Talk:Salamander/@comment-96.246.82.141-20160707164849/@comment-27950421-20160715140745

What makes you think this was anything but an experiment? We are comparing and contrasting Hinezumi and Salamanders in order to determine which race is a superior fighter. The fact that the process used in the experiment is a fight does not change the fact that this is an experiment and the fact that this is a fight does not change the fact that your methodology does not work.

Is sending a person who only knows the bare basics of hand to hand up against a martial arts master any more of a fair fight? The fact is we should be allowing the fighters to fight with their own skills not forcing one or the other to fight the way the other does. A Hinezumi is a type of a mamono that is constantly seeking out combat in a world where swordsmen are common place and the possibility of facing someone who uses magic is very real. If she is not prepared for the possibility of fighting a master swordsman then both the Hinezumi and her teacher are idiots who deserve exactly what they get on the battlefield. If we are going to find out who would win in a fight then you should quit whining about the sword and let the Salamander fight like a Salamander and the Hinezumi fight like a Hinezumi.

Precision tail lashing would be pointless to train in, she could get the same results just by lashing her tail in the general direction of the face.

I am using a RL rats to model what the Hinezumi's tail is like. What a rat can do with its claws is irrelevant because Hinezumi don't have claws. I will say that by lizard standards, the Salamanders claws are subpar, they're clearly sharp but they're also short and thick, which makes sense since they have to wield a sword with them but in hand to hand they can't deal the kind of damage that an iguana or monitor lizard of similar size could pull off. Good for digging though. The Salamander still has more claw than a Hinezumi.

You severely underestimate the intelligence of a big lizard. The only reason to assume that rats are smarter is because they have been through more studies on their intelligence. Thus far all studies done on lizards has shown a surprising amount of intelligence. Monitor lizards in particular have shown large amounts of intelligence and are able to learn and solve puzzles as effectively as any rat. The research on reptilian intelligence is rather limited at present however given the results of the studies I don't see any reason to believe that rats are any smarter than lizards. I should know, I've trained my monitor to poop in the toilet. When you get a rat to do that, let me know.

I fully realize that a Hinezumi is allowed to use weapons. I will say that since the Salamander trains primarily to fight with a weapon the Salamander is probably more skilled at sword play but given the same could be said (and has been said repetitively) about the Hinezumi in hand to hand.