Vhaas has obviously chosen to take the nonhostile way of playing the game, in which case, Dramatics is excellent!

Also, I DID pick Charmander on my first go. That made beating crock a pain in the , ayup.

I'm a rogue; it's more like the "helpless way" of playing the game.

In Lusternia, I picked Magikarp. I could become a red Gyarados!- but where am I going to find twenty-five pieces of rare candy?!

I ate them all.

I could never get a Gengar because I didn't have the Gameboy link cable, and didn't know how to use the cheats. I still like the Hypnosis/Dreameater combo though!

Rare candy blows hard, you NEED those stat increases, otherwise the Level has no point.

Stats increase normally even with Rare Candies! Not sure if this was valid back in RBY/GSC, but from the RSE generation onwards, EVs from killing stuff started coming into play.. But even then, once you max them out, you won't lose anything from Rare Candying.

I've always rather disliked Pokemon min/maxing. I mean, just enjoy the game, why bother with EVs and whatnot.

Edit: Heh, my final team always consists of the Pokemon that I like, effectiveness vs the Elite Four be damned.

Alright, so I've heard that Bodyguard in Beastmastery is nice for bashing.

Keep Beastmastery
Pros:
Dodge some moves

Cons:
About 700 lessons away
I'll have enough lessons to get up to just Ironskin in Psymet

Forget Beastmastery
Pros:
Enough lessons to get up to Regeneration in Psymet

Cons:
Will need almost 500 lessons to get back to where I am for Beastmastery

I guess what will convince me is: Is Bodyguard really that good?

Yes bodyguard is really that good. And regeneration in psymet is not awesome by comparison.

Alright, after counting my lessons, I'll be about 123 lessons short of BoneDensity. Its then another 117 lessons away from Regeneration. And yet another 497 lessons away from Enhancement. And finally 390 lessons to Bloodboil.

Alternatively, 200 lessons net me Krakphet. 222 more lessons after that gives me Ahkang.

Lastly, 738 lessons gives me Bodyguard in Beastmastery.

So, which skill should I aim for?

I'll be getting -some- pay soon, so I may be able to purchase a small amount of credits monthly.

Bodyguard. Krakphet doesn't work on mobs (I tested on Rjana) and akhang over 3x body mantras is a tradeoff so it's certainly not worth sacrificing bodyguard for. The psymet stuff is nice, but it looks like you have more to go to get there, and since you can still get ironskin (the most critical one for bashing because of the nice phys DMP) you should still go for bodyguard.

Also, bonedensity is nice but nothing special (it's kind of worthless for me since I end up applying anyway, don't know what kind of system you run but you might have the same thing.)

Hrm, now I'm glad I didn't forget Beastmastery. (Thanks Solanis!)

Alright, now about the bashing kata forms. Should I go punch/kick/speed or shofa/shofa/kick for the first kata form?

ssk