Knights: Helpful Tidbits to Maximize Effectiveness

Knights: Helpful Tidbits to Maximize Effectiveness

Knights: Helpful Information To Maximize Effectiveness

Written By U. Dye

NOTE: This guide will contain certain details that you may have wanted to find out for yourself. In reading this guide, you release the author from any liabilities that may come about. What kinds may come about, I have no idea, but in a day and age where you can sue McDonald’s for giving you a fat ass, I’m taking no chances.

Introduction

A Knight can be a valuable asset to any party when properly utilized. However, like any class, a Knight is not universally powerful; they do have weaknesses, and some monsters may prove quite a hassle for them to take down. The information provided below should help any new Knight make their presence known in almost any engagement.

Strengths of Knights

The main strengths of Knights include: a vast selection of weapons and armors with which to eradicate targets while keeping themselves alive; various battle techniques that can do anything from dual attacks, to increased damage, to perfect accuracy, and even instant kills; and high growth rates in Strength(+3), Vitality(+3), Dexterity(+3), and HP(+9). They also have average growth in Agility(+2) to help offset the weight of their heavy armor. They have no Willpower.

  • Their high HP can offset the damaging effects of magic, although the Demi spell becomes more painful as Knights level up.
  • Their high Strength ensures very damaging attacks, which can be further enhanced with Boost spells, or the Knights’ own techniques.
  • High Vitality means that Knights will be difficult to harm physically, which, coupled with their high HP and heavy armor, can make them seemingly indestructible, or at least very resilient in the face of physically powerful monsters. A Shield spell can DRASTICALLY increase the total defense of a Knight to the point of near imperviousness.
  • High Dexterity allows Knights to wield heavy weapons with relative ease, enabling them to attack with great power and accuracy. Combine this with a Fast spell, and monsters will be hard pressed to avoid their attacks.

Aside from their high stats, Knights also have a variety of techniques with which to make life difficult for whatever stands in their way.

