Battle morphs.

[Darth Revan]

There's also no reason why she would be forced to kill her opponents. Taxxon Controllers are incapacitated my minor wouds and Humans can easily be disabled by a nasty bite on the hand, arm or leg without mortally wounding them.

I meant mostly H-Bs. Although, once a Taxxon is wounded, he's normally gobbled up by his buddies. And they had a policy about not killing humans, so I didn't mean them.

[Shark Akhrrana]

Anyway, battle morphs aint just about power anyway. Since there were only 6 of them, they had to be as versatile as possible

Marco - Gorilla - The most dexterous of the battle morphs, since he has fingers. He can actually open doors, something a tiger can't.
Rachel - Grizzly - POWER! 1337!
Jake - Tiger - Best reflexes and battle instinct. If Jake went Howler tho he could have wiped out the entire Hork-Bajir army by himself with nothing but a baseball but.

Tobias - Hawk - Sight, he can see what the others might miss, and make them evade at just the right moment.
Cassie- Wolf - Stamina, in case they need to track down somebody escaping.

Ax- Andalite- the flag, to convince they're Andalites. The tail is also badass.

yeah i wonder why Jake never tried using the Howler in battle especially at the end when they were in huge trouble. i mean he could have infiltrated the Yeerk pool and just howl a song in there

[JFalcon]

Maybe there was some concern about Jake using Howler since they were made by Crayak and since the group generally accepted that Crayak hated Jake more than any of them they, Jake included, might all have believed that the howler would give Crayak some sort of power over Jake, and didn't want to risk it, and I say all of them because I'm pretty sure that if the other animorphs had made the request Jake would have used the howler.

At the same time, until a certain point I'd have guessed that they didn't use the howler morph either because it would damage them all (though less than the hork-bajir) and because it would cause injury to noncombatants, i.e. hosts in cages if they used it in the yeerk pool, or perhaps even out of concern for the hork-bajir hosts themselves should they howl at them and fail to harm the Yeerks and just drive the Hork-Bajir crazy, but like I say, until a certain point, if concern for themselves and involuntary hosts was the only reason for not using the howler I honestly don't see why they wouldn't use it in the end.

Heck if I'd been Jake in the ending arc I'd have practically lived in my howler morph and I'd have wore a big sign on my back saying "no seriously, bring it"

[adeon222]

Heck if I'd been Jake in the ending arc I'd have practically lived in my howler morph and I'd have wore a big sign on my back saying "no seriously, bring it"

lol... haha... Love it...

I think you're right about the 'not harming others' thing... I mean, Jake wasn't even sure the first time that he should risk morphing the howler... I think they probably figured it was too big a risk for not enough benefit... I mean, the big benefit of the howler would be unstoppable combat prowess and damage-dealing capacity... and the Animorphs weren't about that for the most part... (except maybe Rachel...) They were more about "let's try to limit the collateral damage that this war brings to earth"...

[Shark Akhrrana]

yeah i guess that is a very good reason. but if it came down to die or fight i would go howler i mean if the rest of the Animorphs are in morph it wont hurt them . just make sure Ax morphs something for battle instead of him being himself.

[adeon222]

There's also the question about just how much the howl would affect Hork Bajir in the first place... lol... j/k

Seriously, though... the howl did affect all the Animorphs when they were in morph... That's the reason they got their butts kicked against that first one...

[Shark Akhrrana]

if i remember correctly the Howl of the Howlers is made to hurt intelligent life. That is why Aximili ran away. The others were unaffected. well teh howl was loud and it hurts your ears liek any loud sound but it was nothing like your ears bleeding and stuff like with Ax

[adeon222]

"Someone exploded a hand grenade in my head. I clamped my jaws tight, but all else was a blur, a swirling, mad blur."

Sure it's not bleeding-ears worthy, but I would hardly call that "unaffected"... That could mean the difference between dodging a Dracon beam and being crispy fried Siberian tiger steak... Or, in the case of their first run-in with the Howler, the difference between having a clue and getting a dagger in the neck...

[Shark Akhrrana]

Ah  so i guess i didn't remember it well enough well it would still be good in a one man mission or something or in case of an emergency. But i guess it was probably to scary to use anyway.

[anijen21]

I actually think you guys have a point. The Howl wasn't the Howler's only weapon. They were nearly impossible to injure, they had those metal Wolverine claws, and they kind of had a lazy-susan waist so they could use momentum from blows against their opponents. I mean, Crayak also armed them to the teeth, which I doubt is written in their DNA, but even with all of that, they're probably a better fighter than a Siberian tiger. And the howl may have been impractical, but if they were ever in a pinch it would have made an exceptional last resort.

idk. I'm kind of surprised, thinking back on it, that she didn't make some handwave to remove the Howler's DNA from the game, like she did with the dino-DNA in MM2. Or maybe she did, and it was just implied, since we were screwing with Crayak and the Ellimist and those two can basically do whatever the hell they want.

[Shark Akhrrana]

Of course all the weapons the Howlers had wouldn't be in Jake's arsenal cause they don't come with the DNA but  they were quite powerful. I'm sure if Jake would have been able(or wanted) to use it without having to use his howl he would have defeated many enemies. I mean with all of them fighting they couldn't even take one down so it takes a lot of effort to defeat a howler. and if he was alone one on one with Visser 3 i would have gone with the Howler morph.

[adeon222]

Don't forget the teeth... And the regeneration... And the vital-organ-sensing vision...

I wouldn't have been surprised if Jake in Howler morph (after some practice) could have taken on V3 in quite a few of his morphs... And certainly any number of HBs and/or Taxxons in hand to hand...

But you're probably right... It did seem unofficially "handwaved"... like, maybe no morph that they acquired during that whole thing stuck... *shrugs* Who knows?

[Chad32]

That would actually be an excellent morph to attack V3 with, since no matter what he morphed, Jake should find a way to hurt him.

[Darth Revan]

Although, wouldn't Jake have that connection to Crayak that all of the other ones did?

Maybe that's why he didn't use it that much.

[Fwahm]

Crayak's only connections with the Howlers are that he made them, and they were his personal army.  Just being one didn't give you any mental links or anything with Crayak.  The reason Crayak made them child-like was because he couldn't/wouldn't directly control them.