Right, let's continue wiht this thing.
With the recent addition of Beowulf and Orlandu to the team I'll take this opportunity to talk about the "Knight" Jobs in FFTA, namely the Paladin, the Defender and the Templar. Yes, there's also the Moogle Knight and the Chocobo Knight. I want to tackle them later, because while they fit the mold there's IMO better groupings for them.
Let's start with the Paladin, a Job we've already seen in the series. The Paladin in FFTA is a defensive Job, focused on supporting and protecting others along with the ability to deal Holy damage. Defensively the Paladin is the best Hume Job, having a high HP and Resist growth and the best Defense growth; the Attack growth is also high and the Magic one is surprisingly fair for a melee Job. This is paid for by a low MP growth (though Paladins have low MP usage) and notably the slowest Speed growth in the game, a common theme for the Knight Jobs. The Paladin's abilities are centered on support and defense, but have some offensive ones: Nurse hals and removes status in cross AoE centered on the user, Defense raises both defenses until the user next turn, Cover is the classic "take damage insted of the target" (and has range 4 to make it usable), Subdue is a weak attack (useful for removing statuses like Sleep, or if you want to Capture monsters), Drop Weapon can disarm opponents, Parley can remove opponents from battle (though the success rate is generally low, and works best on injured opponents). The last 2 abilities are Saint Cross and Holy Blade: both deal Holy damage, in an area (Saint Cross, AoE centered on user) or at single targets (Holy Blade). These are strong, Holy Blade in particular scales very well with better weapons, but cost quite a lot of MPs and with their low MP growth the Paladin has limited uses of them. Paladins also get Weapon Def+ for reduced damage from weapons and Reflex, which is Shirahadori's little brother and allows Paladins to completely avoid normal attacks; doesn't work on abilities or magic though. With access to heavy armors, helms, robes, shields, Knight Swords and Greatswords the Paladin is a powerful defensive unit with good offense, though slow and lacking in range.
Tactics A2 doesn't change things much. Subdue and Drop Weapon are gone and replaced with Sanctify (a ranged AoE anti-undead attack, dealing damage and removing fallen undeads from the battle field) and War Cry (self-targeted AoE tha increases debuff and status resilience), and both Holy blade and Saint Cross have their MP cost reduced. The core of the Job is unchanged, and the new abilities help them to fit their role better.
Next we have the Defender. As the name and the fact that I put it in the Knight Jobs suggests, the Defender is another physically strong defensive Job. Compared to the Paladin here we have more a focus on self-buffs than the team support of the Paladin. The Defender's stat growth is along the same lines as the Palaldin and with most Bangaa Jobs: high HP, good Attack, high Defense, low Magic, decent Resist and low Speed. Equipment-wise it's got heavy armor, helms, robes, knight swords and broadswords (which are different from greatswords), but not shields. As for abilities, we have the same Drop Weapon and Defense as the Paladin, then some abilities for prolonged combat: Hibernate puts the Defender to sleep but removes other statuses (it's Rest from Pokemon), Aura casts regen and Auto-Life on themsleves and Expert Guard prevents damage for one turn, but not status (basicallt Protect, also from Pokemon). Then you have some offensive abilities, all with self-centered AoE: tremor deals damage and knocks away, Mow Down deals more damage but reduces Evasion and Speed for one turn (a very long one, they're already slow and the speed reduction doesn't help) and Meltdown deals damage equal to current HP, then the defender is KO (it's Selfdestruct, it's basically Selfdestruct). Their Reaction ability is Last Berskerk, that self-casts Berserk at critical HP (not particularly useful TBH). They also get the same Weapon Def+ as the Paladin. Overall they're very strong defensively and can deal some damage, but suffer in versatility, range and speed. Excellent sustainability though, Aura makes them very hard to KO.
In Tactics A2 little changes for Defenders. They get a buff in their Defense growth. Some abilities are renamed, but the functionality is kept as it was. They do gain the Bulwark support ability that lets other Jobs wear heavy armor, which is good for other Jobs, but the Defender gains little from it. The best change is that they can use shields now, so you ahve a reason now to equip a knightsword instead of a broadsword.
