Espinosa

Some suggestions: - Roger down Costs many turns to recruit in his joining chapter; his high bases quickly become obsolete with folks like Narron and Raffin around. - Mintz down Outside of high crit rates with Life and Death, he's unspectacular. Can't Charge with decent weapons like Hand Lances a lot of the time. - Lyria down Low move and unnecessary poor healing with her special skill. Maintaining low turn counts, you'll never really reach the time when her singing gives your units extra turns. Power Staff is her only contribution. - Leteena all the way to the bottom It takes ridiculous effort to get her, not even talking about turns taken in the desert chapter. Just not worth it. - Shigen and Vega up Incredibly helpful in Holmes's party after the first split due to being virtually invincible and just stellar foot units for indoor chapters period. - Kreiss > Arkis More attack is better than more speed in this game, because it's easy to achieve doubling AS by equipping the right weapon and the most enemies have negative AS. - Yuni down She does get you a Knight Crest early on, but there are only three chapters completed by opening all the chests, and Holmes doesn't have a huge problem doing it on his own. Maerchen is identical in his contribution, so these two should be in the same tier, Yuni a little above due to not messing with the party's hit rates when nearby and having a little more chapters (there are only a few where she's helpful though). - Rishel up Impenetrable defence, accurate bosskilling at 3 range. - Sasha > Kate and Sharon. Sasha flies, gets lances upon promotion, gets Elite, and getting the Pegasus Flute AND promoting her are both possible relatively early into the game while maintaining the absolute minimum turns, and is worth the payoff. I also second/third the suggestion to move Renee down. Warping for a fourth of the game does not the best character make.

Can deal with Giovanni and is helpful against Lance, but below average speed and low special defence make Cloyster a poor candidate to take on Blaine, Dragonite (with Outrage), Exeggutor and whatever fire-type your rival uses. Physical bulk isn't as immensely helpful when it comes so late that it'll only help with absorbing Raticate Hyper Fangs in Silph Co, and you better be outspeeding those with higher-levelled Pokemon. It wouldn't hurt if it came at a higher level too. 6/10

I had a dream that dondon uploaded his singer/songwriter album full of ingenious Fire Emblem humour, but couldn't remember any of it when I woke up.

Joins late (fun fact is that you can apparently fish out L40 Grimers in Celadon with a Super Rod) and doesn't offer much relief. Can learn Brick Break by TM and learns Sludge Bomb naturally which is the only way to learn it (late though). Tanks special hits pretty well with his bulk, but is slow and has no means of setup. Huge special movepool of options that he makes poor use of (and that are expensive as all fuck). By the time you do get him, you don't need an extra Pokemon to deal with mooks. 3/10

Earthquake is not really such a fabulous move in Hoenn, though it hits Steven's Metagross (that's it I think and you decide if you can take a Meteor Mash counter after one EQ) effectively in RS. Anything can take it; say, anything that doesn't already know Return or have a good STAB.

Oddish is pretty poor if you catch it early, relying on status spores and having Bullet Seed as its unreliable strongest attack. Nobody says you have to catch it that early, as it is barely helpful against Wattson, and comes after Roxanne anyway. Catch it around the time you get the Giga Drain TM. As Vileplume, it enjoys the privilege of STAB Sludge Bomb, its strongest attack with sufficient PP. Evolve it into a Bellossom, and you have the privilege of getting a move tutored Magical Leaf, but you lose the STAB on Sludge Bomb. Sunny Day + Solarbeam enables the sweeping of the Wallace and/or Juan. Otherwise, not exactly great. Sludge Bomb should OHKO Cacturne but why you should be concerned about that in the first place is a good question. 6.5/10 for both

That's why the project still needs editors.

You'll have to do something about the RNG one way or another when playing efficiently; the only question is how far you go, really. Status staves' hit rates, criticals, horrible level-ups on growth units and evasive bosses all demand that you have to be in some control over the RNG to achieve low turns (not necessarily absolute lowest turns, but those especially).

You were just talking about Guilty Heart in the other thread, so maybe that is the problem?

I was also surprised that this skill was so detested. The loss in hit rates isn't a problem when you separate the most capable fighters away from the group most of the time, and they could make use of the skill.

Well, when you beat the game, you see your turns. So that's your motivation. In Awakening, you get to see your turns as soon as each map is over, even. So there you go, the game wants you to rack up those low turns and prove you're strrrrrong.

