Espinosa

Though it's fast and learns Flamethrower naturally, the demand for a pure fire-type is low in Kanto, and its movepool is really poor, with Dig being the best thing you can teach it for coverage, which is kinda depressing. 4/10

7.5/10 Kind of a pain in the arse to train but doesn't take too long to evolve, and when it does it can keep levelling up by switching into things weak to fighting and Mach Punching them, seems to OHKO the fragile neutral ones too, with the STAB, high base attack and a level advantage. Bulk Up gives it an opportunity to sweep and a real tool against Norman. A real shame about that special attack though, but if you teach it Giga Drain, you'll probably fine some use for its 5 PP in some situations, like against one of those water/grounds. Also slow, which is a problem when Mach Punch doesn't OHKO.

Yeah, honour killing can be directed towards men as well; it's absolutely not limited for being raped - betrayal, blasphemy, even homosexuality in some countries is enough to have the angry population go chasing you around. I'm not quite sure if a man can be killed for being raped, but that's probably not impossible either. Honour killing is actually big part of any organised criminal culture, where failure to please the collective and its interests will easily cost one one's life. The subject of honour killing is kinda relevant to me emotionally because I also attract a lot of anger from my family members for my life and views (I'm in mid-20s so this is a case of intolerance rather than me being an angsty teenager or a juvenile manchild; I have a more or less fully formed world view, one that isn't marginal or radical in any way), and at times of argument I can feel tension being strong enough to the point where violence wouldn't be entirely out of place. I'm not trying to argue some sort of racist bullshit here, our relevant heroes include not only Othello but Hamlet as well. It's a matter of acting upon one passion against one's... common sense, love, humility, all those things. Jealousy isn't too distant from what we're talking about here. I'd go as far as say that both are represented in each and every person in some proportion. I'd say how comfortable our lives are matters a lot here (as pointed out, the Nazis elected and followed a brutal leader due to a shared sentiment of broken pride, and the victors of the WW2 committed atrocities of their own in response to the nightmares they had just awaken from), but so do a whole lot of different variables. Freedom is something wrong-doers may forget about in that heated moment, as there's no way to be more unfree than to act upon one's own passion, but I don't think simple amendments to the law fix that, or that giving people more freedom is the most empathetic thing to be done.

As I stated before, I don't see one's volition to preserve own honour as part of culture. I do this without giving it too much thought. You do this too. We just don't kill anyone because of it, most of the time anyway. And there's not one single culture to speak of where this sort of behaviour would be endorsed. You have Islamic states where this is done, and Christian states where this is also a problem, and they happen to be very close to each other geographically, historically and racially. When Soviet Union secularised some of said countries, they only had a vague idea of what 'Allah' stood for and they still indulged in these heinous acts. So which culture is it again where such behaviour is necessary or possible? I'm not insisting on anything, just expressing some ideas that make quickly agreeing with any one view unlikely, at least for me.

Can (and should) be evolved immediately at Mt Moon for those great base stats. It might as well face Misty's Starmie and whatever else. Early Mega Punch/Kick tutors are a very good idea on Clefable, and you should expect to spend the rest of your unique one-time TMs (unless you're willing to buy a lot of coins) on it so that Clefable continues to be useful. 8.5/10

There's a big difference between a formal rule of politeness and vulnerability to a persistent temptation, I would say. If I'm so hot-blooded, is it my culture that brings me up to turn into such a person, or is it within my nature to be passive (=suffer from passions) and act upon my desires?

History, individual persons' passions, the value of honour, collectivism, standard of living, presence of wars in the recent past, climate... All the variables you could possibly think of. Blood most certainly has something to do with it, as people continue honour killings when they emigrate and are out of touch with their respective cultures.

That's one reason.

I'm referring to the simple fact that every moment is pain. Anyway, honour killing isn't a pagan sacrifice to a deity of some kind, it's not some sort of obsolete tradition that people do whether they like it or not. It's in their blood. It's not even a Muslim thing. Armenia and Georgia are both Christian countries (Eastern Christianity and Orthodoxy respectively), and vengeance and honour murder, while reproached by religious teachings, are not resisted and people are still tempted to carry them out. Is it barbaric? Yes, it is, in the same way Hamlet's conflict was barbaric.

