Marianne’s pretty cool. Get frozen lance. Click frozen lance. Get on a horse. Keep clicking frozen lance. Use her spells when useful. The reason holy knight’s not a meme for Marianne specifically is that you only care about tomefaire when it allows you to one shot something flimsy, and aura does that while being a smaller investment than fimbulvetr.
Class Path
Monk -> Mage/Cavalier -> Paladin/Bishop -> Holy knight
Some people will say dark knight is better. That’s only true if you have fimbulvetr which is a lot of wexp for +1 damage. Paladin access takes heavy priority over bishop.
Rank priorities
C faith -> D lances and budding talent -> D+ reason -> D authority -> D+ lances and D riding -> C+ lances and C+ riding -> B authority -> A faith
Technically C lances + B riding for paladin is more ideal for holy knight ranks later. However, that’s noticeably more difficult to get in time and lance prowess level 3 and getting silver lance access eventually is nice.
When you’re done with these, consider B and A lances, A+ riding, falcoknight ranks, and A authority. B reason for cutting gale can be nice too.
Skill Loadout
Dex +4 is +1 frozen lance damage. The more you know.
Recruitment
Marianne should always be recruited as a monk. It gives a lot of reason rank, priest does nothing, and the sword rank she trains out of house doesn’t really help her.