Three Knight Classes: Sabers (A-F | G-M | N-R | S-Z) | Archers (A-C | D-M | N-Z | Tam Lin Tristan) | Lancers (A-F | G-M | N-Z)
Four Cavalry Classes: Riders (A-F | G-M | N-Z) | Casters (A-F | G-M | Merlin | N-Z) | Assassins (A-F | G-M | N-Z) | Berserkers (A-F | G-M | Morgan | N-Z)
Extra Classes: Rulers | Avengers | Moon Cancers | Alter Egos | Foreigners | Pretenders (Oberon)
Unplayable and Arcade Exclusive: Unplayable | Arcade Exclusive
Other Notable Characters: Chaldea Security Organization (Protagonist | Mash Kyrielight) | Villains (Beasts | Beast I | Observer on Timeless Temple Villains | Epic of Remnant Villains | Cosmos in the Lostbelt Villains (Crypters | Foreign God and Forces | Lostbelt Kings | ORT) | Ordeal Call Villains | Event Villains | Interlude Villains) | Other Characters
Heroic Spirit of the Mount
Rider is one of the seven normal Servant classes summoned for the Holy Grail War and is also one of the Four Cavalry Classes. Servants in this class are known for riding mounts or vehicles. Military commanders also often appear in this class. They generally have lower attributes compared to the Three Knight Classes, but the mounts described in their legends can grant them powerful Noble Phantasms or abilities. They have Magic Resistance and Riding, allowing them to fully utilize the abilities of their mounts. Depending on rank, they can ride everything from simple horses, to modern machinery like motorcycles and planes, or even Divine Beasts. Dragons are an exception, as very few Heroic Spirits have the skill or legend to do so.
Shared Tropes
Tropes which apply to most members of the class besides the exceptions should go here.- Anachronism Stew: Not on the Servants or the class itself but on the class card. It depicts a fully armored soldier on a chariot, however full plate armor is only used by the time that chariot warfare had been already replaced by the cavalry.
- Anti-Magic: From their Class Skill, Magic Resistance, though it's weaker than the Three Knight Classes.
- Cool Horse: One of the prerequisites for a Heroic Spirit to be classified in the Rider class is having a mount, be it animals, phantasmal species, or vehicles. Or in the case of Medb, men. It's taken even further with Red Hare, who is a Cool Horse.
- Critical Hit Class: In-game, as their Class Skill, Riding, can increase the power of Quick cards, which indirectly increases the chance of getting stars (which determine critical hit chance). They also have high star attraction values, meaning that their cards are more likely to have a higher crit rate, although they tend to suffer from slightly lower base stats than normal compared to other classes.
- Four-Star Badass: Rider as a class tends to include a fair few heroic generals or rulers of nations, as many of them can be defined by "riding" an army and often had specialized mounts they used on the battlefield or are famous for innovating warfare via transportation. A number of them (like Iskandar, Ozymandias and Medb) also tend to be quite powerful due to the breadth of their accomplishment and legend.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Nominally, the Rider class's Magic Resistance in the Nasuverse is supposedly weaker than the Knight classes. In-game, however, Magic Resistance is a passive skill shared by many Servants and applies only to debuffs, not to magic usage altogether (which means they are equal to the Knight classes in this aspect). Furthermore, due to the Rider class's collective resistance to Casters, their actual resistance to magic use is far stronger than the Knight classes (who still receive neutral damage).
- Horseback Heroism: Their class card depicts an armored knight driving a chariot.
- Money Grinding: The in-game currency (Quantum Piece/QP) needed to power up all Servants (be it levels, Noble Phantasms and/or skills) is best farmed via defeating Caster-type "door" enemies in Daily Quests. Basic Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors shows it's best to deploy wave-clearing capable Riders specifically for this purpose.
- Non-Indicative Name: Much like Archers, it's something of a joke in the fandom that while the name "Rider" calls to mind a classical cavalier fighting on horseback, this only covers a fairly small number of Riders. The vast majority of Riders fight on foot—a surprising number don't utilize any kind of mount or vehicle at all in combat, and the ones that do often only make use of it in a handful of attacks or maybe their Noble Phantasm. Pretty much the only ones you could tell are Riders at first glance are Iskandar, Europa, Habetrot, and Dobrynya Nikitich (ironically, the first Servant to actually stay on horseback all the time was a Lancer). Much of this is because the qualifications for Rider can be pretty loose; not only do cavaliers and charioteers qualify, but also ship captains, vehicle pilots, beast tamers, people who rely on bodyguards or troops, and people with animalistic aspects (and then there's Medb who "rides men"). Plus, showing off the nature of your ride represents a pretty big clue to your true identity and eats a lot of mana, so most of them save it for their trump card.
- Planet of Hats:
- A bit like Lancers and Irishmen, a good number of Riders tend to come from the Mediterranean and the "Near East". This makes sense, as a lot of the innovation and famous conquests involving horses and vehicles occurred in this area of the world. In addition to all the ones on this page, Fate lore says that Perseus is primarily this Class as well.
- Furthermore, if a Heroic Spirit is from the Age of Sail or the Golden Age of Piracy (as well as having anything naval/marine-related to their legend and achievements), it is very likely they will be a Rider because of how closely they're associated with ships.
- Many of Lancer-class Servants or those qualifies there also qualifies as Rider and vice-versa, as polearms are usually associated with cavalry.
- Around the start of the game's life, earlier Riders tended to have QQAAB deck with either Quick or Arts NP. Nowadays, their card layouts are a lot more varied, to the point that, unlike the other classes, there really isn't a "standard" Rider card layout.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: In terms of the game, Riders have an advantage against Casters and a weakness against Assassins. They also have the common strength and weakness against Berserkers, reduced damage dealt to Rulers, a weakness to Alter Egos (but not reduced offense) and an offensive advantage against Demon God Pillars.
