White Knight Noel seems like he (?) would be good for Arena. I like how he has an ability that will trigger different spells on counter hit. His skill, "Bring it On" also seems crazy OP.
I'm not really a fan of the whole concept of counter tanks. The dps of a tank that counters is almost always like less than 2% of the damage your team is dealing. It's an amusing novelty, and that's about where it ends. Noel can also paralyze on counter, which can be something in arena, but since he can't cover anyone in arena, do you really want a unit that is effectively a dead slot only for a 6% chance (30% then 20%) to paralyze an enemy?
Now, as for his tanking in PvE, yeah his taunt + mitigation will make him actually better at taking hits than Cecil, at least for anything single target. You do miss out on the unit being covered each round when a boss does AoE (which is almost always).
Another huge problem with Noel is that aside from taunting and taking some single target hits, he's going to.... what, cast blizzaga for 2000 damage or something? Noel has no utility at all to help out, and his dps is going to be trash tier since if he's tanking, you're gearing him as a tank, not a mage. If you're gearing him as a mage.... why aren't you using Exdeath instead? Cecil on the other hand has top level healing support, can handle dispells, and has a far superior limit break (that fills up twice as fast thanks to high tide).
So in summary, Noel is a garbage dps, and overall weaker tank in every way EXCEPT taking single target melee hits, which he's best at. He also has a major weakness to fire, which is one of the most common elements.
Anyone who has Cecil already, I'd say Noel is entirely skippable.