Last we have Templars. This Job is a bit different from the other FFTA Knights: think of it as something closer to Beowulf in FFT, so a knight with more overtly magical abilities. Statwise we're not far from the track: the usual good HP (though on the low side for knights), high Attack, high Defense (best in the game), low Speed baseline. This time though Magic is actually good (only behind the Bishop, an actual caster) and MP is good enough. There's also a better than average (for Bangaas) Resist, so not on the level of the Paladin but serviceable. For equipment they have options: they can use all armors, hats and helms, knightswords and lances; no shields though. Lances are useful for range, both by themselves and because with them Templars can use Jump if given Dragoon as second ability. As for their own abilities, Templars have a mix of support and debuff available to them. The support side has Astra (blocks 1 status), Haste and Cheer (powers 1 the next attack, on self), while for debuffs they have Silence, Warcry (speed down on targets around self) and both Soul Sphere and Rasp to MP damage (Soul sphere has more range and costs 0 MP, but it's weaker, Rasp is stronger). Last they get some offense in the form of Lifebreak, for fixed (equal to HP lost) damage. They get Bonecrusher for Reaction, which is a stronger Counter (x1.5 damage) and the always useful Weapon Atk+ for Support. Templars have a split identitiy: they have the stats for good offensive units, if slow (though native Haste helps in this aspect) and not very mobile, but their skillset is geared toward support and anti-mage work (2 MP damage abilities are overkill tough).In paractice this means they need to rely on their second Ability to provide offense or more support, be it Dragoon for more offensive power and AoEs, Bishop for offensive and defensive magic (Templars have the Magic stat and the MP to make this work), Defender or Gladiator for melee power; Templars can be very versatile.
Tactics A2 brings Templars some changes, some good, some bad: for the bad changes, on the stat end they get slightly less Magic now and are still tied for slowest Job in the game; equipment-wise they lost the use of clothes and hats. On the good end their abilities received some buffs: Rasp and Haste got their MP cost cut to a third (8MP now, from 24), Silence and Astra have an AoE and Cheer is now Dispcipline, a straight Attack buff. These aren't insignificant, in particular the MP cost reduction for Haste and Rasp makes them usable at all under A2's MP mechanic. The Job is still useful, but the need for a more active secondary ability set is still there.
Bonus Round!
In the FF series sometimes you have knights that instead of using physical strenght and/or holy powers employ powers of more questionable ethics, that often lead to self-harm in pursuit of power. FFTA2, not unlike WotL, introduces a Job that fits this mold, the Lanista (a Latin word that refers to a manager and trainer of gladiators. Incidentally Gladiators are also an available Job in the game). The Lanista is a Seeq Job with stats in line with what we've seen until now: decent HP, good Attack, good Defense, mediocre Magic and low Resist and Speed. The equipment is also there, they get greatswords, hats, helmets, light and heavy armor. Now where things become interesting is their abilities. They can use Souleater to deal Dark damage in exchange for their HPs, Sword of Darkness and Sword of Light to drain HP and MP respectively (though both cost MP and are at weapon range) and Razzle-Dazzle to drain HP from surrounding units. Then you have Haunting Vision for Dark damage and Blind and Charge! to deal damage, knock back the target and it has a chance to destroy the target's armor. In addition to this they also have 2 buffs, both at range and with AoE: Block! raises Defense, while Strike! increases Critical Hit rate. They have 2 reaction abilities: Dragonheart is the Dragoon classic, Reraise on hit (though once per battle in this game). Blink Counter is interesting: it works like Counter but it also knocks back the attacker. Last we have 2 Support abilities, both that involve equipment: Tank allows the user to equip heavy armor and helmets, while Monkey Grip lets the user wield 2-handed weapons in one hand, so you can also equip a shield. Both are ok but more useful elsewhere.
The Lanista is a take on the Dark Knight archetype that puts its own spin on it, and manages to be an useful Job with a defined role.
