powerful and mobile magic blaster on a horse? That distinction would help make the class stand out. However...I don't think it should have white magic uses x2, and the reason for that is I feel like it would make gremory weaker relatively speaking. I think what might be interesting is if they buffed Terrain Resistance so that it also negated penalties for horse movement, meaning you could move onto tiles like stairs, etc. without incurring any penalty to your mobility. Another possibility is to make it improve bonuses to tile spaces that offer them.
The main problem of Holy Knight lies on three things:
1. With White Tomefaire, they are design as offensive faith spell class. HOWEVER, the only character who has 3 offensive faith spells is Lysithea (Nosferatu, Seraphim, Abraxas) while others mostly only have Nosferatu or just 2 (combination of Nosferatu with Aura/Abraxas/Seraphim).
2. The class itself LITERALLY reduces supportive capabilities because most faith users would go Bishop with 2x White Magic Use. Which mean they sacrifice their utility for combative in Faith spells, which most of dedicated Faith users don't have.
3. Dedicated Faith users starts as non riding class from the begining until intermediate class, then when they wanted to go Holy Knight, they suddenly need to have A rank in Ridding. Not to mention not all of the dedicated Faith users have boon in Ridding.
I think I would have added White Magic Range +2 over white Magic heal +10 just so it's more of a utility support than a direct healing support and to br an alternative to Bishop rather than just being a straight Bishop Upgrade. Class mastery could be like a passive restore status and heal 10% at start of turn I think would work.
Only thing about that is that heal/recover at three tiles is a little overpowered.
I think if white tomefare would be fine if it increased how effective healing was too.
Changes:
Class Abilities Become Lancefaire, White Magic Heal +5 (not +10 to keep Bishop in it’s niche), Canto
Reqs: Identical
Modifiers: A higher strength mod (not quite sure yet)
Mastery: Terrain Resistance seems cool, or maybe some custom Lance combat art that’s magical and 1-2 range (like Pneuma Gale)
Basically makes Holy Knight into a more physically oriented magic user, or maybe a off-healer, but not too good at any one thing.
You don't really want it to be mixed: the mixed offensive classes are generally worse overall.
It should be fully magic based so Lance faire isn't a good incentive. It's better to stack healing aka heal +10, white magic uses x2 plus white tome faire
Edit: bishop is already good because it allows x2 warp uses combined with extra healing/uses on physic. That doesn't mean bishop needs to have any niche. Give that to holy knight and it's basically how wyvern Lord outclassed wyvern rider (or falcon knight outclassed Pegasus knight).
I understand not liking hybrid classes and I feel like that’s just a personal preference thing. Personally i designed it around fun and also to not completely trivialise Bishop, not to be absolutely perfect. Your changes would definitely work too!
Note: Canto takes up an ability slot, so you’d only be able to have 2 of White Tomefaire/Uses/Heal +10. I personally don’t like keeping White Uses/Heal +10, once again because I want Bishop and Holy Knight to have their own uses.
Heal +10 and White Magic Uses X2 would make Holy Knight so much more versatile as a support unit
I think something like White magic range +2 could be more interesting. It would allow heals from 2 tiles away which combined with canto gives you physhic for those that don't have it. Also additional range on offensive magic makes it easier to use. It would help set them apart from Bishop who can do stronger heals.
Bishop would still have a strong value for it's better heals and extra support uses but holy knight would be for the healers without physic or warp or who actually do want to have some offense. I think the final slot could be a strong white magic offensive spell.
I will try Anette, lysithea and constance as holy knight. Even if they have 1 best holy spell, i can still add black/dark tome fair skills in addition. And for Annette it will be axe fair skills + bolting axe. I am pretty sure I can do things with it even if it's not the best but I play for me first 😁
White tomefaire doesn't do much for most healers. That said, I do understand that they were going for offensive white mage here. The only problem is there aren't enough characters who can pull off the offensive white mage role. The only compromise I could see here is having both tomefaire and uses x2, but that still doesn't incentivise your healers promoting to this class. It just sucks because the class is both a great idea and really cool in my opinion.
Defiant skills have the warding blow problem of 3H taking a bad skill and then making it worse for some reason
Perso for holy knight I would go this way:
Skill(ability): Canto, White magic faire, Spear fair (you could give it white use 2 insteed of the white tome faire tho I guess)
Growth perfect
Basse bonus:
2HP, 2 ATK, 2 MAG, 0DEX, 1 (-2) SPD, 1Luck, 0DEF, 4 RES, 0 Cha, 1 (+2) (I just don't like that the mount give 1 move it weird...)
I like the idea of you got for dismounted mounted / mounted big change to there stats.
The master skill could be a sacrifice skill for sure only for the holy knight but I would give them that only if they don't got White tome x2. else it kinda pointless.
Else I would say give them... I don't know HOLY or what every a crazy good magic faight spell.
I think it’s so funny that the best Holy Knight, Bernadetta, only uses the bare minimum amount of magic support necessary for her to even work in that class thanks to Rescue + Pass, and even then her potential is more limited than it could be thanks to the lack of White Magic Uses x2. She’s still better off nuking people with Vengeance, which she can easily do better as a Paladin or Falcon Knight.
