Insane Difficulty: Rank the Knights - Insane Difficulty

How would you rank Agrias, Hitoshi, Meliadoul, and Orlandu in terms of usefulness? I want to put at least 2 of them on my main team but can't figure out which.

Agrias is the top for me, both in power and utility. Good stats and her status procs are all good, if undependable. She has good skills for dealing with height differences both within her AoEs and between her and her target. I've lost count of how many clutch confusion procs have saved me from losing a fight. I might just like her because luck is the only way I can win in 1.3 Also, she's a woman (happy women's day, btw) so she gets to wear ribbons and perfumes.

I know you didn't list him, but Beowulf is a swordskiller/knight and he's pretty good, I'd put him second I suppose. He's devastating, but very inflexible, since there's really only one build for him (two-sword sage w/ faith rod).

Melly for 3rd, or maybe second. Not to speak for others, but lots of people on the forum like her as #1. She's better than Agrias when she's good, but if your enemy is a monster or has concentrate, like EVERYTHING IN THE GAME then she's only so-so. Like Agrias, she's a lady and therefore can smell good and look pretty, which is a big deal in FFT.

Hitoshi can replenish his mana while ruining someone else's attempt to cast a spell, so that's cool. All the other knights need to come up with another way to get MP back. Beyond that trick he's weak even with the best gear in the game and he has the 2nd worst sprite in the game. If swordskillers didn't have to 2-hand knight swords, he might make a decent tank, but nope.

Orlandu sucks. Crap stats, reduced equips. Which makes me cry, because I hate to see him on the bench.

You have to work really hard in 1.3 to make a swordskiller as good as a monk or geomancer, which they are relatively similar to. They need to be fed endgame gear, and unlike a monk, they can't rez.

I hear you on wanting two of them, but I can't imagine having room for more than one. There are just better things to have in your party. You also only get one Chaos Blade.

Honestly, they are all kinda bad. But if you really want to use them, I'd say Agrias and Hitoshi are the best. Melly joins way to late, and Orlandu's job has the worst stat growths in the game. If you get him at a really low level (like 10-15) and train him as a mime or a ninja, he will be really good. But the amount of effort it takes to make him usable isnt worth the payoff.

If Beowulf is included, he is either the best character in the game or the worst, depending on the fight. There is no middle ground.

Tabeguache, on 08 March 2017 - 07:10 PM, said:

Incorrect. If you are level 99 for Elmdor, Celia and Lede throw chaos blades at you, which you can catch. The ragnarok and save the queen are better tho, they have a little less wp but give you a nice defensive buff.

Whoops forgot to include Beowulf, never got him in Vanilla. And thanks for your input guys. Just a few more things:

Tabeguache, on 08 March 2017 - 07:10 PM, said:

Do you mean Maintenance? If so, yeah this was one of my big worries about using Meliadoul.

Also, what makes Monk and Geomancer better?

Kjata, on 08 March 2017 - 08:03 PM, said:

Never used him, but I'm assuming he's only terrible against Lucavi since they're immune to debuffs, correct? Is he bad anywhere else?

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I often have salty rage on the women if I'm looking at an endurance fight, but yes, I do pull those swords out for the buffs, and that is a good point. Still, with swordskiller damage being what it is, if I can't 1-hit something they're often not worth their roster spot, so I certainly appreciate the 2 WP, especially if one can catch more than 1 enemy.

I did know you could catch chaos blades, but I thought that might be muddying the waters for the sake of explaining why I only have 1 skiller in my roster usually. Is there a place to do it in the deep dungeon or is it just celia and lede?

You do make a good point that knight sword scarcity alone isn't sufficient reasoning to support the claim that 2 is too many. So I'd add to that scarcity of other end-game gear (e.g. maximilion), duplication of function (sorta) where diversity and options are usually preferable, and that there are just better things to be than trumped-up geomancers that cost mana, especially when you're talking about the weaker skillers like orlandu.

So I concede that I made the point sloppily, but I still stand behind the conclusion that more than 1 sword skiller is rarely a good use of the slot, unless there's a gimmick you're exploiting with one of them, or perhaps Bro-wulf.

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I totally meant maintenance.