  • Slash is a powerful attack against a single enemy, with an MP cost of 2. In the instance of a missed attack, however, no MP is spent, so in the event that the attack misses, the Knight can take solace in the fact that they get another chance. It is a normal attack with an added 60% damage and 10% more accuracy. At first, this attack is not very useful, as Knights are rather limited in their stock of MP; however, in later Hunting Grounds, and during boss battles, the required 2 MP are very often invested in this attack. Particularly troublesome chaotics may also feel the pain of a Slash attack in an attempt to bring them down before they can cause too much trouble. This attack is a good follow-up for allied Demi/Quarter spells, and becomes extremely powerful when coupled with a Boost spell. This attack is learned very early on, at level 3.
  • Dice is an area-based attack; it will attack the entire column in which the target monster is located. However, the damage is reduced by 25%, and that’s before any monsters’ resistances are taken into account. Also, since monsters are seldom positioned in very tall columns, this technique generally does not prove very useful. This attack costs 2 MP, which is a fairly reasonable cost to be able to attack an entire column of enemies, assuming there’s about 4-5 targets in said column. However, since accuracy is not increased by this technique, the chance of missing is an ever-present threat; even worse, even if the attack misses every single chaotic in the targeted column, the 2 MP will be spent. The best solution for this is to cast a Fast spell on the attacking Knight before the attack is used; a Boost spell would also be a good idea, to offset the reduced damage of the attack. This attack is learned at level 8.
  • Double Strike is a useful passive skill learned at level 11. It has a 20% chance of activating when a Knight chooses the Attack command in battle. (At level 45, this increases to 30%.) The technique costs no MP at all to use. So, what does it do? Simple: when it activates, the Knight attacks the same target twice, consecutively. As in, double the pain is caused. Both attacks are exactly the same as a normal, non-Double Strike attack. They can be weak, normal, critical, or mortal wounds. The potential even exists for double Mortal Wounds; very rare, but so much fun to see, and even more so to copy and paste to wsay for all to see. Of course, this technique’s potency can be increased with a Fast or a Boost spell; preferably both. The only flaw with Double Strike is that, even if the first attack kills the target, the second attack will not retarget; the targeted monster will take the brunt of both attacks, which will allow it to make a nuisance of itself one last time.
  • Retort is a handy counterattack learned at level 14. The MP cost of 1 is very low, and the technique very powerful when used properly. It works as such: at the outset of the round, 1 MP is spent and the Knight stands back, their command entered. The next monster to land a physical attack on the Knight had better land a deathblow, otherwise the monster will pay most dearly; the Knight will instantly counterattack with an extra 30% accuracy, and doubled attack power. That is, double their own attack power, not that of the chaotic (this is not Pokemon). If they are not attacked the round they activated Retort, no problem; the technique will remain active until some unlucky monster pays with its own blood. The drawback to Retort is, until level 30, only one counterattack may be executed per use, so a small, weak monster may wind up being killed, and one MP essentially wasted. (At level 30, a Knight can counterattack as many times in one round as s/he is attacked, at which point, Retort ceases to be active.) As well, if a Knight is attacked magically, Retort will not activate; a counterattack will only be invoked if the attack is physical. Of course, Boost spells will help ensure that attacking monsters pay dearly for their mistake; however, Fast spells are a double-edged sword: while the Knight is less likely to miss upon counterattacking, s/he is also more prone to evading physical strikes, and thus, Retort may never even activate.
  • Defonce is another area attack, learned at level 20. It is virtually identical to Dice in every aspect, except that it targets horizontal rows, rather than vertical columns. Since there are less monsters in rows than there are in columns, this attack is even less useful than Dice, and this is reflected through the very rare use of this technique. If you must use it, try to line up the row you’re attacking with the bottom half of a large monster to damage it as well; the top half of the monster, as you may notice, is never labeled with a number, and when attacked, it’s always the bottom left corner of the monster’s icon where the attack animation appears. This is because the bottom left portion of the monster is the only part actually registered as a monster; attacking a row on which the top half of the monster is located will miss the actual target. Don’t go out of your way to target the lower half of the monster if it means your overall damage will be less; this is just something to keep in mind when using Defonce.
  • Render is yet another single attack, learned at level 26. The MP cost of Render is 3, with no MP spent if the attack should miss. This attack can either be very powerful, or very weak; it cuts the target’s HP in half, with an accuracy rate equal to a normal attack. It does not work on bosses, however. For targets with low amounts of HP, Slash would probably be a better choice, but for targets with huge amounts of HP, or nasty aspects such as Eating, Render is a good method for quickly eliminating them. If a Knight can quickly execute Render during battle, the target may be wiped out that very same round by an allied spell such as White, Nuke, or Pearl, or techniques from other classes, like a Dragoon’s Skyfighting techniques. Boost spells have no effect on Render; however, Fast spells will increase its potency by reducing inaccuracy.
  • Endless Rebuttal is a passive skill learned at level 30. This technique was briefly mentioned (not by name) in the above description of Retort; it increases the number of counterattacks a Knight can execute with one use of Retort. Sadly, it ceases to function at the end of the round a Knight executes the first counterattack for that use of Retort, so it must be reused periodically if a Knight wishes to continue counterattacking. Endless Rebuttal is useful because it prevents many instances of a Knight wasting a Retort on a small, weak enemy that was about to be killed anyway.
  • Frenzy is a very fun technique. It is learned at level 34, and costs 4 MP. Expensive, no? No, actually it’s not. Frenzy is powerful in its own respect; it will never, never never ever miss. Ever. Along with perfect accuracy, it adds 8 hits to however many were executed by the Knight upon use. Meaning, Frenzy is a perfect-accuracy attack that causes a huge amount of damage; more so than Slash, in many instances. This is useful for taking out very evasive monsters that cannot be allowed to live for very long, such as Evil Spirits. A Fast spell matters little when using Frenzy; the only effect will be a quicker execution of the attack. Boost, however, is a different story. This attack’s strength lies in the number of hits it inflicts, and of course, Boost spells increase the maximum number of hits of the target. A Knight who uses Frenzy while Boost3 is in effect can score as many as 18 hits with this attack; not exactly a rival for a Blackbelt, who can score as many as 50 hits with a technique of their own, but the damage is very large.
  • Puree is learned at level 40, much to the dismay of competent Knights. It is identical to Dice and Defonce, only much more useful due to its area of effect: a 5x5 square, with the targeted monster at the very center. This attack can cause a huge amount of damage to a large area. Fast and Boost spells can help to ensure that. But, ever since the implementation of the feature that allows large and small monsters to appear at any point on the battlefield, this attack’s usefulness has taken a slight blow in that the large monsters will take up a large portion of the attack’s range, and essentially make meat shields out of them for the smaller monsters.
  • At level 45, Knights learn Improved Double Strike. As previously mentioned, this increases the odds of Double Strike activation to 30%.
  • Divide is the Knight’s instant-kill attack, learned at level 50. This attack costs 5 MP, more than any other Knight skill. But, like Slash and Render, no MP is spent if it misses. As Knights max out at 13 MP, they only get 2 uses per battle before they must either resort to other tactics, or start defending to regain MP. However, this attack is very powerful in that it’s very accurate, using 85% of the user’s normal accuracy. There are two ways to increase this technique’s effectiveness: increasing the user’s Dexterity, which will subtract from other stats such as Strength, or using a Fast spell, most notably Fast3. Fast3, combined with at least somewhat increased Dexterity, can make for a near-perfect-accuracy kill. Few things can stand against a Knight at that point; however, again, the Knight only gets 2 consecutive Divides, at which point MP will be extremely low, and use of other techniques will be almost wiped out. Knights who use Divide at the outset of every battle would do well to know what they are doing, as they will be severely weakened when the use of their other techniques becomes so limited. As for other, more occasional use of Divide, targets with huge amounts of HP, or those that simply can NOT be allowed to survive for long for whatever reason, are prime targets. By the time a Knight learns Divide, the list of prime targets is fairly short: Gigas Worms and any large monsters found in the Pits of Pain. Also of note, if you should feel compelled to Divide a monster, inform your party of your intentions ahead of time, lest they decide to attack your intended target with a spell or skill that consumes a bunch of MP. After all, there’s no sense in spending 100 MP casting Nuke on a target that’s about to be whacked in two or more pieces anyway.

