The Tavern

Hep knight recently got nerfed with an extra 50% attack delay.

I always had the impression that the mage and stabber were stronger already. The knight catches up in utility when it gets its axe, but you have to survive with a low-utility ally for a long time to get there.

Anyone disagree?
Why was the knight strong?

My opinion was that any of the three choices could be optimal depending on the player's build, varying somewhat depending on tactical considerations. Hexer ancestors are nice partners for stabbers, especially for those that didn't want to learn hexes themselves, but were less helpful against enemies that were immune to magic or mindless or whatnot. The mage provided nice ranged backup for meleedudes, especially in single-tile wide corridors where the mage could stand safely behind a well-armored player, but tends to draw attention through noise, so it really works best with tanky players, and also, some of their spells were lacking in range, encouraging the player to lure monsters around corners. The knight was, IMO, at its best when soaking damage with a guardian golem for support (preferably while firing a ranged weapon through it), and it still is after the nerf... it's melee damage was a nice bonus, but it was never significant enough to carry a player who wasn't capable of fighting on their own, nor did I find it to be so powerful as to motivate me to choose it over the other options when playing characters for which those options were well-suited. I don't really mind the nerf, though, because I never picked the knight for its melee damage output in the first place.

I'm also of the opinion that all ancestors are disappointing at first and only gradually become good enough to justify Hep's max HP penalty. I don't feel like the knight is unique in that respect.

This seems quite surprising to me - back in the day I remember the conventional wisdom being that hexer was by far the strongest. Personally (yeah, with a whole three Hep wins, one of each) I feel picking an ancestor that shores up your weaknesses is more important than the inherent variation in ancestor strength (which I don't even have a sense of).

The ancestor can be very good early on when it, say, is a speedbump between you and the first adder, but generally I agree they come into their own later.