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"Better" depends on circumstances, but they're certainly strong as hell.

Monk is physically powerful, somewhat tough (and can get very tough), has ranged damage, status cures and a (shitty) rez. For my mileage, two-swording a monk does more damage than anything but a lucky shot from Reis. Monk is just a really handy combo of damage, flexibility, and options that leaves your secondary open to a skill that doesn't have to include a rez. Equip armor and equip shield are party time for monks. Or, no shirt, no shoes, no problems...

I listed geomancer because they're so similar to the swordskillers: they do little instant 5-square AOEs in a similar range with status procs, only they don't cost mana. They're just similar to swordskillers, and often out-damage them if you don't have endgame gear. And they're not forced to hold something in both hands, or wear armor.

Also, there are SO MANY DAMNED THINGS that are status-immune in ch.4, it's not just Lucavi. I get why it's done that way, but it's pretty boring sometimes. Sometimes I feel like the game's options would graph like a bell curve. In ch.1 you don't have a lot of options so you just smack things and cast a few spells. Then you get all these options that are awesome to play with. Then, at the end of the game, you can't use any of them so the strategy just goes back to casting haste and punching things. Or exploiting some gimmick like everyone casting quick on mustadio so he can arm-aim a whole team because thats the only status they're vulnerable to.

My rank (subjective):

Agrias: 6/10: She comes early, and she's a tanky character with decent damage. More over, she's versatile during the game: Comes early, is a nice addition to the party. Then, she can use the defender for some awesome evasion. Later, she can form a party of all swordskillers, which can be pretty helpful.

Hitoshi: 7.5/10: Well, only in chapter 4 clearly, but. Make him a knight. Give him a high WP weapon (ideally a Chaos Blade, or whatever you can equip). Use Night Sword. Watch him tank anything, deal massive damage, and heal himself to tank another turn. It's really useful within 1.3's Chapter 4 design of damage racing through every battle. Also, blood suck can break some battles if you amange to get that proc. That status just breaks the AI in half if used correctly.

Meliadoul: 4/10: Well, she's a female, which is useful in 1.3 due to the powered female equipment. However, she comes late, and at that point, breaking equipment doesn't do much good to be honest.

Orlandu: This one's complicated. The best answer is - 7/10 if you grab him at a low level (30 maximum) and level him with good growths. His skillset is amazing, combining the best parts of Agrias, Hitoshi, Knight and Meliadoul, but his growths practically force him to be useful only in this context. He's way to slow and weak to be of any use in a normal playthrough, unless you really want his high brave and slow, slow tankiness. In a normal playthrough, he's a 2.5/10 - Easily bootable.

Beowulf: 10/10. The class, and the skillset are so variable, that there's no battle where I wouldn't use Beowulf. Make him a Magic Knight, tanky setup with dual Nagrarocks and Carabini Mail or tankiness, decent speed, and an empty secondary. Swap the dual Nagrarocks for a Defender for Evasion and a free Support Skill. Make him a Sage with Nagrarock and Faith Rod for his nearly-broken setup of near-100% status. His tanky setups also work excellent for high damage Shocks, which bypass the nasty defense and evasion of special units like, say, white knights, assassins, or other nuisances. He's the best special, period. By far. He fits any team if you know how to equip him, and use him.

Fauve, on 08 March 2017 - 09:09 PM, said:

Starting in early ch4, enemies start showing up with no no story significance who are immune to every single negative status. This slowly escalates, with 4/6 enemies at germinas peak being blanket immune and 5/6 Outside Murond. I'm not actually sure who is and isn't immune in end game orbonne, but I'd guess nearly everyone (except for Altima's demons).

The funny thing about beowulf is that he is so strong, I think he is the strongest character in the game despite roughly half of the enemies you can fight with him being immune to his skills. 90%+ Sleeps and Petrifies with no charge time is beyond strong. The only reason he isnt the new Orlandu is because he is worthless against so many enemies.