Great early on with lv. 13 Wing Attack, but poor coverage and base stats start to show later on, and even with Guts, there's not a whole lot Swellow is doing that somebody else isn't doing better. Brawley is its time to shine. 5/10

He's also forced. By your logic, lords would top the tier list since without their seizing you wouldn't be able to complete the game.

This is what Palla looks like as a 10/1 Dracoknight with RP: 28 HP, 16 Str, 18 Spd, 16 Def, 5 Res Not too bad, but this is Lunatic we're talking about.

Touched for the very first time.

Has dondon or anybody attempted Lunatic with 0% growths? It'd be interesting to see the Free Silvers tier turn into your active endgame team.

Are you assuming we are training one-two Pokemon for the entire playthrough and overlevelling them? Because there's no way either Pikachu or Bulbasaur (and their evolutions) are facing Lt Surge, Sabrina or Bruno, and Venusaur's usefulness against Bruno is very dubious. Sure, it OHKOs Onix, but so does anything on your team with Surf or even Water Pulse; heck, even Magical Leaf Mr Mime works. You could take it out with a neutral special attack (like Psychic) too, it's not like the thing can take any special hits it doesn't resist. Against the E4, Raichu works wonders against by virtue of STAB Thunderbolt alone: - all of Lorelei's Pokemon sans Jynx - Golbat, but anybody can OHKO Golbat really - Lance's Gyarados and Aerodactyl (doesn't run Earthquake) - Rival's Pidgeot and either Gyarados again or Blastoise Venusaur doesn't like facing Lorelei in spite of the offensive type advantage, resists Bruno but doesn't really have any good moves to hurt him with and doesn't have offer anything unique in the last two battles. Really, you've basically made a mistake if you're still training a Venusaur at this point (if Raticate gets a 3.2 average for losing steam by midgame, then Venusaur does essentially the same around the same time). Bulbasaur's other problem is that its sole STAB only has 10 PP (pretty ridiculous for such a weak move), so it quickly runs out of its uses in hiker-heavy dungeons, making water-types perform a lot better. As for training to lv. 10 for Brock, sure, it's not that hard, but that's assuming you're not training anything else, and Bulbasaur is the one starter who's far from self-sufficient (Pidgeys and Spearows with super-effective attacks all over earlygame). Choosing him as your starter implies grindfest if not for one purpose than for another. For battling swimmers and fishermen, I'd argue Raichu is still better against Tentacools and Tentacruels, but you shouldn't be having trouble with them either way.

Frankly speaking, pretty bad until you evolve it with that Leaf Stone, and even then it's not spectacular. Its typing makes it decent enough to face the E4 - Brick Break for Sydney and Shadow Ball for Phoebe; however, both TMs are contested by your other Pokemon, many of whom put them to better use (such as being faster, having STAB for fighting-type moves and/or having better typing). Its best two STAB attacks - Giga Drain and Faint Attack - only have 60 BP, and the former runs out of PP too quickly. Setup capacity with Growth deserves to be mentioned. Shiftry might seem like a good Pokemon for Liza and Tate, but it doesn't have strong enough moves to OHKO, and Solrock threatens it with Flamethrower (in both RS and E). 4.5, including 0.5 for levelling fast in Emerald (I think it's a very reasonable idea to catch a Ralts just to trade it for a Seedot if you want to be using Seedot in Emerald).

Most definitely. I'd give Bulbasaur a 6 probably. Razor Leaf is no longer an auto-crit, you need grinding to learn Vine Whip for Brock, and your learnset is noticeably poorer than that of the other two starters. Venusaur is also frankly quite bad in the E4 (Razor Leaf is insufficient to OHKO and being countered with ice-type moves hurts), and its usefulness starts diminishing as soon as it evolves (as its base stats gradually stop being remarkable). It's true that it disposes of Hikers easily, but so do a lot of other Pokemon. Low Kick Mankey for example (iirc an OHKO against Brock's Onix). That reminds me, why did we skip Mankey?