Weaknesses of Knights

To this point, the strengths of Knights, as well as their techniques, have been discussed in great detail; however, their weaknesses have yet to be mentioned. They will be briefly discussed here, along with some tips to help offset or eradicate them.

  • The first thing one must know about Knights is that they are not mages, and as such, they cannot increase their MP at every level, nor can they recover it en masse during battle. This means that, if a Knight is going to be a heavy MP user, they had best be prepared in the event that a battle cannot be ended quickly. A mage class with support or healing spells would be a valuable asset, although a large group would probably be the best idea. White Mages would be good support with Cure, Shield, and Fast spells; Blue and Black Mages carry Barrier and Boost spells, as well as Cure, in the case of Blue Mages; Red Mages have low-level Boost, Barrier, and Shield spells, as well as all tiers of Cure. Depending on the build of a Knight or the tactics employed by one, a suitable supporting mage should be chosen. However, Black Mages would be best suited only for large groups, as they can only heal themselves with Drain, and Knights cannot heal themselves at all, except via the Defend and Rest command (but they can only heal 1 HP for every 20 HP in their maximum). Knights should never be without a method of healing great amounts of HP, because emergencies do arise, and accidents WILL happen.
  • Knights, being weighed down with a ton of heavy armor, are not very fast. They often attack late in each round of battle, and aren’t very evasive. There are a few methods for remedying this: increasing the Agility of the Knight, using lighter armor, and using support magic. White Mages are handy for this; they have Fast spells for evasiveness and speedier attacking, and they have a Shield spell which can increase the defense of a Knight who opts to use lighter armor. However, do not concern yourself too much with eradicating this weakness if it doesn’t much bother you; sure, it’s not fun to be very slow, but then, Knights are built for strong attacks, not fast ones. Leave the speed attacks to Thieves and Dragoons.
  • Aside from being slow, Knights have absolutely no resistance to magic, aside from huge HP. Of course, since magic ignores defense, there is nothing a Knight can do to protect him- or herself from magical de-lifing other than increasing HP (or killing the monster that’s using the spells). However, a Barrier spell from Black, Blue, or Red Mages can provide protection from magic, and give the Knight a chance to show that magic-using piece of crap what pain is all about.
  • Similar to no magic resistance is a lack of resistance to status ailments. Slow and Weak are the bane of Knights, although the others are all nasty in their own way. Poison is the least of a Knight’s worries, as they can restore HP faster than they lose it by defending. Unfortunately, in battle, there is basically nothing a Knight can do to remove status effects from themselves, so if you find yourself hit by one, you’ll just have to suck it up.

General Tips

  • Firstly, always try to have a mage present who has a healing spell, whether it’s Cure or Healstorm. Recovering 1/20 of one’s max HP is good, but when you’re being blasted with Fire2 spells from 6 monsters at once... Well, you get the picture.
  • Don’t rush through the game; take some time to save up money, and upgrade your equipment. Remember, one of the key advantages of a Knight is the vast amount of heavy weapons and armor they can use. Don’t just buy a few cheap pieces of equipment from Dainan and expect it to last you until the Tower of The Enlightened; that’s a pretty good way to get slaughtered. A whole lot.
  • If you’re the type of player who prefers using loads of techniques to cause the vast majority of your damage, you might be better off using a Black Mage or something. Knights may have nearly 10 different ways to cut stuff up, but they just don’t have the MP to stand there and use a lot of techs every single battle.
  • Keep a few HP and Antidote potions on hand if you have a few extra gold to spend on them. You may not always have a mage in the party who can heal very well, and while the Rest command can be used when necessary, it takes a long time and the party may become impatient. Remember, if they’re not happy, you’re not happy. And if they’re not happy long enough, you may wind up unhappy with no one to watch your back.
  • Two words: Harvest. Technique. This is where you leave one weak monster alive at the end of battle, and have a party member cripple it with Slow or Sleep. Then, the party spends its time Defending and Meditating, to heal HP and MP. When the healing is all done, one of the powerhouses erases the last monster and the party moves on.
  • You had damn well better be able to improvise. I suggest ways to knock off enemies, yeah, but maybe you can come up with a better way, or maybe circumstances, such as a death in the party, would make my methodology a very bad idea.

The Actual Game

Top View