For me, it goes like this:

Agrias: The "best" of the sword killers in terms of ease of use. You don't have battles where she's ever kinda "meh" like Beowulf, but there's not a single battle where I think "wow, Agrias is amazing." Not one. Thanks to the nerfs to sword skills in general-- MP cost, evade flags, Agrias basically ends up just being a slightly worse version of herself from Vanilla (even with the better multipliers). When she joins in Ch. 2 magic gets a damage spike (in addition to probably being stronger than physical at this point anyways). Magic does more damage than Holy Sword, and Elemental does around the same with no drawbacks outside of having to "know" the terrain (seriously, Golem Axe male + Attack Up / Magic Attack Up and magical equips is just gross for damage in Ch. 2 and 3) . Agrias IMO is actually kinda worthless here. It's not until Ch.4 where magic starts to suck that she can shine, and by then, it's double fisting ninja land and a speed world. Being a female is the only thing she really has going for her for perfumes. 5/10. Average and not really worth deploying over a generic really. Squire has revive, access to clothes (so they can push their PA to be the same or higher than the +20 multiplier and more importantly, speed) and +1 move. I'd say that's honestly debatable if it's worth losing 20 PAM. I'm kinda... Serious on that one. 1.3 Squire is actually... Kinda comparable. Especially since they could be some sort of weird support unit with knives etc. Agrias MUST use swords in her base class, and must have Equip Sword outside of her base class... It's pretty damning in this version. That said, this applies to all of them. You know outside of existing when magic reigns king.

Hitoshi: 7/10. Hart is pretty spot on with Hitoshi. You turn him into a Knight, grab Attack Up (which he has enough JP for), pound things as hard as you can. When you first get him, he's solid and worth deploying for a couple of fights at least. And his status effects are more devastating and he doesn't need a babysitter to keep his MP topped off. I'd actually say he was 2nd best if he was a woman. But he's not. So he's limited in potential.

Orlandu: like most people said, he's pretty lousy because of his growths. His moveset on the other hand, is okay. You get knight debuffs Power and Mind Ruin, which make him great for bosses as Orlandu's moveset > Knight on things that you'd want to lower their PA and MA. Dark Sword and Night Sword are great moves to have around. Everything else is pretty lousy because of the multipliers given to Orlandu with his growths. Because of the growths and how fast a person generally levels in 1.3, this makes Orlandu bad news. 3/10 if only because being a debuffer can still be viable and some of his moves are *still* usable outside of being a lol equip sword. I never used him. I never use him.

Meliadoul: She's weird. She can use clothes. Which is very nice, and you'll probably just spam Crush Punch 2 instead of the single target armor breaks. In this regard, she's pretty much Agrias+ in terms of straight up damage. They have the same multiplier on physical attacks and growths, and CP2 isn't much weaker (if at all), than Lightning Stab. She may not have an attack like Holy Explosion, but that's a small price to pay for the perks. It's also worth noting that Meliadoul can *also* use Javelin 2 to stab people in the face if her skill set isn't doing it for you. In her base class... with all of the perks. 7/10. Better than Agrias in this regard. I still don't like her too much but your mileage may vary. I'd definitely put her above Agrias. As Holy Explosion confuse procs are not worth relying on.

Beowulf +-10/10. Yeah. He's either great, or useless. And having cruddy brave sucks, so he's pretty much never going to be able to use cool reactions which can hurt him when he sucks on key battles where you can't hit them with status effects... Oh well, at least he has shock which is one of the few ways to get around Defense Up + Protect spam that happens later on in the game.

Overall, Meliadoul is the one that's worth using the most. Female + broader equips + randomly having Javelin 2 access + best speed multiplier put her as the best one to use. She's the most stable of all of them I mean.

She can wear clothes and spears? That changes things a lot. I'd upgrade that quite a bit, to a 8/10. It'd make her better than Onion Knight, fitting her role if you put Equip Change on her. You positive about that? Daamn.

As far as I recall, Spear-based Meliadoul (Actually just Freya) was a reimagining the good Doctor did in WotL 1.3.1.0.

The 1.3.0.8 job chart says she's still Sword only.

Yep. Meliadoul can use armor, clothes and robes. Helms but no hats, and javelins. It was pretty shocking, but those are what she has.

Wait, Melly can cast her skills through a spear?

No. She cannot but she can use spears which means she's the only other heavy armor spear user with clothes besides onion knight.