Faster Lapras with an inferior movepool and a worse stat distribution, but a much higher starting level, so it's probably better than Lapras from the standpoint of efficiency for that reason. Water/ice STABs are nice, and it can learn Ice Beam at L51 on time for Lance. Thick Fat makes it good for Blaine, and it's really nice when up against Giovanni as well. 7/10

I like Volbeat a lot. 75 BP Signal Beam at L25 is superior to when the other bug-types get theirs, and it helps against Team Aqua, the Psychic-gym and Sidney. Protect at L29 for Norman, and it can use the odd turns to use Tail Glow, and then attack with boosted Shock Waves. Illumise has a higher special attack, but no chance of setup like Volbeat, and can't attack physically at all (no bug STAB). Gets the same TMs though, like Giga Drain, Thunderbolt, Shock Wave, and is okay with them. 6/10 for Volbeat 4/10 for Illumise

Her brother's last name is clearly Russian, so it has to be "Mah-sha".

Sandslash is a good candidate for all the good earlygame TMs (Aerial Ace, Dig, Brick Break) regardless of when he gets them - in Celadon or before that, and in Celadon it no longer matters that he's TM-dependent . Having only ground-type STAB is pretty poor though since he'll need to hit ghosts and Koffings with something like Rock Slide or Slash (not for ghosts...) instead. He'll probably want Rock Slide as well, and he's going to wait for the Earthquake TM (high cost but why train Sandslash if you're not giving him EQ?). He's also slow. He's nothing spectacular, but probably better than many of the Pokemon currently two tiers above him (like Meowth and Magnemite).

Better attacker than Fearow but suffers in availability and learns Drill Peck later. Normal/Flying allows you to hit a lot of stuff pretty hard, and it's great against ghosts and Bruno, but most of the time you won't find too much use with that limited coverage. 7/10

Charizard doesn't require many unique TMs at all. Flamethrower is learnt early enough (probably before Erika), AA isn't needed because you get Wing Attack with far more PP and the same power, Brick Break can be bought really cheap, and Dragon Claw has absolutely no contest for it going on whatsoever since the other Pokemon who learn it are, let me think, Gyarados and Aerodactyl, and Gyarados doesn't want it. Rock Slide isn't terribly necessary and it's possible that one of your Pokemon will make better use of it. Charizard without Rock Slide is still a good Charizard. Also Charizard > Venusaur for Lorelei. Let's say they both have Sunny Day for setup to solo her. Venusaur is still taking SE ice-type damage (and it will be taking it due to not outspeeding things Zard can outspeed) while Charizard takes neutral ice damage and reduced water-type damage, while his own STABs are powered up. Charizard is just superior to Venusaur against every E4 member.

Why are Magneton and Electrode clones? 7.5/10 for Magneton for competent offence with Thunderbolt (which you can get for free since you're visiting the area to catch it anyway), useful typing and helping out against Winona/water-type bosses. 6/10 for Electrode. Offence could be better and that speed base is really redundant (though you can count on outspeeding Swellows or whatever). Frail.

Accelerated growth and high crit rate. Even comes with the right nature (Adamant). Needs TMs to function decently (it has to wait for its best moves for a while otherwise). Comes at the right time for Erika, at which point it may or may not know Swords Dance. Has the ability to set up on gym leaders and sweep with Agility and Swords Dance, which isn't something the majority of FR/LG can be given credit for. Slash at L41 can be reached around Silph Co point with a team of 3-4, so it still has for a while. 5/10

Are these two given any weapons like Killing Edges to take advantage of their class ability?

TF2 players? Those ruin everything. Sonic fans are also annoying.

Yeah, that's what makes the Defence stat one you don't want to have too many level-ups in, paradoxically. Makes armour knights even more useless in this game, too (though the General who joins you isn't half bad).

5.5/10 Taking off 0.5 for being Plusle's less offensive clone.

Good bulk and typing, and has a very high special STAB with Spark, so it doesn't mind waiting until L30 to evolve. Needs the expensive Thunderbolt TM to function well later on, and that will be the only coverage it will have, which is kinda pitiful. Also slow, leaving you vulnerable to flinching, status attacks and chip damage. Useless ability in-game. 5/10

Intimidate is the one thing that makes Ekans difficult to hit with physical attacks. Anyway, Venusaur's physical attack is comparable to that of the Nidofamily (who do have stronger moves and eventually get superior coverage moves), but he still isn't the only one having trouble. If you want to take on Ekans/Koffing, you better send out your special attacker (who's not a grass-type), or something with a powerful normal-type STAB.