If you can get white magic avoid you can use that instead on holy knight tbh and maybe use res boosting armor/items
I think the mounted/dismounted idea would be a great way to make all mounted units more interesting. Mounted units in FE3H feel so much more superior compared to infantry units because the dismount mechanic pretty much lets you get around all of their inherent weaknesses. Plus, the difference between a unit mounted compared to dismounted should be much greater than the game currently portrays it.
Regarding Holy Knight changes, the class only needs either White Magic Uses x2 or Heal +10 for it to be the best endgame healer class. Having both plus canto puts it in a broken tier.
As an aside, I really dislike Terrain Resistance and I feel like the should have turned it into a skill that eliminates all terrain penalties (movement and damage). Basically it'll give units the same movement as fliers except for the ability to go over walls/mountains.
I’m surprised that I wasn’t able to find any comment about seraphim, a white magic spell that’s effective on monsters. This spell would make Holy Knight into a Monster Killer because of it’s class ability, White Tomefaire. So I would rather keep that ability and have Terrain Resistance replaced with White Magic Heal +10. The only characters who can learn Seraphim are Lysithea, Sylvain, Ingrid, Edelgard, Balthus, and Hapi. Of course Lysithea would be the best Holy Knight.
I think the mastered ability should be terrain resistance not a main class ability.
Male magic user got shafted with no good master class
The reason that white tomefaire not raise the night of healing magic is because they don’t want to overcreep the almighty Recover, the best weapon in this game. Lfmao
Recover is worse than physic tho
It’s a meme
lol when the holy knight is actually potentially better while dismounted (still high move and you get extra speed)
For a unit like Marianne that has a boon in riding, good healing and some pretty offensive damaging spells, holy knight isn’t too bad for her. She’s a more offensive healer than the other healing units
She’s also way better in other classes like Dark Knight, Gremory, Valkyrie, or even Falcon Knight with Frozen Lance. And her “offensive” white magic consists of the underpowered Nosferatu and the low-use, almost too heavy to use effectively Aura. None of that is good enough to justify putting her in Holy Knight.
Cartoon Critic but she rides dorte must I say more
I’d rather she rides me...sorry forget I said that.
Cartoon Critic I said offlensive spells. Not “offensive” white magic. She gets some pretty strong spell unlocks for a “healing unit” if you raise her reason. I’m not saying holy knight is her best class but if anyone’s going holy knight Marianne is usually the only one worth investing in for that class in general
Keep White Tomefaire BUT replace Terrain Resistance with White Magic Range +1 and Seraphim with Defiant Resistance for the Class Mastery. This will make Holy Knight an offensive threat and be more attractive for Units with poor support spells and good magic growths so characters like Byleth and Annette would like this. Lysithea may even consider it over Gremory and Dark Knight with her mostly offensive Faith List, in exchange for 1 Warp.
This kind of Holy Knight would be less of a "Bishop on a horse" and more like a monster slaying Dark Knight with respectable range.
I agree with everything else. Good idea with mounting/dismounting, the larger trade off would make for some interesting options.
I think this class works if the character is made for it like Marianne
5:00 Marianne: exist
IKR I had her waste Lamines bolting spell in the final map of golden deer because she had 45 res
100% on that holy knight should just be a mounted bishop for move movement. The AoE sacrifice would be amazing on Mercy with her live to serve. Infinite heals!
Also I wish the Mastery classes were just at least on par with each other. I think it’s nice that not all Mastery classes work for every unit and would much rather use Advanced classes instead, but by god there’s literally only 4 Mastery classes I bothered even using in any of my playthroughs which were Wyvern Lord, War Master, Gremory, and Falcon Knight.
I regret ever using Holy Knight, never again.
Dark Knight was like a trial run on my first playthrough on BL and I put it on Sylvain, but he didn’t perform as well as I thought (he looked cool though). Great Knight is a decent class in a game that just doesn’t do tanks enough justice; the only character viable for Great Knight is Dedue since: Edelgard gets her unique; Raphael is much better as War Master; Hilda clearly destroys as a Wyvern Lord.
Mortal Savant is a class I really wanted to use, but the only unit I could think of using it on is Felix and his spell list was kind of lackluster.
Bow Knight was one I was always on the fence about because I would gain mobility but lose Hunter’s Volley.
Mortal savant is hilarious on Ignatz, he doesn't have too huge of magical might, but his high dex and luck paired with blizzard, Fimbulvetr, and cutting gale ensures him having at least base 50 crit with magic by endgame. I know he's better as an assassin, but it's just too funny loading him into that class.
half of master classes feel terrible to me only war master on certain characters,gremory,wyvern lord,and falcon knight feel any good to me the rest are either garbage or are so frustrating to get the requirements for like great knight that I honestly dont want to bother with them in future playthroughs
Honestly, if White Tomefaire was reworked to boost the range of utility spells and healing of healing spells as well as the damage it already boosts, it would’ve been fine. Instead, we get this mess of a class who seems to focus more on offense... using the weapon type with the least amount of attacks.
This class is especially bad when you add the DLC classes into the loop.
I basically make valkyrie Mercedes' final class now
Not just the holy knight alot of the classes need revamping
Honestly... I always plan to make my healers holy knights because of utility. They're not the most mobile units as bishops n stuff and terrain resistance really comes in clutch. Plus I love mounted units because of how much I end up using canto and planning around it.