Also question for Cecil: why the removal of Forest Knight in v1.22?
Part of it was the utter lack of identity the Forest Knights had, compared to the Warrior; at the end of the day, it was mostly around for the Lances to counter the weakness of the Axe specialization. On top of that, FE8 and 13 (as well as FE5 when you consider the translated names of Othlin and Halvan's classes) firmly established that Fighter -> Hero was a standard promotion path. The final nail was back on the RPOL testing grounds; one of the players mentioned that future players might want to run the Hector route, tanky axe fighter who promotes to swinging swords on the side; this was before Knights had the option to be like their FE4/5/10 counterparts and specialize in any of the physical weapons, not just the Lance and Axe/Sword on promotion, but, even still, Hero's new skills would've fit a Hector expy anyway.
Cecil, two questions: What are the cost values for the stats when they are applied as promotion bonuses or base stats?
And, what is up with Archer Defense?
If I understand what you mean by cost values, what I try to do is keep things at least numerically balanced in that no class gains more or less from their base or promotions than the others. Knights get a little extra to make up for their -1 MOV, Thieves and their ilk tend to suffer a little penalty to make up for their +1 MOV, and some math errors happen like Archers have 5 more than they should, but, in general, I try to keep Base Stats for the First Classes at 50, promotion from Trainee to Tier One at +10, and promotion from Tier One to Tier Two at +15
As for the Archer's Defense, that comes from the Akaneia games (1, 3, 11, 12). There was the division between the Archers (who promoted to Snipers) and the Hunters (who promoted to Horsemen). In general, Hunters were stronger, but frailer, while Archers could take more of a hit if they were unfortunate enough to get attacked on their turn. Higher Defense and HP, I felt, gave Archers less fear about going into battle where there's only a 1 gap spot between them and the target, and to help combat with all the other ranged options like Spears and Throwing Axes.