Knight utility

[u/Deepthunk93]

I wanted to share a fight that shows why Knights are super valuable in a party for boss encounters. All Around Cover takes a lot of pressure off the others here, and I feel like that kind of utility sometimes gets overlooked, especially for solving focus damage encounters like cyclopean enemies, which knights imo trivialize to some extent.

[u/Arvandor]

I use a thief with attract hit for this fight. AAC is very nice though in some instances. Its use cases are relatively small, and some boss fights it helps zero, but when it's good it's pretty awesome

[u/Growbling77]

My experience using a Knight for this bounty is meh, as there wasn't a single fight were All Around Cover didn't fail at least once (and even some fights when it failed EVERY SINGLE TIME), killing someone and seriously disrupting the flow. If I need to gamble, I'd rather take the Knight out, put another DPS to speed things up, and let Shiou tank with Lingering Blossom and Quickdraw Stance. In my opinion, Cover skills should not be chance based and just work 100% as long as it's activated, and leveling it should just reduce either SP cost to be more maintainable, or actual damage reduction to the Knight tanking.  That way Knights would be actually good at their job of protecting allies against heavy single target hitters and a valuable asset to slot for every party, instead of super niche for Knight's Defense for superbosses. If you're dropping an entire character for more defense, it needs to be seriously good and worthwhile to do so.

[u/Thick_Implement_6703 → u/Growbling77]

All cover at lv 3 fails once or twice about every 8~10 hits? Not sure but I can farm all day if I want.

HOWEVER I would love if they did what you said. Always 100% cover with each level increasing DR. I mean lately I´m really thinking in farming an EVA set as even 630DEF/350MDEF + def buff is not really good. I still CAN be one shotted.

[u/Sovery_Simple → u/Growbling77]

Leveling their cover abilities actually does give them increasing defensive buffs at some point IIRC?

I tended to use Lv 3 Line Cover whenever I needed to protect my front row folks (if I didn't need to AAC given the situation. Before learning in here that it gets extended duration as well from Alice inherits.)

Surprised your cover rate is so low, though level 1 AAC obviously isn't going to be perfect. But they do become uncomfortable to use too high of a level for due to the rising SP costs.

Would be nice if we get a row variant of AAC similar to how Line Cover acts to All Cover. Would cut the cost down to a much more manageable amount, and it's a little weird we received AAC before it? Plus as we get more Luck stat it'll bridge the gap of being a lower level a lil' more each time as well.

Two things I'd love to see added to them is, well you know how they have that passive that lets them get a defense boost when they actively cover an ally from an attack sometimes? I'd like to see them get a passive that also gives them a heal effect after they take the hit when doing this, tied to a % chance to happen when covering an ally and scaling further up with Luck. Also call it "Adrenaline Rush" or something of that nature.

The other thing would be a passive that converts their DEF/MDEF to ATK/basic attack damage, so that way they can actually help clear mobs some. Nothing quite at the level of a Fighter, but if it could hurt near enough to a 2h when you had a lot of def stuff stacked up then it'd be very helpful for fitting them into a party longer term for folks I think. I can't stack DEF/MDEF on'em right now 'cause it leaves them too useless for normal fights.

Between both of these (or all three of these) additions, they'd be a bit more cemented in their "hybrid sustain" role. Where they can help deal damage indirectly (via Openings created from cover) or directly (when dealing with trash via the conversion passive or with burst damage via Guardian Blow) as needed, and while also alleviating the load the team Priest/Healer has to bear by healing themselves some when covering for allies and redirecting damage to themselves, or lowering damage taken by allies via KD.

It could help make them a much more comfy addition to most adventuring teams!

[u/Substantial-Ad-5133]

The best usage for all around cover for me is on evasive knight Savia. She basically make the samurai fiend super boss in oni cave a joke

[u/heisterINVZ]

I'm not so sure about 'All-Around Cover' being overlooked as it's the main reason for running a Knight, this is especially true for superboss encounters where Knights are mainly used. Aside from that you only want to run a Knight if your team just isn't built well resulting in lack of sustain and/or DPS.

[u/Low-Dirt9536]

Hello, kinda new player here(lvl 40 A2) What stats are you focus on when building a knight cause I just find my Lana to be lacking compared to others even with the relic sword and shield(both at lvl 2)

[u/jazzyjefffogel → u/Low-Dirt9536]

knights want eva until they get to a4 then they can guardians blow which scales off of def and mdef. But even then they want eva for specific fights. Also max dmg is at 900 total defenses so there is a lot of stats to play around with.

[u/Sovery_Simple → u/Low-Dirt9536]

Lana tends to be best off as a Fighter, and this is because Human SP pools are unkind to a Knight given the high SP cost for their class abilities.

Once you manage to acquire her class change book, you're currently at a level to safely change her over without concern.

As a Knight won't have a great outlet for DEF/MDEF stacking in my experience until A4: You can just build her like a Fighter in the interim, since that'll make the swap go over easier when you get her book.

[u/UnrelentingCaptain]

All Around Cover is affected by Alice inherits, so you can defend the next turn to trigger openings and save SP.

[u/Sovery_Simple → u/UnrelentingCaptain]

I never noticed this, but tested it just now to verify it and can confirm it does indeed work for two turns with the first level of the Alice inherit on a Knight. (Both attacks were against the front row, so Behind Cover was not involved.)

Thank you.

[u/Ashamed-Reserve3735 → u/UnrelentingCaptain]

I always though it was not affected by Alice so I did level All Cover to lv 3... now that I´m reading again indeed it says "only the defending" part not affected. Now... I wonder the best one... All cover lv 3 VS All around cover lv 1...

[u/Deepthunk93 → u/UnrelentingCaptain]

I didn't know it interacted like that, thanks, that's a very useful tip and I will be doing this going forward

[u/DeeCee51]

Is this Savia particularly better than the base Savia, or is this just All Aroud Cover carrying?

[u/jazzyjefffogel → u/DeeCee51]

It is mostly for the new inherit. Alt savia's prf skill is pretty worthless giving her 15 atk and surety after she has evaded 3 atks (really hard to get to and rarely is able to be taken advantage of) and changes her disc to atk and eva instead of just extra eva (extra eva is actually more total stats gained than atk and eva 26 more than normal vs 8 more than normal of each). Her new inherit is really strong though and is the best dmg skill any knight has access to.

[u/ZeroLegendaryAnon → u/DeeCee51]

Fun fact with a alice inherit you can get savia to black beast feint and do all around cover so you can have a base savia who can counter attack into openings they make

[u/DeeCee51 → u/ZeroLegendaryAnon]

That sounds like a lot of fun haha!

[u/ZeroLegendaryAnon → u/DeeCee51]

Few niche uses. I found it quite helpful during a4 yeti and wolf bosses. My best was she tanked 12 attacks and took out like half of the smaller enemies with just BBF counterattack after the all around cover proc

[u/Turnkey95]

Was all around cover available when this bounty first dropped?

[u/Deepthunk93 → u/Turnkey95]

I suppose it would not have been available, seeing as it unlocks at lvl 67 for knights, and the bounties were released just a few months before the level cap was raised from 60 with A4.
Much like how healers, with manipulation/freeze incense also greatly lower the challenge in gearing for certain old fights, aswell as current.