FR/LG Bulbasaur got a score over 8? You've got to be kidding. Pikachu gets an 8 from me. Difficult to find and catch, and fragile, but learns Thunderbolt and has a decent physical coverage (all can be bought cheap) as Raichu for those generic Rocket battles where running out of PP is a concern. Bases are very good as Raichu, and having an electric-type STAB helps against so many Pokemon it's not funny. He's a bad Pokemon to use against Misty since Starmie is faster, unless you can 2HKO (needs a bit of favouritism on the bridge) and have 2 Pokemon to sacrifice by switching out (one to take a hit and another one to use a Super Potion on Pikachu). 8/10

Why not just pass the Armorslayer to Ogma? Or nuke them with Aura.

What can I say, in the East they value other things more than human rights... even such an elementary one as the right to exist. And since existence is so unbearable most of the time, it kinda makes sense to me.

What sort of power is it agreed that Wing Spear should have? Just enough to 1RKO Generals (like the ones in the chapter with mad Hardin)? OHKO them (this must be one hell of a forge though)? I'd really like to know the idea behind those calculations.

Do different people vote in different threads or something? Because Franz actually ranked second in the FE8 rating series, and he does little in LTC besides acceptable combat in the early chapters and ferrying in the rest.

Really now? Thanks. This information overwhelms me when I think of the number of the support conversations in this game. Must have been hard to write (and will be long to translate). I wonder what gives Sumia such a special status though.

Awesome job. I also want to ask, in the kids section, is it accurately reflected which kids can have which characters as fathers? Because it seems like everybody has more extensive lists than Cynthia, so I'm wondering if she's exceptional or we just don't have precise information on all possible pairings at this moment.

I don't want to discourage discussion, it's the opposite really - I want to provoke more thinking by expressing a strong opinion. Just feel like when we discuss efficiency, we just establish some sort of ideal efficient playthrough to which everything else should be measured, and criteria should be clear-cut and agreed upon. For example, is it time or reliability? Because what's quicker and more reliable than an instantly cast Holy against the entire enemy party that cannot be blocked or reflected? I've done one playthrough where I avoided all random encounters and just tried to clear each map as quickly as possible, without doing any grinding. It still took quite long to finish, and I didn't enjoy having to use jobs like Thief and Archer to get to my planned destination for jobs unlocked and ready to go. Really, a good way to describe Calculator using the FE universe is if you had an early game character, like Bors or Rebecca, whom you wouldn't really use in an efficient run, but all of a sudden, after being trained to promotion (a time-consuming and annoying task), that Bors actually became able to attack several times per turn, OHKO everyone and seize on the same first turn. Turns are very crucial in FE when we arrange options in terms of their efficiency, and so Bors would rank quite high if his performance really altered the game in this way. Indeed, looking at our turn counts, we would find that too much time is spent on getting Bors to 10/0 in order to promote, costing us turns in the earliest chapters (and don't we all want to achieve the lowest turn counts in those as well?), but once Bors does promote, he trivialises the rest of the game inexplicably. I feel that this is essentially what Calculator is in FFT, unless efficiency here means something completely unexpected to my imagination in this discussion. As for your assumption that grinding isn't necessary... You're right, entirely so, it's not. In fact, you can dismiss using the rest of your team and ever reclassing Ramza to anything from his start as a Squire, and the game is very much beatable with complete disregard for unlocking any jobs and learning any non-Squire skills. However, even when Ramza isn't grinding, he's performing a multitude of tedious actions, not for the purpose of unlocking something but survival - such as Yelling himself until he can outspeed the opposition and then employ attack n' hide tactics to stay alive. You'll have to restart some maps of course, just because the enemies have all the wrong abilities that prevent you from winning, or luck doesn't like you this time (and maybe the next one too). The game is indeed beatable with no grinding at all, but it seems apparent that it is the choice to do no grinding that reduces the efficiency of a playthrough. Path of Radiance is also an easy game, we say, and yet that doesn't encourage dumping Titania in Bottom Tier.